Life is a Banquet

Review: Stolen Fury (& Good Reads & Paperback Swap)

Stolen Fury by Elisabeth Naughton

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This debut is fabulously original, and I can't wait to read the rest in the series. The treasure hunt kept me intrigued, but the romantic tension kept me up late! Rafe is one of the most unique heroes I have read in a very long time, and I won't soon forget him! I loved the intense attraction between Rafe and Lisa and really enjoyed their banter. If you've been wishing for more lighter Romantic Suspense (no serial killers here!) with plenty of action and steamy heat, then you'll find a treasure here. Fans of Susan Andersen, Christie Ridgeway, Rachel Gibson, Patti Berg, Lori Foster, and Christina Dodd's Contemporaries will want to welcome this addition to their must-read lists!

View all my reviews.

If you buy Elisabeth's book, please be sure to give her an Amazon review, Good Reads review, or other ranking! Read this insightful article on the realities of publishing for more on why debut authors need ALL our help.

I pasted this review in from Good Reads, and after months and months of dickering with it, I finally explored their features, and I have to say, I'm really impressed with how easy it is to add books, reviews, ratings, friends, and compare book shelves. Also, I'm surprised by how many authors are on Good Reads. The fan girl in me is all a twitter at the idea of having them as my friends (Strangely, MySpace doesn't excite me at all--but given the chance to see what my idols are reading makes all weak knees).

Because I am now a die-hard Paperback Swap fan, I had wanted to use only them for ratings and reviews and to keep track of my TBR pile. However, they aren't as easy to use as Good Reads, and Good Reads reaches a wider audience. But, Good Reads is one of several competing social networking for reader forums right now, and it's hard to predict which will dominate. I like Good Reads platform the best out of those that I've seen.

If you are still waiting to try Paperback Swap, wait no longer! I love all the new authors I've discovered with Paperback Swap. For me it's not about saving money since I rarely buy new, but the chance to connect with other readers and to take a chance on new works has been really wonderful. At first I felt guilty that I wasn't adding to author's royalties; however, after over 9 months of swapping, I've actually bought MORE new than ever before as I find myself hooked on new series and new (to me) authors. Case in point, I discovered Julia Spencer-Fleming in a random box of books trade, roared through her backlist, and bought the most recent two. If you join Paperback Swap, please look me up. If you are local, I'm happy to do postage-less trading.

Do you keep track of the books you read? Where? Are there other books-I've-read sites I should know about?

Review: The Baby Bonding Book For Dads

Once upon a time, there was a pregnant Wavybrains. And in her giddiness, she decided to find the perfect new father book for Freak. She picked up, "How to be a Pregnant Father," (70's classic, full of such wisdom as what to bring to the waiting room, and why bottles are a ploy to get you to do your half), and more recent fare like, "Crouching Toddler, Hidden Father" (slightly amusing, but no real tips or zen), and finally she settled for ramming the entire Sears Family Library down his gullet, in nice, easy to chew pieces.

If only she had had the Baby Bonding Book for Dads! In fact, the first thing Freak said when we received the review copy was, "I don't need this NOW, I needed this LAST summer!" And he's right, and he recommends that Dads-to-be should be gifted a copy in the late last trimester when it suddenly hits the prospective father, "Holy Crap! There's going to be a BABY around here!" In fact, completely unprecedented for him, he offered to mail the review copy to a dad-to-be friend. (Me thinks he also wanted to reinforce that he has this fatherhood thing mastered. He dah Dad.)

But, He'll have to head to amazon, because I'm keeping the review copy. The pictures are like incredibly artsy porn for new mothers. Gorgeous half-naked fathers with gorgeous half-naked babies.  Yum.  Each picture is a testament to the power of fatherhood and says far more about bonding than any essay or words could. And since men are very visual creatures (hello, Victoria's Secret and ESPN!), this may be the first fathering book that truly panders to both sexes. We get to look at scrumptious men and edible babies, and they get to slowly absorb the message from the photos--"This is YOUR baby. Take ownership. Take pride."

And the text is also perfect for Dads-to-be--not overwhelming, no statistics, no step-by-step how-to-checklist, no 900 pages of research to sift through. What I wanted a year ago was a book that would encourage attachment fathering, without all the chapters and chapters that us mothers are more than willing to read through (something in the hormones allows us to read our weight in pregnancy and baby books). This is that book, it distills all the philosophy and rationale behind attachment parenting down to a few paragraphs.

