YA New York

When you think of Lauren Myracle, you think cute and sweet, right? She is, after all, the author of TTFN, TTYL and L8R, G8R.

I mean, to me at least, this is what Lauren is like:

She’s cute, and she’s sweet, and she likes Hello Kitty. But it turns out she can write a bone-chillingly spooky novel, too, and that is precisely what she has done with her fourth sixth YA novel, Bliss.

Our heroine is actually named Bliss, because her hippie parents (who raised her on a freakin’ commune) thought it would be a nice name. And to make matters worse, she’s just been transplanted to Atlanta, to live with her grandmother. Let’s just say that the good girls of Atlanta society are nothing like those Bliss grew up around.

The story is set in the 70s, and while Bliss works her way through the school year all she hears about the horrible Manson Family murders. Cleverly juxtaposed with the fact that at home, she is allowed to watch nothing more hair-raising than The Andy Griffith Show.

Okay, if you were born after, I don’t know, 1990, you might want to do a bit of background research. Because if you haven’t seen re-runs of Andy Griffith, you won’t understand how totally awesome the show is, and what Bliss likes about it. So go find something on the internets, or a re-run on the teevee. And also, you need to know about these murders, just a little bit. You could read up on Wikipedia. You’ll find that Lauren condensed things a bit, but it was all for a good cause.

Anyway, back to the topic. I wouldn’t be telling you to do research if this book wasn’t absolutely worth reading. Seriously awesome. Lauren may look cute — and she is — but she’s also got a fantastic imagination for the incredibly creepy.

OH. Also, Lauren has been doing a lead-up to release day on her blog. It’s fun reading, her blog, so go there if you’ve got to wait a few days to start on Bliss. (Ahem. According to Amazon.com, the book hasn’t yet been released. On the other hand, according to Amazon.com, the book has been released. Can someone explain this to me???)

UPDATE: Lauren wrote on her blog that … all the copies of her book were printed in the wrong color. Umm, considering that she seems to have been taken over by some evil creature over the last few weeks, maybe this isn’t true, and maybe the book will come out next week instead of this week. But alas, you’ll just have to keep checking back at her site for more info, I suppose.

Or I could get on the horn first thing in the morning and put on my investigative reporter’s hat. “Hi. Is it true that Bliss isn’t out because the color of the blood on the copies of the bound book were wrong? They were what??? Who has purple blood? That’s totally bizarre. So the book is coming out when? In 2012???? No. No way.” Hmm. Maybe I’ll just wait for an update from the lovely Lauren herself …

(Pre-order?) Bliss from Amazon.com.

After reading Martin Wilson’s debut novel, the one I mentioned earlier, the one David Levithan jokingly said should be called La Quinta Weekend, I have decided Martin’s title is infinitely better.

Alex drank Pine-Sol at a party at the start of the school year. His brother James, one year older, is angry and has taken to ignoring Alex. Actually, so has the rest of the school.

Honestly? I’m one of those gals who generally goes for the underdog, so from the start I thought I’d hate James. But as I got to know him a bit better, and as his character grew, I think I might have become his biggest fan. As for Alex, I wondered (like I’m sure everyone does) why he drank Pine-Sol, and what the big bad was that made him do it at a party. Then again, I felt like I could understand his behavior, being a depressive sort myself.

The whole book takes place in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and there’s a strong Southern feel to the story. Not that stereotypical Gone With the Wind Southern thing, and not a suggestion that all Southerners are hicks, either. It’s just, if you’ve ever lived in the Deep South, this book is like a photographic reminder of the people and attitudes there. And it’s a good photograph, sure to make you remember both the good and the bad.

Martin’s book is (a) funny, (b) poignant, and (c) full of unexpected discoveries about the two brothers. And so even if the book boasted the unfortunate title of La Quinta Weekend, I’d have to recommend it. And actually, having read it makes me totally want to hang out with Martin and ask him about a thousand questions. Actually, Martin, if you’re reading this, want to play Twenty Questions with me?

