Books that kick ass despite being about boys

When I started this seldom-updated blog, my mission was to write about books featuring strong girls.  Not so much in opposition to books about boys, as much as in opposition to books about weak girls who are saved by boy strong boys.

But because of this mission, I often refrain from gushing about a book that knocks my socks off simply because it's not about a strong heroine.  But I just read T.H. Mafi's post and was totally inspired.

So for this post, I'm going to share with you my story of how I met my "magical friend" and give you my official list of "Books About Boys that Rocked My World."

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone came out when I was in high school.  Of course I didn't read it.  It's a children's book and I was a teenager and thus stayed away from anything that could pin me as a child.

I had heard all about Harry Potter, who hadn't? But it just seemed so silly.  I even saw the first movie, but was not all that impressed.  It was long and had this silly sport on broomsticks.

I didn't start reading Harry Potter until grad school.  I was student-teaching in an 8th grade class and found that every student had Potter on the brain.  They talked about muggles and Quidditch, and I just didn't get it.  It was like a different language.  I couldn't relate.

So, in an effort to be a better teacher, I started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  I was hooked.  Any scrap of free-time was now filled with Hogwarts.

I was earning my masters while student teaching.  I was the busiest and most exhausted I'd ever been in my life and all I could think about was getting home to bed with my cat and some tea so I could be swept away to Hogwarts.

I was amazed by how immersed in that other world I became.  I was shocked by how strongly I felt for these characters.  (I'm still not over Sirius).  It was truly magical.  And it was the gateway drug.

Harry Potter led to Lemony Snicket which led to The Golden Compass and all of a sudden this huge world of YA literature opened up to me.  My childhood ambition to be a children's fantasy writer was reignited.
I was teaching and writing my masters's thesis, while wishing I could write about kids with magical powers.  But my career was already set, so I didn't give writing much *serious* thought.  Plus, how does anyone go about becoming a "writer" anyway?  I was going to be a teacher.

Eight years later and that ambition has not faded, but grown.  As much as I love my students, I wish I could spend more time writing stories for them to get lost in instead of preparing them for state tests. So I lead a double life, teaching and writing.

Part of me wishes that I had read Harry Potter when I was in high school.  Maybe I would have recognized my dream then.  Maybe I could have chosen a sensible path to writer-dom and majored in literature and gotten my MFA or gone into publishing or...something.  Maybe things wouldn't seem so hard now.  Or maybe I needed my adult brain to understand and appreciate the best children's literature.

All I know is, today a student mentioned "Harry Potter's owl" and I felt an immediate tightening in my chest.  I know Hedwig's fate and like most parts of this next Potter film, I'm both anticipating and dreading it.

So, in celebration of the latest Potter film, here is--in no particular order--my list of
Books About Boys that Rocked my World

The entire Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling (if you don't like it, then we can't be friends.  That simple)

The entire Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan (I've heard it criticized for being too similar to Potter.  But in the same vein, Potter can be criticized for being similar to Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.  It's the epic hero's journey, people!  The greatest story ever told (over and over again).  So, to the critics I say: shut up and go read some Joseph Campbell)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (not YA, and not a strong girl to be found, but a damn good book)

Looking for Alaska by John Green (if you consider yourself a fan of YA and have not read this, then you need to correct that problem immediately)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie  (people say boys don't read.  Have you tried giving them this?)

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (ah-may-zing.  Can't really say if it's about a boy, and ain't that the point?  this is a contemporary hero's journey)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (some make fun of it for being pretentious, but that doesn't make this novel any less brilliant)

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (not a novel, but another book that pushed me over he edge and got me to actually sit down and start writing)

That's my list.  What's yours?

Rooting for the dark side in PERSONAL DEMONS by Lisa Desrochers

For some reason, the cover of Lisa Desrochers's Personal Demons didn't strike me as YA.  And being the idiot I am, this prevented me from reading it at first.  Even the hubby saw the book on my nightstand and said, "What? You're reading porn now?"  (Ok, hubby is definitely NOT an expert on all things literary).  All I'm saying is, listen to your mom and don't judge a book by its cover.

Personal Demons is the best angel/demon book I've read.  I loved that we got two perspectives: Fanny, the heroine's, and Luc's, the demon who's trying to tag her soul for hell.

I also loved that--unlike most paranormal romances--we don't spend half the book trying to figure out what kind of paranormal creature the hot new guy at school is, and what he wants.  We know on page 2 that Luc is a demon and he wants Fanny's soul in hell.  Fair enough.