Which, to the female brain, may seems like "Where's the rest of the book? MORE BOOK PLEASE!" But, to the male brain, that which can be read over the course of a few bathroom trips or one waiting room is ideal. Remember, it only seems like commonsense to US because we've read the 10 zillion other books. I found some of the text simplistic until I put myself in the shoes of someone who didn't eat, sleep, and drink the entire pregnancy and parenting book section at the library.

I'd call this a coffee-table parenting book or a gift book, but that would be demeaning to the real value it has for fathers. Freak is not a book guy at all, and he enjoyed it. I think many men would benefit simply from the amazing pictures, even if they never read the text. Men need to see other strong men being strong fathers. But, once Daddy has read the book, changed a 100 diapers, and earned his fathering merit badge, it DOES look really pretty on an end table.

As fathers day approaches, I highly recommend the Baby Bonding Book for Dads for fathers to be. Freak suggest packaging it with a goody bag of other items as to avoid the "Hey, you need HELP!" stigma men have. Package it with edibles, an "I Luv Daddy" Onesie and bib set, and more edibles, and then two days later, move the book to the bathroom or the dining room table. Or should you have a cooperative male, oooh and aaah over the pictures together while he eats the edibles.

(I'm today's stop in the Baby Bonding Book for Dads blog tour. I received a review copy as compensation. Check out some of the other reviewers, I'm in neat company!)

Review: Choosing You

Motherhood is intrinsically linked to weight.What was your "pre-pregnancy" weight? How much weight did you gain? How much does the baby weigh? How much weight did she gain (or lose) in the first two weeks? How fast did you discard matern ity clothes? How much does the baby weigh at two months? Have you returned to your pre-pregnancy weight yet? Can you zip your skinny jeans? It seems fitting then that so much of Alexandra Soiseth's memoir, Choosing You, centers around weight.

When Mother Talk asked for reviewers for this book, I clamored, "Me, Me, Me!" because a character in my WIP also contemplates single motherhood by choice, and because I assumed that Soiseth was a member of the infertile sisterhood. I hoped to learn some things that would flesh out my other research into the topic of single motherhood via sperm donation. What I didn't expect was to learn anything about ME. I didn't expect to be absolutely blindsided by my emotional response to this woman.

What sets Choosing You apart is Soiseth's unrelenting honesty, to the point that I don't feel comfortable referring to her by the more distant "Soiseth" and want to call her "Alex." She becomes as real as a friend, more connected to me even than bloggers I've read for five years. The intense connection she inspires is not simply the result of witty personal confessions. So many of the memoirs I've read recently are of the blog-to-book variety: chatty, fun, and full of personality. But, literary, they are not. Parenting memoirs are a hot commodity right now, but they seem to rank somewhere around romance novels in terms of respect and literary acclaim. Choosing You, however, IS literary--extraordinary well-written, beautiful imagery, and nary a cute checklist in sight.

I worry that more mainstream reviewers and readers might take Choosing You's subtitle, "Deciding to Have a Baby on My Own," as an absolute statement of genre: The single-mother memoir. Occupying slightly dustier real estate than the Mommy memoir at a bookstore near you. And that would be a shame. I read a ton of memoir, and this is the first in a long time that I read in a single sitting (with a seven month old no else) and cried over. More than once. This is up there with Sedaris, Didion,Lammont and the other great memorists. There's a reason why she directs the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence.  She crafts a masterful  narrative around all those warts-and-all confessions that ends up revealing some universal truths about all of us.

I fell a little bit in love with her when she described an eating binge moments after resolving to finally loose weight. Oh. My. She can come into my kitchen at anytime. After the birth of her daughter, she stops telling people that she lost 100 pounds because there's no point in it anymore. This is me right now. I'm spending my days in a size I swore I'd never wear again, and I'm not dieting. Not even close. I hide behind the shield of breastfeeding, but she's seven months old now, and plenty of other breastfeeding mothers are many pounds down. I say I'm waiting until I can do low-carb again, but that doesn't excuse the out-of-control portions. I'd like to reach some sort of peace with this, similar to Soiseth's, but in the meantime it helps to know I'm not alone.

