YA books – Page 12 – Writing Wrongs

Diversity in YA Book Tour

Two our our 2009 Debs, Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo have put together a Diversity in YA book tour, possibly coming to a city near you starting May 7th!

Where, you ask? Well, in these cities here:

San Francisco | May 7, 2011 at 3 p.m.
— Focus on Asian American YA with Cindy Pon, Gene Luen Yang, and J.A. Yang
San Francisco Public Library (Main Library)
Latino-Hispanic Room
100 Larkin St.
San Francisco, CA 94102

Austin | May 9, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.
— With Bethany Hegedus, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Cindy Pon, Dia Reeves, and Jo Whittemore, and moderated by Varian Johnson
BookPeople
603 N. Lamar
Austin TX 78703

Chicago | May 10, 2011 from 5:30-6:45 p.m.
— With Claudia Guadalupe Martinez, Nnedi Okorafor, and Cindy Pon
Barbara’s Books
1218 South Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60607

Boston | May 12, 2011 at 7 p.m.
— With Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, Deva Fagan, Cindy Pon, and Francisco X. Stork, and moderated by Roger Sutton
Cambridge Public Library (Main Library)
Lecture Hall
449 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02138

New York | May 13, 2011 at 6:30 p.m.
— Focus on LGBT YA with Cris Beam, David Levithan, and Jacqueline Woodson
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011

New York | May 14, 2011 at 1 p.m.
— With Matt de la Peña, Kekla Magoon, Neesha Meminger, Cindy Pon, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Jacqueline Woodson, and moderated by Cheryl Klein
Books of Wonder
18 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011

Want to hear more? Check out Malinda’s vlog:

Even if you can’t make the tour, check out the vlog. How else are you going to learn about the Chinese Twilight?

Teaser Tuesday: 80s awesomeness

It’s that time again!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week, I’m reading Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci. In short:

Rose has given up. She’s given up on friendship, on happiness, on life being anything other than black, black, black. Yrena wants out. She’s a dancer who doesn’t want to dance, a prisoner in her own home, a resident of New York who never gets to see the city. To Rose, Yrena has always been the Russian girl who lives next door, seen through the window but never spoken to.

At least not until Yrena crashes into Rose’s room-and Rose’s life-and sets in motion a night in New York City that none of them will ever forget. From YA superstar Cecil Castellucci, this is the story of cold hearts and cold wars warmed by simple human connection and the liberty of being young and free in the early hours of a new day.

You guys, this book is all 80s, all the time. It has leg warmers, KGB and CIA agents, Dungeons and Dragons, and is so chock full of 80s awesomeness, it’s making me dizzy just thinking about it.

It was difficult to pick a teaser (and mine’s a little long, but really, you need to read all of it–no spoilers, promise), but here it is:

There were perverts in the Bronx. I knew this to be true because my brother, Todd, was a pervert and he lived in Riverdale. I also knew that his dorky friends were perverts, and they were all downstairs in the garage playing Dungeons and Dragons. Right now, my house was Pervert Central.

~ p. 40, Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci

WWW Wednesday

It’s WWW Wednesday over at Should Be Reading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading:

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (the commute read)
Deep Down Popular by Phoebe Stone (on my nightstand)

Just Finished Reading:

Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer (Good, so good. You must read this, especially if you love contemporary YA.)

What to read next:

Oh, the choices, but I’ll probably go with one of my library books:

Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang
Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers

Teaser Tuesday: Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer

It’s Teaser Tuesday over at Should Be Reading. The rules:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teaser:

I let out a tiny laugh; I couldn’t help it. “How can you be lonely when so many people love you?”

~p 134, Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer

Secret project revealed!

Pretty excited about this! Here’s the press release for the 2009 Debutantes e-anthology:

New York Times bestselling author Jessica Verday announces an e-anthology featuring 25 authors from the writers group 2009 Debutantes

The bestselling author of THE HOLLOW Trilogy, Jessica Verday, has gathered 24 other authors for a kind of Young Adult sampler featuring a theme of “Firsts.” The eBook will be published by Verday herself and she will be co-editing with Rhonda Stapleton author of the STUPID CUPID series.

