katayla | (no subject)

So nosing around Diana Peterfreund's website, I found a description for her next book:

RAMPANT, a tale of killer unicorns, will be released in summer of 2009 by Harper Collins.

Forget everything you ever knew about unicorns…

The sparkly, innocent creatures of lore are a myth. Real unicorns are venomous, man-eating monsters with huge fangs and razor-sharp horns. And they can only be killed by virgin descendants of Alexander the Great.

Fortunately, unicorns have been extinct for a hundred and fifty years.

Or not.

And now I love her even more.

And since I'm in reading mode, here are some random book recs for you:

1. Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons From a Writing Life by Terry Brooks. I know everyone talks about Stephen King's On Writing, but I vastly prefer this book. Terry Brooks and I seem to share a lot of them same ideas about writing. It's a lot of hard work, of course it is, but it is magic. Some of his phrases sum up exactly what goes on in my brain when I write. (And yet I haven't read any of his other books. Very bad of me.)

2. A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle. I don't know how many people have read L'Engle's nonfiction, but it's amazing. This book isn't just about writing, but also about life, and, like Terry Brooks, L'Engle says so many things that I feel.

3. The Benni Harper Mysteries by Earlene Fowler (the first one is Fool's Puzzle). My mom got me into these books and I think her mom got her into them. Does that make them sound old? They're not. The first one was published in 1994 and they've been coming out pretty regularly ever since. The 14th is due out next year. These books are beautifully written and the mysteries are always well-crafted. And they're about so much more than mysteries. They're about Benni figuring out life. And there's a healthy dose of romance, but not the back-and-forth, will they/won't they thing. There's natural progression, dealing with problems, and it stays interesting with the characters as a well established couple (TV writers take note!).

4. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. This one is very mainstream, but I think people sometimes get turned off by books like that. And I love this book. I've read it many times (well, that goes for all the books on the list). Books like this, where we get to see the characters learn and grow (or not grow, as the case may be) over the course of their lives, are incredible when done right (as this one is!). (I've only read one of Kingsolver's other books and didn't really like it. But this one is an all-time favorite.)

So everyone go out and read these books!!! And give me books to read! (Look at all the parentheses in this entry. I love parentheses. Even if I can't spell parentheses without the help of Firefox spell-checking.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sometimes I think the problem is . . . what's the opposite of dated? The books seem very much about the teenager now, which I can't relate to. But characters like Bella and Harry . . . those are the ones who are going to last. The books are set "now", but not so much so that you won't be able to understand them in twenty years.

I'm much less critical of other book interpretations no

Maybe I should see it for that reason! I'm not as bad I used to be, but there's always that little voice in my head saying, "But that's not how it was in the book."

They're too modern. Maybe I just had a very sheltered, conservative childhood, but some of the stuff people in the newer YA novels do boggle my mind. When I was in high school sex wasn't something we talked about all of the time (and it's not something my friends and I talk about all of the time now either) but that seems to be the focus of so many books.

It might be worth it! Given there's barely anything left that resembles the novel, save some of the character names, others films seem to follow their novels almost word for word.

I feel the same way! It makes me start questioning whether I went through high school with my eyes closed or something. My friends and I didn't talk about sex much, we didn't do drugs, etc. I wasn't completely naive--I knew that stuff went on--but it didn't really affect me, either. I don't have a problem with sex in YA, but, sheesh, my friends and I were much more concerned with just getting boyfriends in the first place.

And I graduated six years ago, so could things have really changed that much? Are teens really talking this way now?

I know there were girls that were having sex in high school, and people who drank/used drugs, but we had so many other things going on that it wasn't a big deal for us. And no one really cared if you were or weren't into that sort of thing.

I know there are girls having sex at 12 now, but I hope that's the exception and not the norm. Although from some of the novels out there I wonder. Are they really sleeping with one anothers boyfriends and facing pregnancy scares every other week? Maybe I'm strange, but I'm not into that sort of thing, and I don't want to read about it really, either.

Yeah, maybe that's it. We just didn't CARE as much as the people in these books do. We had school to worry about, after all!

I wonder that, too. I know teens are having sex, but I don't think that means they're sleeping around. And I think (or would like to think, at least) that the decision to have sex is something that's still, well, a decision. Not just something that "everyone" does.