In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve been featuring Lili St Crow’s Betrayals as our Book of the Month in December. To close off the promo, Lili sat down and penned a review of Sarah Dessen’s Dreamland for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

The first Sarah Dessen book I ever read was Dreamland, and it is to Dessen I owe my reintroduction to the young adult genre. When I was of the age to be marketed to as a “young adult”, I found most of the offerings insipid to say the least, and downright patronizing at worst. I’m glad to say that the genre seems to have undergone something of a revolution in the last five to seven years, and Dessen holds a special place in my heart as the person who introduced me to a new breed of YA books.

Dreamland is about Caitlin O’Koren, a younger sister whose older sister Cass leaves home without a word on Caitlin’s birthday. The reason for her sister’s flight is beautifully shown but never spelled out: their mother’s almost frantic insistence on living her life through one of her children. Both O’Koren parents are flawed but not overly so, doing the best they can.

Caitlin, after living her entire life in Cass’s shadow, suddenly finds herself the focus of her mother’s ambitions. She’s now a stand-in instead of a postscript, and when she meets the appropriately dangerous-seeming Rogerson Briscoe, she makes the first of many abortive attempts at freedom. Unfortunately, Rogerson is a problem in and of himself. He has serious anger-management issues, a bad home life, and is exactly the wrong boyfriend for a vulnerable, uncertain girl.

Unfortunately, many real-life stories start out this way and end tragically.

When I was young enough to be a target audience for YA, the subject of teen dating violence—like so many other subjects—was taboo. I think what grabbed my attention most in Dreamland was Dessen’s unflinching but gentle look at the realities of such a situation. Rogerson is not a villain, he’s a messed-up kid. Caitlin is spoiled, yes, but she’s also loyal to her friends and trying to shoulder her family’s burden as well as she can. Caitlin’s mother is so devastated by her older daughter’s disappearance that her younger daughter becomes a figurehead to her, and Mr. O’Koren is uncomfortable with anything even relating to “girl talk” and prefers concrete action over emotional messes. All these things conspire to make an abyss Caitlin falls into, one she can’t extract herself from without help. She’s not completely a victim, and Rogerson is not completely evil.

I remember finishing Dreamland for the first time and feeling as if Dessen had reached into some of my most secret memories. The shame Caitlin feels, her need to “protect” Rogerson and cover things up, the pressure of her family’s loss, all these things felt familiar. It felt like someone was speaking the truth, and I do not remember the young adult books of my young adulthood ever giving me that frisson. Instead, I graduated early to the “adult” section of the library and didn’t look back—until Dessen.
Dreamland is not perfect. For one thing, the pacing is uneven and Caitlin’s therapy is not given nearly enough room. For another, all Dessen’s heroines start out (even if they haven’t always been) as upper-middle-class. Money is rarely an issue for the kids in her books, and it seems a shame that a writer of Dessen’s talents hasn’t explored that angle. Rogerson Biscoe screams “trouble” so loud, and Caitlin is such a sleepwalker, that occasionally the adult me wanted to shake both of them—as well as Caitlin’s mother. Still, the very strength of my emotional response tells me that these are well-crafted characters. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t have fallen so hard into the world of the book, nor would I reread it with my heart in my mouth each time.

I’ve read most, if not all, of Dessen’s other young adult books, and been entertained each time. Dreamland, however, remains something special. Every time I read it, it’s like the author—and Caitlin herself—are speaking directly to me. Which is a feeling to treasure, whether one is seventeen or seventy. Dessen opened up the new world of the young adult genre for me, and I’m glad to note that books for younger readers are not the clichéd swill that was the only thing on offer when I was significantly younger than I am now. Each time I see a new Dessen book, I feel a thrill and reach for my bank card.

And that, as a reader, is the highest compliment I can give.

“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.”

So says Titus, a teenager whose ability to read, write, and even think for himself has been almost completely obliterated by his “feed,” a transmitter implanted directly into his brain. Feeds are a crucial part of life for Titus and his friends. After all, how else would they know where to party on the moon, how to get bargains at Weatherbee & Crotch, or how to accessorize the mysterious lesions everyone’s been getting? But then Titus meets Violet, a girl who cares about what’s happening to the world and challenges everything Titus and his friends hold dear. A girl who decides to fight the feed.

