Ally Condie is the author of Matched, our fabulous Book of the Month for November.

We’d like to introduce the woman behind one of the most anticipated new releases of this year as she shares a bit of background on herself and gives more of an insight on the story behind Matched. Ally can be found on her website here, or on Twitter – @allycondie. Also, check out the official website for Matched which features the book’s newly released trailer.

I’m a mom and writer now, but before I did those things, I had a lot of other jobs. I was a high school teacher (I still keep my license current, but I haven’t taught in about six years). I was a bookstore employee. And I was the house mom in a sorority at an Ivy League school (my husband was the house dad, and we lived in a teeny tiny apartment right in the sorority, and it was fantastically entertaining and interesting).

And I got to choose all of those jobs.

In Matched, the characters don’t get to choose the people they marry, and they also don’t get to choose their vocations. Of course, this isn’t a new idea—we’ve seen it in books like 1984 and in actual governments throughout history. We live in this very rare and wonderful time when choice is seen as a right and as something that is possible and intrinsic to our happiness.

Cassia, the main character and narrator of Matched, doesn’t live in a world like that. Everything has been carefully orchestrated and everyone has been carefully manipulated. Cassia knows that her vocation will be based on her aptitudes and interests, and that it will probably be a job she enjoys. She trusts the Society to Match her not only with her mate, but also with her career. Until, of course, something happens and she begins to ask questions the Society would prefer she didn’t.

For me, being able to marry the person you love and to choose what you do are two of the most important choices of all. And they can lead you to very interesting situations. If I hadn’t been married to my husband, for example, and if we hadn’t chosen to work at the sorority while he was in grad school, I never would have had the singular experience of opening the front door while I was nine months pregnant to find a fraternity of half-naked frat boys holding tiki torches to invite the girls to a dance. I never would have seen their faces fall and some of them literally turn and run at the unexpected and gravid sight of a pregnant twenty-seven-year-old in maternity pants when they were expecting beautiful nineteen-year-olds in Sevens.

And who would want to miss out on an experience like that?

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Thanks Ally! Matched is set for release on the 30th November and 2nd December for Australia. Be sure to look out for an interview with Ally and a giveaway.

To promote the release of  Genesis by Lara Morgan, the first book in the Rosie Black Chronicles, yaReads is very proud to be part of the Lara Morgan blog tour.

Heroines in Young Adult Fiction

When I was in my early teens one of my favourite heroines was a girl called Trixie Belden. She was a teenage sleuth who had short strawberry blonde hair and lived in America where it always seemed to be sunny and people played a lot of tennis. Trixie was always investigating something. She was constantly involved in mysteries which she had to solve with the help of her family and friends. Many times they were dangerous, but she was smart and intrepid and even though she did sometimes mess up, she usually managed to get herself out of trouble and save the day. To me Trixie was the coolest girl on the planet. She wasn’t perfect, she didn’t always get it right but she had guts and I loved that about her. I read as many of her books as I could get my hands on.

That was the early 80s. Of course there still was an element of sexism around; Trixie’s brothers sometimes behaved like 1960s ad men who knew everything, but Trixie herself was still a go-getter. She didn’t wait to be rescued, she could rescue herself.

It’s been said that that type of heroine isn’t around enough anymore. I’ve heard complaints that there are too many books with heroines whose sole purpose seems to be achieving/keeping the love of a boy, but I’m wondering if that’s actually true or if it’s just a perception that’s arisen due to the success of Twilight.

Debates rages over Bella and her boys. We love her. We despise her. We compare her with characters in more recent novels, such as The Hunger Games, and find her lacking and we worry she’s a bad role model for girls today who will start believing a boy creeping into your room to watch you sleep is romantic not creepy.

I think this is a mistake and that we are all a bit smarter than that. I also think that Twilight, along with similar forbidden love romances that have been inspired by it, is a fantasy that plenty of people like to get lost in but not necessarily believe in.

And I don’t think there aren’t enough alternatives for those who want to read about girls doing something other than falling in love. I think it is actually in film, tv and music videos where the positive representation of young women is lacking. That medium is littered with girls as gossip hungry, vacuous boy hungry air heads or overly sexualized gyrating dancers clinging to male singers. Heroines in books are providing some of the better role models really when you look at it that way.

I’ve read plenty of books recently with a female lead who faces desperate situations and overcomes them. Yes there is often a boy and romance involved and there is a focus on gaining his love, but there is also a heavy focus on the girl’s own journey.  The Guardian of the Dead, The Hunger Games, Holly Black’s Modern Faerie Tales, The Mortal Instruments, and Claudia Gray’s Evernight series just to name a few are some of the more recent heroine driven works which feature girls who make their own choices, good and bad, despite the love interest of the storyline. So I don’t think we can say there aren’t enough good heroines in books. They’re not perfect, but they are there and it is those types of books, as well as the formative influence of those Trixie Beldens that have inspired me during the creation of Rosie Black.

I wanted a character who was independent, smart and courageous but one who was also flawed, a girl who doesn’t always make the right choices and who can love a boy but still follow her own path. A character who is real. That, I think, is the crux of what we want to see more of in our heroines and I think we are getting there.

A big thank you to Lara! Genesis is available in store in Australia and online for international readers.

Next stop on the tour: ‘The Boy in this story; creating male characters in heroine driven YA.’ @ The Phantom Paragrapher

Inara Scott is the author of our September Book of the Month Delcroix Academy: The Candidates.  She can be found online at www.inarascott.com.

Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan
Review by Inara Scott

When I heard I had an opportunity review a book this week, Flash Burnout, by L.K. Madigan, immediately popped into my head. I adore this book, for a whole lot of reasons. First, though, the summary (from L.K.’s website):

Fifteen-year-old Blake has a girlfriend and a friend who’s a girl. One of them loves him, the other one needs him.
When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth addicted mom. Blake’s participation in the ensuing drama opens up a world of trouble, both for him and for Marissa. He spends the next few months trying to reconcile the conflicting roles of Boyfriend and Friend. His experiences range from the comic (surviving his dad’s birth control talk) to the tragic (a harrowing after-hours visit to the morgue).
In a tangle of life and death, love and loyalty, Blake will emerge with a more sharply defined snapshot of himself.

What struck me most about this book was how I fell in love with Blake. I don’t usually read books by/about boys, but Blake dragged me in from the very first page. He’s got an incredibly unique and altogether real voice – at once vulnerable, heartfelt, funny, and tragic. Like any teenage boy, Blake is completely obsessed with girls, but has no idea how to communicate with them or, really, with himself. He learns a lot over the course of the book, but in a natural, honest way that isn’t sugar-coated or easy.

The other thing I adored about the book was the writing. Flash Burnout won the William C. Morris award, and received starred reviews everywhere it went. This made me nervous. Honestly, I don’t tend to enjoy the “good” books that the reviewers love! (Know what I mean?) But this book was different. The writing is pure and simple, and doesn’t bog down in pretty words or endless descriptions. It’s raw and honest, with impeccable pacing throughout.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of Flash Burnout, and then tell me what you think. It’s an amazing read.

Thank you so much Inara for being a part of our Book of the Month feature! As a parting treat, here is a trailer of Delcroix Academy: The Candidates