Book Lover's Christmas List

Personal Library Kit- $14
 "Hey Lauren, can I borrow Hunger Games from you?"
"Sure. Here's your check-out card. Let me write you down in my records, this will only take a second. And I'll need to stamp the book with my date stamp and ink pad."
There's something bizarrely satisfying about imagining this conversation.

Literal Book Ends- $32

These book ends are adorable. Trust Modcloth.com to come out with something like this first. I feel like this would be great inspiration for a DIY project, to give as a Christmas present. Buy your own plain book ends, and then . . . I'll let Pinterest figure it out. 

Out of Print Clothing- $28-42

Show off your favorite classics. These shirts aren't some tacky Twilight Saga rip-off tees. These are the kinds of tee shirts Belle would wear if Beauty and the Beast took place in 2012. (That means they're for the sophisticated nerds.)

The Fault in Our Stars (John Green) review: John Green is sort of Shakespeare.

I don't have to waste a paragraph disclaiming what a nice guy John Green is. Because when you're a good writer, people don't have to tell other people how nice you are. I complement author's personalities the way people compliment that awkward prom date in the movies: only when there's nothing else to say.

I've never met John Green. John Green could be a real jerk, but it would be okay, because he's a tidy, witty, snarky writer, and in the grand scheme of things, personality isn't that big of a factor when you're a writer. Writers are sitting alone in cafes all over the world, typing out imaginary conversations between imaginary people and crying when figments of their imagination die, all of which requires very little personality.

The Fault in Our Stars is a cancer-patient-meets-cripple love story. I feel like there are a lot of these, but I couldn't actually tell you the title of another one. It's an archetype.
(I also feel like there are a lot of fictional cripples, and I could tell you excatly who they are. All the best people in the world are cripples. It's my motto. Peeta Mellark, Mathew Crawley, Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon.)
For a premise crawling in stereotypes, Fault does its best to be very anti-stereotypical. There's no bucketlist-ing. No one starts a cancer charity. But John Green is like Shakespeare.

John Green is Shakespeare, the way James Dashner books are actually Psych: in this dramatic, metaphorical way that I felt was fitting for a review about such a dramatically metaphorical book. It's not meant to be a form of praise or an insult, if you're the kind of person that hates reading Shakespeare. 

Were Romeo and Juliet alive, they would not be speaking to each other in iambic petameter. They both only have the brainpower to commit suicide at age fourteen and probably wouldn't know what iambic petameter is. But they're Shakespeare characters, and therefore have been infused with Shakespeare. As improbable as it might be, their uneducated nurses and servents know how to speak in philosophical spouts of poetry, too. Because they're Shakespeare characters.

Shakespeare isn't writing the way people speak. He's using these characters as vehicles to get his ideas and his words across, not theirs. Of course he had to. His stories weren't original. His writing, and not the stories he was writing about, were what made the plays worthwhile.

John Green's characters are like Shakespeare's. They're vehicles. They're pretty interesting vehicles. But that's what they are. I know people like these characters exist and I appreciate it. But the probablitiy of a seventeen-year-old boy sitting down, opening his mouth, and saying, "I fear oblivion like the proverbial blind man who's afraid of the dark," is slight.

And the probability of the sixteen-year-old girl sitting beside him saying, "There was a time before organisms experienced conciousness and there will be time after," is slight.

I wish sometimes I lived in a world where stewardesses either did or didn't permit metaphors onto airplanes and told you so. Where we all had great debates about whether or not "the breakfastization gives the scrambled egg a certain sacrality," or if that's "buying into the cross-stitched sentiments of your parents' throw pillows". Where my teenage friends and I discussed paradoxes that 19th century philosophers came up with. I would really like to live where ever this is, actually. But I don't.

I know every author has a specific style. No book is completely realistic. An author taints a story to the way their head sees things. John Green has a way of doing it excessively and it's noticable, like the way Shakespeare characters sound like Shakespeare wrote them. Does this mean the literal story is not worth reading, or the characters are uninteresting? Does it mean I didn't stay up until one AM reading this book? Does it mean I didn't cry at the dramatically metaphorical ending? Is Shakespeare a bad writer?

If I heard someone on the street speaking in iambic pentameter or discussing the Tortoise Paradox, I would be able to pick up pretty fast whose writing I had stumbled into. But I don't mind knowing the way these writers write. Because when (always) they stylize their works, they both are shown to have a talent that so many writers don't have:

A good writer can describe things in a way you've never thought of before. But a great writer can describe things in a way you've always thought about your whole life and never realized before. A good writer has a way of taking a story we've heard before and turning it into something new. But a great writer has a way of taking a story we've heard before and turning it into something familiar.

