Check out this great new review of Rampant, from the independent bookstore Russo’s Books in Bakersfield, CA:
Like most red-blooded girls, I’ve always like horses, and unicorns are an extension of that. Being a mythology buff, I’d bump into unicorns in my readings a lot. And I have to say, that’s where this book really hooked me.
The unicorns portrayed in the book aren’t the sparkly white horses with perfect spiral horns that are the boiled-down and sweetened unicorns popular today. They are based on the historical record of unicorns from around the world. No two unicorns from any region were alike, and that is reflected in this story. These guys are vicious! And yet, somehow, some of them are still quite adorable (like that little stinker Bonegrinder!)
The pacing is excellent, the excitement level is on the ceiling through most of the book, and the characters are completely developed and become like actual, real-life friends. I love Astrid and her cousin, and her mother drives me nuts! Even more than my own mother does! This novel is completely original and different from anything else I’ve read (and I’m ALWAYS reading) and I can’t wait until she writes more– this NEEDS to be a series!
The bookseller goes on to express concern that it’s more a book for older teens, “[especially] in our conservative town of Bakersfield,” but says (bolding original to the text):
Otherwise, this book is so much fun, so different from anything else out there, and so well done, I’d be pushing it into everybody’s hands as a must-read.
Nice, huh? I know there’s been a lot of talk lately about responding to reviews and how it’s always A Bad Idea, but I think the downside of that is that authors might feel afraid of participating in discussions they meant the book to engender in the first place.
Rampant, being a book about virgins with superpowers tied to their virginity, deals with the issues of sexuality, feminism, the commodification of virginity, and how religion, culture, and tradition intersect with modern society and the pressures on a teenaged girl. It has a strong abstinence message. It also has what I’m glad to see this reviewer call “well-written, tasteful, and accurately realistic” discussions by the characters in the book regarding the topics above. I’m proud that I’ve written a book where the female characters are making informed decisions about their choice to remain abstinent. They do it for different reasons, too: some have religious or cultural beliefs that form the basis of their choice. Others want to keep hunting unicorns, an activity incompatible with being sexually active. Some just aren’t ready, or just aren’t interested. All are valid, and it was important for me to show that. As an abstinent teen myself, I was often surprised and put off by the assumption that “only Christians” or “only prudes” or “only insert-descriptor-here” were saving themselves, and if I didn’t have a darn good reason not to, then I should.
For the record, “I don’t want to,” is one of the best reasons in the world. You don’t have to justify it to anyone. Not your friends, not your boyfriend, not your prom date, not that mean girl who put a “V” in Sharpie marker on the door of your locker that everyone could mysteriously translate and make fun of you for. Being a virgin is not an epithet.
I put a discussion of virginity and abstinence in the book because it was something I talked about when I was a teenager, and it was something I was interested in and would have liked to read more books about. Kind of like how I wanted to read more books about women warriors, and ancient Rome, and myths and legends, and really close friends, and kissing boys, and Renaissance art, and all the other stuff I put into Rampant.
Oh, and just in case the bookseller at Russo’s sees this… good news: it is a series! I’m writing the second one now, and it’ll be out in Fall of 2010. We haven’t figured out the title yet, but we have a bunch of finalists.
Yesterday’s little creative endeavor* really jumpstarted my work. I went into the day completely fired up and got a ton of writing done. Yay, me!
I wonder whose poetry I can mangle in the name of art today?
Actually, I don’t think it’s in the cards today. I’m so busy I can barely see straight. Work, preparing for houseguests, and a puppy whose persistent limp since Saturday morning has me finally breaking down and calling the vet to make sure it’s not something serious.
Gah. Okay. off to get started. Maybe I’ll be by a bit later with something more fun.
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* Unfortunately, I’m not sure I quite got it across that I was making the whole thing up?
During my intense, embedded foray into the coverage of the unicorn re-emergence (see my upcoming journalistic endeavor, RAMPANT), I have found no evidence that the species survived past the 1850s. So imagine my surprise to discover, care of my buddy Saundra Mitchell, author of the fantabulous SHADOWED SUMMER, this Waterhouse painting from 1900:
Though I suppose it doesn’t signify, as all the Pre-Raphaelites were fond of painting scenes from legend — which, by 1900, unicorns would almost certainly have become.
