A Book Review Starring "Gabi A Girl in Pieces" by Isabel Quintero

The short version:
Gabi Hernandez keeps a journal during her senior year of high school in a Southern California border town, during which she grapples with being an overweight, smart Mexican girl in a traditional Catholic Mexican family and community. Over the course of the year she discovers a love for poetry, her first boyfriends and when to stand up for herself (and her friends), among other things.

The long version:
Where to start?

Utterly charming.

Smart, funny, witty, ascorbic, emotional, contemplative, all within the voice of an 18 year old Mexican-American girl.

It's clear from the beginning how much love and attention Quintero has invested in all of her characters. Not only is Gabi a main character you root for and identify with from the start, but her supporting characters (of which there are more than a handful) are so full and have such complete, individual emotional lives too.

She touches on so many issues but does so within Gabi's voice and perspective, from sexism and double standards in Mexican-American culture to how deeply drug addiction affects an entire family; from how weight affects self-image to when and when not to stand up for what you believe in. There's drug addition, there's sex, there's sexual assault, so much is going on in Gabi's world and Quintero has managed it all with grace, gravity and humor all while keeping her character's voice consistent. It could have easily devolved into kitchen-sink-hood but it never did.

In an age where we're all talking about diversity-diversity-diversity, Quintero has given us not only a story full of diversity but first and foremost a fabulous read (and we all know that just because a story is diverse doesn't mean it's fun to read).

I couldn't put it down.

It's one of the best young adult novels I've read this year.

ps

The cover. Was I in love with it? No. It's a hard sell from the perspective of a browsing patron, I think. It's not easy to glance at and take it in, there's a lot going on, and I wasn't sure it matched with the story I was reading. I felt less so after getting to the point later in the story where the cover art corresponds with the story. But still. I'd love to hear what other readers have to say about it.

Read to the Rhythm: 2015 Summer Reading Club

It's not even 2015 yet but my head wants to get in the Summer-Reading-Club game. Perhaps because the theme gets to me and my love of music. Or maybe because of the infinite possibilities swimming in my brain when it comes to marrying books and music, or music and the library.

One thing that always gets me come summer reading club programming is just how divorced programs are from actual books or other sundry library items. With the exception of displaying a few books related to a program, we really don't marry the two often despite being the library.

So I'm thinking of creating book-specific inspired programming that will allow me to book-talk a music themed book and present a craft inspired by that book.

Let me begin with what so many great things begin with. A Booklist.

ROCK ON READING!
MUSIC THEMED YOUNG ADULT NOVELS

MUSIC LOVERS

Audrey Wait!, Robin Benway

Ballads of Suburbia, Stephanie Keuhnert

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, Kristin Cohn-Mills

Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell

Fat Kids Rule the World, K.L. Going

For What It’s Worth, Janet Tashjian

Girl, Blake Nelson

Hairstyles of the Damned, Joe Meno

Heavy Metal and You, Christopher Krovatin

How to Rock, Meg Haston

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, Stephanie Keuhnert

Just Listen, Sarah Dessen

King Dork, Frank Portman

Lovestruck Summer, Melissa Walker

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Notes From the Blender, Trish Cook

Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chblosky

Supergirl Mixtapes, Meaghan Brothers

When We Were Good, Suzanne Sutherland

BEING A MUSICIAN

Audition and Subtraction, Amy Fellner Dominy (clarinet)

Always A Catch, Peter Richmond (piano)

Being Friends With Boys, Terra Elan McVoy (singing)

Chopsticks, Jessica Anthony (piano)

Disenchantments, Nina LaCour (rock band)

Drummer Girl, Karen Bass (drummer)

Glee series, Sophia Lowell (singing)

Guitar Notes, Mary Amato (guitar, cello)

Honeycomb, Patricia McCowan (guitar)

I’m Glad I Did, Cynthia Weil (songwriter)

If I Stay and Where She Went, Gayle Forman (cello)

In The Band, Jean Haus (drummer)

Lemonade Mouth, Mark Peter Hughes (rock band)

The Lucy Variations, Sara Zarr (piano)

Matthew Meets The Man, Travis Nichols (drummer)

My Misadventures as a Teenage Rock Star, Joyce Raskin (rock band)

No Place to Fall, Jaye Robin Brown (singing)

Paradise, Jill Alexander (drummer)

Power Chord, Ted Staunton (rock band)

Prom and Prejudice, Elizabeth Eulberg (piano)

Rockstar Superstar, Blake Nelson (bass)

The Scar Boys, Len Vlahos (rock band)

Screaming Divas, Suzanne Kamata (rock band)

Second Fiddle, Rosanne Parry (fiddle)

Sister Mischief, L. Goode (rap)

Skinny, Donna Cooner (singing)

Ten Miles Past Normal, Frances O’Roark Dowell (rock band)