This isn't a how-to piece, and her lack of medical knowledge is endearing at times. She's upfront about why she chose the route she did, and why she made some rather not so politically correct choices along the way. I like that she doesn't spend a lot of time justifying her decisions or minimizing their impact. It's also NOT an infertility memoir. Without giving away too much, it's the choices she wrestles with, not the mechanics. If you're at a point in your journey where you can't read anything even that even remotely smacks of, "We wanted a boy in May, so we drank some wine, and Whoops! Here we are!" you might want to pass this by for a little while. If you want to read about the double whammy of single-motherhood-by-choice AND infertility, I suggest you read Calliope or one of her many links.

I hope though that readers on all points of the infertility spectrum can identify with and enjoy this story. One of the neatest things that Soiseth reveals about herself is her uncanny ability to create community. She places herself at the center of overlapping families, socio-economic classes, and martial statuses to form a web of friendships that transcend any one choice, and she does the same thing with this book. For me it was the weight issue, but there's so much meat here that others may find their own ways of identifying with her: absent parents, abuse, bad boyfriends, best friends, moving, writing, and oh yeah, that whole single-mother thing. While it unifies the narrative arc, at times it becomes a mere footnote in a greater journey. I can heartily recommend this book to . . . just about anyone really. This isn't the story of becoming a single mother, it's the story of becoming human. 

Review: Naptime is the New Happy Hour

You won't be home with your new bundle of alarm clock laundry dinner orders joy more than an hour before the Other Mothers start stalking you. You haven't met them yet? Other mothers have babies who eat every four hours, like clock work. Other mothers manage to prepare a healthy dinner three days post-partum instead of celebrating the ability to nuke an entrée(and eating it cold, five hours later). Other mothers use naptime to churn out novels instead of collapsing into a heap next to the baby. Other mothers have babies who sleep in cribs, who sleep through the night at six weeks of age. Other mothers will drive you crazy, particularly if you happen to frequent certain internet bulletin boards ("playgroups" are where other mothers search for new quarry).

Luckily, for all those of us who feel hounded by Other Mothers, there's Stefanie Wilder-Taylor. In Naptime is the New Happy Hour, she puts Other Mothers firmly in their place. If you loved the Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy series, you'll love Wilder's hipper, less yuppy girlfriend style. A number of other reviewers have already mentioned that they'd like Wilder to be their new BFF--I wouldn't go that far, mainly because I think she'd find more cocktails in the nearest dry county--but I'd certainly want her in my playgroup.

Her irreverent parenting philosophy is just what you need when you're trapped under the weight of Sears, Brazelton, Mothering, Parenting, and whatever other parenting deities you bow before. But, I find myself reading a parenting manual, nodding, resolving to do better . . . and coming up short. Like 75 cents short of a dollar, short. Other Mothers model their beliefs daily, nuturing their children with each coo and grin. Other Mothers do not spend most of a morning trying to occupy their child just enough so that they can check their email.  I've spent several months feeling like an attachment parenting phony. I simply can't seem to bask in her gummy grin all day without trying to multitask. Other mothers . . . .

Thank god, I don't have to keep going there. Naptime teaches "New Mommy Math." She preaches, "The more super the mom, the more super liar." This concept alone has me chomping at the bit to read her first book, Sippy Cups are not for Chadonnay,because DAMN, let me count the ways that I just fell in love with her. Okay, okay, maybe I DO want to be her new BFF, if she'll have my teetotaling behind.

Motherhood is such a solitary sport. Sometimes while we slogging through all those bodily fluids, we loose sight of the fact that we're not in the best position to judge ourselves--let alone anyone else. And it all seems like such intensely important business too--no TV or you'll induce ADHD, only organic or you'll rot their little core, respond immediately or they'll never trust anyone, and so on. And we repeat the rules to each other verbatim, while secretly piling up our own shame with our inability to comply.

Wilder makes this inability seem so universal, I found myself going, "Wait. Did we attend the same Pampered Chef party?" But, no, my party most definitely did not have Lisa Loeb. Wilder just has a knack for saying exactly what you're already feeling--only she adds a punchline.

As I'm right at the half-year mark as a mother, I find myself increasingly worried about toddlerhood. Mobility is a scary, scary thing. Independent eating is horrific.  I'd like to bronze her as she is right now--or at least copy her to a hollodeck. I'm not sure I want to picture how the exertion of free will is going to scatter the last pieces of my sanity--sand paintings lost to bigfoot.  I'm really glad I got a chance to read Naptime BEFORE toddler-hood really hits. In fact, I plan to re-read my copy whenever the Other Mothers reduce me to 2T size. Or when I REALLY need a laugh. And sure, there were a few places, where I, naive first time mom, said "That won't be US!" Mmmhmmm. That resolve has worked so well for me so far hasn't it? And that's WITHOUT much free will on the part of the infant. Toddlerhood is going to incinerate my good intentions.   

I should mention two caveats before I send you off to buy copies for everyone in your playgroup. One, if you or anyone you love has struggled with addiction, this might not be the book for you. I don't have these issues, and I still found the constant references to drinking, pills, and illicit substances to be a bit tiring. At times, it took away from the great snappy narrative style because I'd find myself wondering just how a fine the line between humor and intervention really is.

Two, if you are absolutely committed to crunchy-granola parenting and it's working beautifully for you, you're probably not going to have as much in common with her philosophy. In fact, Other Mothers of all affiliations who are certain that their way is the BEST way (the only way) to parent will probably find something to take offense at.   If you truly do have a TV-free, sugar-free, educational class-going toddler, you might enjoy a chance to sneer at how the rest of us parent. But, thank god for that "us."

This is a humorous collection of essays, not a self-help book, but I still found myself with a new outlook on parenting: perfection isn't the goal. Hell, perfection may not even be possible, and it's perfectly okay not to shoot for it.  Maybe there are no Other Mothers.  Maybe that cool mom sitting three chairs down with her gorgeous toddler also has a vacuum in pristine condition and a carpet in need of condemnation. Maybe that mom talking loudly about the books she reads to Suzy also has a nasty netflix habit. Thanks to the magic of "New Mommy Math," we can reach out to perfection with new understanding. Or cut it down to size with a chain saw. Whatever suits your fancy.

Reincarnationist Book Tour

In my previous life, I actually had the time to blog and didn't have to do all my typing one-handed. In this life, however, I am alive and incredibly happy, but sorely lacking in computer time (and amazingly, not all that upset about it either!). I'll get a new post up about 1 month of motherhood very soon. Today, however, I want to talk about the book that made my last week of 24/7 nursing fun. The Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose is even more addictive than the Home & Garden Channel and way better for your brain.

I'm reviewing the book as part of MotherTalk's blog tour, and I'm really grateful for the chance to review this particular book.  At first glance the premise (Present day Josh recieves flashbacks from his previous life as Julius at the end of the Roman Empire, unlocking a mystery that spans two millenniums) is a bit too "DaVinci Code" for my tastes, and I don't buy into the whole reincarnation thing. But, had I listened to my prejudices, I would have missed an amazing book.

This isn't a Shirley Maclain tell-all about previous lives complete with seances and dramatic Seth-like revelations. In fact, one of the things I most liked about the book was that it doesn't require you to believe in or even like reincarnation--it has so many other things happening that reincarnation becomes a plot device more than a theme.

After reading this book, I decided I needed more "puzzle books" so I read two others in this vein--and neither held my interest beyond the first chapters. What makes this book so stellar isn't just the puzzle(s) at its core, but rather the deep point of view and fast paced plotting that Rose employs masterfully.  The subtle differences between Josh/Julius are captured with little gestures and phrasing rather than clunky exposition. 

While impeccably researched, Rose doesn't hit you over the head with her findings. Instead, the plot drives the story forward until its surprising conclusion (a shocker of Crying Game proportions--just read the book!!). It is only at the end that the reader realizes how much detail of ancient Rome, pagans, relics, and reincarnation they have absorbed.

This plot-driven brain food is exactly what makes The Reincarnationist ideal reading for nursing mothers. I can't muster up the brain power to watch the history channel or read non-fiction, but the twists of the plot had me pushing past exhaustion. Heck, for the few days I spent with this book, I actually looked forward to late-night feedings because I wanted to see what happened next.  Plus, it's a hard cover, so it fit well in a book holder, making it ideal for hands-free reading. Now, if I could just find more like it. Maybe Ms. Rose can ask her past selves to get busy :)

Review: On Borrowed Wings

How badly did you want to go to college? Did you crave it? Did you go only because it was expected or because it seemed better than working or joining the military? Did you day dream about college? Did your parents share your dreams or did you have to fight your way there? If you never went, is it a regret you hold deeply, like never seeing Paris, or is it a relief when others complain about student loans and useless degrees? Chandra Prasad's new novel, On Borrowed Wings,which I'm reviewing as part of Mother Talk's book tour, is ideally suited for two groups of readers: those who have yet to go to college, and those for whom college carried a special mystique.

I fall into the second category. I started reading college guides and college catalogs in junior high. I gave the mailman a hernia once I realized how easy it was to request information. I daydreamed constantly about college and how much better my life was going to be there. I graduated early (yes, again with the impatience) because I was in such all-fired hurry to get there. And while college fell short of my lofty expectations, it also defined me. I am still intimately connected to that former self who stayed awake reading catalogs, who crafted lengthy stories about life on each campus.

Adele Pietra, the narrator & heroine of On Borrowed Wings captured my heart because not only does she crave learning even more than she craves approval, but she does so at time when few women dared to dream. Today, women outnumber men on many campuses, and women who choose an all-girls school do so out of choice, not necessity. Even blue-collar girls have a shot at, and are encouraged to dream about college. We've become so divorced from the feminism that got us here that we tolerate "My Super Sweet 16," and the Gossip Girls, the Bratz subculture that defines tweens and teen girls.

Adele doesn't have the option of being a spoiled brat. She's working doing laundry for quarrymen alongside her mother. Her mother tells her that the best she can hope for is to marry a quarryman. In 1930's America, with the great depression stealing jobs, even that future looks uncertain and bleak. Then her brother dies in a quarry accident, and Adele's greatest tragedy becomes her salvation. Adele will enroll at Yale as her brother. Her grief stricken, manipulative mother casts aside her previous condemnation of education for Adele, and embraces  Adele's transformation into Charles.

Think about that for a minute. Going to college was so important to Adele (and her Mother) that she was willing to give up her identity to do so. She binds her breasts, slices off her hair, lets her hands grow callused and rough, adopts a lower toned voice, and suppresses all traces of feminine affectation just so she can join the Freshman class of Yale. I think about all my yearning and day dreams, and how much I sacrificed to earn my scholarships, and I'm pretty certain that that's one sacrifice I wouldn't have been able to make.

That Adele does, and does so convincingly, even while remaining endearingly female to the reader is the heart of this book. To say I fell in love with Adele really tells you nothing--I fall in love with good heroines all the time. It's why I read.  I like books too much to have just two categories for books: good and bad. No, my literary universe is shadowed with gray, and good encompasses a wide range of books. There's "perfect for this moment" good (enjoyed, but easily forgotten, just like fast food), "goes on the keeper shelf" good (also appears as "sorry to return to library" good, "recommend to friends" good, "book club" good, and "classic" good.

Classic good books are those that you think should be mandatory reading, that instantly command their inclusion in the same canon of To Kill a Mockingbird, Separate Peace, Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I read about 300 books a year. In the last five years, I've encountered maybe four books that I judge to be "classic" good. 

I tell you all this so that when I rave that On Borrowed Wings is a classic, you'll understand that I don't use the term lightly. On Borrowed Wings is everything a classic should be: a hauntingly beautiful coming of age story delivered by a memorable narrator. Although, it's not marketed as a "YA," Prasad's novel could hold its own in Honors English Classrooms across America.

Despite three very brief references to sexual activity, I'd feel comfortable recommending this book to a mature 15 or 16 year old. In fact, as much I think adults will love this book, it's the young women who desperately NEED this book. College is not about keg parties and laugh-track movies, it's about a path to a better future, a better self. Adele is willing to wear the Charles facade indefinitely, in order to get to eat with the sons' of Senators and businessmen in white linen dining rooms, to walk across marble instead of washing it out of everything, to get access to the library. She understands what she stands to gain from the instant she adopts the charade, but it is only once she falls in love that she understands what it is she stands to loose.

Prasad captures this all of this with haunting imagery. Most classics tend to reflect a particular era. That is, they are written contemporaneous with history, and endure through to the present. Prasad's accomplishment is even more noteworthy because she is writing about events 60 years in the past, and still manages to nail every detail to the extent that I found myself completely forgetting that it wasn't written by someone who lived through that era. Adele's voice feels that authentic.

Prasad's tale also reflects the ambiguity inherent in all great coming of age stories. Adele is both proud and ashamed of her actions, starkly honest with her reader but living a life of lies, and in awe of authority figures even as she realizes her own power. There is no clear cut happy-ending for Adele, and we wouldn't want there to be.

I wish that On Borrowed Wings had been assigned reading in my school, not just because it's a beautiful book, but because I'd love to write more about the myriad of themes that emerge--identity, race, class, parentage, education, literacy. Yes, that's how deep my lust for college is--I see term papers everywhere, only here, there are dozens I'd like to write. I'd love the chance to dissect this book with a room full of others---Adele's experience is both unique and universal. For that reason, I can see this being a great book club read as well.

Heck, I might just have to START a book club just to have others to pick apart the nuances of this book. Care to join me? Pick up a copy and let me know what you think. And let me know your thoughts on my opening questions. What would you have been willing to sacrifice to go to the college of your dreams? What DID you sacrifice?

Are All Readers Closet Writers?

I've been reading a ton lately. This is because a) I'm still pregnant, b) it's still hot, and c) I have little energy for anything productive. See a) and b). Even "nesting" requires more energy than I'm interested in expending at the moment. And reading has an advantage over TV in that I don't have to find the remote, and I don't have to feel guilty for being too sluggish to knit. Yes. It has come to that. I am now too cranky for my art. So I read.

And, since there's nothing worse than a 9 month pregnant woman moaning about her good fortune (And truly, I do give thanks, even as it takes a forklift to help me roll over in the night and whole excavation crew to rouse me from bed), let's talk about the books instead.

I've been fortunate in my selections, and I've read a ton of great books lately. Whenever I close a truly well done novel, I'm struck by the same mix of satisfaction and bittersweet longing.  "I want this story to keep going" quickly gives way to my insecurities. "I want to have written that book." "I'll never be a able to write like that." "Why can't my words flow like that?" "I wonder what she/he had to go through to polish that?"

Last night, as I finished Christie Ridgway's The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men, I wondered do all book lovers grow up to feel this way? I've had author envy for as long as I can remember. Forget Anne, I wanted to be L.M. Montgomery crafting her universe. Ann M. Margret and Gordon Korman were rock stars to me--relatively young and prolific. Do not ask me how I went from designing my own construction paper books to law school. I'm pretty sure an exorcism was involved. 

So I don't know what it would be like to finish a book and simply be . . .content.  How strange it must be to crave the story without simultaneously craving the life of the creator.  Do such rarefied beings actually exist? I'm not sure.  The most prolific readers I know are also writers. Even the readers who've never put pen to paper, usually confess when prodded that "writer" would be their dream job.  Even the most dedicated readers see reading as a vacation---no one aspires to being a professional reader.  Although, I've got to confess, being a well-known book reviewer would be my personal idea of heaven.

Even right now, when I'm plagued by doubts so numerous that they outnumber my growing assortment of stretch marks, when I want to FORGET how much I want to be published, the yearning still sneaks in with every book I read. It's worse than dieting. I study every book I finish, wanting to find the "magic formula," yet I know that there is only one: talent, perseverance, and luck.  It's the literary equivalent of diet and exercise--you can do a lot with just one, but long term success requires the whole equation. Darn it.

Enough with my navel gazing (it's in pretty sorry shape right now anyway, I should step away from the microscope before I scare someone). Do you know readers who don't want to be writers? Do you think that the two automatically go hand and hand? Do you know writers who really don't read? Finally, assuming that Groundhog Day: The Pregnant Edition continues indefinitely, got any good book recommendations? Other ways to pass the time? 

Maxium Ride III Blog Tour

Not all YA is for girls.  I know, I find this hard to believe myself, since I write girl books, and well, I *am* a girl. Consequently, most of the YA books I read are written by girls for girls. When people ask me for a book recommendation for a tween or teen girl, I have a list. But, when they ask me about boys, I struggle. Harry Potter, sure, Gordon Korman, and Dave Barry & Carl Hiassen's YA offerings . . . and my brain gets fuzzy. So, I was very interested to see what James Patterson offers the YA world. Thanks to Mother Talk, I got my chance with Maximum Ride III: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports. This is the third  installment in Patterson's Maximum Ride series of YA fantasy books and does indeed fill a gap in the YA market.

