Posts Tagged "ya reads"

The second novel in Lili St Crow’s Strange Angels series, Betrayals, is set to debut on the New York Times Children’s Paperback Bestseller List at number five on December 6, 2009.

Congratulations to Lili! Betrayals is a truly compelling read, and we’re happy to announce that we’re featuring it as our Book of the Month for December!

Stephanie Kuehnert’s book, Ballads of Suburbia is our Book of the Month for November here at yaReads. As part of the promotion, Stephanie agreed to review a book that she read – and loved – recently. Enjoy!

Harmonic Feedback – Tara Kelly

When I was a teenager I looked desperately for books that reflected me in someway—not necessarily an exact mirror of my life and experiences, but I wanted to find characters that were having similar emotional experiences, that were feeling as confused by life as I was. There was just something about watching a character work through their life that helped me to work through my own problems. And it was a relief to see that I wasn’t alone in feeling the way I did. Unfortunately when I was in high school, it felt like those kinds of books were few and far between.

I wish I could go back in time and give my teenage self Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly.

The main character, Drea, in Harmonic Feedback has a hard time making friends for two reasons. One, her mom moves her around all the time. And two, according to her mom and the various shrinks she’s seen through the years, she’s not “normal.” She’s been labeled many things, the term “social awareness” is thrown around a lot, and ultimately she is diagnosed with Asperger’s, an autism spectrum disorder. As Drea puts it, “All I know is I make sense to me—it’s other people who seem complicated.” When I read that line, I thought that’s how I felt!  And I found that thought reoccurring throughout my reading of the book. I don’t have Asperger’s, but when Drea points out certain things about human behavior—especially how people say one thing but mean another or say one thing and do another—I remembered so many occasions when I felt just as mystified as she does by the way we communicate. This book sums up so well why it’s so hard to fit in and be happy at high school.

I haven’t really seen any YA books that deal with Asperger’s so I imagine those readers who share Drea’s diagnosis will be thrilled to find someone with a similar experience in fiction, but I think everyone who reads this book will actually relate to Drea and find themselves realizing as I did that the way we think and behave especially in high school is so *not normal*!

The book begins when Drea moves to Bellingham, Washington. She meets Naomi, a girl from across the street who Drea’s grandmother warns her against because she’s trouble. Naomi has her fair share of issues with people at school, too, but she is an incredible singer and Drea, a musician and sound engineer likes making music with her—though Drea is a little bit uncertain about the other social experiences she has with Naomi, especially those centering around boys. However, there is a boy named Justin, who Naomi grows to like. A lot. In ways that she hasn’t experienced before and is struggling to understand. He’s a music fiend like Drea and has a past that he wants to keep secret the same way Drea is attempting to keep her psychological diagnosis and history a secret from her new friends.

I got an advanced copy of Harmonic Feedback and was excited to read it because I knew it was about music, a passion of mine. But I quickly realized how it was about so much more than music. I was so sucked into Drea’s story that I read the whole book in one night, something I am not often able to do, but with this book, I just dropped everything and read. I had to. If I put it down, I’d immediately find myself picking it up again, needing to know what happens next.

I was in tears at the end—again something that doesn’t happen often for me. And this is not to say the book was totally tragic. There was definitely tragedy, but so much learned by the characters that it left me feeling hopeful. And honestly I wasn’t just hopeful for Drea, I was hopeful for everyone who reads this book when it comes out in June 2010 because it will make you think about how you communicate. It will make you think before you keep a secret and hopefully it will encourage you to open up. And it will make you really reconsider what “normal” is or whether “normal” even exists at all.

I love books with well-drawn characters, people you can grow to understand whether you relate to their experience or not and Harmonic Feedback is filled with these. I adored Drea, Naomi, and Justin, but the side characters were so rich as well, especially Drea’s grandmother, who truly gives you a lot of insight into Drea in her own way.

