The Help

Even though many people (all women) told me how much they loved The Help by Kathryn Stockett, it just didn't sound like my cup of tea. There are so many YA romances and dystopias for me to read! But I bought a paperback copy in England for the plane ride when I had run through all the books I'd brought with me. I started reading it when we boarded, and I only stopped when (a) they served a meal and (b) I finished. It was fantastic. I'm not recommending it to all my students (my male sci-fi/fantasy fans probably wouldn't be into it), but there are a lot of teen readers I am recommending it to. I'm planning to convince my sophomore English teachers to use it as one of their lit circle choices too.

Set in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, the chapters follow three main characters: Eugenia ("Skeeter"), Aibileen, and Minny. Aibileen and Minny are both African American women who work as maids in the homes of young middle class white women. Skeeter is a young privileged white woman who has just graduated from college and is living at home with her parents while she searches for a job in journalism. All her other friends (including Aibileen's employer) apparently dropped out of college long ago to get married and are already mothers. Skeeter starts to question the arrangement of society and to wonder about the personal lives of the maids when her best friend Hilly initiates a campaign to have separate bathrooms installed in white houses just for "the help" so that the white families won't have to share their bathrooms.

There are some issues with the book (ex. Is Hilly too two-dimensionally evil? In a book purportedly about the lives of the maids, does Skeeter's story and moral discomfort take over the narrative?), but it's still engrossing and worthwhile. And I think these kinds of questions are what make the book great for lit circles. Skeeter's relative youth and struggles with her parents (she loves them at the same time that she disagrees with them and is trying to create a measure of independence for herself) make it something I think teens can relate to as well.

Holly and Cody, you have to read this. I used the UK cover of the book because I like it better than the US version. The UK photo is from the Library of Congress archives. What do birds have to do with anything?

UK Covers

Cheerio! I've spent most of the summer "studying" in jolly ol' England, but I'm back now. And of course, I couldn't help but peruse the YA sections of UK bookstores.

Just a general comparison of some YA titles: (notice Shiver is the same but the colors are different)




















I found myself wishing for the UK versions of most of the books, but this was one exception. Look at the terrible cover for What I Saw and How I Lied:


















Another thing I found really interesting was the difference in the way some books that are YA here are Adult there, and vice-versa. All of Cory Doctorow's books, for instance, were in the Adult section. And then, as you can see from this photo, Holly Black's White Cat was in the adult section too. The sticker on it says, "A novel for grownups by the author of Spiderwick."

Publisher's Weekly: Autobiography of a Cover

A recent cover story of Publisher's Weekly focused on the amount of thought and energy that goes into creating the cover design for most YA books (the article focused on Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars series.) Although the article was perhaps a little light in content, it was interesting to get a behind-the-scenes explanation of how the covers are put together (though they failed to explain how so many covers can end up with the exact same photo!) I'm guessing the $26,000 price tag has something to do with it...

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

I came across an ad in Facebook for an audio of David Levithan and John Green talking about Will Grayson, Will Grayson on Symphony Space. It may be the most interesting and relevant ad Facebook has ever shown me.

White Cat by Holly Black

I inserted Simon & Schuster's trailer for the book, so you can get a sense of the plot from that. It'll save me from recapping. I liked the book, but I expected to like it a lot more than I did. I loved her other faerie novels, and the premise of this (that a small percentage of the population is able to perform magic "curse work" with their hands, but it's illegal and everyone has to wear gloves on their hands and avoid ungloved hands by others) was really interesting. The first half to 2/3 of the novel kept me kind of confused. I didn't totally get the different types of curse work, the history, what Cassel's brothers did/do, the "families," what happened with Lila, etc. Part of this is because Cassel himself doesn't know what is really going on and part is because Black is not setting out the entire backstory of curse work all at once; like any good writer, she tries to let it unfold in the narrative. But I did like the last 1/3 of the book quite a lot, once I got a better grip on the whole idea of curse work. I really liked the climax; it was very suspenseful. And if there are more books in the series, I'd probably be interested in reading them.

Cover Twins

I noticed that Wendy Toliver's new book Lifted has the same cover photo as Ann Dee Ellis's Everything is Fine, just a slight cropping of the model's head. I like the new version much better (ie. I never liked the coloring on EIF).

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

I must say, I'm quite surprised that one of my blogmates didn't beat me to the punch of reviewing Stephanie Meyer's newest book. Now, I will first admit that I am NOT a fan of authors adding to a completed series (I never even read Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard - though based on the poor circulation stats, I'm not alone in that!) However, since the Twilight Saga is the very standard by which I judge all other YA literature, I felt I'd be a little remiss if I didn't at least give The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner a chance - especially seeing as how it's available free online!

Sadly, I can't say that I enjoyed Bree Tanner's story. I found the first half of the novella extremely grating; it seems like all of Meyer's female characters have this annoying whiny helplessness, which was particular unattractive on Bree. (I guess I could stomach it more from Bella because it was more central to the original storyline.) Fortunately, Bree eventually forms a friendship/relationship with another vampire, and together they begin unravelling some of the vampire "mysteries".

The second half of the novella is definitely much better - but then how could preparing for battle not be. My only major complaint towards this part is that Meyer's almost completely glossed over the battle scene. I understand she could only write what Bree actually witnessed, but I would have enjoyed a stronger parallel to the original story in Eclipse.