I've Got A CRUSH On You

For Valentine's Day, I thought I'd divulge my all-time favorite *swoony* guys from recent New Adult contemporary novels:

KELLAN from Thoughtless, Effortless, and Reckless

“I’ve never wanted anyone, like I want you. Every girl is you to me. You’re all I see…you’re all I want.”

***

KAYDEN from The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden

“That’s you. Callie, you’re the only person that’s ever made me feel happy about anything. That night you saved me, you changed something in me—you made me want to live.” 

***

LUCAS from Easy

“The night we met-I'm not like that guy." His jaw was rigid.

"I know tha-" He placed a finger over my lips, his expression softening.

"So I don't want you to feel pressured. Or overpowered. But I do, absolutely, want to kiss you right now. Badly.”

***

GARRICK from Losing It

“Bliss, I don’t normally do things like that. But I was second-guessing everything about coming here, and you were everything I needed." 

***

HOLDER from Hopeless

“The moment my lips touch yours, it will be your first kiss. Because if you've never felt anything when someone's kissed you, then no one's ever really kissed you. Not the way I plan on kissing you.”

***

*sigh*

HAPPY HEART DAY!

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Brain-Breaking-Books: EMPTY and HOPELESS

You guys. YOU GUYS. *taps screen*

Two new books I've recently read are stuck, trapped, WEDGED in my brain, I tell you.

I HIGHLY recommend both of them.

EMPTY by K.M. WALTON

PREMISE: Dell is used to disappointment. Ever since her dad left, it’s been one let down after another. But no one—not even her best friend—gets all the pain she’s going through. So Dell hides behind self-deprecating jokes and forced smiles.

Then the one person she trusts betrays her. Dell is beyond devastated. Without anyone to turn to for comfort, her depression and self-loathing spin out of control. But just how far will she go to make all of the heartbreak and name-calling stop?

FIRST LINE: I like the idea of making things disappear.

This book knocked my socks off.  And that ending (oh, that ending) left me breathless. This story is gritty and dark and raw. And K.M. doesn't tie up loose ends for you in a neat little package--just like real life. 

I know K.M. personally. So, I also know that she wrote this book from a very intimate place. From her own experiences with weight-gain and bullying. And knowing that, makes this book even more SIGNIFICANT.

*********

HOPELESS by Colleen Hoover

PREMISE: Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.

Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn't at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever.

FIRST LINE: I stand up and look down at the bed, holding my breath in fear of the sounds that are escalating from deep within my throat.

Not only was this one of the most intensely romantic books I have EVER read (the first kiss that wasn't even a first kiss--WHOA. Those who've read it will understand), the issues uncovered were profound and agonizing and heart-stopping. Hoover handled them expertly. This book was BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL!


What about you--read any brain-breaking-books lately?

Would You Rather: Elana Johnson Edition

DUDE. You know the awesome Elana Johnson and her uber-popular BLOG. Of course you do. *wink*


 I just read her sophomore book, SURRENDER, and super-size loved it. It's a companion novel to POSSESSION. And I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this: I think you can read the second book without having read the first.

Yes, Zenn, Vi and Jag reappear, but as side characters. Sure, you get to know their dystopian version of the world in POSSESSION. But, if you haven't read it yet and feel like reading SURRENDER first, I say go for it. Because it's a different setting this time, and you'll figure out the super cool world they live in as you read. 

Also, ZOMG, the tension and longing between Raine and Gunner begins almost immediately and is so intense, you'll just keep flipping pages to find out if they will ever get to be together. YES YOU WILL. I PROMISE YOU. Plus, it's done in dual male/female POV and Elana pulls it off so well.

You'll HAVE to go back and read POSSESSION anyway, to find out more about Vi, Jag, and Zenn.

 Just sayin'...

SYNOPSIS: Raine has always been a good girl. She lives by the rules in Freedom. After all, they are her father’s rules: He’s the Director. It’s because of him that Raine is willing to use her talent—a power so dangerous, no one else is allowed to know about it. Not even her roommate, Vi.

All of that changes when Raine falls for Gunner. Raine’s got every reason in the world to stay away from Gunn, but she just can’t. Especially when she discovers his connection to Vi’s boyfriend, Zenn.


Raine has never known anyone as heavily brainwashed as Vi. Raine’s father expects her to spy on Vi and report back to him. But Raine is beginning to wonder what Vi knows that her father is so anxious to keep hidden, and what might happen if she helps Vi remember it. She’s even starting to suspect Vi’s secrets might involve Freedom’s newest prisoner, the rebel Jag Barque….