When I first saw Feed mentioned in Maggie Stiefvater’s ‘Top Twelve Books of 2009’, I knew that I had to read this novel. (For those who don’t know, Maggie is the author of Shiver) What gripped me from the first page of this novel is the sense of grim reality. This isn’t a novel where everything is carefully scripted, it’s honest and raw. Dialogue and thought coming from a place that strikes me as real. Through every thought of Titus I got a sense of being completely in over my head, struggling to find meaning of events taking place. Which, I believe, is exactly the response author M. T. Anderson was looking for.

Feed opens with a group of friends on spring break who have decided to take off to the moon to find entertainment. But the moon isn’t exactly what they expected. They run into Violet, who for all appearances is as average and normal as the rest of them. Except for the fact she was home-schooled and needs to live a little. Yet everything doesn’t run smoothly on the moon. For Titus and his friends become the subjects of a hacker, resulting in their feeds being disconnected, leaving them shut off from the world. Imagine having the internet permanently accessible to you, then suddenly it’s gone. Yet this internet is the basis of everything. Communication, human contact. The world.

All too soon – or not soon enough depending on your point of view – the technicians of FeedTech have fixed the problem and Titus, Violet and their friends can continue on with their normal life as American consumers. However one member of this group doesn’t have it as easy as the rest. Even before the hack, Violet was about defying the feed. About not conforming to society. Testing the boundaries to see how far she can push. And her limit may have just arrived, for her feed hasn’t recovered the same as everyone else’s. Slowly, Violet is losing control of her most basic functions and without the money to fund repairs, Violet and Titus know that she only has a short amount of time to live.

With not enough time to do anything, Violet tries to do everything. Yet underneath it all there is still her belief in fighting the system. Her belief that there is something more out there than the average American. But can she communicate this to Titus in a way he can understand before it’s too late?

I’ve always measure novels in terms of how well I can get lost in the story. Feed is one that had me completely lost in the story. Anderson wove a story that was so compelling and so real. This isn’t a fantasy or alternate universe with different rules. It’s a grim look at a future possible reality. The ‘feeds’ which is the subject matter of a large portion of the novel is a highly advanced internet interface which is installed in your brain – it takes over everything from breathing and moving and completely removes the necessity of reading. It categories and records everything you do, building a profile of you used by American corporations. It is a place that we could very well be heading. A scary and controlling place. And through this, we have Violet who is fighting for a better world, a world where youth don’t live in ignorance of what is happening outside of their suburb, where youth remember the history of the past and what the world used to be like. It is Violet who made this novel all the more real, as she tries to break from society.

This is just one of those novels that needs to be read. At the core, one girls emotional and physical struggle to change the world, seen through the eyes of one that struggles and fails to break free of the constraints of society.

A warning to younger readers, frequent coarse language does occur.

Pages: 300

Publication date: 2004

Rating::

Oaths sworn…loyalties tested…forces collide.

It’s been only months since Eragon first uttered “brisingr”, an ancient-language term for fire. Since then, he’s not only learned to create magic with words – he’s been challenged to his very core. Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still, there is more adventure at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep.

When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices – choices that will take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice.

Eragon is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?

Murtagh is defeated – for now. But not after revealing the information the rocks Eragon to his core and changes everything he knew and thought was right in his life. Struggling with the true identify of his mother and rejecting that of his father, Eragon is trying to find where he truly belongs. After having his entire being affected by the Ageti Blodhren ceremony of the elves, Eragon is starting to feel the binds of the oaths that he has made – oaths to each race and the individual people of Alagaesia.

First, is the oath to his cousin Roran. Roran’s betrothed is being held hostage by the Ra’zac – servants of Galbatorix, they spread fear in their opponents making them a deadly enemy in battle. And for this battle, it is impossible for Eragon and Saphira to be together. For it is in the caves of the Ra’za, caves too small for Saphira to fit through. Eragon and Roran are on their own. And when further complications arise, Eragon is making the first of his decisions that will affect the entire Empire.

