Posts Tagged "Teen Books"

We’re featuring Audrey’s memoir, Map, for the month of June here at yaReads. Her story is a brave account of her life as she explores her sexuality, and her candidness continues in this interview. Enjoy yaReaders!

For those that may not know, what is a memoir?

It’s a true story, usually focused on one time period or theme in the life of a regular person, as opposed to an autobiography which is generally about the entire life-to-date of someone famous.  So for instance my memoir Map is a coming-of-age story about a time when it was easier to admit that you were in love with another girl than that you’d met someone on the internet.

Did you decide to use alias names for the people in your story, or did you just tell it how it was?

It was important to me tell the truth, both factually and emotionally, as best as I could.  I even used old credit card receipts and telephone bills and emails to remember facts.  But to respect people’s privacy I used pseudonyms for almost every character in Map, except in the case of two minor characters who gave me explicit permission to use their real names.

How long did MAP take you to write?

Nine-and-a-half years, start to finish.  The first draft took me only a couple of months, but I left out the climax!  My writing group was pretty insistent that that wasn’t allowed.  It took some time for me to get comfortable enough to share the hard parts.  And then with each successive draft, I heard “more,” or “deeper,” or “you need more perspective,” until finally the story was on the page the way it needed to be.

Would you say that writing a memoir is easier, or harder than writing fiction?

Ooh, good question.  I think they’re challenging in different ways.  In both cases, you need to be able to tell a good story and bring compelling characters alive on the page, and neither lets you evade emotional truth if you are doing it well.  I think for me, memoir’s largest challenge was how to write both honestly and respectfully about other real live human beings—many of whom were still a part of my life.  With the novel I recently finished, on the other hand, I had to work to understand multiple characters so that their motivations and actions, not my authorial plot-needs, were driving the story.

At the beginning of MAP, you question your sexuality and essentially conclude that you’re bisexual. Although you were cautious about coming out, it didn’t ever seem like you were completely scared or feared any kind of social rejection. Can you talk about your feelings on this subject?

I’m still not sure how much of my experience was luck of environment. By the time I came out, there were plenty of queer people around me, and I’d witnessed parts of the coming out of a few gay friends and acquaintances.  Some of them had challenges with their families, or with their own comfort levels, but if they experienced any social rejection, I was completely oblivious.  There just didn’t seem to be anything to worry about in that arena.  And I grew up with activist parents, and although their activism was mostly centered around the Jewish community, it was unfathomable that they wouldn’t be supportive of gay rights and whatnot.  So where a lot of people might worry about homophobia, I was more concerned that people would realize I was confused about something, that I wasn’t as “together” and know-it-all as I pretended to be.

How does falling in love with someone you’ve never met in person differ to the more ‘conventional’ way?

Emotionally, I think it’s very much the same, and the differences I’ve experienced in more recent relationships have more to do with the fact that they aren’t “first love.”  But you do miss out on body language, on eye contact, on touch, on scent, which are all different ways to know a person. You find different sort of rhythms.  There’s an intensity to it, a focus and an adrenaline rush that heightens feeling. You rely a lot on voice, both telephone and written, which I think might be hard if the object of your affections was more kinesthetically or visually inclined.  In either situation, you face the challenge of trying to grow an initial falling in love into a sustainable relationship, and although I’ve seen it done successfully both ways, I think the sooner you are fully “in person” present with each other, the better your chances.

Looking back on your relationship with Catrina, do you think that perhaps when reality set in that you were going to meet in person, she freaked out?

I could speculate, but ultimately she is the only one who knows what was going on for her.  It definitely upped the stakes.

Although your relationship with Catrina didn’t work out so great in the end, it appears that she was exactly who she said she was. What advice can you give to teens that might be pursuing online relationships about the dangers associated with meeting online friends?

Don’t do it!  You might get your heart broken!  Just kidding… but there’s always a risk of online chemistry (friendship or otherwise) not translating to in-person interactions.  There’s a great essay by Meghan Daum that I read when I was first working on Map called “On the Fringes of the Physical World” which captures this dynamic and the disappointment really well.  Of course the other danger is the physical safety one, and for that the usual blind date precautions apply: let someone else know where you are going, meet in a public place, have plenty of extra cash and your own way to get home, stay sober and trust your instincts and don’t let embarrassment trump safety.  Someone worth spending time with is going to respect your boundaries, no matter how cautious or quirky, and if you rush off in weird panic and later decide you were overreacting, you can always send an email the next day.