This painting of course depicts the famous unicorn hunter Lady Clare, of the family Temerin. Her story was revised and set down by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1842.
Interesting story about that poem. Though there were still unicorns in 1842 (barely), Tennyson decided that the story was more properly focused on the question of the Lady Clare’s inheritance, and so de-emphasized the role of the unicorn in the story, downgrading it to a “lily-white doe.” See, the problem here is that to a contemporary audience, her possession of a pet unicorn — which marks her a hunter – would have been a clear impediment to her marriage beyond the issues of her rank and inheritance. In such a short poem, Tennyson did not want to deal with both issues.
Luckily, I have found an original version. In the original, it is not a “lily-white doe” that is the Lady Clare’s companion, but an einhorn, which is not a lover’s gift from her betrothed, but rather, a part of her dowry. And the part where the Lady Clare says:
“He does not love me for my birth
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well,” said Lady Clare.
Was followed, in Tennyson’s original draft, by this stanza:
For, were I to learn his love was scorn,
That he counts my wealth the greater part
I’d take my pet’s most toxic horn
And drive it through his faithless heart.
1. Edmund Pevensie. My love of Kind Edmund the Just of Narnia is well-documented. You can pick up a copy of Into the Wardrobe and read all about it. I wonder, however, if it counts as YA? Possibly not in Wardrobe, but he’s older and wiser in Prince Caspian and Dawn Treader (and way older and wiser in Horse, which is where I truly swoon) so I’m going to count it. Honestly, the only male in that seires I love more is Reepicheep, and you guys are sure to think I’m gross for saying that.
2. Gilbert Blythe. Swoonie swoon swoon. You want to hear why I love Gilbert? This is why. He’s so sexy and stalwart. And plus, he’s the hero of one of my favorite novels of all time (Anne of the Island).
3. Remus Lupin. Yeah, I know he’s an adult in a YA novel, but I was an adult when I read it, and I just found him adorable. Rumpled, long-suffering, brilliant, tortured. I was so sad when he broke poor Tonks’s heart. Again and again. And then… man, now I’m getting all teary. RIP, Remus.
4. Ravus of Valiant. Rrroawr. I seriously need me some troll love. Why was that never a thing, the way vampires were? Sexy sexy. There is nothing I like more than a troll who can teach me how to swordfight.
5. Hmmmmm…. this last one is tricky. Should I pick Po of Graceling? Evan of Bloom? Rex of Midnighters? Kartik of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy? Drew of Major Crush? Should I just call it a tie? Okay, even narrowing down, there is no way I can decide between Po and Rex. No, it’s Rex. Man, I love Rex. I love how great he is with Melissa, I love what a badass he is after he’s darklingified. I just love Rex.
Girls List
1. Aravis Tarkheena from A Horse and His Boy. She’s so kickass.
2. Sophie and Darla of Dull Boy. It’s a twofer of superheroey goodness! Actually, we can add Catherine into that, too. It’s three amazingly awesome heroines in one novel!
3. Elnora Comstock of A Girl of the LImberlost. Dare I say it? Even cooler than Anne Shirley.
4. Dess of Midnighters. Run away with me, Dess! You deserve so much more than being stuck in that one-darkling town!
5. Man, I know I’m forgetting heaps. Like Diana Holland of The Luxe, who is delicious and irrepressible. And Philippa Gordon of Anne of the Island. And Tally Youngblood, natch. Ooh, and Nicolette from Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress. And Bitterblue of Graceling, who, is it just me, but does she have a bit of the Alia Atreides about her? Am I wrong? Oddly prescient, wise beyond her years Bitterblue? But I digress. Ooh, and Alanna of Trebond. How could i forget her!
Too bad I can’t do that for TV too. Willow Rosenburg and Cordelia Chase and Veronica Mars and Mac would certainly have made the cut.
Rio thanks you all for the sweet birthday wishes, yesterday!
Long week. Yoga last night was really good, though. I finally did a decent half moon pose. Yay, me!
I’m really looking forward to this weekend. I’m going to a booksigning, then to see King Lear. Anyone got any cool plans?
In other news, it’s nice to see that people are still discovering Secret Society Girl, three years later. Hey, any time’s a good time to pick up one of my books!