Then there is the oath to Elva, the blessed-yet-cursed child that Eragon has promised to help. Yet when it comes to the ancient language, nothing is a simple as it seems. The more Eragon learns, the more he beings to realise how hard it is to remove the cures he placed on Elva. One wrong pronunciation and it could become a lot worse.

Then there is the problem of his un-finished education and the promise to return to Ellesmera to complete this. Yet can Eragon really afford the time to travel across the Empire when the Varden need him now more than ever?

For it is Ellesmera that holds the key to the next stage of the battle against Galbatorix. For Ellesmera holds the only elf with the knowledge on how to forge a Rider’s sword. A sword Eragon is in need of after Za’roc was taken from him by Murtagh on the plains. For only a Rider’s sword can face another of its kind and only a Rider’s sword can withstand the pressure of magic. Yet this seemingly simple process is complicated further by more oaths and promises, some that Eragon himself doesn’t yet know the cost of.

As Eragon, Saphira, Arya and the Varden hurdle closer to the battle that will decide the fate of the world, each side begins to face the costs of what has be promised.

In Brisingr, I feel Paolini has outdone himself. This is by far the best of the series. The characters all come leaps and bounds, with the multiple viewpoints woven simultaneously into a smooth plot that gives you an understanding of each and every race that make up Alagaesia. One of the biggest things I noticed in Brisingr was the development of the characters and the relationship between these characters. You could see just how much each character was standing for and just how much they would lose if they failed.

Personally, I’m a sucker for romance in any for, and the continuing developments between Eragon and Arya had me happy in this novel. There still isn’t a relationship between these two, yet the strength and development of the friendship that Paolini developed between Eragon and Arya was so believable and strong, that it had me smiling at many stages in this novel. Not to mention the ending that had me tear up at one stage, due to the pure and raw emotion in the scene.

Once again, I would recommend Brisingr to any lover of epic adventure fantasy novels, and with one instalment left to go, I will be looking forward to the release date for the last novel in the Inheritance Cycle as much as the next reader.

Pages: 763

Publication Date: 2008

Rating::

There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah, Georgia. He’s the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.

Even though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce–and goes out of his way to make that very clear–she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret . . . even if it kills her.

When Luce wound up at Swords & Crosses, a reform school for disturbed kids, she never thought she’d meet anyone worth knowing. I mean, it’s a school for kids with problems – naughty, psycho, crazy and messed kids. The place even looked and felt like a jail. But this is life, and things never turn out the way we expect, do they?

Meet Daniel. The moment Luce lays her eyes on him she feels it. This thing. A connection. Like she’s met him before or something. All this in one little glance. But if he felt it, he certainly isn’t showing it. Daniel makes it more than clear that he’s not interested in Luce, that she should stop stalking him, stop harassing him. He doesn’t want her, so why can’t she stay away from him? Why can’t she get him out of her head? She knows there is something off about him and she’s determined to figure out what it is. Only then will she be able to shake her heavy heart.

I hate the way Daniel treats Luce. He’s more than just a little rude. Even more than that, I hate the way Luce shamelessly keeps going back for more. I kept asking myself where this girl’s self-respect was, and how she could let a boy treat her so badly. I’ve read enough books like this to know by now that often, my initial reaction to characters like Daniel is wrong and that much more lays beneath the surface. Even though I was aware of this, as I was reading, I couldn’t help but feel ticked off by him. The question is you should be asking yourself is, did I stay this way, or did he win me over in the end?

Enter Cam. He’s the guy you love to hate. He’s charming, he’s beautiful, and he’s definitely interested in Luce. He flocks to her immediately, stepping on anyone else’s chances of even attempting to score with her. And Luce likes him back, she does. That’s why she’s not backing away from his advances. But there’s just something … missing, and she can’t quite figure out what it is. Maybe it’s that everything with him is just so easy. There isn’t any inner emotional struggle, no deep pain caused from simply being around him. But is easy what she’s even looking for?