This Song Will Save Your Life, Leila Sales (DJing)

Virtuosity, Jessica Martinez (violin)

Wise Young Fool, Sean Beaudoin (rock band)

BEING A STAR

Amplified, Tara Kelly

Big Time, Tom Ryan

Born to Rock, Gordon Korman

The Daughters Take The Stage, Joanna Philbin

Rockoholic, C.J. Skuse

On The Right Track, Sam Kadence

Open Road Summer, Emery Lord

Pop, Catherine Bruton

Pop Princess, Rachel Cohn

Rock Star, Adrian Chamberlain

Sound of Us, Ashley Poston

Wildflower, Alecia Whitaker

FANTASY

Awoken, Timothy Miller

The Girl Who Became A Beatle, Greg Taylor

Chantress series, Amy Butler Greenfield

Seraphina, Rachel Hartman

Strange Sweet Song, Adi Rule

Younger Adult Reader of the Day: Stephen Colbert

Alright, Younger Adult reader of the day some day last June.

Were we not all collectively cheering (not at the same time at 11:45pm on a weeknight, thanks to our DVR culture that allows us to collectively do things independently on our own time) when John Green rocked The Colbert Report on Monday, June 23rd.

And did we not all fall in love with Stephen Colbert for the millionth time when he said:

"As far as I can tell a young adult novel is a regular novel that people actually read."

Spoken like a true father of teenaged children.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-a-young-adult-novel-is-a-regular-novel-that-people-actually-read-20140624-story.html

A Book Review Starring "Lies My Girlfriend Told Me" by Julie Anne Peters

The short version:
When Alix's girlfriend of six weeks Swanee dies of an aneurysm, Alix learns that Swan isn't the girl she thought she loved and so much more.

The long version:
Here's the thing.

There are so few authors writing young adult novels with gay or lesbian main characters. If you have fewer authors, you have a smaller pool of those kinds of books to recommend to potential readers. And if you have a smaller pool, perhaps as a result the quality of books may not rise to the level of greatness you would like.

Conversely speaking, it's nice to know that the pool of young adult gay and lesbian novels is so big today that we have a nice variety that includes those average relationship melodramas that may not rise to the level of a well-written, quality, creative novel but is nice enough to feature out lesbian teens in a narrative in which they are done coming out and we can move onto other, perhaps more entertaining, lighter storylines.

This is my second Peters novel. I feel much the same way as I did after the first. I find her novels lack character development, she writes main characters I not only don't like (not that it's a prerequisite, but it helps to keep me involved in the story) but don't feel they make logical decisions or are terribly interesting or compelling in some basic way. Rather, they make decisions in accordance with the story the author wanted to write ahead of time. I find her plotting and dialogue meandering, the secondary characters flat and one-dimensional.

I'm conflicted. Because there are so few young adult novels for the teen lesbian audience and because out of those that do exist a good portion of them are of the coming-out variety, it's nice to have books to recommend in which lesbians both feature prominently and they're doing something other than deliberating over coming out. And it's a cute cover that's pretty representative of the book, which is nice.

As an adult reader of young adult, I can't recommend this book. But I'm not sure that would stop me from suggesting it to a teen reader who's accustomed to that level or quality of writing and doesn't have enough lesbian young adult novels to choose from.

A Book Review Starring "Some Assembly Required" by Arin Andrews

The short version:
Oklahoma teen Arin Andrews recounts his childhood and adolescence, struggling to identify and articulate his gender dysphoria, coming out to his mother and family and falling in love as he realizes his true self.

The long version:
It's both really special and a little unfortunate that this book is so intertwined with Katie Rain Hill's "Rethinking Normal," her memoir recounting her own childhood and adolescence overcoming gender dysphoria. Great in the sense that we have two people who discover their transgender selves separately and together, and also together as a couple (which adds a little bit of special novelty). But also maybe a little unfortunate in that, given they follow the same general format (perhaps because they were both published by Simon & Schuster at the same time) in terms of both narrative and physical structure (with the same style of inserted picture at the beginning of each chapter) you can't help as a result to compare the two in terms of narrative. It's inevitable, but somewhere along the way I put that aside and was happy that I did so.

This book is wonderful on multiple counts. Aside from its being the first of its kind to confide in readers the journey of a transgender teen, it manages to be graceful and well written. Andrews recounts his tale with such great detail for recall of past events and ability to describe his feelings as he felt them at the time. What a great feat he's accomplished. He takes you on his journey and manages to never lose you as a reader (with the able assistance of his co-writer).

And being that I'm a sucker for a good cover, I really loved this one.

Younger Adult Reader of the Day: movie producer Nina Jacobson

From the November 16th New York Times Magazine:

Nina Jacobson, prolific movie producer of "The Hunger Games" trilogy among others. When asked if she had:

"any feelings about whether adults should be so into reading Y.A. novels?"

