Bloggin 'Bout Books Blog

Hello Lovelies! Today I wanted to talk about something that I've recently spend a lot of time thinking about. In my classes, we often discuss the "future" of young adult books and, less frequently, of children's books. Of course as someone interested in going into publishing this is a hugely important topic. What's going to be the next big trend? What kind of books will sell really well? The last decade or so has been ruled by Fantasy and Sci-Fi (except for a few exceptions, thanks John Green). There were the magical boarding schools (what's up HP?), the vampire romances (lookin' at you Twilight), the dystopian futures (Hunger Games and more recently Divergent); so what is going to be next? Well, publishers are predicting an uprise in Contemporary Romances, thanks again to John Green, but with a side effect of Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor and Park. They expect books about loss (the TFIOS effect, as I like to call it) to sell well. And ...

Hello Lovelies! Lately I've been thinking about how inspiring young adult books are. They don't necessarily even try to be. Welcome to the Darkhouse  by Laurie Faria Stolarz (which I will review soon!) is what actually got me thinking about this. She wrote a horror novel for teens. I mean reading Welcome to the Darkhouse  is almost like sitting and watching Scream or Chucky or any of the hundreds of horror movies that come out each year, but the two quotes that I marked down from it had nothing to do with fear. They were about being yourself and being more than what you are. The whole book is about fear! But Stolarz still managed to make me think about how I choose to react to situations and how I will cut the real me out of things when I want people to approve. These are the two quotes: Give yourself permission. Live your own life, make your own choices. What can this moment teach me? Nothing at all to do with fear or serial killers or haunted amusement park...

Hello Lovelies! Wow! It's been a long time since I've done just a general update-y post. As you might remember, I've been swamped with school things lately, but because of Columbus Day (blech what a terrible "holiday"), I don't have class on Monday, so I had a bit of extra time this week. Also my school hosted the Boston Globe Horn Book Awards on Friday night which I was lucky enough to be able to attend, and holy oh my goodness. First of all, the winners were very gracious people. They all got to give little speeches except for a few who were unable to attend, and it was so nice hearing them speak! I love listening to writers and illustrators talk about their creative process and how they get ideas and what they do with them. I think it interests me because I so desperately want to be a writer. While it was very interesting listening to all of them speak, and I was definitely in awe of all of them, I was most excited to see Gene Luen Yang. And I was n...

Hi Guys!! So my friend, Melissa, convinced me to join a young adult book reading group on Goodreads  (Crazy for Young Adult Books). One of the things the group does is various reading challenges. I think I'm going to work on two. The first is a challenge with 2014 releases that occurs between August - October. Here's the list of books I'm planning on reading: 1. Title that is four words long : Everything Leads to You 2. Author debut novel: 3. Girl on cover: The Winner's Curse 4. More than 4 colors on the cover : Like No Other 5. Standalone : Starbird Murphy and the World Outside 6. New To You Author : I'll Give You The Sun 7. Book under 300 pages : The Shadow Hero 8. Author's first name has the same amount of letters as your first name : 9. Cover you love : 10. Male author : 11. A book centered around traveling or a road trip : Royally Lost 12. Recommendation from a friend : Don't Look Back 13. Author you love : Isla and the Ha...

Hello Lovelies! So it's another installment of YA Rants, where I talk about things that drive me nutso in the book community. Today, I want to talk about consuming without contributing. Now, I know you might be thinking that I'm going to go into a lecture about giving back and not just taking information in but also expelling some type of creative force. But actually, I want to know the reverse. How do you read something without giving money/popularity to it? Or I guess, how far do you go in boycotting something? So let me get down to the nitty gritty of this post. There's this company called Full Fathom Five. It's run by James Frey (Yes that  James Frey. The one behind A Million Little Pieces.) Basically it's a Young Adult packaging company. There's a great article by NY Mag explaining the situation here . And there's a great blogpost by Debby about why she's boycotting Full Fathom Five books here .  I suggest you read those really quick before yo...

Hello Lovelies! First, let me start by saying that I love John Green. He definitely falls into my favorite author category, and he's fantastic person. He is definitely 100% not at fault for the things that other people write and/or say about him. He frequently represents himself much better than he's given credit for. So I'm not really talking about John Green when I'm talking about the "John Green Thing". Instead, I'm talking about the plethora of articles that have come out with the release of The Fault in Our Stars (both originally as a book and then most recently as a film) which advocate John Green as a savior of young adult fiction and the best thing since sliced bread. I was thinking about that this morning because of the tweets which Maureen Johnson released. Maureen Johnson is a pro tweeter and also a fantastic young adult author. She frequently tweets about the inherent misogyny in the young adult world--things that we're so used to tha...

Hello Lovelies! I just realized that by this time next week we'll be starting month 6 of 2014 aka the beginning of the half way point! It's insane. I can't believe 2014 has gone by so quickly. I mean, part of that is preparing for the biggest move of my life but I don't even know. 2014 is just clipping along. But I thought I would take a moment to check in with myself and my blogging goals for the year. I know I haven't been hitting all of them, and I'm hoping taking this time to remind myself will encourage me to jump back on my goal train.  So here's my original post if you'd like to see what I'm referring to.  1. Commenting hasn't been going super well. I definitely read a lot of other blogs, but my commenting needs to get back up. Something for me to keep in mind. 2. I haven't done much design work. I have several saved ideas, but I haven't actually done anything. I need to work on that. 3. I've failed pre...

Hello Lovelies! I made a trip to my local public library today. It was lovely. But it got me thinking about the various ways to arrange books. At my house, I have my books arranged by read/ to-read then by color. It works for me because I'm a fairly visual person so I remember what covers I have for books. And I have them separated by read / to-read so that I can see the ones I need to-read. It's an impetus to get me to read the books I own. My roommate, on the other hand, prefers to keep her books separated by subject. She would love to have them alphabetically after that, but with our shelving situation at the moment, she hasn't been able to do that. At work, we keep our books separated into genres than alphabetically by author's last name. At the library, the books are simply alphabetical by author's last name. So why did I want to write about this? Because I was thinking when I was at the library about all the books people miss out on simply because ...

Hello Lovelies! I'm applying for a scholarship through Direct TV that requests I write a blog post about my favorite type of technology. And let met tell you guys, the internet is it. But Hayley! I can hear you protesting. That's not really a type of technology! Surely they didn't mean the internet. Well, lovelies, I'm taking my stance. The Internet is by far my favorite type of technology. If I was writing on a piece of papyrus with my own blood and it was still going into the internet and I could see other things coming out of the internet, I would be happy. I love connecting with others. I love meeting friends around the world through what we have in common. I've been making friends through the internet since probably seventh grade. I had a few pets on Neopets. I had a fanfiction account on fanfction.net. I had a Myspace page before most others at my school had heard of Myspace. My parents have always been concerned about the amount of time I spend on the int...