Like all good complex characters, there is more to Cam than meets the eye. Just when you think you’ve got him figured, he turns around and does something that will totally throw you off course. Cam is surprising, in many ways.

Actions speak much louder than words, so if you want to know the truth about these boys, watch what they do, rather than what they say.

This is the kind of book where not a lot happens, yet everything happens. It takes a while to get going, but it’s definitely worth the wait. This is one of those character-intensive kinds of reads that focuses a lot on relationships and friendships, but there is a bit of action too. It’s right at the end, though, so make sure you stick it out.

Fallen is an effortless, engrossing read. This is an excellent first book in what I expect is going to be a mind-blowing series. Hold onto you shorts, folks, this one is going to be big.

Pages: 452

Publication date: 2009

Rating::

An Australian magazine published an article this week stating that the Twilight Saga is set to hit our television screens as a T.V series sometime next year, after the release of the Eclipse movie. Robert Pattinson is reported to be in negotiations to play Edward for a whopping US$2 mil per episode. The article didn’t mention anything about possible actresses in the lead to play Bella.

Could they milk the Twilight Saga any more? I’m wondering if anyone would even watch this. It seems silly, after releasing three huge blockbuster films, to try and adapt it to episodic television.

Here at yaReads, we’re wondering if this is true or just some elaborate hoax to help them sell magazines. We’re hoping for the latter. If you’ve heard anything about Twilight going episodic, we’d love to hear from you.

As you all know, Lili St Crow’s Betrayals (the second book in her Strange Angels series) is our Book of the Month for December. We’re stoked to have Lili with us this month, and after reading this interview, we think you’ll be pretty stoked too. We want to thank her for taking the time to respond to our questions with such honesty and detail. You rock our socks off Lili! Grab a cuppa and sit back and enjoy!

Strange Angels is your first venture into young adult story telling. Was it a conscious decision to write a story for teens, or did the narrative just take that shape?

I actually never thought I would write YA. It never seemed to be an option because of the subject matter and darkness of my usual work. I was quite surprised when I was contacted about my willingness to write in the YA field, it just never occurred to me as something feasible.

I think the YA genre has grown tremendously in the last five to ten years. When I was in that age group, I don’t think certain issues of violence or sexuality would get through the gates, so to speak. There’s been a certain loosening of attitudes and an admission that teenagers do say bad words and they do have hormones, they face dangerous situations and they make choices. I skipped a great deal of YA when I was that age because it just didn’t speak to me—I started reading “adult” books because none of the YAs addressed issues I felt were relevant to my problems. I think teens today have a much greater choice in the genre.

For you, what was the biggest challenge about writing a story for teens as opposed to adults?

Well, they’re not that different. The baseline promise a writer makes is to tell the truth. This makes no difference whether your audience is 14, 40, or 70. Once you have that commitment, you can tackle questions of appropriateness in your own way.

I was very concerned that there would be tension between my editor and me when it came to certain things—rough language, violence, sex. Once I had That Talk with my editor, I was much more sanguine. Before I ever signed the contract I spoke with my editor about my concerns and it was just all out there on the table: I was not going to sugarcoat anything or BS any of my readers, no matter their age. My editor agreed completely and is very supportive.

It seems, at the moment, that in paranormal YA lit, the big thing that draws readers in (especially girls) is the presence of an impossible love triangle. Why did you decide on a love triangle, rather than a single love interest for Dru?

It was just the shape the story took. There are triangles of one sort or another in a lot of my adult work as well.

A lot of paranormal YA—and, let’s face it, a lot of adult fiction—tends to have this narrative that the dangerous, flashy, obsessive partner is desirable and something girls should aim and sigh for. I like to contrast that with the partner who isn’t obsessive or as dangerous. I think a lot of our cultural narratives about romantic love glorify behaviour that would get a restraining order out here in the real world, and contrasting that with a more realistic portrayal of what a healthy relationship looks like is very valuable.

But then again, there are huge conversations going on in our society about gender roles and relationship roles, and the triangles are a good way to explore a lot of those knotty problems. Plus there’s the fantasy factor—in real life, sometimes behaviour a fiction character engages in would be creepy. But the reader has control over how far they enter into the fantasy, and it’s empowering to have that complete control.