I like this notion of committing to finding a soul mate, not a gender… do you still believe in that, or do you identify more as a lesbian these days?

The “not a gender” part, yes, I still believe, and as to identity, I usually describe myself as queer.  As I get older, “soul mate” speaks to me less than “right choice.”  I think our initial choice of partner is hugely important, but it is over time that we discover whether we are on compatible paths, how we interact, how well we can grow together.  Sometimes right choice means recognizing incompatibility and breaking up. But when we continue to choose each other, choose to give, choose to create something together, choose to make room in our lives for the entirety of another person as they are and as they may become, that’s huge, and it is those continued choices over time that make a partnership.

What happened to the novel that you were working on in MAP?

The novel turned into a short story called The Pre-Fame Days

The short story I was writing in Map, which is called On the Eighth Day came in second place in a national short story contest, and then I got more curious about the characters and spent eight years turning the story into a novel that I’ve begun shopping around to agents and publishers.  (Any agents or publishers reading this, I’d love to hear from you!)

What is in your to-be-read pile right now?

Meghan Daum’s new book, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House.  A book about homeschooling that I picked up at a library book sale… I love reading about education.  Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna.  Nature Girl by Jane Kelley – a YA novel I discovered on GoodReads about an eleven-year-old who gets lost on the Appalachian Trail in Vermont and decides to hike to Massachusetts to visit her best friend.

If there was going to be a movie made about your story, who would you want to see play Audrey?

I think Winona Ryder, circa 1994, might play me well.  I shudder to think of my life being turned into a movie though.

I love the rock references in your story. What are you listening to these days?

Well I still listen to the Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco, though not nearly as often, and I’ve been a huge Kris Delmhorst fan since about the time I started writing Map.  One of my cousins turned me on to the Israeli singer Miri Mesika… she’s wonderful.  And I’ve been soaking up Mary Chapin Carpenter’s newest CD, The Age of Miracles.

For the gay teens of our community that might be struggling with their identity and/or coming out, what advice would you give to them?

Trust yourself, take the time you need, and it’s okay to not be sure or to come out as “questioning.”  A world full of richness awaits you and often the good stuff involves taking risks, so start practicing!  (And to those of you who know you’re not queer, you’re still part of the welcoming committee, so let’s see those ally buttons on display!)

Anyone who’s interested in reading Map can find direct links to purchase on my website at http://map.audreybethstein.com, and I believe there’s free shipping all summer if you buy two copies, so it’s a great opportunity to donate a copy to your local library or GLBT youth group.

Everything that happened this past summer, and every summer before it, has all led up to this. To now.

Every year Isabel spends a perfect summer at her family friends’ house. There’s the swimming pool at night, the private stretch of sandy beach…and the two boys. Unavailable, aloof Conrad – who she’s been in love with forever – and friendly, relaxed Jeremiah, the only one who’s every really paid her any attention.

But this year something is different. They seem to have noticed her for the first time. It’s going to be an amazing summer – and one she’ll never forget…

Isabel has been called Belly for as long as she can remember. As long as she has been coming to the beach house for summer. For her mum and Susannah are best friends, and Susannah owns the beach house. The perfect big house, the pool out the back, the beach, the sun, the surf. During the school year, Belly distracts herself thinking about summer and the beach house. It’s the place that she knows exactly what is going to happen, even if it’s not exactly what she wants to happen.

For also at the beach house is Steve, her annoying older brother, Conrad and Jeremiah, Susannah’s two sons. As much as Belly wishes they would include her, she knows it will never happen, not truly included. The only girl in a group of guys? Yea as if they would include her in their adventures. It’s something Belly has gotten used to. Just like she is used to Susannah cooking the same meal on the first night, her midnight swims and being left alone a nights.