This is the difference between nice guys and the ones that have every right to be jerks. And if it means that the profound words I have tacked onto my wall came out of the character of an airplane stewardess, or a fifteen year old boy as he played video games, then by all means.

"Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than the stories and people we're quoting."
-John Green

Thanksgiving Reads: RMP acknowledgments with a better SEO

Happy Christmas Music is Finally Appropriate day. To celebrate, the Read My Print team would like to send a special thank you to:

1. Goodreads. Because if I can't vote in the presidential election, at least I can vote in the Goodreads best books of 2012. I cared about both equally.
2. Orson Scott Card. For finally selling the movie rights.
3. Orson Scott Card's cellphone carrier. For kind of sucking, whoever they are.
4. The screenwriters of the Twilight series for giving me such confidence in my writing abilities.
5. Ally Condie, for being completely nice enough to sign a copy of Reached out to "Read My Print" even though that is totally against the rules.
6. James Dashner. Because he's such a nice guy.
7. Elise, who posed for that 40 second video ad for about 3 hours and now can only walk in twitches from pose to pose.

Review on The Fault in Our Stars tomorrow, if you want to know what John Green and Shakespeare have in common.

The King's English: 35 Reasons to Buy Local in Salt Lake City

1. It's not a store. 
2. It's a bookshop. 
3. Try saying "I'm off to the bookshop" without smiling.
4. "I'm off to the bookshop!"
5. The shop is converted from an old house. Isn't it charming? I would have lived there before it was stuffed full of books.
6. Okay you caught me, I'd still live there.
7. The book signings held at King's English give you the feel of having a personal chat with the author. 
8. Luckily, any books signing that's any book signing takes place through King's English. For example:
9. These are the people responsible for me meeting Rick Riordan. 
10. RICK RIORDAN. 
11. These are the people responsible for me meeting Shannon Hale. 
12. These are the people responsible for me meeting Ally Condie.
13. These are the people responsible for me meeting Gail Carson Levine. 
14. GAIL CARSON LEVINE. 
15. These are the people responsible for me meeting Ally Carter. 
16. These are the people responsible for me meeting Neal Shusterman. 
17. Their weekly newsletter is the only email I ever read all the way through. Sorry if you email me.
18. I once heard Shannon Hale say, "When a book is put up on display in Barnes and Noble, it's because somebody paid to have it there."
19. "When a book in on display in King's English, it's because somebody read it, and they loved it."
20. They have ivy-covered walls. 
21. One of their booksellers this past year got engaged there. 
22. The bookseller's boyfriend asked her to help him find a book- with a ring inside it. 
23. Would it really matter WHO was proposing to you if they proposed like this. 
24. I guess so but still. 
25. Their reception was on the patio of the store bookshop.
26. You know, next to the ivy-covered walls.
27. I love their children's section. I'm not ashamed of children's books on Read My Print and neither are they.
28. In fact, their children's section is the coolest part of the shop.
29. You just about have to have a PhD in English literature to be hired.
30. I can't get over that proposal.
31. They're responsible for the signings with Ally Condie and Lemony Snicket I'm going to cover this month. 
32. Working there is on my bucket list. 
33. "I'm off to the bookshop."
34. This fall, the shop is celebrating its 35th birthday. 
35. If you're near Salt Lake, celebrate by heading up to The King's English and buying a book. 

www.kingsenglish.com

Warm Bodies Trailer: Book to Movie Transition

As a child, I wrote an Honorable Reader's Code of things you're not aloud to do while reading if you want to remain a decent person. Like buy a T-shirt that says Dumbledore dies on page 552 and wear it to Barnes and Noble the day Half-Blood Prince comes out. That's not even the right page number.

The top of the list was watching the movie before you read the book. But the more I think about it, the more I want to dig through the drawers of my desk and find that paper and cross that one off the list. Watching the movie before you read the book isn't the bad thing. It's watching the movie instead of reading the book. 

Sometimes, hearing something is coming out as a movie can be the motivation that gets me to read a great book. 

This aphorism of the day is my excuse to post the new trailer for Warm Bodies on the blog. I never thought I would say this, but some zombie romance literature is now on my reading list. 

 

 

Neal Shusterman Book Signing: Q&A and UnWholy Reading

This past Friday, we covered a Neal Shusterman signing in Salt Lake, where he stopped as a part of his UnWholy tour. Much thanks to Brooklynn, the coolest addition to the RMP team, who helped cover and film.

Neal Shusterman is the author of more books than I have fingers. And toes and elbows. While his Unwind and Everlost series are a pair of New York Time bestsellers, my favorite Neal Shusterman novel is The Schwa Was Here. 

