Review: A Map of the Known World by Lisa Ann Sandell

Title: A Map of the Known World
Author: Lisa Ann Sandell
Publish Date: April 2009
Page Count: 272 pages
Summary: Cora Bradley dreams of escape. Ever since her reckless older brother, Nate, died in a car crash, Cora has felt suffocated by her small town and high school. She seeks solace in drawing beautiful maps, envisioning herself in exotic locales. When Cora begins to fall for Damian, the handsome, brooding boy who was in the car with Nate the night he died, she uncovers her brother's secret artistic life and realizes she had more in common with him than she ever imagined. With stunning lyricism, Sandell weaves a tale of one girl's journey through the redemptive powers of art, friendship, and love.

Review: I think the only reason I picked this book up was because I loved the cover. I thought the title was AWESOME and I thought that it would have a lot to do with maps, kind of like North of Beautiful, which tied them in really well. And while I wouldn't say I was disappointed, I wasn't exactly satisfied.

First off, the characters - they were very well-developed and definitely believable, especially Cora's new friend Helena. I was not satisfied by how her relationship with her best friend Rachel panned out and I thought her romance with Damian was a little too easy. At the end, everything was wrapped up a little too tightly, leaving no room for questions, which I like at the end of novels, even if there is a happy ending. I think Cora was a little young for my tastes - just starting high school - and so I didn't relate to her as much.

The narration was bogged down by over-description, which made me skim a little too much for my liking. While some people may think that Sandell's prose is lyrical, I have to disagree. I don't think that it added much to the narration to describe feeling to nth degree. In fact, I think it made the prose weaker, since it relied on - sometimes cliched - descriptions.

Also, Nate. (This may be a little spoiler-y.) I thought it was kind of a HUGE coincidence that both he and Cora were into art. He even had his own studio with Damian in an old barn? It was just easy. And he thought he was so messed up because he loved art and hated school, but he never even told anyone he liked art; he just assumed that he and Damian were screwed up because of it. I could see if both of them did lots of drugs or something, but they didn't. They just skipped school and made art and were kind of assholes, but they're teenage boys. That is not strange at all.

Overall, I thought this book was okay. I wasn't blown away by it or anything, but I didn't love it or anything. I guess I'll just say I had no strong feelings about it.

Overall: 3/5 stars

Playing Hurt Book Trailer + A GIVEAWAY

Recently, I had the pleasure of receiving an ARC of Holly Schindler's newest book, Playing Hurt! Playing Hurt is a contemporary YA romance about a former basketball player sidelined by an injury who goes on vacation to northern Minnesota. Even though she has a boyfriend who has been there for her throughout the mental anguish of having to give up basketball, she finds herself drawn to her "boot camp" trainer there, Clint. What proceeds is wildly romantic and gave me shivers! It takes a lot for a book to do that.

Anyway, I am offering a giveaway to one lucky person of a copy of this ARC! Please enter by leaving your name and email in the comments below - the giveaway will end March 14th, so be sure to get your entries in by then!

Without further ado, here is the book trailer for Playing Hurt, as well as a little blurb that Holly wrote about book trailers! Enjoy!




ON BOOK TRAILERS…

Trailers, I think, are a tricky ground for a writer to tread on.  It’s different for a movie or a TV show: those trailers are just spliced together from existing footage.  A montage of some of the best points, meant to entice a potential audience.  When I go to the movie or tune in to the TV show, I’ll see those scenes or snippets…But a book trailer can involve hiring actors specifically for the trailer, or including illustrations that are not featured within the book.

I think that writers can almost do themselves a disservice with ultra-slick trailers…They always run the danger of creating something that actually overshadows the book.

My own favorite official book trailer is for Laurie Halse Anderson’s WINTERGIRLS—it incorporates a section of cover art, and the same three words, “must. not. eat.” flashing faster and faster.  That trailer tells readers that the book is about anorexia, and by giving us a section of that cover, it allows readers to instantly recognize—and hopefully gravitate to—that icy turquoise cover in a bookstore.  Great advertisement.  And in no way does it threaten to overshadow Anderson’s writing (which would be pretty tough, as incredible as her work is).

I really did want to do something visual leading up to the release of PLAYING HURT…Especially since I’ve recently become really intrigued by vlogging.  It’s incredible, as an author, to be able to let readers into my world as well as into my work. 

I knew that I wanted to put together something that would allow readers to “see” or interact with my books in a visual way…And I definitely didn’t want to overshadow my work…So…

What I came up with is a kind of extended trailer / virtual tour of Southwest Missouri—which is the setting for A BLUE SO DARK and much of PLAYING HURT.          

My trailer is in no way super-slick or flashy…But I really like that, too.  I’m the kind of gal who prefers antique instruments, handwritten notes…I love to see a creator’s “hand” in their projects.  In that respect, my trailer has my signature on it…

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to mention before that the giveaway is ONLY in the US/Canada - sorry, you international folks!

Like Mandarin Author Interview!

