Other perspectives

Yesterday, I listened to an interview on NPR with Stephanie Meyers talking about the 10th anniversary re-release of Twilight. It contains bonus material entitled  Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined,  in which Meyer tells her classic story from a male point of view. Bella is replaced by Beau; Edward by Edith.

This was particularly interesting because I am reading Another Day, David Levithan’s retelling of the A and Rhiannon story from Levithan’s highly successful Every Day,  from Rhiannon’s point of view.

It opens on the day that A is Rhiannon’s boyfriend, Justin. It’s been a while since I read Every Day, but I remembered enough of the story. I actually think you could pick this one up and totally enjoy it even without first having read its companion novel.

I really enjoyed Every Day and was a little worried to start a retelling of the story but Leviathan pulls it off. A remains the character we loved and getting some insight into Rhiannon helped me understand her much better. I think, overall, reading  Another Day,  has actually enhanced my enjoyment of Every Day. I think it would be interesting to read the books one right after the other.

Publisher’s Summary: Every day is the same for Rhiannon. She has accepted her life, convinced herself that she deserves her distant, temperamental boyfriend, Justin, even established guidelines by which to live: Don’t be too needy. Avoid upsetting him. Never get your hopes up.

Until the morning everything changes. Justin seems to see her, to want to be with her for the first time, and they share a perfect day—a perfect day Justin doesn’t remember the next morning. Confused, depressed, and desperate for another day as great as that one, Rhiannon starts questioning everything. Then, one day, a stranger tells her that the Justin she spent that day with, the one who made her feel like a real person . . . wasn’t Justin at all.

 

 

#alaac15 – Day 3 – Even better!

Day two was so good I didn’t imagine day 3 could be better, but it was!

I started the day by getting up at 5 so I could make my 6:45 breakfast with Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. We got a huge bag of books and got to hear short speeches from Jack Gantos, Katherine Applegate, and a few others!

I went to the exhibition hall next, which I found a little overwhelming. It is CRAZY what they are giving away! Fortunately, I was mostly on a mission for debut YA we the committee hadn’t heard about yet, so I wasn’t being too greedy. My first stop was Little Brown, where i had a lovely chat with the person there. I felt things were going well, so I asked if they had arcs of A.S. King’s new novel, and I got one!

It turns out the nice person I was talking to was her editor!

From that high, I decided to go back to my room and drop off my load before my committee meeting. By the end of the day, her is what I had, so I am glad I did.

I am really worried about packing on Tuesday morning!

After lunch I headed into my committee meeting. I had met 4 of the 8 others on the William C. Morris Committee the day before, and we’ve met virtually every month. So this was our first face to face. You never know what you sort of mix it will be, but we are a good mix and got a long well. We talked books and logistics, but mostly books.We nominated a few more, rejected some more and assigned some titles. When the meeting was over a few of us went back to the exhibits before our dinner and panel with Random House.

Let me just say, that  have never been wined and dined like I was last night!

We were at a restaurant on the Embarcadero called The Waterbar, which overlooks the Bay Bridge.

After appetizers and drinks on the patio, we moved indoors to  a panel with 3 YA debut novelists, moderated by David Levithan.  The menu was designed around the themes of each of the authors’ books, which we were given! Each course , and there were 4, somehow captured something about each novel. At the end of each course the authors rotated so we could talk with them about their books. It was a spectacular evening.The four of us who went all felt that this might have been one of the best professional evenings of our lives. One of my colleagues got each author to sign his menu!

I got home late, but happy.

 

Better than a Hallmark Movie

Last week, Skyping with my sister, we laughed to discover that we were both reading My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories written by Holly Black, Ally Carter, Matt de La Peña, Gayle Forman, Jenny Han, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Myra McEntire, Rainbow Rowell, Stephanie Perkins, Laini Tayler and Kiersten White.

Now, I love a good holiday tear-jerker and Christmas With Holly  is a cult classic within the basset hound community.

 

But I would turn off Christmas with Holl to read these stories. The blurb says, “If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you’re going to fall in love with MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME: TWELVE HOLIDAY STORIES”.  But this book is no Hallmark Christmas movie. The stories are edgier than Hallmark would ever dare to be, yet still carry the hopes of the holiday season. Magic, humor, reality all mingle together to make a great collection of stories.

So, for a few hours, turn off the Hallmark Channel and pick up My True Love Gave to Me.

2014 Hub Reading Challenge check-in #1

I was a little worried as the week began because I knew it would be a busy one. Would I have enough time to read? Fortunately, Snowmaggedon has helped me out ad I finished two books for the Challenge.

During ELPA testing, I started reading  Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronin-Wills.

What a great read!! I started making a list of all the songs mentioned in the book and wanted to make myself a CD because so many of the titles reminded me of my youth. Although Gabe, the main character is the heart f the story, I was really drawn to John’s story, too. Cronin-Wills has drawn such believable characters, and it is amazing to me that she can write in a teen voice as well as a senior citizen voice.

Because of the winter storm that has shut down the town, I also read Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan. It was a Stonewall Winner.

I was surprised at the poetry of the writing.It weaves together several story lines, all narrated by a chorus of generation of gay men lost to AIDS. In the afterward, Levithan describes the real-life events that inspired the book.

So, in all, I did better this week than I had anticipated. I am looking forward to what next week brings. I just have to wait for the snow to melt and the library to reopen.