We're an Open Book
Hooray For Books, a children’s book store in Alexandria, VA, hosted a teen author panel with Jessica Spotswood (Born Wicked), Tiffany Trent (The Unnaturalists, Corsets and Clockwork) and Caitlin Kitteridge (The Iron Codex, Corsets and Clockwork). Here are some highlights from the event :
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Welcome to The Sense List ! A feature on Books and Sensibility where we wrap up YA news and events. This feature was inspired by YA Highway’s Field Trip Friday and Novel Thoughts This Week In YA
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Synopsis : In a future Chicago, 16-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.
When I first got back into reading YA, Divergent was everywhere. When I grabbed it for 6.00 at the used book store, it just sort of sat on my shelf. However, after Divergent won Favorite Book of 2011 at Goodreads and Story Siren’s Best of 2011 DebutI knew I had to check it out.
Divergent has a unique concept. Tris and her family live in a peaceful Utopia where society is dived into factions which represent individual ideals Dauntless (bravery), Amity (peace), Abegnation (selflessness ) and Erudite (intelligence).
Every child is raised in their own faction , but when they turn sixteen they are tested to determine the best faction for them. They can either choose to stay with their faction or leave it all behind to join another faction, never to see their families again.
Faction before family.
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Welcome to The Sense List, a new feature on Books and Sensibility. We wrap up YA news and events that we took notice of during the week. This new feature is inspired by YA Highway’s Field Trip Friday and Novel Thoughts This Week In YA
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“I’d heard a saying about meth, that it took you down one of three roads: jail, the psych ward, or death.”
– Shine by Lauren Myracle
Shine first came on my radar with the drama over The National Book Award debacle, where Lauren Myracle was accidentally nominated and asked to back out. The synopsis intrigued me, so I finally picked this book up.
Shine is the story of Cat, a teenaged girl on the journey for answers when her former best friend, Patrick is the victim of an extremely violent hate crime. Along the way she learns the dark secrets and hidden realities of the town she lives in.
This books starts off brilliantly, there is a certain atmospheric writing style that Myrcale uses that just brings you in to the world of the story. You very quickly learn the life that Cat leads.The setting, Black Creek, North Carolina is a back woods town with a lot of backwards thinking. One of the biggest problems plaguing the town is meth.
There are a lot of rich characters in the novel and you start to feel for them. This reminds me very much of To Kill a Mockingbird, where the context of the story is so much involved in learning about the people in the town. The only thing is their is no Atticus Finch in this story. None of the characters are particularly redeeming or good, not even Cat herself. I think Robert, an eleven-year-old who was born addicted to drugs and yearns for attention from the older teenagers stood out the most for me.
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Welcome to The Sense List, a new feature on Books and Sensibility with a wrap up of YA news and events that we took notice
of. This new feature is inspired by YA Highway’s Field Trip Friday and Novel Thoughts This Week In YA
…