UNWIND by Neal Shusterman

Sometimes a novel makes me want to throw up. As in, "did they really have someone in Medieval Europe say 'OK.' ?" I think I'll throw up. Rarely is a novel so well written that I feel nauseated. Laughing really hard at Bill Bryson might do it - but then again that's not a novel. I know what you're thinking: Thanks for this Lissa, thoughts on vomit. Nice.
Okay (and I can say that un-anacronistically), here's the point. I just read the most amazing, horrifying, plausible, chilling, clinical, gentle, rational, haunting scene I've ever read. I may have nightmares, I still might throw up. Neal Shusterman is amazing.
Unwind is not his newest book, but it seems that it IS being made into a movie. The premise is, that after a war over the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice issue, children are not allowed to aborted. BUT, between the ages of 13-18 they can be "unwound" provided all their body parts are still alive. They call it "transitioning to the divided state." Parents sign their kids up for unwinding for a variety of reasons, troublesome behavior, economic reasons etc. Of course nobody wants to be unwound. Unless you're a tithe. But that's the story you need to read. The story of three runaway "Unwinds" and what happens to them.

I think one of the things I so admire about Shusterman is his perfect parceling out of the information. You hear rumors of things - things mentioned that everyone knows about - but the reader is in the dark until things are revealed. And they are revealed at just the right time to keep the story going. I read this one day. That's a story kept going for you. I don't want to tell you what the horrible scene was, I want you to go to the library and keep the name SHUSTERMAN in your frontal cortex (okay - whichever part is active) and go find UNWIND in the young adult fiction section. Have fun.

By The Cover: Chucks

I'm in love with Chucks. No, not Chuck Norris. No, not Chuck's - it's plural: Chucks. As in Chuck Taylor the shoe designer. The shoes themselves take his name: Chuck Taylors. Chucks. I'm so in love with them, I dress my youngest sons (18 months and 4 years) in them. The oldest wouldn't do it. He wanted Vann's. But then, later when he saw how cool his brothers looked he repented and wished that he had asked for Chucks. HA!

But here's how pathetic my love for Chuck Taylors is. When I see a book with his shoes on the front (they're really retro, and look good on boys or girls although they make your feet look long) cover (yes back to the original sentence). I have to check it out from the Library. Fortunately Chucks haven't made it to the Romances of Raunchiness turntables yet or I'd be in real trouble. So far, what I've found has been in the Young Adult Section. The Romeo and Juliet Code was wonderful and it WASN'T a tragic love story rewritten. Romeo and Juliet are a relatively minor plot point! Today at the library I nabbed The Boy on Cinnamon Street, which is also by Phoebe Stone.

Based on this very scientific method of book choice I'd also like to read:

Deep Down Popular by (you guessed it!) Phoebe Stone

Lexapros and Cons (isn't that an awesome title? TWO things I love) by Aaron Karo. Which, now that I've read the blurb really does seem pretty interesting.

The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne

The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg (This one barely gets into the list because only 25% of the shoes on the cover look like they might be Chucks. Hey I don't say the rule is good,  I just make them...wait).

Love and Leftovers by Sarah Tregay

Gone Gone Gone by Hannah Moskowitz

There's a whole article on the Chucks on covers phenomenon at 100 Scope Notes. Soon, I won't even read  the book, I'll just recommend it! So, what makes YOU want to pick up a book?

Archetype on Rye

By Lissa

Well, I've been steadily chipping away at my YA sci-fi and I don't know if I'm just not very creative or what, but I feel like I rely heavily, and consciously on archetypes: the villain, the stooge, the thug, the oracle, the beauty, the sidekick. All characters fit into archetypical categories because all characters have a purpose. If it doesn't have a purpose it doesn't have an archetype and chances are, are pretty forgettable. With this in mind, I'm deciding to roll with it. Look at me, not caring that I purposefully look for archetypes to fill my story with!