I love books that make you think about the way you act and treat others, that open you to new perspectives and Harmonic Feedback is definitely that kind of book.

I’m not a reviewer and I never write book reviews because I don’t really know how to convey my joy when I read a book I really love, but this is one of those books. It’s going on the all-time favorite list and I recommend that everyone get their hands on it when it comes out.

Probably the official blurb I wrote for the book sums it up best:

“Harmonic Feedback is an impossible to put down, must-read book. Brilliantly written and filled with music, but even more so with emotional truth. Anyone who felt like an outsider will relate to Drea’s story, which is not just about Asperger’s, but finding love and true friendship and trying to hold on to it. We’ve all been there, but you get a fresh and honest take on teenage life through Drea’s eyes.”

Really, I can’t do it justice, so just do yourself a favor and pre-order it now!

The fourth book in Melissa Marr’s ever popular Wicked Lovely series, Radiant Shadows, finally has a cover!

What do we all think?

Stephanie Kuehnert’s new book, Ballads of Suburbia, is our Book of the Month here at yaReads. We think Stephanie is a pretty amazing story teller and is a breath of fresh air in the world of Young Adult fiction. She deviates from the regular YA formula and her books are confronting, edgy, and real. It’s great to see someone pushing the boundaries. She was kind enough to answer some of our questions about Ballads, for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

If you had to choose a ballad that fits your own life story what would it be?

Okay, this is seriously the hardest question anyone has ever asked me! It’s hard for me to choose just one because different phases of my life had different songs. I guess, I’d have to say “The Young Crazed Peeling” by The Distillers though. There are things that don’t apply literally (I’m not from Melbourne, I didn’t have an abusive dad, though my mom does blame herself for me growing up troubled a bit), but it’s basically to me about getting through your rough teenage years where you’re bored and troubled and as Brody sings “you can wash it all down, swallow your story, get smacked up, yeah and go down in drum roll glory,  but it won’t solve it, committing self inflicted crime.” And then you’re “liberated from those sad side city streets”, find love, speak truth, and  ”it hit me, I got everything I need. I got freedom and my youth.” Basically my troubled youth ended well, and gave me a gift of creativity, and I finally did find good love.

You’re obviously heavily influenced by music. What are your top three bands/artists of all time?

Nirvana, Hole, and Social Distortion, all of whom I discovered between the ages of 12 and 14.

Where does your musical influence come from?
Somewhere around age 10 or so music became as essential to me as food, water and air. I got into the Beatles first, through my parents. Then we got MTV and I started getting into alternative rock like REM, Jane’s Addiction, Depeche Mode and Faith No More as well as heavier stuff like Metallica and Megadeth. I had a couple friends who were always discovering new bands first, like one of them got Nirvana’s first album Bleach right before Nevermind came out and they got huge. One of them got stuff from a cool older cousin. That was where I heard Hole’s first album and I remember that friend brought the first Nine Inch Nails album to my 12th birthday party and we were like “The devil wants to f*** me in the back of his car?!?” BAD-ASS! But really it was Nirvana that had the hugest influence. Something about how Kurt Cobain screamed, it just soothed all that hurt inside and I wanted more music like that. So I bought bands’ albums that he mentioned in interviews. That’s how I discovered the Sex Pistols. Nirvana and The Sex Pistols were my two favorite bands in junior high and from there I went on to discover more punk. Punk gave me voice and a sense of release. It all comes from that.

Now for Ballads, how long did it take to write?

Actual writing time probably 2 years, but I wrote a really, really crappy book when I first started the creative writing program at Columbia in 2000/2001 called The Morning After. It had some of the same characters from Ballads, but it was a fictionalized version of my own life and that was not what I wanted to do. I had something to say about suburbia and I wanted to do it justice and find the write structure for it. So I shoved that manuscript in a drawer and went on to write my first published novel, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone. In the middle of doing that, while I was in grad school, I took a class with Joe Meno and he did this whole lesson on ballads and that was when I realized I needed these confessional type ballads for my suburbia book. Still, I finished writing IWBYJR and then came back to Ballads in 2006. I need a lot of stewing time for my books. But the ballad structure was exactly what I needed. I wrote the book fast. I think the only scene from The Morning After that made the cut though was when Kara and Adrian meet.