To enter to win a signed UnWholy poster, go to your right and click Join This Site under the FOLLOWERS tab. Followers are automatically entered in giveaways and given quick access to new articles when they log into Blogger. Anyone with a Google, Yahoo, or Twitter account can join. For extra entries, you can go to pinterest.com/readmyprint and follow my RMP pinboards.

Check back next Friday for a local post on the secret to getting the best book signings. The secret.

 

Well Said! Lemony Snicket Quote

It's been awhile since I posted a quote block. I love this quote by Lemony Snicket (Series of Unfortunate Events), whose signing I can't wait to cover later this month. Click below for a version you can download or pin or ignore.

Stick around for Friday. This week, I went to a Neal Shusterman (author of Unwind, The Schwa Was Here) event and signing, and I'll be posting video of him reading from his new book, Unwholy, plus a signed poster giveaway for you. And some other stuff, but you have to stick around for it.

Keeping Up With Your Favorite Authors: The Author Blog Awards

Authors are my favorite brand of people. They're obsessive readers, they're always describing things dramatically that don't need to be described dramatically, and they write the best blogs out of anyone I know. However, some blogs stick out more than others.

So, welcome to the Annual Author Blog Awards, where the most hilarious stories, best layouts, and most exciting spoiler reveals will all get the applause they deserve. If you see a blog by an author you love, click the links to their sites and make sure to follow. 

Accidentally Laughing Out Loud At Your Computer Award: The Most Hilarious Author Blog

Janette Rallison (janette-rallison.blogspot.com) 

My Fair Godmother, My Double Life

How many times have I posted about Janette Rallison? Like, four or seven. Click on the links I've posted already. Rallison won this award with her post The Worst Pick Up Lyrics of 2012. I won't ever listen to Drive By the same way again. Actually, I've already listened to it again, and I was right. It wasn't the same. Her posts also keep you updated on her (many) new book projects and great giveaways. You'll never be sorry you follow her blog . . . especially if she rewards you with a signed ARC.

Click below to read books by the winner of the renowned Accidentally Laughing Out Loud At Your Computer award:

My Unfair Godmother, by Janette Rallison- THE best book I have read by her. Click here to get the COM in RomCom. And the Rom.

Just One Wish, by Janette Rallison- There is hope for teen lit. There is.

The Fan-tastic Blog Award: The Most Fandom Involving Author Blog

Ally Carter (allycarter.com/blog)

The Gallagher Girls series, The Heist Society series

My apologies are sent to Ally for the horrible pun involved in her award title. Her blog is fantastic, though. It's completely composed of giveaways, contests, trivia competitions and a constant link to her Twitter feed. What pushed the Gallagher Girls to the top for me, though, was this addition to her site: a webpage for the fictional school for spies in her books, where fans can apply to the school, get code names and class schedules, and even read unpublished short stories about the characters. Way to step up the game. 

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, resembles James Bond and Ocean's Eleven- teenage girl style. Written by the creator of the most fandom-friendly blog. I loved these on audio. Click if you dare:
Uncommon Criminals, by Ally Carter- Nothing's classier than an art heist . . . except a jewel heist. Click.
Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, by Ally Carter- ON AUDIO! Double WIN.

The Self-(And Not-So-Self) Help Award: The Best Writing Advice Blog

Gail Carson Levine (gailcarsonlevine.blogspot.com)

Ella Enchanted, Fairest

Advice from the author of Ella Enchanted? Yes. Please. Gail Carson Levine's lovely blog is nearly an advice column for hopeful authors, where she answers comments and messages sent to her about writing technicalities and tricks. She has actually written a book of writing advice titled Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly (which is a great writing read) and I trust her advice 100%. If you're an aspiring writer, author blogs like hers can be a great resource to the inner workings of Publisher Heaven. Take her up on the offer and follow for advice!

Check out the work of Gail Carson Levine, winner of the Self (and Not-So-Self) Help award. I want to be her when I grow up. 
The Princess Tales by Gail Carson Levine- Adults and teens can handle being mature enough for a good children's story.
The Wish, by Gail Carson Levine- Less popular than her other books . . . why?!

The I'm-A-Guy-that-Blogs Award: For the Guys . . . that Blog
Rick Riordan (rickriordan.blogspot.com)
Percy Jackson series, Kane Chronicles
John Green (johngreenbooks.com and nerdfighters.com)
The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns

Statistically, guys are less likely to have a blog. But guys make great bloggers- especially author bloggers. Take Rick* and John Green as examples. Not only are they two of the funniest YA authors around, but they also host two of the funniest YA blogs.