A FAVORITE LINE: I fought the urge to look behind me, see if any of my buddies saw me talking with this amazing girl.

PURCHASE YOUR COPY HERE

*********

Now on to my silly questions.

Elana, WOULD YOU RATHER:


Vacation on a beach or in a busy metropolis?

A busy metropolis. I really don’t like wearing a swimsuit, and sand works its way into everything! I love the big city, with big buildings, and new restaurants.

Go to a great movie or great concert?

Great movie! I can talk during it and I don’t have to feel like I have to jump around to enjoy it.

Have readers admire your lovely prose or become engrossed in your story arc?

Both! I want to write something lyrical and beautiful and still have the story arc be engrossing. Every story lends itself differently to the “lovely prose” part though, so sometimes that’s a challenge.

Splurge on a great pair of jeans or shoes?

Jeans! I know, I’m not a real woman because I don’t care about shoes. Call the fashion police. (*snert*)

Peeta or Gale?

Team Gale! (*shock*)

Wonder Woman or Bionic Woman? 

I want to be Bionic Woman. I mean, running at 60 miles per hour (yes, I googled that)? Yes, I’ll do that.

Leave the house with lips or eyes left undone?

Uh, both. I hardly ever wear makeup of any kind. When I do, I always have my eyes done, and hardly ever wear anything on my lips besides chapstick. (Told you I was hardly a woman!)


Last, THE ULTIMATE Elana J. question: Bacon or your first born child?

Well, when you put it that way… I’ll take my first-born to breakfast and we’ll both nosh on bacon! (cop-out?)


THANKS ELANA! XO :-)))))

Elana's work including POSSESSION, REGRET, and SURRENDER is available from Simon & Schuster wherever books are sold. She is the author of From the Query to the Call, an ebook that every writer needs to read before they query, which can be downloaded for free on her website. She runs a personal blog on publishing and is a founding author of the QueryTracker blog. She blogs regularly at The League of Extraordinary Writers, co-organizes WriteOnCon, and is a member of SCBWI, ANWA and LDStorymakers.

She wishes she could experience her first kiss again, tell the mean girl where to shove it, and have cool superpowers like reading minds and controlling fire. To fulfill her desires, she writes young adult science fiction and fantasy.

Sweet Surrender

My favorite kind of novel probably includes the tension and longing that occurs right before that first kiss. I hold my breath every time the characters get just close enough for their lips to meet.

YA books (off the top of my head) that have done that to me: Anna and the French Kiss, Twilight, Matched, Divergent, Such A Rush, Shatter Me, Delirium, Perfect Chemistry (on and on).


So how about in real life? Crushing hard on someone from a distance, a first date that might end in a kiss, a long-distance military or on-line relationship.

Enter Andrew and Carissa. They met when they were seventeen-years-old, got married a couple years later, and waited until their wedding day to KISS! 


YEP, to kiss. There's a YA novel in there somewhere.

Talk about *yowza-wowza* fireworks going off every time their lips were in kissing distance of each other. On their wedding day, after the minister said the magic words, one of them burst into laughter going in for the kiss. I'm pretty sure that would be ME. The anticipation, the onlookers, the huge day itself.


Here's what Carissa said about holding off for that long: "As silly as it may sound, that kind of tension was actually quite romantic! It's sweet to me, when I recall how utterly in love we were and convinced of each other's hearts, that it hardly mattered what each other's mouths tasted like. That love has only gotten sweeter with time--but so does the kissing!"

Find their lovely interview, HERE--it garnered some outrage actually, which is just plain sad.  There are so many other things--WAY bigger things--to be upset about, why this?


So when you write your next big first kiss scene, think about Carissa and Andrew. XOXO


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Light Up The Sky

“When you meet someone

so different from yourself,

in a good way,

you don’t even have to kiss

to have fireworks go off.

It's like fireworks in your heart
all the time."

(Lisa Schroeder, I Heart You, You Haunt Me)

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, my American friends!

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Griffin & Sabine

Preparing for a yard sale, I came across a book a friend had given me in college.

It's called GRIFFIN & SABINE, An Extraordinary Correspondence:




Oh how I loved this book, for all of it's uniqueness. It's done in a series of postcards and letters that you pull out of little envelopes to read. And the illustrations are mesmerizing.



