Looking at this is like the first time I saw the teaser trailer for LOTR and it was a shot of Eowyn stepping out of Edoras and looking over the mountains and I turned to Sailor Boy and went, “Wow, this film looks like such a LOTR ripoff,” and then it actually was LOTR and my heart soared.

Dare I give M. Night another chance, even after the mess he made of the casting? (Jasper as Sokka? Gah.) Even after the unbearable dreck that was The Lady in the Water? (Please, please, M. do not cast yourself as Firelord Ozai. Please.)

(Or, even worse, Roku. For the love of everything holy.)

Dare I hope that this could actually still be good?

(Thanks to my brother-in-law for sending this to me. He’s become quite the Avatar fanboy ever since SB and I turned him on to it.)

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.

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.

______________________________

* Unfortunately, I’m not sure I quite got it across that I was making the whole thing up?

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.

Interesting, what?

Boys List

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.

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.”

And then a totally unexpected surprise, but Rampant was picked as a top ten summer read by the New Jersey Newsroom:

2. Rampant by Diana Peterfreund. There is a lot of buzz about these killer unicorns. They are not for sissies. Bring on the girl power!

Sadly, they’ll have to wait another two months… That’s right, boys and girls. Two. Months. W00T!

I’m designing bookmarks. What do you think?

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Rio - Duran Duran

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.)

• The Guardian is opening their doors for a short story competition. As I just finished my first short story in years and years (and my first ever for publication), I’m in such a short story mood. Would probably enter were I not busy busy busy with KU2.
• Lilith Saintcrow is off on another one of her exquisite rants about the publishing industry in “a good book ain’t all you need.” Check it out!
• An agent points out the lie that’s Bookscan numbers.

And finally, since I’ve been plotboarding, I found this especially amusing:

So did this: (updated with correct link)