While any Percy Jackson or Kane fan should see Rick's blog as an essential follow, it isn't only good for spoilers and book tour dates. I've gotten suggestions for great reads from his blog as well. (Not to say his blog ISN'T good for spoilers. It's great for those.)

John Green is a hilarious vlogger and blogger, and his sites have a nearly cult following. Wondering why (like I was)? Follow either of his blogs and you'll figure it out pretty quickly. While I'm going to admit I'm not a Nerdfighter, I can't help but be impressed.

Our buddy Rick. If you haven't read these, you're never getting initiated into that club. Never. 
The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan- ON AUDIO. My favoritefavoritefavorite way to read.
The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan- the latest in the Kane Chronicles

I ought to read these, too. 
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green- Yeah, he beat you to that title.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green- legend tells of a movie coming soon

While author blogs are a must, no reader's repetoire is complete without a good book blog to follow. Sign in with a Google account to join Read My Print. No, we're not a Nerdfighters cult, but if you follow, maybe we'll let you in on our top secret club password. After initiation, of course.

*As you've probably seen before, I just can't call this guy by his last name. It's like calling your favorite goofy uncle "Mr. Riordan".

Best Halloween Reads

I can read just about anything. But I've never been very big on horror. 
I'm not a big fan of anything creepy in general.
Monsters, Inc. gave me nightmares as a kid.

So if you want to get in the Halloween mood but still, you know, be able to sleep and enter rooms with the lights off and open the fridge without crying, you and I are in the same boat. Check out these  slightly creepy reads on my Halloween list this year.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Now that every other supernatural resource has been exhausted (vampires, werewolves, angels, VAMPIRES) we've turned to witches. I'm excited to read Beautiful Creatures before the movie comes out this spring. I love book-to-movie movies in general. And Emmy Rossum is going to be in this one. She's like the Zac Effron of Phantom of the Opera. I've heard great things about this franchise so far- i.e., "It's like Twilight, when Twilight isn't acting like Twilight." To quote my favorite blogger, "We don't need a next Twilight. Once was enough." But if this franchise can be Twilight but not, it sounds like a good Halloween read.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

This one's already checked off my list. It's exactly as haunting and quirky and flat out creepy-weird (that always should have been a word) as the cover art insists it's going to be. The author, Ransom Riggs, is also a cinematographer and photographer, and the story goes he used his favorite old photographs he's collected at flea markets and in private collections to structure the story around. Turning the page to a vintage freak show photograph inside my novel is just about as much as I can handle- it definitely has the desired effect.



The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

While I went through a stage of being a bit against this book, you can't hate zombies with this much class. Not for that long. As I've posted before, this book is clever, elegantly written and elegantly covered (?) and elegantly everything- when your leading lady isn't wielding an ax. The Forest of Hands and Teeth tells an apocalypse story in a society so cut off from the outside world, technology and slang make it feel more like the place you'd expect to see the Salem witch trials go down than a zombie attack. It's getting to be an oldie and a bit of a classic re-read for me. If you still haven't read it, it's a great Halloween catch.



Was I too much of a wimp?

Check back next Friday! We've made it to November . . . Neal Shusterman book signing cover!

The Best Apocalypse and Dystopia Novels: A Timeline of the Future

Apparently it doesn't matter who gets elected president this month; America is scheduled for a complete and psychotic make-over in two years from now. The world's favorite subject is quickly becoming How the World Will End, which is kind of like hanging out with your friends and all deciding to draw comic strips about how the others are going to kick the bucket.

All the same, I love dystopia and apocalyptic novels. I posted here in July, "Usually, in dystopians, Nazis come back to life and everyone has to live in little shacks, and the love triangles are made up crazy people and celebrities and bakers." (Should that not be the catchphrase of all YA books lately?) 

But how will they all fit together? With so many depressing predictions for the end of the world, we're going to need to operate on a very tight schedule. 

If you see a book you like or haven't read, click on the cover for more info. 

2013: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

First things first, the moon must be hit by an asteroid. Zombies-shmombies. The moon has to be really big in the background before I can even think about that. In Life As We Knew It, the moon is sent into a closer orbit with the earth, causing climate changes, natural disasters, and tides rising, making this novel the perfect segway into dystopia as we know it. In the meantime, The Host can run around for 400 pages. It's a win-win. 

2020: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion, The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks

Zombie geeks, now is your time. And your mother laughed when you bought a flame thrower. We'll allot you five years to rule the earth in ax-wielding glory before finding a cure. And your mother will still laugh at your flame thrower. Unfortunately, for the apocalypse to continue, we've got a lot more ground to cover. 