I'm so excited because I've had the pleasure of interviewing Kirsten Hubbard, author of the upcoming novel LIKE MANDARIN!

Tell us about the process of getting Like Mandarin published.

The history of Like Mandarin is a long one, but I'll keep it brief! It actually began as a short story for the final project of a fiction class during my freshman year at UCSD. In the years after, I couldn't get the characters out of my head. I expanded the story into a screenplay for a later class, then into a novel when I was 22. The Like Mandarin you'll read today is a second version I overhauled at age 25 -- infinite times better, though the heart of it is the same.

When I queried this version of Like Mandarin, my agent, Michelle Andelman, requested a full within half an hour and offered representation after the weekend. Following a few weeks of revision, it went to auction and sold to Delacorte in a two-book deal. It was a crazy whirlwind! Or a wildwind, I should say.

Who is your favorite character in Like Mandarin?

I adore Taffeta (Grace's little sister), empathize with Momma, and totally heart Davey Miller – a side character readers tend to fall for. What I feel for Grace is a very real love, part sister and part daughter and part what you feel for younger versions of yourself, even though I wasn't much like Grace. But I'd have to say my favorite character is Mandarin Ramey. I knew my readers wouldn't believe Grace's fascination with her if I weren't fascinated with her myself, and that feeling has never left me. I wonder about her often.

I love the cover! What was your reaction when you first saw it?

Thank you! I first saw it hanging on a bookshelf in my editor's office, during an NYC trip where I met both my agent and editor for the first time. It was completely unexpected – both being confronted with it, and the cover itself. I'd expected Mandarin, with her black hair in the wind, or a panorama of badlands. But my cover is so much better – almost movie poster iconic, with the white space, and intensity, and simplicity. I am a very lucky author.

Do you think that travelling so much has helped you as a writer?

Like nothing else. (Well, other than reading!)

Here's why. Writing is a solitary pursuit that takes a lot of repetition, and a lot of alone time. It's introverted by nature, and it's easy to fall into a stay-at-home rut, where nearly all of what you "take in" is media – movies, books, television, the internet. While all that's rich and varied and necessary, none of it beats real-life experiences as idea fodder for novels. And nothing creates experience like venturing outside your comfort zone – especially somewhere stunning, culturally and visually. Travel puts you in situations you could never imagine. It forces interaction with all kinds of people, and inspires in completely unforeseen ways. I'm also obsessed with compelling settings, and though authors are master imaginers, visiting a place always results in more vibrant writing. As a result of my trips (both deliberate for research purposes and accidental), many of my favorite scenes were written in evocative places.

For example, there's a scene in Like Mandarin where Grace is walking through the Wyoming badlands. In part:

"I followed one of the water-trails tapering into the hills. The only sounds were the crunching of my shoes, the occasional low-pitched buzz of an insect, and a gentle wind—not the slightest bit wild—ruffling the dry grasses and shrubs. As I stopped at the top of a crest, gazing out at the gradients of blue hills, brown hills, gray hills, I thought: Mandarin would have loved it out here."

I took notes for that scene on a walk through the actual Wyoming badlands. Now, when I reread it, I'm there.

What is your favorite YA book of 2010?

Can't name just one! Recently, I loved The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins and Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. I think I read Finnikin of the Rock in 2009, but it's a 2010 book – Melina Marchetta is a genius.

Thanks so much, Kirsten! LIKE MANDARIN comes out March 8th. :)

Review: Matched by Ally Condie

Title: Matched
Author: Ally Condie
Page Count: 366 pages
Summary: Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

Review: I try not to review books the day that I've finished them because my thoughts are always so muddled. It's only after I've read a bunch of reviews and had time to think about the book that I really can know what I think. Matched is definitely one of those books - I just finished it today and trying to gather my thoughts.

First, I've heard that there's this whole controversy surrounding it because of its similarities to Lois Lowry's amazing The Giver. Though I never finished reading The Giver (somehow I lost my copy before I was done), I really don't think that the similarities are anything special or exciting. Also, I tried to see Matched as its own book, completely separate from all of these things.

Lets begin with what I liked - Condie's prose was absolutely beautiful at times, although it could get the point of being overwritten sometimes. However, most of the time, I was pretty amazed at the prose, which is not something that happens often when I'm reading YA. Also, Condie's use of the 'banned' poems throughout the story was breathtaking; I think they worked very well with the themes of the book.

The things I didn't like so much: I always felt really bad for Xander and even though I understood that Cassia (I love that name, by the way!) was falling in love with someone else, I just thought she was being selfish to keep seeing Ky. I'm not very good when I read stories that are set in dystopias - I always want them to follow the rules, just so they won't get in trouble. It's safe to say that isn't my favorite genre. (Although, I love really gritty ones, where the characters are already rebels, like in Garth Nix's Shade's Children.) I think it was because Xander seemed like an awesome character, but of course, the girl is always attracted to the brooding, forbidden guy. How predictable.