This eBook will give readers a chance to sample the stories of 25 different authors exploring what it’s like to experience something for the first time. From first kiss to first love, there’s no time like the first time.

“This is an innovative way for authors to reach out to readers in a single book that anyone can afford. Readers get the chance to find a new story from some of their favorite authors, and while they’re at it, be introduced to other authors they may not have been able to get to know yet,” says Verday.

The e-anthology will be available on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords. The tentative release date is October 4, 2011.

Contributing authors are: Jessica Verday, Carrie Ryan, Rhonda Stapleton, Cyn Balog, Lauren Bjorkman, Leigh Brescia, Teri Hall, Stacey Jay, C. Lee McKenzie, Janet Gurtler, Jenny Moss, Jackson Pearce, Kristina Springer, Charity Tahmaseb, Jon Skovron, Heidi Kling, Saundra Mitchell, Cheryl Renee Herbsman, Kirstin Cronn-Mills, Lara Zielin, Shani Petroff, Kurtis Scaletta, J.A. Yang, Jennifer Brown, and Sydney Salter.

Cover to be revealed May 2011.

You can read a bit more over at Jessica’s blog.

You know what this means, of course. I am writing under contract. So, I guess I better get busy and do just that.

More updates to come, I’m sure.

WWW Wednesday: the post-Rita edition

It’s WWW Wednesday!

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

On Monday evening, I entered the last score for the Rita books I’ve been reading and heaved a sigh of relief. Not that reading for the contest is a bad thing. It’s the pressure, the list of books waiting for their score. They look so sad, sitting there, scoreless. But no more!

So, now, back to talking about books!

Currently reading:

On the nightstand: The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell ~ the new release from the wonderfully talented Saundra, one of the 2009 Debs.

In the car: Matched by Ally Condie ~ this is a great book–and audio book–so far. Really enjoying my commute this week.

Just finished reading:

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby ~ Wow, this one was … intense, but I got a lot out of it.

Reading next:

For the nightstand: Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer ~ Sara’s debut and I can’t wait to read it.

For the car: The Girl Who Played with Fire by StiegLarsson ~ the first one was a great commute read, minus scratches on the CDs. I have high hopes for this one.

Happy Book Release Day: The Locket by Stacey Jay

2009 Deb Stacey Jay has a new YA novel out today:

The Locket

What if you got a second chance to fix your worst mistake?

What if you found out miracles could happen?

What if you found out that sometimes, miracles are curses in disguise…

One girl, two boys, and one very scary piece of jewelry.

Read the prologue here. Congrats to Stacey! This looks like a fabulous book!

Teaser Tuesday: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“History is a Rorschach test, people,” she said. “What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.”

~ p. 300, Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

L. K. Madigan’s feast of awesome giveaway

The 2009 Debs are celebrating L.K. Madigan’s wonderful books to support her fight against cancer. This past week Lisa shared her very difficult news on her blog.

To show our love and support for her, we’re giving away 40 sets of her two novels over on the 2009 Debs website. Each winner will receive both Flash Burnout and The Mermaid’s Mirror. To enter, simply help spread the love.

Lisa’s first novel, FLASH BURNOUT, won the Morris Award in 2009. Her second novel, THE MERMAID’S MIRROR received a starred review from Booklist.

The contest runs through Monday, January 31^st. Click through to the 2009 Debs website for all the information.

BTT: The Year in Books

From Booking Through Thursday:

What’s the best book you read this year?
Worst?
Favorite?

So many books (I’m at sixty for the year, not sure I’ll make it to sixty one). But let’s drop them into a hat and pull out some winners.

Best book goes to: War by Sebastian Junger.

Worst book goes to: one I read for the Ritas that I cannot (fortunately) disclose. Sorry, I’m not allowed to. Honest.

Favorite book goes to: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Yes, it’s a re-read. I read it last year. In fact, I’m thinking of making it a traditional December read, I love it so much.