It's hard for one's personal theology not to influence the reading of a book about hell, demons, angels, and heaven.  Luc is such a steamy character and the chemistry between him and Fanny is so hot, that it didn't take long for me to root for the demon.  Even when Luc himself hesitates in marking Fanny for eternal damnation, I was thinking, "Come on!  Just drag her to hell!  You can burn eternally together!"  Maybe more devout readers didn't go that far.

This book definitely gets better and better, the farther you get into it.  At first I was annoyed because Fanny's brain seemed to turn to mush when she was around Gabe and Luc (the two hot "new" guys in town).  I kept thinking, "OK, no one's THAT hot that you can't form coherent sentences."  But then I realized that it was Gabe's angelic and Luc's demonic powers that set Fanny's hormones
and thoughts all a flutter.

Then Luc started acting funny too and I thought, "OK, in his thousands of years of existence, this dude has to have seen a pretty girl, what's his deal?"  And this is the best part.  Luc acts strange around Fanny because she has a power that blows both his and Gabe's abilities out of the water.  You know I love me a powerful female.

The potential of Fanny's power and the spicy hot scenes with Luc kept me up at night reading.  Again, it was kind of strange rooting for Fanny to turn to the dark side.  "Come on Fanny, sleep with the demon already!  Commit the mortal sin of lust!  An eternity in hell is SO worth it!  He's so hot!"  This is definitely one of the sexiest YA novels I've read in a while.

Personal Demons does not read as young as other YA books, but since I'm a grown-up reading YA, I really didn't mind.  But if you're a 15-year-old looking for a story with prom, cheerleaders, and tons of teen angst, then this might not be the book for you.  Other than that, I'd recommend Personal Demons to any fan of the paranormal romance genre.

I can't wait to see what Fanny does with her power in the sequel, Original Sin.

To NaNo or not to NaNo?

Hello Junkies!  Oh, how I've missed you!

I've been revising my little (well, not so little) tooshie off and doing a whole lot more writing than reading.

And all this writing and revising brings me to my latest conundrum: to NaNo or not to NaNo?  I'll admit it, I'm a NaNo virgin.

As you probably all know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  The goal is for writers across the country to turn off their inner editors and write copious amounts of fiction with reckless abandon.  The specific goal is 50,000 words in 30 days.

Every November for the last couple of years, I've watched others participate in the project and I've had the same reaction year after year: Aww, aren't they cute?

Last year, two of my co-workers (fellow English teachers) sent out an email explaining NaNoWriMo, pledging their goals, and inviting others to participate.

I scoffed.  I'm a real writer.  I've been banging my head against the keyboard every single day for years.  I don't need a designated month to pretend to be a writer.

My coworkers went on to talk about their "novels" they wrote in November.  They had family members actually read their NaNo draft!  Scoff, scoff, scoff. 

This all seemed so silly.  I'm a serious writer (don't even say writing about kids with magic powers is not serious).  I don't need some internet uncontest in order to torture myself over prose.  I do that everyday anyway.

But the thing is, I kind of want to do it.

I'm currently querying agents for a ms, so my revising is done for now and I really need something to prevent me from going crazy checking my email every ten seconds.  And I have this new bright shiny idea I want to play with.  Part of me thinks it's a stupid, unmarketable idea, but I can spare a month to see where it goes, right?

But what about all my scoffing?  Am I cheapening myself as a writer by participating?  (ok, I'm an unagented, unpublished writer, so really I'm already as cheapened as they come).

But the interwebs are full of positive tid bits promoting NaNo.

Did you know Carrie Ryan wrote the first draft of The Forest of Hands and Teeth as a NaNo project?  I love The Forest of Hands and Teeth!

And I'm all about the shitty first draft philosophy.  I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pantser and for me it's about just getting SOMETHING on the page to work with when writing a first (or second, or third...) draft.  And that's what NaNo's all about, right?

Then I stumbled across this image from commenter Kristen on Nathan Bransford's post about NaNo.

Well, I take my novel-writing seriously.  And I've finished two novels, but I've never had writing deadlines, so the latter is definitely scarier.  What's a girl to do?

Also, the public aspect of NaNo frightens me.  I believe in Stephen King's advice from On Writing: "Write with the door closed.  Revise with the door open."

My first drafts are so private.  I don't even like trying to explain what I'm writing about until I'm ready to pitch.  I'm afraid I'll feel like I'm peeing with the door open if I'm constantly posting word counts and such.

And what about my scoffing?  How hypocritical am I if I do NaNo after all my internal scoffing?  (ok, there's lots of reasons I could be considered hypocritical, but still)

But then see inspiring videos  like the one below from Jackson Pearce that make me start jumping in my seat and whining, "I wanna do it Tooooooo."

