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!)
6 responses so far ↓
1 Kate Diamond // May 17, 2009 at 5:52 pm
I just posted about the Buffy/Twilight tee. And I linked to you in my post. Good times!
Also, this may be a little outside your range of reading, but I’m looking for some YA romance… I’ve read my way through Sarah Dessen and Deb Caletti. Do you know of any other consistent authors who write that sort of book?
Yes, I’m attempting to write YA…
2 Sam // May 21, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Oh, sister, I teach at a girls’ school. Me and YA romances are like this. (And I’m so excited you’re going to write one!)
My top YA romance suggestion (other than the ones you mentioned) is Maureen Johnson. I’m working on Suite Scarlett right now, and it’s got all the right elements (except for the fact that Scarlett’s brother is written so hot, I suspect Scarlett has a crush on him herself… I trust this is unintentional).
Joan Bauer (Thwonk, Squashed) writes girls-kick-ass stories with a romance element. Lauren Myracle (TTYL, Rhymes with Witches) tends to write for tweens more than older teens, but the kids sure do love her. Gabrielle Zevin (Elsewhere, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac) is both literary and marvelously romantic, and I have yet to meet a girl who didn’t adore her books — they really cross genre. And David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy remains one of my absolute favorite YA romances.
(You probably don’t need me to tell you about Meg Cabot, but in case you do: Meg Cabot! Start with Teen Idol rather than the Princess Diaries franchise.)
3 Kate Diamond // May 22, 2009 at 7:34 pm
You’re right. I’ve already read tons of Meg Cabot.
Just reserved some Gabrielle Zevin and Maureen Johnson at the library. Good times.
Boy Meets Boy does sound adorable… and I say this as a teacher who does a book talk on it at least once a month. I think I’ll wait for the plot details to fade in my mind before I read it for myself.
4 Cybils reviews // Feb 18, 2010 at 1:27 pm
[...] get enough books about friendship and Learning About Themselves — the girls who loved Savvy — this is a solid choice. But as a potential award winner, I didn’t think it [...]
5 Claudia // Jun 7, 2010 at 1:03 pm
If you liked “Savvy,” you should definitely check out the companion book, “Scumble,” also by Ingrid Law–it’s coming out this summer!
6 The Teashop Girls, by Laura Schaefer // Oct 6, 2010 at 4:19 pm
[...] should be nice, for the nice people” (TM Adorablog) category, along with 11 Birthdays and Savvy and Shug and whatnot. It’s sweet from beginning to cake recipe appendix and has an [...]
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