She answered:

"To me, a great story well told is a great story well told, and just because the protagonist is a young adult doesn’t mean that story has less merit or worth than if the protagonist is a full-grown adult."

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/nina-jacobson-isnt-afraid-to-fight-hollywoods-old-guard.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A13%22%7D&_r=0

The Redefintion of Young Adult

The Young Adult Library Services Association is the division of the American Library Association which focuses on

 "library services for teens, aged 12-18."

But is "Young Adult' the equivalent of "teen"?  Is the definition of a Young Adult someone only between the ages of 12 and 18?

The advent of Young Adult literature in its current form is still so relatively young, maybe twenty years since publishing divisions first started creating divisions for those readers between children and adults and libraries have created departments that seek to serve those readers. In its infancy Young Adult literature and its audience was defined narrowly as for teenagers.

I happen to think the time has come to revisit the initial definition of "Young Adult" and here are a few reasons why:

• As the genre has expanded and diversified, the audience has expanded and diversified. Those who are responsible for the majority of purchases of Young Adult literature for their own reading consumption (as opposed to gift giving) are over the age of 18.
• As the genre has diversified, so too have the characters portrayed in them. More characters in Young Adult literature are in their post-collegiate years, ages 18-20. It's become so diverse that an entirely new subgenre of literature has sprung up in recent years: "New Adult" defined as more risqué novels marketed to women in their early twenties, among others. Much of these "New Adult" titles are cataloged as Young Adult novels in libraries.
• The genre has gone on to produce not only rich novels, but cinematic novels. Movies based on young adult novels are not only being produced in greater numbers, but are being marketed to and attended by a more general audience that includes adults as much as if not more so than teenagers.

I propose a new, broader term to describe the audience between Children and Adult. And all I had to do was come up with a suffix:

 

Younger Adult

My definition of Younger Adult includes pre-teens and teenagers but expands to include later teens ages 18-19 and the audience and readers in their twenties: 18-30 years old.

A Book Review Starring "The New Rules of High School" by Blake Nelson

The short version:
Max Caldwell's life seems to be on the right track in a big way: poised to be editor of the school paper, applying to elite colleges, straight A student, pretty sophomore girlfriend. But something's not right in an undefinable way that makes Max kick the tires of his own life, not yet aware that perhaps there are consequences to that sort of thing.

The long version:
Blake Nelson is such a readable author. And I mean that in the best of ways. This is my third Blake Nelson read and I love his pace, his characters, his acerbic sensibilities. He entertains with his ear for detail and ability to put those details together to create pictures in a story. This is a classic boy book in the best of ways where boys talk and act like boys and not YA author teen fantasies of what they wish boys were when they were teenagers.

The book was pretty lo-fi in the plot department. It did an excellent job of describing the minutia of high school as seen through Max's eyes with the benefit of Nelson's fabulous writing, where all those small interactions and moments are fraught with meaning and importance. The story chock full of truly laugh out loud moments.

But man did the plot, lo-fi as it was, part of the story get going late and end a tad abruptly. As someone who likes to plow through books, I'm usually one to say when a book is too long but in this case I thought the story deserved more. I needed the repercussions of Max's response to a life that was pre-determined and highly controlled by his parents to play out more rather than come to what I felt was a bit of a stunted, not fully realized conclusion.

It also had the feeling of a novel written in 2003 with good reason. I'm not even sure they still make Certs breath mints, but there is not likely to be a new White Stripes album in the near future, which is the trouble you sometimes get in to when you insert current pop culture references into your story. Makes it sound authentic, which I'm sure it did ten years ago, but it also becomes plain that this was a story written at the dawn of the cell phone age, pre-texting. Not that I minded, but I'm not convinced I could sell the book to the youngsters today.

Did I already say how much I love Blake Nelson's writing?

Other Young Adult Boy Books I Adored:

Noggin and Where Things Come Back, John Corey Whaley
The Prince of Venice Beach, Blake Nelson
When I Was The Greatest, Jason Reynolds
Crash and Burn, Michael Hassan
It's Kind of a Funny Story, Ned Vizzini
Paper Towns, John Green
King Dork, Frank Portman
Crossing Lines, Paul Volponi
Grasshopper Jungle and Winger, Andrew Smith

A Book Review Starring "What Happy Looks Like" by Jennifer E. Smith

The short version:
Maine teen Ellie has been emailing with Californian Graham for three months after he mistypes a friend's email and finds her instead. Little does she know that the movie production coming to her quaint seaside town has been arranged by this hot, budding movie star so he can finally meet the girl he's fallen for via email.

The long version:
Jennifer E. Smith is really good at doing what she does. This is the second of her three two-person, character-focused romance-dramas and every time she manages to create a lovely little book you can't put down. It flows, it's sweet and thoughtful, it draws you in. True, the boys are a little to left of YA boy fantasy, but not so much so that they're caricatures of real life.