Buy What They Always Tell Us from Amazon.com.

It’s release day, darlings, and I’ve never been more glad. Because not only is Matthew Sweet’s new album, Sunshine Lies out today, but two of my most anticipated books of the year are out as well.

Let’s start with Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin. Meet Jill and her part-time brother (or second identity?), Jack. Jill is a normal high school senior, except that four days a month she … umm … turns into a guy. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Lauren McLaughlin conceived this book whilst suffering debilitating menstrual cramps, and she describes Jill’s condition as the “worst case of PMS ever.”

I have to say it: The book was brilliantly written, and I’ve been looking forward to reading it since May, when Scott Westerfeld recommended it after I said, “I’m starting a YA review site.” He said, “You should read Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin.” I dutifully wrote down the details, but only finally got the book last week. Good thing. It’s still fresh in my mind. (Note: This was my one and only convo with Scott Westerfeld. Alas, we are not best buds, though I consider his books to be some of my dearest friends.)

Back to Cycler, Jill is really stunningly normal, and maybe a little bitchy. She “deletes” her other persona each month, and she and her mother have conspired to keep Jack locked inside the house for the entire duration of his existence. Okay, forget bitchy. Maybe a little cruel more like it.

Lauren tells the book from both Jill’s perspective and Jack’s. One chapter is Jill, the next Jack. Weirdly, Jack is the much more interesting character. Much, much more interesting. And more fun. And maybe cooler. But the story itself is also way cool, and really well told, and generally brilliant. Hey, listen. If Scott Westerfeld says it’s good, take his word for it. He is, in my opinion, a far more reliable source than I am.

Oh! But you shouldn’t take his word for it, either, because Lauren has ever so kindly made an excerpt available her website. Go read it, and then go read the whole book.

Next up in our Splendid Splashing Release day edition, Kimberly Pauley’s debut novel, Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (Maybe). It’s got a long title, but can be summed up in just one word: hilarious.

Look, there’s a lot of vampire lit out there right now. Not only do we have Stephenie Meyer setting the bar, but we’ve also got Claudia Gray’s Evernight series and … okay, how’s this for wacky: a series about Upper East Side high schoolers who are rich and beautiful and vampires. Gossip Girl: the vampire version??? Weird, but existent.

Kimberly, however, did something completely different. She wrote a comedy, a slightly angsty coming-of-age story about a girl who attends vampire classes that are something like driver’s ed. And vampires aren’t good, or bad. They’re just people who live forever and drink blood and stuff. And Mina, our heroine, has to decide whether she wants to take the plunge and become a vamp, too. There’s a bit of romance, of course, but mostly it’s just plain funny and awesome and doesn’t have any of the worrying connotations of like, Buffy coming out and kicking some vampire butt. It’s not about that at all, and that’s what I love about Sucks to Be Me. It’s just plain awesome funny fun.

Kimberly, btw, is having an online book release party all this week. So stop by her site to win giveaways and to read posts from her special guest authors.

And of course, you can buy Cycler and Sucks to Be Me from Amazon.com.

Oh, and by the way: This Matthew Sweet album kinda rocks. It’s not as good as Girlfriend or 100% Fun, of course, but it’s still awesome.

I have been searching for this book. Seriously, ever since all the hullabaloo (see this), I have been thinking that I really, really needed to read Cures for Heartbreak. Not just because of Margo Rabb’s piece in the New York Times, but also because Cures sounded like a genuinely awesome book.

And it is. It’s heartbreaking. (Duh.) And it’s extremely well-written. In the NYT piece, Margo says she had been working on this book for eight years, and I understand now why she felt that it was a bit of a slam to be told the book was YA. Don’t get me wrong. It is a wonderful book for teens, but it’s just as wonderful for adults.