Griffin is a lonely artist living in London, when he receives a postcard from an artist named Sabine who lives on a fictitious island. Their correspondence becomes very personal and they fall in love without ever having met. The book contains hints of mysticism, too.




"Sabine, when you found me, I thought my loneliness had gone for good. I was kidding myself. I desperately desire your company. I haven't talked to anyone in three days."

Makes a great gift or coffee table book. You can find it, HERE!

WORD.

"I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word.

Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine."

Emily Dickinson

************

Words. They have authority and influence. 


To motivate and encourage, devastate or heal.


And in books they leave me breathless---a sheer force of beauty. 


They possess the strength to transport me to another world or time or place.

I think of the best sentences I've read and cannot imagine them any other way. They would merely lose their impact.

TAKE FOR EXAMPLE, a simple sentence from the book, THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE.


Jandy Nelson could have written it this way: My heart beats wildly again, ready to burst through my chest.


Instead, she wrote it this way: The flower is blooming again in my chest, this time three seconds from bud to showstopper.


Or a sentence from THE NEAR WITCH.


Victoria Schwab could have said it this way: The wind gusts in the dark night, the windows shuddering and squeaking. 


Instead, she wrote: Outside, the night is still and streaked with silver threads of light, and the wind is breathing against the glass, a wobbling hum that causes the old wooden frame to groan.


See what I mean? MAGIC!


YOUR words--the way you write them--are unlike any others. So choose them carefully. Make them yours. Make them SHINE.


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Luke, I Am Your Father

I bought the cutest book for the two Star Wars geeks, er...fans, in my life. It just released this month and it's called DARTH VADER AND SON. 


It's more gag then story book, but little bean requests it most nights and then snickers the whole time. 

From Publishers Weekly:  Jeffrey Brown crashes headlong into George Lucas’s galaxy far, far away with endearing, funny—and fully licensed—results. A series of full-page gag cartoons focusing on the “what if?” of Darth Vader raising a four-year-old Luke Skywalker, the book twists father/son moments into scenarios within the Star Wars playground. 


For instance, the addition of a wailing little Luke turns the Bounty Hunter scene into, as one bounty hunter’s thought balloon puts it, Awkward!” Trick-or-treating, toy shopping, a day at the zoo, and more are rejiggered with a lighthearted, charming tone. 


Do you have Star Wars fanatics in your life? You can order it HERE! 

Make The Bad Guy BADDER

In SAVE THE CAT, Blake Snyder says: If your HERO seems average, unheroic, insignificant, boring, maybe it's the ANTAGONIST that's the problem. So make the bad guy BADDER! 

Sometimes we want our hero to win so badly that we don't make it impossible for him to do so. We don't up the ante or have him take larger risks. Making the bad guy badder automatically makes the hero BIGGER!

But here's what I would add (if I may, Mr. Snyder): Make both of them more complex and therefore, more compelling! It's obvious that the reader needs to feel something for the protagonist, so we spend loads of writing time making sure that the reader cares.

But what if the reader feels conflicted--just a little--for the antagonist, too? Moments of compassion or understanding or insight.

Take Klaus, in THE VAMPIRE DIARIES:

He is one BAD dude. But wait a minute--what's this softer side he shows around Caroline? Why does Klaus suddenly look cuter, sexier, more appealing? *bow chicka wow wow*


Or how about Lady's Maid O'Brien, in DOWNTON ABBEY?

Behind the scenes she's self-serving, mean, and vindictive. But in season one (that's as far as I got, so no spoilers from season two, please), she shows a conscience and a certain helplessness during the soap/bathtub/baby scene with Lady Cora.

And last but not least, Cersei Lannister in GAME OF THRONES.

I mean, let's face it, there are so many villains in this book/television series it's hard to choose just one. But from the beginning she's compelled me.

Vicious in her own right as the Queen Dowager, she had a direct hand in who her evil son Joffrey has become on the throne (I find NO redeeming qualities in him yet). Still, she's quite vulnerable when it comes to love (no matter how masochistic it might be) and the well-being of her children.

Who would you add to this list?

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CLIMB

"Come Boy, come climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat apples and play in my shade and be happy!”

And so the boy climbed up the tree and gathered her apples and carried them away.

And the tree was happy."

(from THE GIVING TREE by Shel Silverstein)


This weekend: GIVE!

See you next week.

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LOVE.This.Idea.

Books + plants = WIN?

Except, it would be sad to gut a book like that!

