All I Want For Christmas (4)

This is a feature/meme where I choose a book each week leading up to Christmas and say why it's made it onto my wishlist. I'd love to see what books everyone else is hoping to get (maybe I'll add a few of them to my own list!) I'll be posting my pick each Monday, but feel free to link up and visit other people's posts all through the week.

This week's pick:


Ward Against Death by Melanie Card

  From Goodreads:

"Twenty-year-old Ward de’Ath expected this to be a simple job—bring a nobleman’s daughter back from the dead for fifteen minutes, let her family say good-bye, and launch his fledgling career as a necromancer. Goddess knows he can’t be a surgeon—the Quayestri already branded him a criminal for trying—so bringing people back from the dead it is.

But when Ward wakes the beautiful Celia Carlyle, he gets more than he bargained for. Insistent that she’s been murdered, Celia begs Ward to keep her alive and help her find justice. By the time she drags him out her bedroom window and into the sewers, Ward can’t bring himself to break his damned physician’s Oath and desert her.

However, nothing is as it seems—including Celia. One second, she’s treating Ward like sewage, the next she’s kissing him. And for a nobleman’s daughter, she sure has a lot of enemies. If he could just convince his heart to give up on the infuriating beauty, he might get out of this alive…"

I think I first paid attention to Ward Against Death when I saw Small Review's review of it. The book doesn't sound like quite my typical style (necromancers not so much, normally), but I keep seeing it getting good responses from bloggers and something about it keeps drawing me back in. I love the sound of Ward's character (yay for the fact that he fits into the New Adult category! I could use this one for my challenge next year!) and their opposites-attract relationship.

The 2012 "New Adult" Challenge!

I've seen some other bloggers start to post sign-ups for challenges for next year, so I thought I'd forge ahead with one of my own.

You've probably heard me talk about this before (most notably here, in my "Dear Publishers" letter), but I'll say it again: we need more "New Adult" novels! Books with protagonists in their late teens or early twenties, post-graduation, fending for themselves in the adult world they have been pushed into. Gap trips, first jobs, college, trade school — I want to see it all!

And for the New Adult novels that *are* being written...I want to see them getting READ.

So...I'm creating a challenge for next year!

The rules:

• The book must feature a protagonist who is past the average age for graduation from high school (18 in most places). If they're sitting on the fence at precisely age 18, then you can make the judgment call on whether it is more YA or New Adult. (If the majority of it is set in high school, I'd classify it as YA.) The protag should be younger than 30, just to give a maximum limit as well (otherwise we're getting into Not-So-New Adult literature!)
• This does *not* mean the book must be of the contemporary genre. If it's a fantasy or dystopian or something and there *is* no concept of "graduation" in that world, then just go by our world's standards in deciding if it counts.
• The levels:
• Just Graduated: read a minimum of 3 New Adult books
• Moving Out: read a minimum of 6 New Adult books
• Living On Your Own: read a minimum of 9 New Adult books
• Fully Independent: read every single New Adult book you can get your hands on
• There will be a giveaway (possibly multiple giveaways?), so if you participate, you will be entered to win!
• You don't have to have a blog to participate, but you must post your reviews somewhere accessible online (eg. Goodreads). 
• For ideas of books to read, check out this Goodreads list (begun by Chachic of Chachic's Book Nook): New Adult Literature. And you might find this list helpful too.

The challenge will run from Jan. 1 - Dec. 31, 2012. Sign up HERE if you would like to join me in my quest to discover more New Adult books (and encourage authors and publishers to produce more!)

UPDATE: there is now a Goodreads group for this challenge!

And you can grab the button here!









<a href="http://atapestryofwords.blogspot.com/2011/11/2012-new-adult-challenge.html"><img border="0" src=" http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx143/atapestryofwords/newadultchallenge2012-2.jpg"/></a>

By the way, is there any interest in having the Read Outside Your Comfort Zone Challenge again next year?

Just Contemporary: The Romance (Guest Post)

It's Week 3 of Just Contemporary month — a blog event devoted to contemporary YA reads, co-hosted by Ashley of Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing and Shanyn of Chick Loves Lit — and I'm swapping guest posts with Bonnie of A Backwards Story! The topic this week is "Romance," and here's Bonnie's thoughts on it...

Romance is a tricky topic. Normally, I would say that I don’t read romance novels. In reality, that isn’t true. I may not peruse the romance aisle at my local bookstore or buy books from such authors, but almost everything we read has romance in it. My favorite type of romance is one that doesn’t overpower the story. I don’t want something shallow tied up with a bow where you know exactly what you’re getting from beginning to end. Even in fairy tales, there’s a lot of action, adventure, and fantasy along the way. It’s not just “Knight meets princess/they fall in love/they live happily ever after.

That being said, my feelings on this topic are why I steered away from YA Contemporary Fiction for so long. I thought all the books were straight-forward romances. And when I was growing up, more often than not they were. But today, there are so many types of fiction and romance isn’t necessarily the central plot. Even when it is, the development isn’t necessarily easy or straight-forward.

Take, for example, one of the most heart-wrenching novels I’ve read in a long time: FORBIDDEN by Tabitha Suzuma. This novel tore me to shreds and left my heart festering on the table in jagged hunks upon reaching the end. Its effect on me was profound. Initially, I didn’t even want to read the book because the subject matter is so taboo, but a much-trusted blogger friend convinced me to give it a try (She previously had the same concerns). This is one book I’m infinitely glad to have read despite everything. This is one book where the relationship is never easy or right. Lochan and Maya, the two central characters, even know that their love is squicky and forbidden, but they can’t help it, and by voicing the reader’s own thoughts, they are embraced and loved. I found myself rooting for them and for a happy ending because they truly deserved one.

Granted, I don’t always read such painful novels (unless, of course, I’m reading the latest book by my favorite adult author, Jodi Picoult, but that’s another story altogether). Sometimes, I find that I still have room in my heart to embrace lighter titles. I never thought I’d read something called ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS...let alone love it...but Stephanie Perkins knows how to hook readers in and pull them along for the ride. While the book sounds—and looks, if you judge a book by its cover—like a traditional romance novel, there’s so much more to Anna and Étienne’s story. While it is a book where you know the main couple will ultimately wind up together, the journey is more important than the pivotal moment. The ambiance of Paris, the scariness of being away from home for the first time and forced to live at boarding school, and the joys of a close-knit group of friends play more of a part in a novel with the word KISS in the title than you might otherwise think. In this book’s case, I almost think there was too little romance. The characters worked so hard to get together that I would have liked to spend more time in the “happily ever after” bubble that most romances have in surplus. But a book such as ANNA is the exception for me, not the norm.

There are still plenty of contemporary YA romances I haven’t read and, truth be told, probably won’t read. Maybe even titles I should be regretting not having read. I regretted not reading ANNA before this past spring after realizing how amazing it was. I’m more open to the genre than I was before, especially since I’m writing my own novel and finding it has more contemporary elements and more romance than I’m used to. It’s always good to read in one’s own genre. At this point in time, I’m most likely to pick up a more straight-forward romance if it’s been recommended by others who love it and/or been compared to books I love. Two books that I picked up/will pick up due to ANNA are RHYMES WITH CUPID by Anna Humphrey, which I recently read and enjoyed, and upcoming 2012 debut novel THE FINE ART OF TRUTH OR DARE by Melissa Jensen.

So... I’m open to suggestions. What would you recommend to a gal like me?

Note: Mark your calendars! A Backwards Story will be participating in Book Savvy Babe’s Black Friday Blog Hop from Nov. 25th to Nov. 27th. Don’t miss your chance to stop by my blog and enter to win the adorable contemporary YA romance novel RHYMES WITH CUPID by Anna Humphrey!!!

I was very impressed with both Forbidden and Anna and the French Kiss, so we are in complete agreement, Bonnie! :) 

If you'd like to read my list of dos and don'ts for romance in contemp YA, hop on over to Bonnie's blog here!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Lost Girl and The Gathering Dark

Casey at The Bookish Type has started up a new meme for highlighting recent book deals that have been announced! These are for books at the stage where they don't yet have a cover or official synopsis. I always feel like the books only really start getting attention once they have a cover, so I'm excited about this meme!

My picks:

The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna

There's not a lot to go on yet, but what there is sounds awesome!

From the author's blog:

"It's a book about a girl, and a copy of that girl; it's a story about death and echoes and impossible, reckless love." 

And a FAQ giving a bit more info:

"How did you come up with the idea for THE LOST GIRL?

A mixture of Frankenstein and Tim Burton and a hot afternoon in Bangalore. The thought of making a person from scratch is both creepy and kind of appealing to me. And once the idea of stitching a human being together took hold, it wouldn't go away. A girl started taking shape in my head. Smokily, foggily, at first. Then she stopped being smoke and became real. She was a copy of somebody else. She loved the wrong people. She was angry and sad and lovely and I wanted to write about her."

From Goodreads: "A girl forced to choose between two worlds."

Stats: scheduled for 2012, from HarperCollins Children's Books in U.S. and Random House Children's Books in U.K.

I want to know more! The Franksteinian aspect sounds kind of creepy and unsettling, but at this point I'm not sure exactly what genre it's in. Just that my interest is definitely piqued!

The Gathering Dark by Christine Johnson

From Goodreads: "Christine Johnson’s THE GATHERING DARK, about a gifted pianist who discovers that she and the mysterious boy she’s falling for are part of an alternate world made from dark matter, and in a race of love against fear, she must somehow save her life without losing herself."

Stats: scheduled for Fall 2012, from Simon Pulse

And the author has provided a visual idea of the book on her blog:

I haven't read Christine Johnson's books Claire de Lune and Nocturne (I'm not big on werewolves), but The Gathering Dark definitely appeals to me more. The premise stands out among other YA reads and I'm interested to see how the physics aspect of it (an alternate world of dark matter?!) is handled, along with the connection to music.

What recent book deals have you discovered! Join the meme on Casey's blog and share!

 

Kiss, Marry, Kill: the Books of Bayern

This is a regular feature on my blog. Here's how it works: you take a book, choose 3 guy characters from the book, and then the other person has to pick one to kiss, one to marry, and one to kill.

And this time around it's the Books of Bayern series by Shannon Hale!

 The choices are...

1.) Geric

2.) Razo

3.) Finn


So...who do you kiss, who do you marry, and who do you kill? And as always, if you'd like to join up and do your own, feel free to mention it in the comments or leave a link to your post there :)