Parenthetical.net

I wrote a whole long thoughtful review of Savvy a couple of days ago and thought it had posted happily — only to notice today that it actually crashed my whole blog and then got eaten by WordPress. Rar!

I’m too cranky to re-write the whole thing or to be “fair and balanced,” so you’ll have to make due with the snarky summary version:

Like everyone in her family (including both her grandparents, even though this is apparently genetic), Mibs finds out her special talent, her “savvy,” on her 13th birthday. But her dad ends up in a coma, and her birthday is a whole big roadtripping misadventure with her siblings and the preacher’s kids and a dude who drives a Bible delivery van.

It’s so sweet it’ll make your teeth hurt, there are 14 overwritten similes in the first 11 pages, and everyone loves it but me. Including a lot of kids: it has a loving family and no real danger, so it’s good for the sort of kids who hate problem novels or anything “edgy.” If you have a market for Christian-friendly books, this is probably a good choice. But then, I’m a northeastern liberal atheist Jew, so you might not want to take my word for it.

The end.

(Man, that took like eight minutes. I should write all my reviews this way!)

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Sadly, this post isn’t really about the intersection of those things. (Though if you can think of one, I know a few people who’d want to read it!) I’m just smooshing these two links into one post:

Eldritchhobbit at the LJ community YALitLovers has posted a lengthy list of YA dystopias. (I’ve read a scary number of these. I think there’s something wrong with me that 1980s YA dystopia is my comfort reading.)

My friend Kate and her friend Anneliese have just re-launched their blog, Damned Scribbling Women: “Brainy Bombshells. Red-Hot Romance.” Take a look!

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Ok, I sing Dar Williams unironically and can my own produce, and this book was too hippie even for me:

I opened my hand to give away my last gift, the [weaving] shuttle they had made for me two years ago when I came to live with them. It was the last piece of the life I knew, and I put it in Blue Leaf’s hand. “The gift moves,” I said, somehow letting out the words and keeping in the tears.
“It moves,” she replied.
Blue Leaf and Bone held up their hands and looked at me. I hoped they wouldn’t try to touch me. I didn’t know how to leave.
“Go now, Path,” said Blue Leaf. “Go. Take with you what we have given you. Let it grow. Let it open wide.”

Believe it or not, this is post-apocalyptic science fiction. It’s an agrarian almost-utopia, which I’m starting to see more and more (The Secret Beneath My Skin, The People of Sparks). Only there’s no dis- hiding beneath this utopia. Everyone seems genuinely happy in their post-consumer hippie paradise.

As to whether you’ll like it, that quote is pretty representative of the whole book. There are some cool feats of bioengineering (batteries do grow on trees!), but otherwise… there’s a lot of emotional discussion of leaving and finding homes, a lot of giving gifts and receiving gifts, a lot of people named things like Blue Leaf and Path.

And everything is written like a folk song, which is appropriate because apparently this started out as a folk song, until George Ella (according to the dedication) told the author it “sounded like a story and not a song.” I’m not sure I agree.

Also reviewed at: Curled Up With a Good Book.

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My favorite April Fool’s jokes:

1. ThinkGeek has some brand-new products you might enjoy, including an adorable Tauntaun sleeping bag for the cold little Jedi in your life, a Unicorn Chaser to cleanse your brain next time you’re sorry you looked at that horrible link your sister-in-law sent you, and of course make your breadmeat shine with deliciousness with Squeez Bacon!

2. Get excited for the hottest new reality show, Project Publishing!

3. Let Gmail Autopilot read and respond to all of your mail for you, as it learns your personal style! (Yeah, I know everyone has seen this already, but it’s funny, ok?)

4. Google’s brand-new CADIE technology can also be used to create a blog using optimal design principles [warning: annoying MIDI file].

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Given their “rather fluffy skeletal structure,” Peeps have some special difficulties using the library… but in their research and printing practices, it turns out that they are much like college students.

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On his way back from the Boys’ Island to his coming-of-age feast, Mau survives the giant tidal wave that wipes out his entire Nation. On her way to join her father at his new island governorship, Daphne’s ship is caught in the same wave and runs aground on Mau’s island; she is the only survivor. As more survivors arrive from other islands, Mau and Daphne lead them in building a new Nation.

On one level, this is a rocking adventure, complete with shark attacks, cannibals, and a duel. On another level, it’s a gorgeously philosophical exploration of religion, science, and colonialism:

“Hah, you fall silent,” said the priest. “You are a good child, the women say, and you do good things, but the difference between the trousermen and the Raiders is that sooner or later the cannibals go away!”
“That’s a terrible thing to say!” said Daphne hotly. “We don’t eat people!”
“There are different ways to eat people, girl, and you are clever, oh yes, clever enough to know it. And sometimes the people don’t realize it’s happened until they hear the belch!”

It has some touches of Pratchett’s trademark nonsense, just enough to keep things light, but this is not a silly book. It is a brilliant book that I’m going to be thinking about for awhile, and you should all go read it so you can think about it with me.

It doesn’t hurt that it speaks to one of my literary kinks. [Read more →]

Or at least, a cake pan:

Check out a cake pan from your library

Apparently they have Spiderman and enchanted castles!

Because I’m a librarian, my first thoughts were: a) that must be expensive to send through interlibrary loan, and b) which low-level employee gets stuck with scrubbing the poorly cleaned cake pans? I know, I’m such a killjoy.

(Thanks, Martini-Corona!)

My main gripe with the first Bartimaeus was how much Nathaniel’s chapters dragged as compared with Bartimaeus’s. The Golem’s Eye ameliorates this problem by giving us plenty of the ever-delightful Bartimaeus, and adding a third point of view: Kitty, the young Resistance leader. Nathaniel is also older now, and more of a love-to-hate antihero as he acclimates to the vanity and power struggles of magicians — which are played for laughs as well as drama.

The Resistance was the most interesting part of the first book for me, so I was pleased to get a look inside their “organization” (which, as we see in this book, definitely requires quotes). I’m intrigued by the story of ordinary people fighting back against the totalitarian rule of the magicians, all the more so because the freedom fighters aren’t the sort of people I’d want running my government, either.

It’s a good thing these books are funny, because if they weren’t, they’d be damned depressing. I’m looking forward to making time for Ptolemy’s Gate!

Also reviewed at: Reading Matters, Grumpy Old Bookman, and Seasonal Plume.

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This was a request from Zix, who wanted to know what I thought of this after reading Luna. (I do take requests, btw — if there’s a YA novel you want me to review, just let me know! I’d rather post stuff I know people want to read.)

Parrotfish opens in the middle of Angela’s transition to Grady: he’s already decided he’s done with being a girl, he’s shared his new name with his family, he’s bought some boy’s clothes, and he’s about to tell his teachers about the pronoun switch.

Of course this doesn’t go smoothly. His mom and sister are wigged out, the principal and several teachers are predictably rigid, his best friend can’t deal with the fact that being friends with the school freak makes her a freak, too.

But what’s cool about this book is how many things do go smoothly. [Read more →]

In the immortal words of Jeremy Piven in Grosse Pointe Blank: “Ten years! Ten years! Ten! Years!” Yes, believe it or not, I have owned this domain for an entire decade. It’s been home to everything from passive-aggressive collegiate angst to stories of my travel adventures to this YA lit blog.

I had big plans for some new additions in honor of the anniversary — which was, um, actually 2 weeks ago, on Valentine’s Day — but February turned out to be a more complicated month than anticipated.

Anyway, expect some shiny new stuff ’round about the end of March, when I’ve had two whole weeks of spring break to party, procrastinate, and give my blog some love.

In the meantime, some nostalgia. [Read more →]