2025: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Why does this book ALWAYS come up? Maybe it's because I'm too excited for the movie. However, in 2025, people are already studying Harry Potter in school as classic literature. Everyone has that old Ender's Game movie memorized, so it won't take us too long to recover from a couple of well-placed alien attacks and world-dominating governments. Well, maybe a little bit of time.




2104: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Classic lit fans, rejoice! Fahrenheit gets its day. Of course, that means all your favorite classic lit is destroyed by fire. Luckily, firemen will be unemployed sooner than later, because it's a pretty short book. So stay tuned, citizens, for . . . 

2177: Matched by Ally Condie

Evolving out of the Fahrenheit society comes Matched, which holds plenty of the same characteristics as its predecessor. Matched is still big on censorship and creepy pills, but introduces the world to a new concept as well: love triangles. The future slowly morphs into a place where a romance can no longer be a romance unless it involves an indecisive girl, a blond guy, and a brunette one. One of the three must limp. Or be an outlaw. Or both. 

2177: City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
In the meantime, a group of semi-sane people decide to ditch dystopia and hop underground. To create . . . a dystopia. In City of Ember, a group of people formulate an underground society when living above ground becomes just too scary. Of course there is the problem of running out of food and electricity. Read the book. 




2205: The Hunger Games by- do you really not know? 
(Suzanne Collins)

I really wanted to be alive for this one, but unfortunately Panem is established a little outside my life-expectancy zone. From the ashes of psychotic book-burners and zombie purged lands comes my personal favorite. Katniss, as the great-great-granddaughter of Hawkeye, (the Avengers apocalypse happens before the rest of this of course, but unfortunately it's not a book) proves that those flamethrowers were tacky and takes us old school with a bow and arrow and a love triangle  Of course.



What did we miss? Leave a comment if there's a dystopia you'd like to see squeezed in. 

Check back next week for an early Halloween post!

The Death Cure: Review (And Other Tales of the Apocalypse)

James Dashner is a nice guy. I've met him more than once, and other authors are always telling me this, too: James Dashner is a nice guy. If you don't like James Dashner, you're not a nice guy, because James Dashner is a nice guy. James Dashner is the kindest man you will ever meet don't you dare bash on his novels.

So before I tell you what I think of this series, I have a disclaimer: James Dashner is a nice guy. I read all three of his Maze Runner books. They have nice covers and the man who reads them on Audiobooks is really good at doing Irish accents. So that was fun.

I know some of you love these books. You think James Dashner is a really nice guy. You give his books five stars on Goodreads. You must be a nice guy, too. I guess I'm not a nice guy. Not only am I a girl, but I'm not a Maze Runner fan.

I really hate writing bad reviews. It disturbs me. Because I get this evil little adrenaline rush from doing it, like it's fun. And really what I'm doing is asking a nice guy to please go cry. I hate that it's fun. I hate that I get no guilt trip out of this. But here's the thing.

Everyone loves this book. These books. All three of them. Four if you're The Dedicated Fan who reads the prequel. Somebody has to stand up, in the name of Suzanne Collins and Ray Bradbury and Orson Scott Card and point out what's really going on.

It's like watching Psych. I love Psych. I find the pineapple every episode. But you're not looking for pineapples in Maze Runner- this book is like Psych on an intellectual level. This book isn't hilariously stuffed with jokes from 1992. This book reminds me of the way, in general, a cute little crime show typically goes about its business.

So say you're a Psych fan. For those of you who aren't Psych fans, this is how it goes down: little Shawn and Gus run around, make an 80's movie reference you don't get, and- Gasp! Look! There is blood on that man's shirt! Shawn makes a dramatic face, the camera zooms up on the blood and it glows. He's our killer!

That was thrilling for you.

Then one day you hear all these crazy people talking about Sherlock. And they say It's totally like Psych you'll love it! and you're thrilled because season 5 or 16 of Psych doesn't come out for a whole month, so you need something to occupy your time and you guess you'll try this show.

You turn on Netflix. Two hours later you turn off Netflix. You just sit there looking at your TV. Holy Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For those of you who aren't Sherlock fans, this is how it goes down: This show was invented by geniuses. Forget the slightly-open door being your clue to the murder, forget 80's movie references. That was cute, but you can't look at that show the same way again. You're on a new level.

There are millions of apocalypse/dystopia novels out there in the world. Publisher Heaven chucks down one every hour. Off the top of my head? Hunger Games, Shatter Me, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Ender's Game, Matched, Unwind, Fahrenheit 451, Uglies, Divergent, please make me stop. I know that's a random list. Not all of them a gems. But some of them are.

