To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You

My book club had a chance to attend a free screening of this movie.

I confess, I adored the first book in the series. As an old hand at trilogies (I read all the Caitlin trilogies folks) I knew that the second book often takes our couple who is happy, produces tension, and then fixes it. Or fixes it in book 3. Now I read all the Caitlin trilogies, plus many since, so I'm not saying it's not a worthwhile story. Teen me would have discussed this endlessly. Adult me is like, so actually you are sixteen. (I know, I swear I am more empathetic with actual people.)

But I was interested. And I adore Jordan Fisher even though they did not come up with an excuse for him to sing. (He does play piano though.)

Let's actually discuss the movie . Laura Jean and Peter are now dating for real. But she's still unsure about his relationship with his ex Jen. And she volunteers at an old folk's home only to discover that the recipient of the fateful fifth letter is also there. So Lara Jean is struggling, trying to figure out how much of her uncertainty is Jen, how much is being a girlfriend for the first time and not knowing the rules, and how much is that John Ambrose (our final letter recipient) is very nice and easy to talk to.  

There is lots of both aw and awkward moments, befitting a teen movie.

The audience we saw this with was delightfully reactive so when suddenly all the exes and folks are gathered together there was a lot of sympathy noises.

I think the condensing of the plot, and some timing rearrangement served the movie well. Very enjoyable.

Three Interesting Things

1. I think it's a fascinating expression of our multitasking culture, that video games where you do nothing, or more correctly very little, are popular.  (Says me who loves a good cat collection game.)  

2. I found this four part series of interviews by Smart Bitches quite interesting.  This is the first of the four. 

3. This McSweeneys piece is the delightful satire you might expect about a writer writing outside his experience. 

7 Things: Faith in YA

1. I wrote way back when about how I found myself to be a UU, so no need to rehash that. I recognize that the US as a whole is becoming less religious and that would include current teenagers.  (Of course for anyone writing historical or fantasy, the numbers would be different.)  However, it is now noticeable if a YA character makes even a passing mention to attending some sort of place of worship, that a little like fesity red-heads, it seems out of sync with the reality of life for many teens.

2. I am not saying we need more conversion or inspirational stories.  (We may. I...don't know.) But certainly there could be more teens in fiction who identify as a part of something. 

3. In the years that I have been working with the high schoolers and now middle schoolers, the number of teens regularly attending our congregation has doubled.  Now that is clearly due to all sorts of factors, and not a representative or scientific sampling of teens.  I will also tell you I have spoken to teens who get their parents to drop them off even when the parents don't attend.  Who create their own teen gatherings, because their congregation doesn't offer them.  Who say that the teens they meet at multi-state or multi-congregational events are the only teens they know who get them. 

4. I'm not saying that every book needs to include a YA of some faith.  But off the top of my head, I can think of a few Christian, and a handful of Jewish, and that's it. Miranda Kenneally's Stealing Parker was the first YA I can think of that talked about the fact that different churches in the same town might have different approaches to the same issue. 

5. Some people have been very hurt by religious institutions.  I don't want to gloss over that.  But some people have found great comfort in them.  Or not.  Some people find formal religion not for them.  All of these experiences are valid and should be represented.

6. And atheism to.  Atheism isn't the same as being unchurched or none.  It can also be a destination for folks who have spent time thinking carefully about the world. And these things, whether a YA character has made the same choice as the people who are raising them or not, could be powerful motivators without being preachy. 
7. Religion is not necessarily in the same category of some of the other glaring omissions in the YA landscape.  But again, if the idea is to represent the breadth of experiences out there, leaving religion out more often than not seems problematic. 

7 Things About YA

So, it happened again.  Another day another person declaring that reading YA as an adult is limiting.  And while, part of me wants to not even bother to address the layers of ignorance embedded in such a statement, let's try this again. 

1. YA is not a genre, it's an age category.  (You could also argue it's a marketing thing, since many books get sold as adult in one country market, and YA or teen in another.)  This seems like a nitpicky note.  But it's not, because YA includes under it's umbrella contemporary, fantasy, magical realism, literary, and a zillion other genres and subgenres.  Contemporary books share among them a similar time/reality setting.  YA books share a similarity in age of main characters (and target audience, although you rarely see a book about an adult tagged as YA, you will see books that focus on teens show up on the adult shelves). 

2. Reading level is a consideration in books marketed to kids.  However, it's a huge disservice to assume that things that are targeted for earlier readers cannot address important things. 

3. Corollary to that is that this assumes all adults read at an adult reading level in the language that they are reading.