Yet this summer, something seems different. For one, the reaction of Conrad and Jeremiah when she gets out of the car is completely not what she expected. Susannah doesn’t come to meet them, running out the door like always. The mood is different, almost as if everyone else knows something that they aren’t telling her.

Then comes the moment that she has been longing for. An invite to the bonfire that she was always considered too young to go to. It is there that she meets Cam. Cam Cameron. Someone different to everyone else. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs and can speak Latin and French, even if technically Latin is a dead language. Finally Belly meets someone that she just might be able to forget Conrad with. Someone who tells her that she is beautiful, someone who actually wants her around.

Yet as the summer draws closer to a close, will this really be enough to Belly to move on? Will she be willing to hurt those she loves, to gain what she needs most?

The Summer I Turned Pretty is the second novel from young adult writer Jenny Han, and the first of her novels that I have read. This story captured me, in a way that reminded me of my first love and my teenage years. Growing up and just waiting for the one guy to notice you. It’s a story that I think a lot of people can relate to, both young and old, either going through it currently or remembering what it was like. The Summer I Turned Pretty captures that journey and adventure to find who you are and to be seen as something different to what everyone thinks you are. Reminding me, in style, of Sarah Dessen’s novel Along For The Ride, the characters in Han’s novel are instantly ones you can recognise and connect with. The characters and their actions is what invests you in this novel. You want the best for them; you want everything to end up okay for them.

Belly is a gem. I find reflections of myself in her actions, and things that I wish I had done when I was her age. She has the strength to keep going, to try for something better because she believes the best in everyone. Her relationships with Conrad and Jeremiah and how she deals with her feelings is something that I think we all go through. The confusion of not knowing exactly what someone else thinks of you. Cam was also another breath of fresh air. I wish we had got to see even more of Cam then what was included. Susannah was the mother you wished you had, and Belly’s own mother is that of a typical mother – doing more that her daughter realised at the time.

An element that I really loved was the chance to go back in Belly’s past and see memories from previous summers, and how they created the person that Belly is now.

A beautifully light reading and feel-good novel.

Publication date: 2010

Pages: 288

Rating::

Teaser quote: When it started to get cold, I rubbed my arms, and Cam took off his hoodie and gave it to me. Which, was sort of my dream come true – getting cold and having a guy actually give you his hoodie instead of gloating over how mart he’d been to bring one.

Hunger for nourishment.
Hunger for touch.
Hunger to belong.

Alluring romance, heart-stopping danger, and sinister intrigue combine in the penultimate volume of Melissa Marr’s New York Times bestselling Wicked Lovely series.

Sorcha is mourning Seth’s absence. She’s the unchanging queen and she isn’t supposed to mourn, but still Sorcha does. She frets for Seth’s safety and agonizes that she cannot see him when he is in the mortal world. So Sorcha sends Devlin, her brother and loyal servant, to Huntsdale to check on him, to stay with him in case he should need anything. Little does she know that upon his arrival in Huntsdale, an event takes place that will change Devlin’s path for the rest of eternity.

When Devlin sees Ani in the club, his heart stops short. He’s seen that face before, and as magnificent and beautiful as she is, he knows things about her past that could break her innocent little heart. Not that knowing that stops him in the slightest. When Ani lays her eyes on Devlin, and decides that she wants him for herself, Devlin realizes that although he’s lived a lifetime of loneliness, his future doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. The only problem is, they can’t really be intimate, if you know what I mean, or they risk the possibility of Ani sucking the life right out of Devlin. Who wants to kill the one they love?

Ani is reckless and restless. That would be the hound in her, though, and is to be expected. She’s got spunk and just the right amount of attitude, but that’s not all she’s got. Even though she doesn’t realize it yet, Ani is special. So special that Bananach – Sorcha’s crazy (and evil) sister – wants her blood all for herself. As we all well know, Melissa Marr doesn’t write happily ever after fairy tales, and things don’t play out smoothly for Ani. Hearts are broken, loves are lost, relationships are forged, bruised and battered, and truths will shatter the Earth from the inside out.