So it's starting to look like just building a really tasty sandwich. Assemble your ingredients: Location, plot, a schmear of description, all those meaty archetypes, some slices of humor for extra flavor, some garlic (really every story needs some garlic. I don't care how you work it in, just work it in). Now carefully layer salty and sweet and crunchy and soft so it's nicely balanced. (Are you getting hungry? Craving Schlotszky's?) Then at the end you cut it open down the middle so you can see how everything makes sense, or leave it whole if you like to take it in in three or four bites.

Easy peasy rice and cheesy.

Except it's not. The meats all keep slipping around, and then you notice the expiration date was past on your humor, so you've got to take that out and find some more, and sometimes you slather on too much description so you have to wipe it off with a paper towel, and then your husband comes in and freaks out because he hates mayonaisse (wait - got off track there), and you're using a location you've never actually been to so it does funny things to your sandwich and ON and ON! Until you want to throw it all in the trash and go out to eat. So you sort of do. You take a little break, read a new novel, or better yet some interesting non-fiction from which you happen to latch on to the smallest detail. But it's THE DETAIL you needed. That one little pinch of spice that will bring your sandwich that much closer to being delicious.

I'm off now.

Off to make a sandwich.

With a side of self-congratulation when I'm done.

Impossible by Nancy Werlin, Review

Hello, Lissa here. I’m introducing myself because usually it’s my sister Corrie who blogs, I got sort of distracted with a moving and a new baby last year.  I’m purposefully reading more YA fiction these days because the authors there are so creative. Tons of dystopias (of which Corrie is a huge fan), fairy-tale retellings (more my style), and action novels (that I can’t quite bring myself to read yet) to amuse you.

So let’s get started!

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

Synopsis: Present day Lucy deals with being a foster daughter whose real mother is homeless and mentally imbalanced. Lucy gets raped, and pregnant, and then finds that this is all part of a curse placed upon women in her family going back hundreds of years. She, with the help of her foster family, try to do the impossible tasks to break the curse. It's based on the ballad, "Scarborough Fair."

Basics: Two sex scenes. One is a rape. It is not intimately described, but it is disturbing. Also there’s a sex scene between a husband and wife. She doesn’t talk much about it, but it’s “there.” Also a boy you’ve come to like dies suddenly.

This book was a little slow getting started. Some of the plot twists are a little contrived, and Lucy’s relationship with the boy-next-door is a little fuzzy. But Werlin pulls it out with a nicely done narration that doesn’t get in the way, but just keeps the momentum going where it might lag.

Werlin also handles scenes with violence and intimacy with a light hand. You get the right feeling, but without all the messy details. I, for one, think this is a neat trick. Also, she has written the only newly-wed next day scene that exactly describes how I felt on my next day.

If there’s anything she does not so well, it’s the character development at the beginning. She keeps developing everyone right to the end, so by the end you love them, but at the beginning the foster parents are confusing. Once I was convinced the Dad was knitting. Another small glitch was the emotional upheaval after the rape. As a writer I know that sometimes you have to let things go to keep your story moving (not too many of those though), and Lucy’s emotional reaction after being raped was minimal. It’s almost explained away by Lucy purposefully trying to appear recovered, but I thought this should come back up and be dealt with later and it wasn’t. 

Abortion is also addressed in this novel in a way I don’t like, but it’s very politically correct. The main character emphatically does not want an abortion, but since that’s a plot point, you can’t really extract any advice from it.

I think my favorite aspect of this novel was the subject matter. I love fairy tales in modern-day guise, (all right anyguise) and this one is done so well. The impossible tasks are completed using science or at least “new world” phenomenon, which explains why the curse hasn’t been broken until now.

That “until now” seems to be a crucial element in good writing (unless you happen to be James Michener). Why is this story being started here? Has the prince declared every maiden shall go to a ball? Has a person smart enough to defeat the enemy aliens finally been located? Have the four humans who will fill the thrones arrived?