4. And the other corollary to that is that YA is often not considered to be a different reading level of most adult books.  While Lexile measures are only one measure, let's look here where they note that Diary of a Wimpy Kid has a higher Lexile measure than Grapes of Wrath. The Wimpy Kid series is considered middle grade.  Steinbeck is considered adult. 

5. It has often been argued that a mono-book diet of any kind is unhealthy.  And I can see some scenarios where that would be true.  Certainly things like the We Need Diverse Books campaign, and Book Riot's Read Harder challenge have encouraged readers to think outside some of their automatic reading habits.  And I think that's a great idea.  But, this is where we get back to point one, YA isn't a single genre, it is a huge umbrella that encompasses many things.  (You could, for example, hit almost all of the Book Riot Read Harder things reading YA.)  So, that's not really a mono-book diet unless you are only reading contemporary YA that takes place at boarding schools. Or something. 

6. Again, I feel like this is the kind of thing people who have read one of a thing, or maybe, gasp, two, say.  Because then they can say I totally have read some and they were fine but really, how could you read only that? 

7. The other thing I think we forget about adults is that in most cases reading is entertainment.  Sure, you can (and maybe should) seek entertainment that surprises, excites, and expands you. But, I don't like horror.  It does nothing for me.  I understand that there are all kinds of really great horror movies and books out there.  I am going to be giving them a pass because that is not my jam.  Given the wide, wide range of things out there, I am not lacking for entertainment.  But I don't think people who like and enjoy horror are missing out or should re-evaluate their choices.  I'm quite happy that there are people out there who enjoy and appreciate that.  I don't have to take a moral stance on their ability to appreciate something that doesn't work for me. 

If I Stay

I had the opportunity, thanks to my book club, to go to a screening of "If I Stay" in Tyson's Corner.  (And thanks to the Silver Line for making that a more likely possibility.)  Now, I've mentioned before that I loved the book, and I wasn't really sure how they would do a movie, but I was totally willing to see, and once I saw the trailer I was so in. 
The story is about Mia who is in a car with her parents and brother that gets into an accident.  She is in a coma, and separate from her body, is able to walk through the hospital, seeing and hearing her visitors.  Woven throughout are her memories of before, of growing up, learning the cello, meeting Adam, hanging out with her friend Kim, and her family.
As with any movie adaption there are changes, most of the changes seemed to me about time, which is to say that there's a subplot or two that's different, but ultimately the changes were not egregious and were in service to time.  The movie felt like the book to me, and I also felt like they did a wonderful job of demonstrating the closeness of Mia's family, how Adam and Kim fit into that, and the tension of the choice of leaving behind the people left, versus going on. 

I also want to applaud the music direction.  Adam and Mia bond over their shared appreciation for music.  I saw an interview where Chloe Grace Moretz said she had trained on the cello for several months to get an idea, but that since Mia has been playing since she was a child, they did do some movie magic to put the hands of a more experienced cellist on screen in places.  I say this, not because I found it distracting or even noticed, but because the cello playing seem as expert as it needed to be to me, so I had wondered. 

Adam is in an up and coming band, and they did a really interesting job, both from a set design perspective and a sound perspective where the smaller venue felt, looked, and sounded a little smaller, a little like the sound equipment was a little older, and things changed as the band's prospects changes.

The acting was great, all across the board, but a special shout out to Aisha Hinds as Nurse Ramirez, a small but crucial role.  (Oh Nurse Ramirez.) 

YA, Ritas, and Rules

So, this year the RWA Rita awards did not receive enough submissions for the Young Adult category. I am beyond sad about this.  I think YA is an important segment of the romance community, and I share in everyone's sadness because I know I've read some great YA romances this year and I'm sad they (possibly) won't have the chance to compete. 

But...

This has happened before.  YA got cancelled once before in 2007, also due to lack of entries and you know what happened that year - a YA romance (that I am not remotely impartial about) won Best Contemporary Single Title.  So, my first hope is that most of the YA submissions chose a second category.  And I hope that next year lots more people enter.  (You know, if their book is a YA romance.) 

Now, there's been some discussion about the rules change affecting people's submissions.  There's a great breakdown of the category change and some of the other changes here. I actually think that this year's revision made the category a little broader, but that's my perspective.  Yes, I realize that not every YA with kissing fits into that definition, but, well, it's the the YA with kissing award, it's YA romance.  Yes, I agree with Marni Bates's post that awards are important.  Honoring the great work people are doing is important.  There are other awards out there for YA, be it romance or not. 