The book opens with Mia, our protagonist, her sister Alex, and her father shopping for a coffin for Mia and Alex’s mom, who died twelve days after being diagnosed with cancer. (Margo’s mother died nine days after a cancer diagnosis, so this book is more than a little autobiographical, with an afterword talking about Margo’s own struggle with heartbreak.)

Any of us who lost parents at a young age will identify with Mia. Margo’s book is so very real, you can tell she wrote from a very intimate place. It’s the sort of book that could (and should!) be nominated for major literary kudos, and if the YA categorization hindered that, I’d be hopping mad.

My only quibble, and it’s a little one really, is that Margo wrote this book as fiction in the first place. She has fictionalized the details of losses she really experienced, and while I can see how it would help move the story forward more easily, I also feel like the raw emotion would almost be better suited in a memoir. It’s just so pure that, as a reader, I felt like Margo was taking something away from herself by fictionalizing the story. I could sense, reading the novel, that the emotions weren’t the sort of thing you could just make up, and long before I reached the afterword I knew there was a lot of truth in what I was reading.

Regardless, I am amazed by Margo’s ability to encapsulate grief the way she did, to bring readers along for the ride, and for some of us, to help us move through our emotions and understand them better. That, if anything, is the best reason I can think of for this book being YA. A sixteen-year-old who has lost her mom needs this book more than someone does ten or twenty years after losing a parent at a young age.

And now for a mea culpa: I was wrong. I mean, I wasn’t wrong that YA is awesome, but I was wrong about putting Margo into an anti-YA camp. Still, when all is said and done, I am very, very glad this book was published as young adult fiction, because otherwise I would never have gone looking for it.

It was probably very smart that Suzanne Harper’s publicist sent me two of this fantabulous author’s books. Because without the first, I’d never have gotten to the second.

The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney was published last year, but it’s out in paperback now, which means it’s cheaper and so you have no reason not to buy it. Because it’s a lovely novel about a girl who lives in Lily Dale, New York (a real place), where Spiritualists run the game. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Spiritualism, it is a religion centered around the belief that one can speak with the dead. And, boy, can Sparrow speak with the dead. Indeed, dead folks follow her around. And though she usually ignores them, not to mention pretends she has no special powers, one finally convinces her to help him cross over. (You know, to the other side.)

Anyway. Fans of Suzanne’s have been clamoring for a sequel to this novel, and so am I. Suzanne? Are you reading? Please to write a sequel, yes?

Next up was The Juliet Club. This is another novel I picked up and put down, because I read in the first few pages that our heroine, Kate, is a sensible girl who doesn’t believe in love. I have no use for such people.

But then Kate flies off to Verona, Italy for a month to participate in a study-abroad program focusing on Romeo and Juliet. And our sensible heroine turns from a Kate a la The Taming of the Shrew into a star-crossed lover. Actually, it seems everyone in this novel is a star-crossed lover of some sort.

Harper’s writing in both books is delightful, and it took no more than five minutes for me to overcome my antagonism toward Kate in The Juliet Club. In fact, I could do with a sequel to that one, too.

To sum up: I can’t get enough of Suzanne Harper. And I can’t get enough of her books. I want more, and I want it now. I bet you will, too.

Buy The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney and The Juliet Club from Amazon.com.

It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, how a gem can be right in front of you for months and months, and you don’t see it at all? This, alas, is what happened to me with A Curse Dark As Gold. It came highly recommended by Sarah Beth Durst (author of Into the Wild and Out of the Wild), and it was one of the first books to land in my mailbox. Yet somehow there were other fluffier things that beckoned. Shiny pink things of no substance.

I must apologize. I mean really, really apologize. Because, you see, today I hit rock bottom. I can now say I have read every single book in this apartment, and it took until today for me to find out that Elizabeth C. Bunce’s work is a frickin’ masterpiece.