“My Thoughts: This is not a particularly deep book, but then, most of what I read wouldn’t be described that way. What it is is immensely entertaining, with interesting and likeable characters.
“The one thing I was worried about going into this book was that the “poor little rich girl” trope usually doesn’t work for me. I was thinking that if I had to read about the troubles of some well-off suburban white kids I’d be rolling my eyes a lot. Thankfully, that is not the case. I found Amy quite likeable. She’s got the snarky first-person tone of most chick lit heroines down, but I especially liked that she wasn’t so much a raving bitch, and the book is written as if she’s looking back on her life, and she makes plenty of self-depricating asides. I liked her so much better for it.”
I’ve been having a few conversations with friends recently about the best under-the-radar books. Books that aren’t getting the huge buzz, for reasons that remain a mystery. Some of the books I’ve been thinking of are old books, some are new. Some are by seasoned authors, some are debut.
Why isn’t everyone reading Megan Whalen Turner’s Attolia books? Everyone I know who has read them is Capital-O Obsessed. The recent announcement that she’d be writing a new book set in that world *did* set off a huge flurry of blog-located squeeing, but it was a drop in the bucket of the tidal wave of talk for, say, Catching Fire. A few months ago, Justine threatened to never speak to me again unless I read The Thief nownownow, so I bought it, and then Sailor Boy stole it to read on the metro and I haven’t seen it since.
I should really find that book. People adore it.
Why isn’t everyone reading anything Betina Krahn puts on a piece of paper? Why aren’t people BREAKING INTO HER HOUSE and stealing her grocery list? Her first Harlequin Blaze Historical, MAKE ME YOURS, is hitting the shelves at this moment (Amazon shipped me my copy yesterday) and it’s as delicious as everything else she’s ever written. I just love her heroines. They’re smart and spunky and capable — really all these things, not just lip service to the qualities. And the heroes are simultaneously flummoxed, infuriated, and secretly totally loving it. I can’t get enough. Plus, she’s just so funny. She has this incredibly witty way with words. An rather bawdy example from her latest, in which the heroine is teasing the hero by dragging him into dress shops to try on sexy black silk gloves:
“Infernal woman. He’d barely escaped the shop before his John Thomas turned into a full blown Jonathan Thomasville.”
Too funny! Oh, I wish I could write historical romances like Betina Krahn!
Why isn’t everyone reading DULL BOY, by Sarah Cross? This debut novel is one of the best books I’ve read all year. Everyone I know who has read it postively loves it. I’ve spoken about it in detail before, but this book is really something special.
I want everyone else to be feeling the love for these books that I feel! I want everyone else to be talking about it so I have wonderful fangirl conversations to listen in on! Why isn’t everyone else reading them too!
What about you? What authors, what books, do you wish everyone else were reading, and why should they be reading them?
The BookMaven responds to another one of those tiresome genre snobbery posts. I agree with a lot of it, but I’m not sure she goes as far as I would. So, I don’ have a PHD in Literature, just a lowly BA, but I’m baffled by the attitude that books are some different sort of story, that they are somehow required to only exist on a certain level which is not true for television, film, theater, etc. The BookMaven argues for her early genre snobbery by talking about how she liked to read Poe as bed time stories as a child. Um…. So Poe is thumbs up and Stephen King is thumbs down? What’s the difference, aside from a hundred years?
Poe and Dickens, and Shakespeare, and so many of the writers who are considered the luminaries of the form wrote FOR THE MASSES. In college, I studied Radcliffe and Austen and Behn and Scott and Burney and all those damned scribbling women whose novels were ridiculed by the literary elite of their time. I wrote my college thesis on LOST HORIZON, which Pocket Books likes to fashion “the first paperback.” (It’s not, but it’s a cute marketing ploy.)
Apparently a side effect of being completely snowed under with deadlines and stress is that I’m in a constant state of bad mood. This weekend I saw two fantastic pieces of art: BEST WORST MOVIE, a hilarious documentary about the cult status of TROLL 2 (at SilverDocs), and RADIO GOLF, an August Wilson play, at the Studio Theater. They lifted me out of my grumpiness, if only momentarily.
So yesterday was kind of a disaster. Nothing major went wrong, it was just small annoyance after small annoyance that added up to me not even having a chance to sit down at my work until around 5 PM.