Picture yourself watching Shawn and Gus trying to solve a Sherlock crime. They make the same, basics-of-simple observations and 80's movie references. Even worse, Sherlock and Watson are sitting next to them telling them what geniuses they are and worshiping at their feet. And the worst part is? It works, and they solve the crime.

This is what reading this series was like. In the usually sophisticated genre of dystopia, amidst the Sherlocks of Hunger Games and Fahrenheit 451, in walks a really nice guy. The decisions I watched James Dashner's characters make were painfully straightforward. But every other character within the book regards them as genius.

Even the series' plot itself is basic, but loopholed and frilled up until you would have no idea. The world has been attacked by a virus that makes people go crazy. The only rational explanation is, of course, to gather up a group of fifty adolescent boys and build a life-size maze for them to live in, filled with giant slugs that may attack them. With needles that come out of their skin. March these children through a desert, strike them by lightning, make several of them telepathic. Bring in tiny mechanical spiders. Threaten these children with vivisection and . . . if I remember correctly, human sacrifice. Oh, spoiler alert.

The end result is so simple and obvious that I just sat there for a moment, listening to the Audiobook fade out with this blank expression on my face, wondering if that really could have been what I'd been waiting three books for. I was alone in a room. But I was slightly shouting, "Really. Really. That's it."

YA fiction, particularly YA dystopia/apocalypse has become this flooded refugee camp for all the other demographics in the world who've been disappointed by adult literature or tween books. Everybody's figured out young adult is the place to be. As a YA writer, you're facing the most competitive, the most intense, the fastest paced but the cleverest genre there is right now. You as a YA reader no matter what your age are expecting the best. You deserve it.

No book is completely bad or completely good. In addition to having a CD reader who was great at Irish accents, this series is a group of quick reads with sharp, clear writing. They are action-packed and hit the nose with a love triangle I didn't expect, thrown in on the side.

I don't think James Dashner is a bad writer. I think he is a good writer, actually. But cerebrally, his writing can't stand up to this genre.  I know he's also written successful series for middle grade readers. The intellect of books he writes for older teens and adults is still on the same middle grade level, and after three books and a prequel, it doesn't look like he prepares to step it up. But for a  quick adrenaline read that won't tease your brains too much, these books are harmless.

I have two exceptionally petty issues with this book as well, which you'll understand if you've read the novels. Click. 

Check back here at Read My Print for a new post every Friday. Before the end of October, I have a Halloween reads post, and, of course, the annual October Companion Novel Awards. Annual starting . . . now!

The middle-grade novels I give props to:

Got through these books thanks to the awesome audio reader:

The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan: Started* Review

The Heroes of Olympus series feels like reading a Pixar film. Not Cars 2 or Wreck It Ralph, but a 2005 kind of Pixar film that gets 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s funny, squeaky clean and well paced, and it’s been polished until nearly everything, even reading it, looks like a cartoon. There’s nothing to complain about. But there’s probably never going to be that much substance to think about either. 

That doesn’t mean I can’t be over the Empire State Building every time Percy and Annabeth have a dramatic moment (less than the corner half three-fourths of my brain that is still twelve years old would like). But the over polished, Disney-ified feel does take something away from these books. The first five had a bit rougher edge to them somehow that I feel like we've lost. The evolution of Camp Half-Blood has its benefits and its drawbacks.

I grew up reading Rick’s** books, and the first five Percy Jackson novels will always have a very special, geek-friendly place in my heart. The Heroes of Olympus series is different, but unlike most follow up series, (cough, cough, three more books in the City of Bones series, really, cough, cough) these novels actually feel necessary to the story established during Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

When I met Rick at a signing on his Lost Hero tour, I asked him why he felt the need to create a follow-up series. He said, in Greek mythology there was a natural kind of “follow-up series” to the Titan war, and he wanted to mirror that in his stories. I smiled and nodded and thought, Confound the gods of Olympus, don’t give me sensible trash answer. We all know it was for the money. But the more I read this series, I realize I was wrong. These books really do build on the last five. I don’t regret reading them.

Out of everything I’ve ever read aloud, I prefer Rick Riordan books. I’m currently employed reading The Mark of Athena to a group of 10-13 year olds. I have the best excuse in the world to still be reading these books in high school. I can make any character I feel like at the moment British while reading. And while my voice box is slowly disintegrating from overuse, I'm not ready to give up on the Olympians just yet. In Mark of Athena, Rick has provided me with a decent excuse not to grow up. Again. 

Fingers crossed he'll pull through for us one more time next fall. 

For a spoiler full review of Mark of Athena, book signing reviews (including Neal Shusterman and Shannon Hale), and SLC readers' guide to the best local reading nooks, check back here at Read My Print every Friday this fall.