All right. Let me back up a bit. Months ago I opened this book, read the first two pages, and yawned. What was this? Some sad tale about a girl whose father has died? No, no, and no. There were all sorts of whimsical books staring me in the face, and this one didn’t make the cut. I set it aside, meaning to catch up on it later. Which of course meant that I lost sight of it and never found it again until … well, until today.

I have spent the entire evening reading, feeling as if I wouldn’t be able to breathe properly until I finished this story. Charlotte Miller is a young woman — probably somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, though we never find out her exact age for sure — when her father dies and leaves her and her sister to fend for themselves. As the proprietors, or should I say, proprietresses, of a mill that has had a long run of bad luck, which doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

And if the concept of a mill sounds ancient, that’s because it is. The book isn’t set in any specific place or time, though I imagined it as England in the early 1800s. But it is most definitely a sort of historical romance, or historical tragedy. (Reminiscent of a not-teen-lit book I read awhile back, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. I can’t pay a much higher compliment, because that novel set me reeling for at least a few weeks after I’d finished it.)

Oh! This should have been something I said much earlier: A Curse Dark As Gold is a sort of retelling of the story of Rumpelstiltskin. Although that really isn’t fair, because Elizabeth has woven a story much deeper and more complex than the Brothers Grimm version you may know. Instead of a simple girl who seems to act without thinking, like the character in the older tale, Charlotte is brave, headstrong, smart, rational, a problem-solver. She’s a natural leader, in a time when women aren’t really allowed to lead anything but a household. And there is, of course, a curse involved, though I won’t divulge too much about that.

Let me just say this: If you had to pick only one — Rumpelstiltskin or A Curse Dark As Gold — to read in your lifetime, I’d advise you to go with the latter. I know this is the second time I’ve done this lately, but this is yet another candidate for my top five books of 2008. I’m thinking it’s a lock-in, in fact, and will probably be in a close race for the top three. It really is that good.

Buy A Curse Dark As Gold from Amazon.com.

No, dears, that pic to the left is not a badly edited screencap. It’s a real book cover, and I have to say I adore it. Click on it to get a closer view. Yes, that’s right. You see a faux-browser there. Indeed, you see a faux-browser throughout the entire book, because the whole thing is presented in blog format.

Now, part of me is mad because I had this idea, and I was fully planning on executing it and being the very first brilliant person to do it exactly as it would appear on a screen. But another part of me is very happy, because Susie does this whole thing very well.

A few things to note: This book is written by Welsh author Susie Day, and was released in the UK as Big Woo!. So, unless you’re trying to collect ‘em all, don’t buy both and expect two different books. Anyway, since Susie is Welsh, it makes good sense that her heroine is an awesome British emo blogger named Sarah (the nick serafina, btw, comes from Philip Pullman) who gives herself 112 days to achieve happiness.

I have a theory about British chick lit, which is this: It’s funnier than American chick lit. It’s almost always funnier. This is because British folks speak differently from American folks, and if you have even the slightest weakness for British accents, you will think everything is cute and hilarious. (Fortunately, this book does actually come with a glossary of sorts, which is very short and can be read first or last, and which explains the meaning of words like “spoon,” which you might imagine would mean “an eating utensil,” but actually means “stupid person” … or “eating utensil.”)

Back to the book: It’s not only beautifully presented, but well-written, funny, and at times kind of heartbreaking. (I mean, c’mon. She’s emo! No emo kid can live life without a crisis!) All joking aside, serafina67 finds out that when you put your whole life on the internet, things can sometimes get complicated. We all know a little bit about this firsthand, yes? You posted about your secret crush, and your secret crush found your blog?

In Sarah’s — or should we say serafina’s — case, she starts out yapping pretty normally about her life, and she’s got a pretty decent blog. But then she goes and says something that a lot of people read, and then everyone stops talking to her, and, as my friend Jami B like to say, “antics ensue.” Antics, my friends, are always a good thing worthy of your attention.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, it’s Friday night, and I have to go put together this lamp contraption from IKEA. But I urge you to go out and breathe some life into our gal serafina67 by reading her blog-novel.