***SUPER SPOILER WARNING***

Did you make a conscious decision to kill of Maya, or did the story kind of write itself that way?

I knew Maya was dead when I met her. Ballads, unlike IWBYJR, I wrote linearly. I wrote that epilogue first and when Kara had that vision of Maya, I saw her too and I knew that Maya was dead. I knew how she would kill herself too, but I had to discover the whys through the writing, let Maya slowly reveal them to me.

A lot of the characters in Ballads (Liam and Kara especially) say that love is for suckers, yet they both end up falling for the people they’re messing around with. Do you think that people can have no-strings attached relationships like they were both aiming for?

Kara’s story is not as uncommon as society would have us think. Why do you think teens (and people in general, I suppose) turn to self-mutilation, drugs and substance abuse to help solve their problems? Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself and I would say no. I had a couple Adrian style relationships when I was younger and always got emotionally involved and got hurt. Now I’m a very emotional person so that is just me, but when I’ve seen other people do it, it seems like someone always gets hurt too.

Kara’s story is not as uncommon as society would have us think. Why do you think teens (and people in general, I suppose) turn to self-mutilation, drugs and substance abuse to help solve their problems?

Because as a society we don’t communicate well. That’s kind of the whole theme of Ballads, the whole tragedy of it. If parents had talked to children or children had talked to parents or other trusted adults or each other, things might not have happened the way they did. I hope this story creates a dialogue and gets people talking so fewer kids suffer in silence like the characters in Ballads and like I did as a teen too.

If Kara’s parents had stayed together, do you think she would have gone down a different road, or do you think she was destined to learn life’s lessons the way she did?

Well, it depends. If they stayed together for the right reasons and actually created a healthy environment, then maybe things would have been different. But “staying together for the kids” and creating this unhealthy silence wouldn’t haven changed things. Also Kara had other issues. She felt isolated and friendless, she might have still gone down the same path because of that. I don’t think anyone is destined for anything, there are always choices, but there are also always multiple factors that shape why we act the way we do.

***SUPER SPOILER WARNING***

Do you think Adrian will ever clean himself up?

Um, I don’t know. Part of me wants to hold out hope. Part of me is cynical because I have friends (ex-friends really) who are still in the throes of addiction and it seems like they will never come out. Adrian’s a lot like them because he just doesn’t care. If you don’t care enough to save yourself, you’re pretty much screwed. No one can save you but you.

For all those people out there who live by the motto “once a drug addict, always a drug addict” what do you have to say to that?

Depends what you mean by that. If it’s like a negative thing, like people can never turn their lives around, I think that is bullshit. There are always choices and opportunity for change. But it is a fight to overcome an addiction. I struggled with self-injury and even though I haven’t cut in eight years when a friend of mine was killed in a motorcycle accident last year, it took unbelievable willpower not to go back to old ways of running from pain. So yeah, you are always an addict in that sense where it’s not like you can just indulge again without consequences. But you can start fresh and turn your life around.

What would be your advice to teens reading Ballads that might be following a similar path as Kara?

Find someone trusted to talk to. Friends are good, but finding an adult is important too. There is no shame in therapy. My life didn’t turn around until I seriously started going to therapy. That combined with my art–my writing–helped me through my darkest times. Art is the best escape– no hangovers, no regrets, no scars. Finding some form of art–music, writing, painting, photos, film–to express yourself with is the best way to begin to heal. Along with talking. Talking is so necessary.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a few different things. It takes a while for the ideas to formulate so I do more than one thing at once until I really get going. I’m working on a book about a teenage girl and her alcoholic, still-teenage-acting mom trying to grow up and finally put down roots somewhere together. Then I’m working on a book with paranormal elements, that involves mythology and rock ‘n’ roll.