In Impossible, Nancy Werlin has achieved the goal that I always have for my writing: surprises that make complete sense. 

If you feel, as I do, that abortion is murder and there is always another option, this novel might annoy or anger you. Certainly talk it over if you let your daughter read this book. On the positive side this is a good read for teenage girls, who can handle the idea of rape. It might even make them think twice about how not to get into dangerous situations. On the whole, Werlin has written a story that highlights the strength of family and marriage and delivers a great feel-good, fairy-tale ending.

CIty of Bones or Star Wars?

I just finished reading the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. It's an action packed Twilight type story (sort of), with some really witty dialogue. It also gives more than a passing nod to Star Wars, with two characters who, come to find out, are brother and sister, and the children of an evil, power-hungry sorcerer. The girl was hidden away by her mother, and neither of them know who they are, or the special powers they have. And of course, it's a major bummer when they fall in love before discovering their relationship. At least, (SPOILER ALERT) that's what you think, until it turns out that, guess what? He's actually not her brother, so, HURRAY, their love isn't incestuous after all!
Now, I enjoyed the angel/demon aspect of the story, and several of the side characters were hysterically funny, but with that in mind, I DIDN'T appreciate her leaving the incest aspect of the story in doubt until the third book. (They don't sleep together, at least, but their love and affection are romantic.) I mean, EWWWWW!

But, that being said, I'll be seeing the movie when it comes out! :-)

Editing and Hummus

I'm on the second major edit/revision (what's the difference?) of my manuscript, and I'm starting to TWITCH. I sit down in front of my computer, pull child 2 off my ankle, and turn on the TV (no judging! It's Pingu). Then I open the file, and my left eye starts twitchin'. I force myself to use the scroll wheel on the mouse to get past the beginning. Because, obviously, if I use the arrows or the scroll bar it takes TOO LONG and then I get sucked into changing the beginning AGAIN.

So I get down to where I left 'xxxxx' marking the last place I edited. (Currently page 8 of 180.) I read the first sentence, delete it, go to the next sentence, change a word - and suddenly I'm in front of the fridge eating hummus out of the container with a spoon. No lie, this happens. If you write, you TOTALLY know what I'm talking about.
However, I have some good words to say for hummus as a writing tool. As opposed to ice cream or chips or salsa, it doesn't give you a brain freeze, salt tongue, or fast burn (respectively). It feels luxurious (because it's EXPENSIVE - that's the only problem with this), but it doesn't cause the same can't-stop frenzy as oreos or (shudder of ecstasy) Nutella.

Plus, if you get the roasted garlic type (my favorite) you get this great garlic breath with which to keep your family at bay while you try to write.

Just take a deep breath, exhale, and suddenly you've got a three foot radius around your keyboard. It's awesome. Give it a try.

What are your favorite writing foods/luxuries?

The M Dash of Horror

Don Knuth, Professor Emeritus, Stanford

I dreamed about grammar. I had a whole dream (one of those freaking long ones that seem to last all night even though you wake up to go to the bathroom) about grammar. And the worst part – the m dash.

A few days ago I read this post by Noreen Malone on how we should STOP overusing the m dash – mainly because it's just annoying. (That's an m dash, right up there). It's called an m-dash because it's the length of an m – as opposed to the n - dash which is the length of an n -.

So after I read her article, because I'm a good little student, I searched for all the dashes in my story. 178 occurrences. That – my friends – is quite a few. Hence, my nightmare in which someone forced me to delete all my badly punctuated sentences and destroyed most of my novel. It was painful!

I woke up feeling both hurt and belligerent, which is such fun for my husband.

The problem is that there are very few hard rules for the m dash, so I can use it all day without wondering whether it's a mistake. Well, according to Ms. Malone, that attitude is a mistake in itself. People use the m dash instead of , ; or : out of laziness.

So – here I go to rid my WIP of the m dashes that rendered sleep hideous a few nights ago. Wish me luck!