My overall thoughts are pretty scattered. I did like this book and would definitely encourage people to read it, but I wasn't really into it by the end. That's why my rating is so low, because I couldn't stay in the story. (Although, I did read it on my computer, which often gives me headaches, so maybe that wasn't my brightest idea. For some reason, the format I bought it in was giving me trouble on my Nook.)

Overall: 3.5/5 stars

Review: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

Title: Twenty Boy Summer
Author: Sarah Ockler
Page Count: 290 pages
Summary:According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in ZanzibarBay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy ever day, there's a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there's something she hasn't told Frankie—-she's already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.


Beautifully written and emotionally honest, this is a debut novel that explores what it truly means to love someone and what it means to grieve, and ultimately, how to make the most of every single moment this world has to offer.

Review: I actually bought this on a whim - I was on the Absolute Write YA message boards in a thread about the best sex scenes in YA, and someone mentioned this book! That's not really the only reason I bought it, though, because I'd been wanting to read it since it came out, but with my awesome Nook, I got it instantly. (Totally not product placement, I just love my Nook so much.)

Ockler's writing style is absolutely beautiful, although at times it didn't seem to fit the teenaged protagonist. I won't fault her for that because Ockler definitely has some talent in the writing chops department, especially in the area of description. I always like it when authors can describe the most mundane things in completely new ways, or just so specifically that you can totally imagine it - Deb Caletti does this, as does Sarah Dessen, two of my favorite YA contemporary writers.

I could definitely empathize with Anna and she was a very understandable character, but her best friend, Frankie, kind of got to me. I understand that Frankie's brother had just died a year ago, but she was so selfish and immature about it that it pissed me off. And maybe that was Ockler's intention, to make Frankie immature, but it just didn't hit me the right way. But I really liked the way that Anna's feelings were described - she felt like an outsider because, even though Matt had been her best friend, he wasn't family and so she couldn't mourn in the same way that Frankie's family could've. At least, in other people's eyes. 

My only problem: both Matt and Anna's newer love interest, Sam, were not fleshed out enough in my opinion. Especially Sam. I couldn't see what Anna thought was so great about him, other than he was cute. I think there have just been some awesome love interests in past YA contemps that I've read, so that's why I felt both Matt and Sam were a little lacking.

Overall, though - this book was very good. I don't like to judge a book by how fast I finish it, but that's usually an indication, and I finished this one in two days. It made me feel that little chill of first love, of the first guy you kissed, which I always love in YA. I'd definitely recommend it.

Overall: 4/5 stars

Sam's Ramblings

Lately, I've been having trouble getting into some of the books I've bought, some that have been touted as AWESOME YA books, because they tend to get on the juvenile side. And this kind of worries me because the only genre I've ever stuck with is YA, but the only ones that I've been able to stomach lately have been exceptional.

For instance, coming off the high that was Anna and the French Kiss and Finikkin of the Rock, I read Across the Universe by Beth Revis. And even though it wasn't terrible by any means, I found myself unable to get into the characters because they acted so... young. Elder especially, although I know his naivety was part of his character. It just seemed very quaint to me and not in a bad way, just in a way that didn't suit my reading style. I think maybe my tastes must be maturing, which accounts for some lack of enthusiasm with blogging as of late.

I've been trying to read some more mature novels - I just finished Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris - and though I liked it, it wasn't any more so than most of the YA books I've been reading. So I don't know aht the problem is, exactly.

Any ideas?

Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Title: Across the Universe
Author: Beth Revis
Page Count: 398 pages
Summary: A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.


Review: So, this book was totally not what I was expecting. I'm not quite sure exactly what it was that I was expecting, exactly, and it certainly didn't blow me away the way I'd anticipated, but it was definitely a good, solid read.

First of all, the whole Elder/Eldest thing threw me off. At times, it seemed really contrived and kind of stupid, not to mention that I totally got confused whenever they were in the same room together. Secondly, the person behind the killings was ridiculously obvious to me the entire time. I pretty much knew from the beginning. And while it's good to have little hints, it was practically GLARING at me.

Onto the good: Elder and Amy were absolutely adorable together. Elder was such a good character (almost too good, at times) that I just rooted for him in everything that he did. But in the parts where they were separate, I wasn't too compelled. I really wanted to get into the story because the premise had seemed so interesting and Beth Revis can definitely write a love story, but I just thought there should've been more focus on one or the other. I didn't think it all flowed well together, if I'm articulating myself correctly.

That is not to say that I didn't enjoy Across the Universe, because I definitely did. But I wasn't as into it as I thought I would be, mostly because a lot of the science fiction aspects seemed contrived and kind of overplayed. I really loved the descriptions of the getting put in the cryo chamber and almost drowning getting out of it - I thought those were wonderful.

Also, I'm not a huge fan of books that change perspective. It seems like lazy writing to me, honestly. While I wouldn't say that I liked that this did so, but it didn't take away from the story either.

Overall, I did like Across the Universe but the mystery of the murderer as well as the science fiction aspects of the book felt a little lacking. I would definitely recommend it, though - maybe you can articulate yourself better than I can?

Overall: 3.5/5 stars