I have to ask, are you Team Graves or Team Christophe?

Personally, I’m very Team Graves. He’s not perfect, but his affection and attention are very much preferable to Christophe’s. I mean, Christophe is very old. He remembers certain parts of World War I, for crying out loud. It’s disturbing that he had this relationship with Dru’s mother and is now acting interested in Dru. It’s always faintly skeezy that we have these immortal beings in love with teenagers in our fiction. Part of this goes back to that cultural narrative, and the fantasy.

On the other hand, Christophe is an interesting character because djamphir don’t mature in certain ways. They’re stuck in teenage bodies and dealing with a world that treats them like children nowadays. So it’s not as skeezy as it could be, and Christophe’s growth as a character brings some of these issues into focus.

Artistically and as a writer, I don’t know where Dru is going to “end up”. Why does it have to be a choice between Graves and Christophe? Maybe she will decide to take some time off and figure out what she wants without a boy in the picture. I find it interesting that this isn’t even seen as an option when this sort of thing is discussed.

Do you have the whole Strange Angels series planned out, or are you creating as you write?
I have the big things, the broad strokes, very firmly in my head. But part of creating a work of art is making choices in the moment that might take it in a different direction. It’s a balance, a fine line to be walked between one’s idea of where the story should go and where the story wants to go. Just like life, I guess.

If Dru could click her heels and have three magic wishes, what would she ask for?

I think she would ask for those people she loves to be back with her and whole. She’s had a lot of loss. Dru is an orphan, and that’s a heavy burden to bear. Through most of the series she’s searching for someone to help her, and missing very much the love and stability that her father and grandmother provided, even if both of them were extraordinarily non-traditional.

What about if you could have three magic wishes, what would you ask for?

It’s probably a marker of my age that I don’t know. I think I’d have tremendous difficulty deciding, because any wish I made would have consequences I couldn’t even guess at. I’m not sure I would take advantage of that. I’m profoundly wary of such questions.

Do you have any particular writing habits?

Other than doing it every day, rain or shine? Not really. I’ve trained myself to write no matter what, so my habit just takes the form of doing it every day. Making the commitment to get it done, no matter how or what or why.

When you ventured into the world of YA, why did you chose to write under Lili St Crow rather than Lilith?

That was a decision taken in conjunction with the publisher, to make it very clear that I was writing in a different genre with different expectations.

Can you tell us anything about the next Strange Angels novel?

I’m working on Book 4 right now, and Book 3, Jealousy, isn’t out yet. So I’m kind of torn—which one should I talk about? I suppose it would be fairest if I spoke about Jealousy. The title kind of speaks for itself.

I’ve always seen jealousy as one of the biggest and most insidious problems in high school. There’s this complete lack of proportion and this social pressure, and popularity or even just plain fitting in and finding a peer group is often played as a zero-sum game: the more for you means the less for me. I don’t think our current system does a good job at teaching kids compromise and cooperation as an non-zero-sum game. So when people hit the adult world, there’s this all or nothing habit of interacting with people that’s very hard to break. Some people never grow out of it.

But you wanted to know about the book, right? Well, this is the book where Dru finds out more about how her mother died and who was truly responsible. The traitor to the Order is unmasked, and there is a price to be paid for Dru’s acts of kindness. Dru also learns a great deal more about what it means to be a part of the Real World, the world of all these things that go bump in the night.

Are you working on anything non-Strange Angels related at the moment that you’d like to share with us?

I’m actually incredibly busy right now, with a ton of short stories for anthologies in process and the next Jill Kismet novel (one of my adult series) pretty much wrapped up and sent to the editor to begin the revisions process. I like being busy.

Thanks so much for having me here!

We’re stoked to announce that Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to adapt Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl’s novel, Beautiful Creatures, for the big screen.

Richard LaGravanese (who directed P.S I Love You) is rumored to be both writing the script and taking on the role of director for the film.

No word yet as to who will be playing out leading lady and leading lad. Any suggestions?

Beautiful Creatures also debuted at number three on the NY Times Bestsellers List for December 20, 2009.