Buy serafina67 *urgently requires life* from Amazon.com.

Remember how I reviewed Zombie Blondes by Brian James awhile back, and I was all, “The zombie trend has started, and this book rocks!” and you were all like, “ZOMG, you have to read Generation Dead!!!”?

Well, I did, and it’s remarkable. Possibly in my top five for the year thus far. Indeed, probably in my top five. Whereas Zombie Blondes was a straightforward horror novel that read like Stephen King for teens, Generation Dead is … well, it’s definitely not horror.

Indeed, I was surprised to discover that this tome is a thoughtful, subversive discussion of … popularity? Acceptance? Racism? We start out with our heroine, Phoebe, telling us a little bit about the zombies at her school. Only they’re not called zombies — using that sort of a slur could get you in big trouble, mister. No, they’re called “living impaired,” and they’re just teenagers who died and then got back up again. Some of them have problems talking, or walking, or with school subjects.

And then one of them goes out for football, and all hell breaks loose. It turns out the coach and most of the players don’t want undead Tommy Williams on the team.

Next thing we know, Phoebe, Tommy and several other students are roped into participating in a work-study program to learn more about the “biotically different,” and the angry mobs start to pop up.

I really wouldn’t call Generation Dead horror. I’d call it a clever exploration of class status. But that’s getting all technical and academic and stuff, and I don’t want you to think this isn’t a thrilling read. It is so thrilling that I almost got hit by a car when I was crossing the street while reading. (Hey! I had the “walk” signal!)

Anyway, if I had a rating system a la the Olympic judges, this would get a perfect 10. Now, you have to understand that I actually read this book in spite of my absolute terror of zombies. (Things I am mortally afraid of: cockroaches, mice, zombies, cleaning under the stove.) Prior to reading this book, my idea of zombies was 28 Days Later (which, by the way, is a fantastic movie even if it does feature my least favorite scary creature).

But now … I don’t know. I think maybe the biotically different could be, like, kind of cute and cuddly. Or at least worth snuggling up to until you finish this book. Go buy it! You only have a few weeks before school is back in session, and work goes back into that post-Labor Day funk.

Buy Generation Dead from Amazon.com.

It’s here! It’s finally here! The third book in the Violet series, Violet in Private by Melissa Walker, is out today.

I wanted to scan a picture of the beaten up copy of the galley Melissa’s publicist sent me way back when so you could see how long I’ve been waiting. Get this: I was so enamored of Melissa’s first two books, Violet on the Runway and Violet By Design, that Caitlin was kind enough to send me her very own copy of the galley, and of course I just gobbled it up.

Here’s the deal: Violet, who became a runway model after getting scouted at the concession stand of the movie theater in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has gone off to college. She wants a normal life, and modeling is not on her agenda. Of course, since she ends up at Vassar, only an hour’s ride away from New York City by train … well, let’s just say it’s not that easy for her to disentangle herself from the modeling world.

Melissa, in addition to being a seriously awesome gal, is a fantastic writer, and this book is every bit as yummy as her first two. Indeed, if you haven’t read the other Violet books by now, you need to go get them straightaway. Buy all three, and have yourself a bubble bath reading marathon. Or a beach reading marathon. Or you could just sit in your favorite comfy chair in your favorite air-conditioned room and read like a mad person. But whatever you do, you must read Melissa’s work if you haven’t already. Because it is fantabulous.

Oh! And an extra treat: If you’re in New York City, Melissa will be reading from her new tome tomorrow night at 6 p.m. at Books of Wonder. 18 W. 18th Street. Other authors include Lisa McMann, Linda Gerber, Claire Mysko, Katie Davis and Jenny Davidson. I’ll be there, and I hope you will too. But if you can’t make it, don’t worry — I’ll take plenty of pics.