Although I found it a little slow on the uptake, I now see that those chapters were necessary to lay the foundations for what shaped up to be a spectacular, gut-wrenching read. Radiant Shadows is exceptional in every way, and I’ve come to expect nothing less from this phenomenal story-teller. Marr’s characters are deep, tortured, and believable in every possible way. Their faces are burned to the insides of my eyelids, their voices ring out loudly through my ears. It’s as if they’re really my friends, instead of a bunch of fictional people that I obsessively follow in their pursuits.

The Wicked Lovely world is definitely one of my favorite places to visit. Radiant Shadows does not disappoint.

Pages: 340

Publication Date: April 20, 2010

Rating::

Teaser Quote:

“Go upstairs Ani.” Irial swung his feet to the floor. He didn’t glance her way. His attention was all for the Dark King now. “Tell me what you think I should have done differently, Niall. I spent the night talking and giving her a safe place to rest. I gave her the nourishment she can’t find elsewhere without compromising her already absent virtue.”

The Dark King didn’t respond.

When Molly gets kicked out of the Naval Academy, she loses more than just another home, she loses the only two things that truly matter: flying in space and her training partner, Cloe. A dull future seems to await, until a marvellous discovery changes everything.

Her father’s old starship, missing for a decade, turns up halfway across the galaxy. Its retrieval launches Molly and Cole on the adventure of a lifetime, one that will have lasting consequences for themselves and billions of others.

What starts off as a simple quest to reconnect with her past, ends up forging a new future. And the forgotten family she hoped to uncover becomes one she never foresaw: a band of alien misfits and runaways – the crew of the starship Parsona.

Ever looked up into the sky at night and imagined yourself flying around the stars off on some other-worldly adventure? Well, this is Molly’s reality. Or will be. Molly is a navy cadet. And don’t be fooled into thinking the Navy is what we understand the Navy to be. Yes they drive ships, but not the standard H.M.A.S. vessels of today’s waters. Molly and her fellow classmates are learning to pilot starships. Sure they are still in training but running a full visual simulator is darn close to the real thing, right down to the G-force experienced.

But in a standard-procedure simulator test, something seems to go wrong. For Molly and her pilot Cole fail and fail miserably. And as much as they try to convince their superiors otherwise, no-one believes them. For Molly and Cole’s simulator was tampered with. Every procedure runs fine, except the ability to arm and fire weapons. Without weapons, they have almost a no-chance at survival. Cole suspects sabotage. With both of them for examination, it will be Molly that the blame is laid at. Particular since Cole was technically ‘killed’ early into the simulator run and it is so much easier to blame the girl.

For Molly, this means expulsion. No more training, and no more hope of becoming a Naval officer. Resigned to a life at a normal high school, everything suddenly seems less for Molly. If loss of her only home, her connection to her past and her best friend that she can’t stop thinking about wasn’t enough, Molly is an outcast in her new school, merely because she is different. That is, until she gets an opportunity of a lifetime. Her father’s ship has been found. And as the legal owner, Molly is the only one who can go and collect it.

And a seemingly straightforward mission is the start of a whole new adventure that even Molly couldn’t begin to fathom…

Molly Fyde and the Parson Rescue is debut novel from Hugh Howey and the first in the Molly Fyde series. The thing that grabbed me from the first page of this novel was the believability in writing and character. The plot just flowed effortlessly, from describing the complexities of hyperspace, simulation flying and other world social structure to the simple dialogue between two best friends struggling to find what they mean to each other. There aren’t many authors who can get you completely lost in a story, but Howey was one of them. For me, I just wanted to know what would happen next, what the next twist in the story would be. As a credit to the author, I never saw the ending that was coming. It makes you easily want to read the next book in the series as soon as you can.

The characters of Molly and Cole were another highlight to the novel. Reading from Molly’s point of view as she struggled through countless personal and emotional challenges left me caring about what happened to her. The history and connection between Molly and Cole as a pair was believable, and the tension that built up added to the story, instead of taking away from it as so many teen-romances can be known to do. That being said, Molly does have her fair share of moments where I just wanted to knock some sense into her and tell her to get over the small dramatics that really seemed unnecessary.

All in all though, a highly engaging read that I would recommend for anyone who is or was a fan of space adventure.