She’s no angel . . .

Poor Dru Anderson. Her parents are long gone, her best friend is a werewolf, and she’s just learned that the blood flowing through her veins isn’t entirely human. (So what else is new?)

Now Dru is stuck at a secret New England Schola for other teens like her, and there’s a big problem— she’s the only girl in the place. A school full of cute boys wouldn’t be so bad, but Dru’s killer instinct says that one of them wants her dead. And with all eyes on her, discovering a traitor within the Order could mean a lot more than social suicide. . .

Can Dru survive long enough to find out who has betrayed her trust—and maybe even her heart?

What I liked about Strange Angels (the first in this series) was that it wasn’t set in any kind of school for the creepy supernatural, like so many other YA paranormal books. So when I realized that Betrayals was set in a supernatural school for the kooky and the gifted, I was a little disheartened. But I was wrong to judge so fast. Let me clear this up right away, Betrayals is no high school novel and Dru is certainly no high school gal.

School never was her thing, so when Christophe dumps her and Graves at the Schola – a school for not so human folk – Dru wonders what he’s thinking. School? What’s the point? She can already fight. She already knows everything there is to know about all the beasties in the world … or so she thought.

Dru has never been great at following the rules, and decides that class can go stuff itself where the sun don’t shine, to hell with the consequences. And consequences there definitely should be. Everyone else at the Schola are severly punished for missing class, but not Dru. No one seems to even care that she’s skipping all the time. They’re not training her either, which is a worry because that was the whole reason she was dumped in this place to begin with. Christophe promised that they’d take care of her, help her refine her fighting skills. So far, all they’ve done is feed and house her.

Dru knows something is up.

Graves, on the other hand, loves his new home. He’s learning to fight, learning to control his new wolfy talents and somehow, he’s found himself in a position of power. He thinks Dru is just being stubborn, that she’s lived her life in fear for so long she doesn’t know any other way. Dru thinks Graves is drifting, distancing himself from her a little, but Dru is kind of blind sometimes. Perhaps Dru should be asking herself why Graves is spending so much time with others rather than whether he actually wants her around anymore.

And then there’s Christophe. Cryptic, tall, dark and handsome Christophe. If it weren’t for him, Dru and Graves would probably be dead by now. That warrants a certain amount of trust, right? But what does she really know about this guy (other than the fact that he makes her heart go thumpa thumpa)? Christophe is a bit of a ‘legend’ at the Schola and everyone seems to have an opinion about who he is and what he stands for. Will Dru be able to see through the stories and find the truth?

All the things I didn’t like about Strange Angels are no longer an issue in Betrayals. Where I found Strange Angels a little slow and disengaging, Betrayals is fast-paced, beautifully written, and masterfully suspenseful. Lili St Crow nails the art of writing action scenes, carving up the pages with just the right balance of description, dialogue and inner monologue. Where I was happy to take breaks reading Strange Angels, I was unable to put Betrayals down. I was found reading in the toilet, in the bath, at the dog park, in the supermarket. Everywhere I went, the book came with me.

As someone who didn’t like Dru much in the first novel, I was unbelievably happy with how her character developed in this instalment. Her rock hard exterior (which I found annoying and even a little unbelievable in the last book) softens somewhat in this novel and readers are privy to more of her personal, private thoughts. I feel I understand her more now and I found it difficult to dislike her. There were even times where my heart ached for her.  I didn’t care too much how her story played out after reading Strange Angels, but I’m happy to announce that I’m now completely invested in her trials and tribulations. I desperately want things to work out for her and I hope that she gets everything she needs to survive in this bitter and twisted world. Dru … you go get em girl!

Betrayals is a supernatural heart stopper full of all the best kind of paranormal beasties around. A must read for fans of Urban Fantasy fiction.

Rating::

To read our review of Strange Angels, click here.