But, I also understand that managing this contest is a huge undertaking for RWA.  They made bold changes last year, upping the total number of entries (since last year it filled up fast), adding eligibility for self-published books, they added a category, and smooshed some together. I would say there are bound to be bumps the first year, but it seems like the contest gets tweaked a little every year.  Now, what does this have to do with the YA category?  Well, the raising of the number of entries actually impacted the threshold for a category to remain this year.  So, if they received 2000 entries, they would need 100 of those to be YA books*.  And remember that's 100 YA romances, published in 2013, by a member of RWA. All of those things have to be true.  I think it's possible there are 100 of those.  But, given there were a record number of entries the first day, given you have to pay to enter, I can see how some people might not have gotten to it.  Yes, all those barriers (except possibly the number) were there before. 

So, here's what I hope.  I hope that more people submit their (eligible, actual YA romance) book next year so the category can return.  I hope all the YA Golden Heart Finalists get deals and submit those books. 

Yes, writing and reading great books is what matters most.  But, winning things is nice too.

*I tried to find a link to where it says that specifically, and I can't, but that is my understanding. 

What Does it Mean?

Given that the movie you may have heard of based on that book you may have heard of opens now (probably, by the time you read this), there's been increasing discussion about what it means.  It's interesting.  I think my thoughts on dark YA are pretty clear, but it's interesting.  I have a friend who find the very discussion of it too much to bear, and that's fine.  It's also interesting given, that until it became a media sensation, several places were hiding 50 Shades of Grey on some of their bestseller lists so as not to offend anyone and yet Hunger Games is fine. (So, government sanctioned violence fine, consensual sex with mild erotic content, less fine.)  It's interesting that Bullied, a documentary about real kids facing real dangers gets rated R, while Hunger Games does not.  (The difference there appears to be fictional kids do not swear, and real kids do.)
I personally really hate the child in danger trope, you know where someone has to go do a bunch of ridiculously dangerous and violent things just so some little off-screen moppet can survive.  (Not saying you can't enjoy that, just saying, it does not generally appeal to me. Although I do enjoy some "Man on Fire".  So, there you go.) But Hunger Games is making some interesting points about this fictional society, it's not violence for the sake of violence (although, again, not that there's anything wrong with choosing to enjoy reading or watching that).  And one of the reasons I think some people like the third book less, is not that it's less interesting or less good, but two books worth of all this is taking it's toll on Katniss by book three, and much like New Moon in the Twilight series, you're viewpoint character is not functioning at top capacity, which fascinates me but is not a fast-paced read. 
But back to the first book/movie, I enjoyed this piece from HuffPo about why it matters and resonates with folks.  

10 in '10

I am soooooooo far behind on talking about this 10 in '10 Challenge. Fortunately,I am ahead of the game in finishing. Yay!
So, I realize the lovely creators of this challenge were super liberal in their determination, but here's how I decided what counted.
-It had to be in first person (there is one book in there that has one tiny scene in third and whatever, I decided that counted.)
-It had to be from the viewpoint of a girl. (Chick lit, people.)
-It had to be contemporaryish. Ish because I did count fantasy and dystopian as long as they weren't supposed to be historical.
The final list was:
1. Breathing by Cheryl Rene Herbsman
2. Ninth Key by Meg Cabot, both talked about here.
3. Oh. My. Gods. by Tera Lynn Childs
4. How to Salsa in a Sari by Dona Sarkar, both of which I spoke about here.
5. Rachel Vincent's My Soul to Take the tale of a teen banshee, who doesn't know she's a banshee, until, well, until she does.
6 & 7. Rosemary Clement-Moore's Prom Dates From Hell where Maggie Quinn suspects something weird and possibly supernatural when accidents start happening at school and Hell Week the second Maggie Quinn book, in which Maggie goes undercover as a sorority pledge, to discover there may be more than just popularity at stake.
8. Ally Carter's Heist Society a tale of a teen trying to escape her family history of thieving, who ends up having to break into a museum.
9. Caren Lissner's Carrie Pilby about a super smart teen who already has her college degree and yet can't quite figure out the social aspect of life yet.
10 & 11 & 12. Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy - Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, which I have described to people as "American Idol" crossed with The Lottery.
13. Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall which is a tale of a self-absorbed popular high school girl who gets trapped "Groundhog Day" style in a day of her life.
14. Lauren McLaughlin's Cycler, the story of a person who is a girl most of the time, but once a month turns into a boy. (How's that for a monthly cycle?)
15. Ally Carter's I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You the story of a girl at a school for young spies.
So, a little different from my original list, but totally fun.