SB had to leave the house super early to catch a train, and then the power went out for several hours, which made it impossible for me to charge my phone, computer, anything. Usually, that would be fine (after all, I can write on a piece of paper) but I had planned to do some editing yesterday, which required my computer and printer. Gah. To add insult to injury, TempDog2 has taken to crawling under the deck at every opportunity, which, given the storm yesterday, meant that she went from a white dog to a black dog in no time flat, then proceeded to shake all over every wall of my house. (I think i mentioned this yesterday.)
Later, I went to take the dogs for a walk, and TempDog2, bless her monstrously large soul, pulled me off my feet twice. The second time I went down hard in the mud and rocks and scraped myself up pretty badly. Suffice it to say, I was pretty frustrated with her by the time I got home. I pulled into the garage, opened up the door, and she bolted!
Directly for the busy street at the end of my block.
Rio, under the vastly mistaken impression this was all some kind of game, ran after her. I called them. Rio, bless her well-trained heart, stopped and trotted back to me, at which point I snatched her up and threw her over the fence into my backyard, because two loose dogs were way more than I could handle. Then I turned around to look for TempDog2.
Gone. Completely nowhere to be seen.
Cue half an hour of desperate searching, and a profound understanding of just how important recall is for a dog. TempDog2 is a lovely animal, and has a sweet personality, but is not trained. We’ve only had her two weeks, and in that time, she’s gotten down “No” “Leave it” “Kennel Up” and “Sit” — but recall and down are problems. In the house or the backyard, she’ll come, but apparently once she senses the call of the wild, she’s off like a shot.
Well, I finally cornered her in a backyard, and at this point, she’s not very high on my list of favorite people, so I marched her home and threw her directly into her crate w
hile we both cooled off for a bit (and some of that mud speckling her snowy white flanks dried and fell off. Rio looked at me like I was nuts and I repeated the mantra about what a rewarding experience fostering was, because right now — hoo boy.
Don’t they look cute and innocent? Lies, I tell you. All lies.
So I change my clothes and after about forty five minutes or so I look in TD2’s kennel to discover that her eye is cherry red and leaking pea-sized globs of green goop. Call the vet. Vet says I can come in but I’ll have to wait, since I don’t have an appointment.
Yesterday might have been the worst day to visit the vet’s office. I saw three animals being brought in to be put to sleep. THREE. I heard all their stories, I comforted the owners, I cried a lot. I’m really not going to tell you the gory details, but it was highly traumatic. All I wanted to do was go home and snuggle my Rio and thank God that she’s young and healthy.
Oh, and my phone died. In the middle of a conversation with my editor.
So there I am, no phone, hanging out in this horribly depressed waiting room with an increasingly nervous TempDog2 for like three hours. (on the plus side, we got a few training sessions in). But they finally see her and give me some antibiotics that I have to put in both her eyes three times a day for three weeks.
Did I mention that Rio has a 50% chance of getting the infection, too? Gah.
So then I trudge home at 5 PM, exhausted, still feeling a little muddy, and having done absolutely no work at all. And that was *my* day.
I hope today shapes up better. The one — well, I don’t want to say nice, since it’s depressing for her — thing about the infection is I have to limit her activity for a few days, which means it’s just going to be me and Rio on our walks for a bit. Rio is a joy to walk with. She’s the kind of dog that lives for tromping around the forest at my side, and whenever I walk with her, she just gives me this look of pure joy and affection.
Which is not to say that TD2 doesn’t enjoy walks. She’s just harder to walk with, since she’s not leash trained yet, and it makesthe walk both slower and shorter for all of us, since I stop every time TD2 starts pulling, and RIo can’t figure out what she’s doing wrong. I need to start looking into no-pull solutions, though.
Anyway, I’m going to get all glass is half full. It’s a gorgeous day, it’s a Friday, which means SB is going to be home all weekend and I’m going to go to Jeri Smith-Ready’s signing tomorrow, and TempDog2 is going to be FINE after her course of antibiotics, so, yay!
Anything you need to vent about? Anything cool happening that might cheer me up? Tell me in comments!
Check out this great new review of Rampant, from the independent bookstore Russo’s Books in Bakersfield, CA:
That’s right, boys and girls. Two. Months. W00T!