*When I was little and saw "A Starred Review!" on the back of a book, I always read it wrong. I thought it said 'started' and meant that the dumb book critic had only bothered to read the first few pages. Come on, people.
 I get the real process now, but have written this article as a genuine started review. Seeing as Mark of Athena is over five hundred pages long, I didn't think it would be fair to make you wait that long for an article. This review is based on my experience reading the series and the new book so far. 


**I can’t bring myself to be mature enough to call this guy by his last name like a real, sensible book review. I just can’t. Secretly I am twelve years old, I swear.

Read My Print commercial- "Everything At Once"

Back from the dead, I'm here to deliver our first post in a month- but it's worth the wait, I promise. I've been working on a Read My Print video ad we can store on the sidebar, but I'm going to post it front and center for you today, because I'm a little proud.

The video is a compiled 300 or more photographs- you can imagine why there hasn't been much blogging going on. But don't worry, we're finally back on track!

Our lovely model, Elise, got to choose the book she ended the spot with. She picked Things Not Seen  by Andrew Clements, an author I've always loved too. What other favorites can you find making a cameo in "Everything At Once"?

I'm so excited for the posts planned for October. I'm going to be covering book signings, our very own awards night, and a very big stack of books by the side of my bed. Plus, of course, some great Halloween reads! The first post of the month is lined of up for you this Friday. Check back!

5 Reasons to Sneak Into Your Library's Children's Section

Adult readers are finally coming to terms with the fact that YA fiction is where it's at. What can we say? We're funnier, better paced, and are happy to serve as a melting pot for all those other demographics who've been disappointed by themselves, ages 12 to 74. But how much do we think about dipping back into the middle school or children's genre? Here are five reads you might have missed your first go-round at being 10, but aren't too old enjoy as a more sophisticated reader.


Granny Torrelli Makes Soup 
Sharon Creech

I could tell you how many times I've read this book, but if I kept track of how many times I read a good book, I wouldn't have time to read any good books. And if I did know, telling you would probably be embarrassing.

Sharon Creech is famous for her novel Walk Two Moons, which won so many awards the cover art is no longer visible under all the medals plastered to the front of the book.

But out of everything I've read by Sharon Creech, this is the book that sticks out in my head: a story of a twelve-year old girl, the blind boy next door, the new girl across the street- told only through stories she tells to her grandmother as they make soup in her kitchen. Sharon Creech has brings an original voice in every book she writes, so of course this one isn't an exception. She's awesome like that. This book has a simple, raw, and magical tone that I really wish I could bottle and use on my poetry assignments.

Ella Enchanted
Gail Carson Levine

I'll never exactly consider Ella Enchanted a children's book. When I heard Gail Carson Levine last summer at a signing, she said she couldn't understand why her publishers keep putting these nine year old girls on the covers of her novels.

Ella Enchanted is a re-telling of Cinderella. I imagine Gail Carson Levine's friends as a kid all twirling their princess skirts and going on vacations to Disney World for autographs while she rolled her eyes in a very future-author-y way and told them all that Cinderella was a wimp. One day, I'm going to a book that actually gives her an interesting character and you can all get my signature.

This is another book worth re-reading again and again. It lacks all the tackiness of a typical retelling. Instead it's sweet, sincere and believable and yes, better than Ever After with Drew Barrymore.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
Kate DiCamillo

This book is told from the point of view of a porcelain rabbit. Of course it is. This is coming from the woman that brought us the mouse who fell into a bowl of soup and saved the world with a spool of thread.

Edward Tulane is probably the most original story I've ever read. Edward is a selfish and tampered toy, and he has little emotion other than a love for tailored suits his owner dresses him in. Each day his owner him sets him up next to a window pane, where he watches the empty street until she returns home from school.

When his owner travels to England by ship, Edward is thrown overboard into the Atlantic and rescued by a fisherman. He is sent on a journey of owner to owner through the years. Edward is a hobo on the road with one owner, a scarecrow or a street performer with another, each with a unique story to tell that makes me want to cry for one reason or another.

While I liked reading this book as a kid, re-reading it now, with the honors-English-curse upon me, I see all sorts of literary devices and symbolism. Now I love it.

The Whipping Boy
Sid Fleischman

A classic for a slightly younger audience than others on my list, I never thought I would like this book. If elementary schools had honors English courses, this might not make the heavy-symbolism-and-other-literary-devices cut. But this book has a clever little charm all its own.

The Whipping Boy is the story of a prince who has never gone a day in his life without finding some sort of trouble to get into deserving of a whipping. But as it is illegal to whip a prince, the castle holds in reserve a whipping boy, who is called out and beat in his place as a lesson to the prince. In 90 witty little pages, Sid Fleichman tells the story of the prince and whipping boy's unlikely friendship with snappy dialogue that puts some more "mature" authors to shame.