She doesn't delve into the explicit or overtly sexual and still manages to come across as realistic and highly entertaining. Clearly she knows her stuff.

A Book Review Starring "Grasshopper Jungle" by Andrew Smith

The Short Version:
Part science fiction, part comedy drama about Iowa teen Austin who's in love with his girlfriend Shann and his best friend Robby and also happens to be present at the beginning of the end of the world when a dormant science experiment is revived and results in the unleashing of six foot, highly destructive, man-eating grasshoppers.

The Long Version:
What is this book? I don't know. But Andrew Smith does, and you can tell. Even if you're not ready to go where he's going, or you can poke holes in the details of the narrative, it doesn't seem to matter because Smith is such an assured writer that you trust him.

It's explicit and violent with a cast of entertaining secondary characters and still its fun Yet with all the things that make it what it is, the sexual references and profanity and violence and so forth, it's not a book I'd recommend for younger readers. But man, if you're open to it, it's going to be a gross read with undertones of contemplative self-discovery about a boy who's confused about who he likes, and therefore who he is. Smith does throw a lot at the wall, and fortunately enough of it sticks.

I'm always on the hunt for boy books that sound like boy books. Boys who think about sex and aliens and video games. This is one of those books.

Transgender Awareness Week 2014

Transgender Awareness Week takes place November 14th  through 20th. It's an opportunity to celebrate so many of the great advancements, achievements and dialogues that have taken place this year as well as reflect upon those who have been victimized by violence, in part or in whole, because of their transgender identity. The week culminates with the Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20th.

I should preface this by saying I am by no means an authority on all things transgender, I arrive at this moment as a Young Adult Librarian who happens to also be a wife and mother as well as someone who aspires to be, in many facets, kickass.

As all those things, I'd like to thank:

Time Magazine. Even though I'm not sure how relevant it is as a periodical of record today, Time Magazine's May cover story featured actress and activist Laverne Cox (who I love and adore on "Orange Is the New Black") and marked the first time a transgender person was featured on a major national news magazine cover. They even had the audacity to call this year the "transgender tipping point." I dig it, because lots of people who aren't my liberal friends and family read Time even if I haven't seen it in my house since I was a kid.
I regard it as a bellwether news source going back to my childhood before the internet when the news was delivered via the mailbox, the front door or the television.

Jill Soloway. I adored "Six Feet Under" (on which Soloway was a staff writer) but have yet to see "Transparent." But I feel like I have based on all that writer/director/producer Jill Soloway has done on its behalf since its release on Amazon last month. She's been a crazy worker horse appearing everywhere talking about her show in all sorts of ways, chief among them in that she's working to provide a voice for transgender people behind the scenes, as members of the writing staff and production team, giving them control over their stories when the entertainment industry typically hires non-LGBT folk for those behind the scenes tasks.

Katie Rain Hill and Arin Andrews. I know it's probably a lot more complicated than what I
know to be their story, but here's the short version: two transgender teens meet in a Tulsa support group and start dating and then some time later find themselves in the national spotlight via 20/20 and Inside Edition and the like. What's remarkable about their story is that they were each grappling with both being teenagers and being transgender. Their two memoirs, Hill's Rethinking Normal and Andrew's Some Assembly Required, both released this month by Simon & Schuster, are insightful and well-written and, for the first time as far as I can tell, will prove to be a valuable, very current resource for kids who are beginning to question their gender identity.

Ashton Lee. Lee is a 16 year old transgender boy in Central California who
came out to his parents last year and, in his fight to feel comfortable at school, not only defended his right to use the boy's bathroom at school but went on to work for the passage of our state's first transgender equity law, the "School Success and Opportunity Act." And when I say "fought" he testified in Sacramento, he solicited over 5000 signatures and delivered them to Governor Jerry Brown. I don't know about you, but if I were meeting Governor Brown, I'd be sufficiently tongue-tied and freaked out. Not this kid.

I'm sure there are other great people who did other great things too. And I give thanks to them as well. Thank you for loving yourself and showing other people how it's done. Thank you for being an example for others of your strength and determination.

At the same time, I think it's important to remember that 2014 feels like the beginning of things in terms of accepting and respecting transgender people, allowing them to live openly and freely. It's taken gay and lesbian men and women over thirty years (and more) to get where we are today; for transgender people there remains a long road ahead.

In honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance I'd like to remember two of those who died this year.  Aniya Parker of East Hollywood and Zoraida Reyes of Santa Ana.

While neither of their deaths have been pronounced hate crimes, there is a growing body of evidence from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs and the Transgender Violence Tracker Portal among others that suggests that being an out transgender person puts one at an increased risk of violence.