I've read a few of Patterson's adult books, and I'm not a fan. At all. But, I frequently recommend him to my male students who almost universally love him. My girlness is a hindrance to my ever being able to understand the male mind, let alone target the male audience. But, apparently, I also don't understand all girls either--there's a ton of girls who love the Maximum Ride series.

They love Maximum Ride, Patterson's tough girl heroine, and her flock of genetically enhanced bird kids. The bird kids are on the run from some really evil corporate/adult/lab types. Think Pretender but with wings. In fact, I kept having flashbacks to that series while reading the book, because the similarities are fairly striking. And, like the Pretender, there are all sorts of logic gaps and story holes. The "rules" for the Bird Kid universe bend when the plot asks them to, which while very polite is a pet peeve of mine. Need money? They've got money. Need them to be broke? Just wait five pages. Another pet peeve? The book bounces between multiple third person POV's and Max's first person POV. This kept jarring me out of the story.

However, the book is faced paced enough that an engaged reader (or perhaps one who has read the first two books) can forgive the lapses. And, I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not the target audience. This books fills a need in YA literature--books for kids who play violent games, watch action movies, and talk/think in sound bites. Jaded though they may be, these kids (and their parents) need books. I'd recommend this series to parents looking to pacify blood-thirsty tween boys who will relish all the battle scenes.  In fact, I could see it working well on a car trip as an audio book or read-aloud.

But, if you either are a girl or have a girl who likes her books pink and fluffy, you're probably going to have a really tough time getting into this book. Patterson simply doesn't do the emotional lives of his female protagonists (or his male ones for that matter). If you've read Patterson's adult works and been alarmed at his slightly misogynistic bent, I'm happy to report that he handles Max much more deftly.  However, when he makes an effort to add "romance" or familial angst to the action, the scenes crackle like dry cardboard. Max might as well be a robotic android--she and the other kids don't seem to have more emotional depth than some of the robotic creatures they fight.

Patterson also doesn't do detail, hence the plot holes. But, his propensity for three  page chapters works really well as a YA.  The other kids in the flock--Fang, Izzy, Gassy, Nudge, and Angel--tended to blend together. Perhaps over the course of the first two books, they emerge as more distinct characters, but I never got a clear picture of what Max looked like, mannerisms, etc, let alone any of the supporting cast. I did like the fact that Fang has a blog, but I agree with others who have noted that the blog feels forced and like an afterthought in the plot. Fang's entries don't feel true to his narrative voice at all and seem very adult-authored. But, both the blog and the website for the book are great destinations for kids and keep them thinking about the characters.

YA shelves are filled with pink books though, so these are very minor quibbles. And *I* certainly have no trouble finding things to read. What the genre lacks is action books that don't star magical beings, and fast-paced books that appeal to a sophisticated YA audience w/o resorting to sex/drugs/bad language/criminal behavior. This book delivers on both accounts. This is an ideal book to appeal to non-readers. All of my nit-picks about plot/details/emotions really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. This series has the potential to lure kids away from their games and movies, and that's a really neat thing. I hope to see more intelligent YA books that appeal to the gamer generation. If violence is a concern, I might mention that when recommending Maximum Ride,  but it will definitely go on my list for tween boys.   

Now, what do you think? Is there a difference between "girl books" and "boy books"? Should good YA appeal equally to both genders? If you've read the book, do think its geared more for boys? What other recommendations do you have of books that appeal to tween boys?

Force of Nature Arrives!

While I was happy to be one of a zillion reading Harry Potter last month, I'm actually WAY more excited about the package that arrived today. Suzanne Brockmann's latest, Force of Nature is out in stores this week, but thanks to a virtual book signing on her website, I got my copy today! Don't worry I won't be sharing any spoilers. I'm just excited. She's one of the very few authors whom I can re-read the same book over and over and over again.

And with perfect timing, the virtual book signing included her booklet on Deep POV. Thanks to a dear friend on the MWVRWA blog, I realized that my WIP is suffering from a voice problem which is causing all the editing nightmares right now. So I'm going to devour it--perhaps even before I read Force of Nature.

Besides Harry, what books are you giddy over this summer? Any upcoming releases that have you watching the mailbox?

I Finished the Book

Not MY book! I did THAT last week :) But, I took a break from editing/plotting to read the same book as the rest of the world this weekend.

Started Saturday morning, finished this afternoon. WOW. What a ride. Did you/will you read Harry Potter 7?