Tuck Everlasting
Natalie Babbitt

It's not the kind of book a kid would pick up on the shelf next to  Diary of A Wimpy Kid, but anyone who has taken a peek inside Tuck Everlasting is much more impressed with what they find.

Tuck Everlasting feels just like this cover to me: a simple, lazy summer day story, but wrapped up beneath all the yellow is a paranormal twist about mysterious family who has found they will never die. Here's the really crazy part: they're not the Cullens.

Sometimes children's and middle-grade classics become overlooked, because the only reason anybody reads a classic anymore is if a grumpy little English teacher in suspenders forces you to, and that only happens in high school. Tuck Everlasting, as well as the rest of the books here, are great examples of  middle-grade classics worth your time no matter what your age, no matter your lack of a grumpy, suspend-ered English teacher standing over you shoulder.

Check back here at READ MY PRINT next Friday for the best on companion novels: one of those parallel posts.

Reading Now (The 50% British Edition)

Finding Violet Park
By Jenny Valentine

"The minicab office was a cobbled mews with little flat houses on either side. That's where I first met Violet Park, or what was left of her."

Admittedly, my copy of the book does not look as cool as the cover on the right. I loved reading Broken Soup by Jenny last year and now have found this second novel under the title Me, the Missing, and the Dead. While Finding Violet Park sounds quirky enough for U.K. audiences, apparently everything has to be watered down when it's shipped to America. I have decided to tell people I'm reading Finding Violet Park anyway and pretend like I'm British. I watch BBC. Close enough.

Click on the U.S. cover to zoom in. Go on. It's not half as fun.

The good news is that the inside of Jenny's books refuse to be American-ified. Unlike some more mainstream British authors (another fancy way of saying  Harry Potter) her American editions hold their ground, their quirk, and their heavy London accent. It's like reading an old Kate Nash album.




The Dead-Tossed Waves
By Carrie Ryan

"The story goes that even after the Return they tried to keep the roller coasters going."

I guess the British are so sophisticated, their zombie novels have sea shells on the covers. Will an American not read a book unless a girl has passed out on the cover?

As a companion novel to The Forest of Hands and Teeth, this book has a pretty good site staked out already. Hands and Teeth was a zombie novel that never said the word "zombie", and an apocalypse novel with no flashy technology, (which I consider even a bit more unbelievable). Instead the story took place in a community where you would expect the Salem Witch Trials to go down. Everybody wears peasant blouses, lives in little wood houses, and hangs out at the mill, overlooking a stream and field of daisies. And at the edge of the field there's a giant chain-linked fence with undead clawing at it.

This book caught my eye by starting right off the bat with such a more modern feel to it. The theory goes that humanity is surviving the apocalypse by living in these tiny little gated communities with no contact to any other tiny little gated communities. Yes zombie-apocalypse-preparedness-lovers, all you actually needed was a chain-linked fence. While the community most explored in the first book is controlled by a group of nuns who rule in renaissance-fair mode, I'm looking forward to seeing how other communities are fairing, apparently in the midst of broken down roller coasters and hopefully other more modern devices. I would also like it if less of the sequel took place inside a convent. Just an idea.

You Killed Wesley Payne
By Sean Beaudoin

"Dalton Rev thundered into the parking lot of Salt River High, a squat brick building at the top of a grassless hill that looked more like the last stop of the hopeless than a springboard to the college of your choice."

This book doesn't have a British edition but I liked the theme we had going here.

And I like the cover on the right better anyway.

While I've never read anything by Sean Beaudoin, I've heard some great reviews since picking up this book and his bio cracks me up.  Not to jinx this or anything, but I have hopes for this guy.

If I'm completely honest with you, I have to admit the real deal-sealer on this one was that title. Come on. It's completely U.K. edition worthy.

Bloomability
By Sharon Creech 

"In my first life, I lived with my mother, and my older brother and sister, Crick and Stella, and my father when he wasn't on the road."

Nobody, ever ever in the whole wide world is ever ever too old for a Sharon Creech book. I sound like a Taylor Swift single replay saying it like that but I needed you to listen. These books are for everyone and they always will be.  I love this woman and almost everything she does. I love it when I find a book of hers I haven't read.

And look, I went that whole paragraph without even mentioning how much cooler the U.K. cover was, or how everybody in England that reads Sharon Creech books apparently looks like that girl off Glee and can get away with serenely looking off into the distance at random moments and wears cool scarves.



Check in next Friday for five reasons to re-visit the children's section, plus Well Said! posts through out the week.