Pages: 258

Publication Date: 2009

Rating::

Teaser quote: By the time they arrived at the Palan system, he must’ve had eighteen hours of uninterrupted rest. No bathroom breaks. No food. No flirting. Molly couldn’t understand how he contained himself. Even from the last.

As if being a purrfect cheerleader isn’t enough responsibility! Tessa Crimson’s the sweet and spunky leader of the SOS (Society of Smitten Kittens), a cheer squad–turned–spy society dedicated to bringing dastardly boyfriends to justice, one cheater at a time. Boyfriend-busting wouldn’t be so bad . . . except that so far, every suspect on the Naughty List has been proven 100% guilty!

When Tessa’s own boyfriend shows up on the List, she turns her sleuthing skills on him. Is Aiden just as naughty as all the rest, or will Tessa’s sneaky ways end in catastrophe?

The Naughty List. Is your boyfriend on it?

Meet the Smitten Kittens. Sounds kind of sexy, huh? Alluring in that mysterious way. If you knew what they were doing, though, sexy wouldn’t even come into it. In fact, the Smitten Kittens are all about busting cheating boyfriends from doing the sexy with people other than their other half. The male adolescent population of Washington High is more than a little naughty, it seems.

The squad – which double as a cheer squad by day – have high tech spy equipment and have a well organized system of spying on the boys at their school. They take requests from girlfriends who suspect their boyfriends are cheating, and investigate till the allegations are either cleared, or confirmed. Unfortunately, they’ve never had the opportunity to clear anyone’s name because every single suspect has been found guilty. Every single one.

Tessa is the only girl left on the squad who actually has a boyfriend. Over time, the others all dumped theirs because they were caught cheating. Then, Tessa’s boyfriend’s name shows up on the list, and with a one hundred percent confirmed cheating rate so far, it isn’t looking good for Tessa and Aiden. But maybe he’s innocent, he seems like a nice guy, after all. Could he be the first boyfriend to ever be cleared of all charges?

Initially, I couldn’t decide exactly how I felt about this book, or for whom exactly the target audience might be. Tessa comes across as a good, wholesome character. She doesn’t curse, and always corrects those around her that do. She uses expressions like strawberry smoothie, for example, instead of actual curse words. She’s an excellent friend to her fellow squad members, a great student, and an all-round shiny, happy girl. At first I thought this was going to be a clean and wholesome novel for younger readers, but then I discovered that Tessa sleeps with her boyfriend and sneaks around in the middle of the night, lying to her parents and Aiden about what she’s doing, and spies on people till dawn. And Tessa is the only one that doesn’t curse; it seems the book is littered with swear words and over active adolescent hormonal activity. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, either, I’m just saying that Tessa’s character confused me.

I found myself trying to decode the messages that came attached to Tessa’s character. By creating a character like Tessa, is Suzanne Young is attempting to send a message that teen sex is okay? After all, Tessa is a really nice girl that is seemingly good in every other way. Does the fact that she’s sexually active make her a bad role model for teen girls? I really couldn’t decide. I’m inclined to say no, but I felt uncomfortable making that judgement alone. What I did like about Tessa is that, especially at the beginning, she is committed to Aiden and although she is well aware of her sexual allure and uses that on Aiden a lot, she doesn’t really flounce it around in front of everyone else. She isn’t promiscuous and she obviously has a lot of self-respect, which I think is important when setting up a potential role model for teens today.

The whole book left me feeling a little uneasy, which I suppose is actually a good thing because I thought about it for hours after I finished it, trying to figure out whether I liked it, how to categorize it, what the underlying messages were. While there was obviously a formula that went into the plot, it seemed there was a lack of formula that went into creating the characters, setting, tone, etc. I found this quite refreshing and I think others will too.

I think this book would be a great jumping point for book clubs and discussion circles that wanted to talk and debate the issue of teen sex and teen relationships.

Pages: 239

Publication Date: Febraury 2010

Rating::

Teaser Quote: Cassandra was less than thrilled to see the glossy eight by tens of Marcus and Red Heels. It nearly broke my heart, especially when I considered her recently departed virginity. All of it left me feeling, well, bummed.