What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly themed post for readers and writers, so y’all know what I’ve been up to and I find out what you’ve been working on! It was created by created by Jaime and Erin.
Wanna join in? Leave a link to your What’s Up Wednesday post in the widget on Jaime´s blog.
What I’m Reading
Finished LOVE LETTERS TO THE DEAD last week, and I’ve moved on to FEED, which I’m LOVING. Bloggers and zombies! It’s awesome!
As for LOVE LETTERS? Man, it’s a hard story to review…. it gets points for getting a reaction out of me, though it wasn’t always a positive one.
To begin with, I loved the PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER innocence of the book. The style felt honest in its teenage angst and passiveness.
I also adored Skylar — he’s a rarity among YA love interests in that he cares about Laurel’s wellbeing, and looks after her, in a way that goes above and beyond young love. He was an A+ dude all round, not beyond making mistakes but he always had a good reason for them.
But the second half of the book… damn, you guys. It got DARK. PERKS did the same thing, but this is a lot more graphic. It actually feels gratuitous: there’s so much of it, flooding in all at once with no real foreshadowing. It makes sense for the story but it was so unexpected…
I really didn’t pick up this book expecting graphic depictions of sexual abuse, and I feel like the level of detail was too much for a YA audience and far, far too triggering.
Laurel never really changes as a character, which is a shame: they mention this anger within her, and you occasionally see flashes of it in her thoughts, but she never acts on it and remains a massively passive lassie.
PROS: The book is well crafted, it’s beautifully written at points and the voice is strong.
CONS: I don’t think the passive, unchanging main character and graphic abuse fits a YA audience. It’s a very triggering novel, taking an unexpected swing from depression and loss to abuse
What I’m Writing
Still editing. I’ve been out for the count with illness, so it’s slow going, but I haven’t stopped moving forward so yaaay. :D
What Works For Me
Not too much to babble about today, just a reminder than slow progress is better than no progress.
Also, FILM CRITIC HULK’S dissection of The Hero’s Journey plot template and the flaws in how it’s use is amazing, and it’s my recommended reading for writers this week.
What Else I’ve Been Up To
Not very much at all, just recovering from being sick. It’s very boring. I suggest you just scroll back up to that adorable turtle GIF.
Hope you feel better soon!
You’re the second person to recommend FEED – it sounds like a fantastic book! I don’t think LOVE LETTERS sounds like my thing – I’m not a fan of books which are TOO depressing, though I really do need to read THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER.
Any progress is progress! Have a great week! :)
Oooh, I *loved* PERKS. I haven’t read it in years but I’d still recommend it: lovely book, great style, and good movie too! I think it was one of the first YA books around, back before it was a proper category.
Oh dear, I hope you’re feeling better soon!
Wow Love Letters to the Dead sounds very different to the kind of book I was expecting. Not sure if I’m going to pick it up, I don’t tend to read a lot of contemporary, but I’ll bear your review in mind if I ever do.
OMG FEED. I read it earlier this year and it’s quickly become one of my favourite books of all time. It’s amazing. Hope you enjoy it!
Have a great week!
Yeah, it was SO different from what I was expecting too. Hope you also have a great week! :)
Thanks for sharing your review of the book!
Interesting about the Love Letters book. I attend a lot of YA author events thanks to a fantastic local indie store, and saw the author recently on a panel of debut YA authors. You know how when you meet an author and you immediately want to read their book? Or the way they talk about books and writing makes you feel a kinship of sorts? Not quite so much with this author. Maybe it was nerves, but she couldn’t seem to answer questions about her own book in complete statements. The way she spoke about writing was more from a screenplay perspective, and while the other authors on the panel listed books they love which influence them, she name-dropped people she knew (like the Perks writer/director). She just had a very different vibe than most authors I meet, I think she lives in L.A., so it’ makes sense that might carry over into the book. Also, if she’s not much of a reader of current contemporary YA, maybe that’s why some of the themes felt off.
Yeah, the promo materials sold LOVE LETTERS entirely on the PERKS comparison, which confused me at first because going by the blurb they should be VERY different stories. But the books themselves are eerily similar in structure.
She credits the Perks writer with a lot of influence and mentorship, and it shows… something about the book felt very hollow to me. It felt like Perks was the only YA contemp she’d ever read, and her only reference point for writing her novel.
The “gratuitous” stuff would definitely turn me off. I can tolerate R-rated material in a novel if it makes sense and is consistent with the story and the characters. As soon as I feel as if the author’s trying to shock or push envelopes for the sake of it, they’ve lost me, no matter how well it’s written. One of the things that’s surprised me reading Stephen King is his restraint in areas where I’d expect him to indulge, especially given his chosen genre.
Slow progress is certainly better than no progress, and I hope you make a lot of progress this week, Emma! :)
Yeah, completely agreed! I love Stephen King’s way of maintaining horror without crossing certain lines of decency.
I love the turtle lol.
Thank you for saving me from being very mad. I hate it when YA books cross into overly dark without a purpose, especially when I’m not expecting it and I was thinking of reading that book.
I’ve seen LOVE LETTERS TO THE DEAD around, but didn’t really know what it was about. I’m not sure if I’ll pick it up. I suppose it’s terrible, but I’m not really into dark books of that nature. Thanks for the heads up!
Good job on managing to edit while sick! I’m impressed. Hope you have a wonderful week with no more under the weather days. :-)
Yeah, I wouldn’t have picked it up if I’d known it contained that sort of content. Definitely not something I want to read about in fiction, though I take a keen interest in boosting campaigns and awareness about it on the non-fiction side of life.
Feel better soon, and good luck with the editing :D You can do it!!!!
A* use of gif ;)