When it comes down to it, these are my concerns:


What if I fail?  I'm not good at failing.  I know this is supposed to be an everyone is a winner type of thing, but if I commit to doing this and don't have 50,000 words by Novemeber 30th, then I'll probably hate myself a little.  At least for a day or two.


Really, I don't have time.  But then again, that's never stopped me from doing anything.


What if the other NaNoers don't like me? (I did scoff at them)  I keep hearing about this great NaNo community, which only triggers my social phobia/paranoia.  What if I'm rejected by the NaNo clique?


OK, so I'd love to hear from experienced NaNo participants.  Should I do it?  Are there other NaNo virgins out there thinking of going all the way?

Evie tases her way to normal in PARANORMALCY by Kiersten White

So, sometimes when there's tons of hype surrounding a book, I'm tempted to automatically discount it.  It can't be THAT good right?

So I'd heard Paranormalcy by Kiersten White was funny.  I'd heard Evie, the teen heroine, used a pink sparkly taser to "bag and tag" vampires.  I'd heard the book poked fun at the whole paranormal romance genre.

Guess what?  The peoples on the interwebs were right!

One quick stop at Kiersten White's amazing blog will confirm that this chick is funny.  Paranormalcy has the same light-hearted tone as White's blog, which is awesome.

Paranormalcy reminded me of the movie Clueless, in a way.  The main character and plot seem very superficial at first.  But it's written so intelligently that you can't help but laugh and root for the heroine as she learns to be less selfish and discovers something deeper about herself and about life.

I loved how White threw in a few jabs at YA vampire romances.  The opening scene is hilarious as Evie tases a vamp and rants about how ridiculous it is that vampires think they're sexy.  She even uses the word "shimmery" to describe a vampire in an ironic way and I couldn't help but think of that as a direct poke at a certain franchise.  I also loved when, towards the end of the book, a vampire tells Evie, "Why on earth would a vampire go to high school?"  Hilarious!

The romance is so sweet and refreshing.  There was no I-love-you-but-kind-of-want-to-kill-you,  No I-love-you-but-our-love-will-probably-destroy-the-universe, and No I-love-you-but-I'm-so-damaged-from-my-hundred-year-old-past-so-I'm-really-mean-to-you.

It was more like, I-really-like-you-I-hope-your-dad-doesn't-catch-us-making-out-on-the-couch and then some I-think-I-love-you-but-I hope-you-accept-me-for-who-I-am-with-all-my-weirdness.

White shows us that we can have a paranormal novel with NORMAL teens.  We can read about teens who get grounded, love shopping sprees, eat pizza, and go to prom.  They also happen to have paranormal abilities and, you know, murderous faeries hunting them.

If you love paranormal romaces, or hate them, read Paranormalcy.  You won't be disappointed.

I can't wait for Supernaturally!

  

Janie does it in her sleep in WAKE by Lisa McMann

Like any good addict, I have crazy dreams.  I fly, I swim, I bounce around from place to place.  I was a little disappointed with Inception and how normal the dreams were.

In Wake by Lisa McMann, Janie is sucked into people's dreams.  I loved the lyrical style of the book, especially the beginning when we slip in and out of people's dreams with Janie.  Our dreams can be very intimate and revealing, but McMann didn't hold back in describing the sleeping images flashing through teenagers' heads.

I also enjoyed the love story.  Cabel is my new literary crush, who knew scars could be so sexy?



I really enjoyed the first half of the book.  But the second half started becoming too unbelievable for me.

SPOILER ALERT!

I just didn't buy that Cabel was an undercover teenage cop.  The way that was handled came across as very unbelievable to me.  Sure, I can believe a girl can slip into someone's dreams and control them, but I can't believe law enforcement would behave that way.

But the well written dream sequences and the realistic romance were enough for me to enjoy Wake.

The sequel, Fade, on the other hand is a different story.  As a high school teacher, I can be very picky about the way high school is portrayed in YA.  High schools are already dramatic conflict-flled places, we don't need over-the-top and outlandish crimes to be committed in order for teenagers to experience conflict and feel unsafe.

I thought Fade was completely unrealistic.  I get it, it's a fantasy, but if the story is based in the real-world, I need something real in that world to hold on to.

There are teachers who do horrible things.  We didn't need the over-the-top, sensationalized villainy in order for Janie to be in danger.  I think the story would've been scarier if the high school setting was more realistic.

I also didn't buy the conflict between Cabel and Janie.  It wasn't consistent with Cabel's character and teenagers aren't usually that cognizant of their feelings and why they behave the way they do.

I liked Wake, but was disappointed with Fade.  I won't be reading Gone unless someone convinces me it has at least one foot in reality.