Get the DIY instructions, HERE!

Hope Your Weekend is Relaxing

See you next week!


(photo source)

It's A Month Away

Tick, Tock.

How cool would it be to have these HUNGER GAMES cupcakes for the movie?

Each respresents the book titles. So creative!


ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!

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Brain-Breaking-Books: THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

You guys. YOU GUYS. This new YA book by John Green rocked my world. I mean, seriously. Cannot stop thinking about it, even a week later.

It also goes to show that the cover of a book has nothing on content. I envision a different front for this book. I picture Hazel Grace so perfectly in my head. And Augustus Waters. And they'd be sitting in the grass, near a playground, holding hands. But that's just because I want to be able to reach out and touch them. And then, hug them!


Premise: "Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten."



This is definitely a heart-breaking book (I cried at least five times) and John Green's writing is so amazingly raw and brilliant.



FIRST LINE: Late in the winter of my seventeenth year my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time thinking about DEATH.

One of my favorite lines: You are so busy being YOU that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.

Have you read it? Is it on your list? Tell me what you're reading!

WHEN BLUE MET EGG

So I took my son to Lindsay Ward's picture book signing at Room Service boutique. *Hi Lindsay*

This book, published by Dial is, in a word, ADORABLE. Blue lives in Central Park, mistakes a snowball for an egg, and so their adventure begins.

 Lindsay's awesome artwork includes sketches and cut paper collage. My little bean had fun finding all the recycled treasures Lindsay hid in her pages to make the NYC buildings--address books, math quizzes, etc.

Here he is, below, with coloring pages from the book Lindsay had at the signing. He was also *very* interested in a eggshell blue vintage typewriter the boutique used in one of their displays. He thought it was some kind of new invention! :D

I also made some bird necklaces for Lindsay's opening (and for the shop's inventory)!

Anyway, if you have a little one in your life, you must BUY this book!

Here's the NEW YORK TIMES review!


*Pets Blue*

Mumbo Jumbo

In SAVE THE CAT, by Blake Snyder, he uses the term Double Mumbo Jumbo.

It's a rule that says: An audience (or reader) will only accept one piece of MAGIC per movie (or book).

He cites two movie examples that broke this rule and therefore, didn't work.

In the original Spider Man, the audience had to accept that a kid became a super hero from a spider bite AND that the green goblin became evil from a lab experiment. In the movie Signs, which is supposed to be about finding faith, aliens show up at the end, putting two opposing viewpoints at odds against each another.

Hmm...I actually liked both movies. Signs did get hokey at the end ("Swing away Merrill!"), and I hadn't considered what Spider Man would have been like without showing how the Green Goblin came to be.

But I do see his point!

It's true in our writing that we can try to throw in everything but the kitchen sink, even in contemporary novels. It takes patience and practice to par things down and let one over-arching conflict take center stage!

Because hey, everybody's got issues, all of our characters have stuff going on. But we don't want to give our readers whiplash or a headache.

We want them to sit with our "MAGIC", consider all sides, and relish the small moments that meld with it. And then we want them to buy into, while simultaneously coming to accept and love our main character! That's a big load, so why add too many "extras"?

So if you have too many issues--magical or not--going on in your novel, take a chill pill and then pull out your scissors. :D

When Life Brings You Snow...

You make SNOWBALLS!

I've talked about Lois Ehlert's books before and what a perfect one to highlight in the middle of winter. My little bean LOVES this book and we read it often. 

Ehlert uses collage art to show how natural items can be collected around the house: seeds, toy wheels, dried fruit, mittens and hats, plastic utensils, and bottle caps, to make different kinds of SNOW PEOPLE.

Ehlert makes the science of snow fun and interesting.

The book ALWAYS spurs our creative energy! 

********

P.S. I want to say CONGRATULATIONS to my friend, Lindsay Ward, whose picture book WHEN BLUE MET EGG debuts today from Penguin Books! I'll be at her signing this weekend and will showcase her amazing book in an upcoming post! 

From My Bookshelf

I haven't done this in weeks and need to catch this series up! ^_^

I'm only spotlighting books that I haven't mentioned in more recent posts. 

Most recent YA Novels I've read and would RECOMMEND:

ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD

SHATTER ME

LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR

THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER

THE NEAR WITCH

POSSESS

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE

What are you reading--any of these? There are so many (too many) in my TBR pile!

This post was part of Sheri's weekly MEME: