June 2023 Update

Posted on by kellyvincent

The last few weeks have been good for me as both a writer and a reader.

Uglier

I sent my final draft of Uglier to my line editor. She won’t start working on it for a couple weeks, but I’m still on track to release it August 1.

A Reading Slump

This of course makes me happy, but one other things has happened that makes me even happier: my reading slump seems to have ended. For those of you who know me at all, you know I’ve always been a big reader. Easily 100 books a year, basically two books a week. I’ve always been a mostly fiction reader, but usually I’m reading a couple of other nonfiction books, just more slowly. But mid-2021, I fell into a reading slump. It was awful—I’d want to read, but then I’d read about 10 pages, and feel overwhelmed. So I did still read, but not every night and obviously not very much at a time. It’s just terrible to not be able to enjoy something you know you should enjoy.

The End of a Reading Slump

But lately, I’ve started tracking what I am reading as part of my efforts to find content for BookTok, and after reading This Poison Heart and This Wicked Fate a few weeks back, my reading has picked up again. I am reading a lot of books at once, and some I’m just reading slowly and I’ll finish eventually. But as a point of reference, last week I read from 16 books and finished 6 and the week before, I read from 14 and finished 4. To be fair, some of the books I’m reading are short Spanish beginner readers, but still. Some of them were full-length books.

A Chart!

As you might have just gathered, if you didn’t already know, I’m a data nerd. I have kept a spreadsheet of all the books I’ve purchased and read since 2011. So I’m going to share a chart I made of my reading over the last ten years.

Although there have been a few months with an unusual number read, it’s pretty obvious that my numbers fell dramatically in 2021 and only really picked up in the last month. The more recent high values have been on the graphic novels I’ve gone on binges with. That’s what happened in October 2022. And then in December, I spent half the month traveling, so I read a lot on the bus. Basically I didn’t consider the slump over—I was getting better, but not all the way there. I was still struggling to enjoy reading. But now, it’s different. I’m only one week into June, so I’m sure I’ll get through a lot.

And Bringing It All Back

So it’s nice to be enjoying reading again. Now I just need to get other people reading my books so they can enjoy reading them.

Review: This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

Image posted on by kellyvincent

This Poison Heart book coverI read this book so fast. Some of you know how I’ve been in a terrible reading slump for over two years and how it’s generally taking me weeks to finish a single book (though I am always reading several at once, but it’s still slowed way down, to what feels like a crawl). So when I say I read this book fast, I mean 7 days, which is a near record for me lately. This was definitely a “couldn’t put it down” book several nights.

Set Up

I am officially a fan of Bayron since I’ve read and really loved both this and her first, Cinderella is Dead (see the review here). Both of them have twists that surprised me (I did catch on to some of the smaller twists, but not the big one). This Poison Heart starts off fairly low-key, with the main character, Briseis, having an odd innate magical ability to “do stuff” with plants. She doesn’t understand it at all, but plants sort of perk up around her and she can bring a plant back from the dead. She’s adopted and her moms are both as baffled as she is, but they’re very protective of her and worry about her strange gift and what it means for her.

Some Major Secrets

Early on, she inherits an old house on some land with large gardens and she and her moms go there with a plan to stay for the summer and figure things out long term while they’re there. At first this is fairly mundane, too, but Briseis meets some people and soon things get weird. There’s a lot more to the house and gardens—especially the gardens—than they originally thought. There are some secrets the town knows and it takes a while for Briseis to figure things out. It turns out there’s some danger lurking in the town, but Briseis doesn’t understand it. It takes some work and digging through hidden paperwork and figuring out what a slew of keys can open before things become clear. The stakes get really high at the end and something rather shocking happens, which sets up the sequel.

Regarding the sequel, I was going to Barnes and Noble today so I figured I’d just buy it in person, but they didn’t have it or any of Bayron’s books, which totally offended me on her behalf. Also, it meant I had to order it or read it on my Kindle. Ugh.

Get It!

Anyway, about the book—go read it, pronto. I’m not really an urban fantasy reader, but I loved it and recommend it without reservation.

April 2023 Update

Posted on by kellyvincent

I’ve been really busy and struggling to keep up with everything, so it’s been a while since I posted. But everything’s moving along nicely right now.

Uglier will be released August 1st. I have lined up several beta readers for it, and it’s out for round one right now. I’ll be sending out round two in early May, hopefully with changes based on feedback from some of the round one readers. I’m getting this to my editor in mid-June. I’ve got the cover ready, and I’m including it at the bottom of the post. I’m also planning to do some art to include in the book, which is a little intimidating because in the book, Nic is a very skilled artist, and I’m … not (yet). So hopefully mine will be good enough to include.

I’m also happy to report that I am in the planning stages of Ugliest, and I’ve mapped out the first half of the book already, in the last week or so. I can promise this one will be exciting and it deals with some real world problems and I think you will like it.

Here’s the Uglier cover:

Uglier book cover

Review: Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Posted on by kellyvincent

I read Summers’ book Sadie a while back and loved it, even though the character was a little difficult. I still totally sympathized with her. But that wasn’t the first difficult character Summers has worked with, as Cracked Up to Be features an even more troubled one, who isn’t as easy to like.

Setup

Cracked Up to Be book coverWhen the book opens, we meet Parker, who’s not doing well and has to see the guidance counselor, which she is not happy about. (Who ever is happy about seeing a high school guidance counselor, actually?) But Parker’s a mess—she’s at a private school and her uniform as grungy and she’s got the wrong shoes, and she failed to brush her hair. Blah blah.

Parker used to be perfect—she was the cheerleading captain, made perfect grades, and was generally difficult to be around because of her high standards and overachieving nature. But the old Parker would not have a mustard stain on her skirt.

A Thing Happened

We know that Parker has been a mess for a while. She may even be doing better at this point than she was. She seems to not be drunk all the time now, for instance. But she is still on a self-destructive path. She’s rude to everyone, especially the people she was close to Before. Because that’s the thing—something really bad happened, and she knows it’s her fault. Everyone knows that Parker’s friend Jessie went missing after a party, but nobody except Parker knows that it’s her fault, and she’s not telling anyone.

Moving On—Or Not

The book focuses on Parker’s journey—is she going to manage to graduate despite her missing class and homework? Is she going to forgive herself for whatever she did? And will they figure out what really happened to Jessie? The reader obviously wants to know what really happened, how it could be Parker’s fault. Because as an outside observer, you can guess that it probably isn’t really her fault. In the end we do finally learn what she did, and while it’s easy to understand why she thinks it’s her fault, she isn’t the one who caused Jessie to disappear.

Conclusion

The book is a reflection on regret, guilt, and responsibility, with a distinctly feminist bent because it reminds us why girls and women have to look out for each other and how distinctly messed up that is. Parker was perfect but she did one thing that wasn’t perfect, and look what happened. It shouldn’t take constant vigilance for girls to stay safe.

Review: Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

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This book has gotten a fair amount of hype because it addresses some timely issues, and Callender actually won the National Book Award for another book they wrote in 2020. I am happy to be able to report that Felix Ever After absolutely lived up to the hype in my view.

Felix

Felix Ever After book title

Felix Love is a Black trans boy who feels a little lost and like an outsider amongst his group of friends, where he mostly considered his best friend Ezra the most important person in his life, and views the rest of their friend group as just people who happen to be around. In addition to feeling like an outsider, Felix laments the fact that he’s never been in love.

Freedom

Felix and his friends have what is to me an insane amount of freedom for high school students. First, they live in New York City so they struggle less with lack of acceptance of their differences than kids in a lot of places do. But Ezra has his own apartment, and Felix often stays there, only going home to the apartment he shares with his dad every few days. And Ezra may randomly decide to have a party at 11pm on a school night, and other kids all show up. This wasn’t happening in my life as a seventeen-year-old.

A Personal Attack

Felix may be struggling a little socially, but his bigger problem is that someone tried to humiliate him by posting a bunch of old photos of him before his transition in the school’s gallery space, and also deadnamed him in the display. And presumably this same person is the one who’s harassing him on Instagram, accusing him of not being a real boy and not mattering at all.

He’s fixated on figuring out who made the display, which leads him into an odd online relationship (not really a relationship) where he’s exchanging message with a boy at the school he thought was an enemy and now sees is more complex than that. Felix starts wondering if he could love this boy. But the crazy part is that this boy has no idea who Felix is, so it’s weird and when he finds out, it’s not a good thing at all.

Who’s an Artist?

One important aspect of Felix’s life is that he’s a talented and skilled artist—the high school they all attend is a competitive art school—but it’s almost like he hasn’t fully embraced his identity as an artist, an idea that is never directly addressed but I thought was interesting. You often see a lot of artists at the beginning of their journey afraid to call themselves an “artist,” or just not thinking of themselves as “real artists” (writers do this, too). But with a little bit of encouragement, Felix really comes into his own with a series of self-portraits.

Gender Can Be Hard to Pin Down

The last major thing going on in this book has to do with his gender identity. It’s worth mentioning that Felix is far enough into his transition that he’s had top surgery and gets a weekly testosterone shot. So it is really interesting when he suddenly finds himself questioning his gender again. His understanding of gender was still a little simplistic in the beginning, sort of implicitly assuming the traditional binary, and he discovers that there are many more ways to be than he originally knew. He does figure out how he identifies near the end of the book and for the first time in his life, he’s 100% certain he’s got it right.

Summary

The way I’ve outlined that major storylines in the book probably makes it sound a bit choppy, but they all weave together seamlessly in the book. And everything comes to a happy resolution (which is still completely believable) at the end. It’s clear that Felix is in a much better headspace, social space, and romantic space by the end of the book, and it’s both interesting and enjoyable to watch him come into his own.

Review: Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices edited by Metal Perkins

Posted on by kellyvincent

Open Mic book coverThis slim volume of short stories/short memoirs by a variety of ethnically diverse authors is pretty entertaining. Most of the stories are by immigrants or children of immigrants (who have come to the US), with at least one is by a Black American (possibly more—I’m not certain). The goal of the book was to tell stories of people who exist in more than one culture, like so many people do, but with humor. I’ll say it definitely succeeds and I really enjoyed it, even though it wasn’t quite to the level of ROFL (I say that mostly so you don't have unreasonable expectations).

I have read and enjoyed books by a couple of the authors, Varian Johnson and Mitali Perkins, and I’ve heard of several of the others. So I’ll talk about their stories first, and then move on to the others.

“Three-Pointer”

Perkins’ story is (I’m assuming a true story) about a girl growing up as the youngest of three daughters of Indian immigrants living in a very white neighborhood. Perkins tells some funny (but also annoying) anecdotes like having to decline an offer from some hardcore Trekkies to play the brown girl in their reenactment of Star Trek episodes. But mostly she talks about liking boys along with her older sisters, and about her first secret date with a boy she’d had a crush on for a long time. Trying to learn about boys and all the relevant info in a deeply conservative household leads to a lot of funny beliefs and clarifications from her sisters.

“Like Me”

Johnson’s story is apparently fiction, about a Black boy at a very white, very small boarding school. Two new girls start at the school, and because they are Black twins, everyone expects the boy to immediately befriend them, but he hangs back. When his friends first talk about them with his friends, there’s an awkward conversation where they try to describe them without mentioning race and then make assumptions about how they’d be good at volleyball. Eventually they befriend each other, but the story isn’t really about that. It’s more about skirting two worlds. There were a couple of particularly funny parts in the story. The first is when the character is considering approaching the twins:

I mean, I could speak to them, but what am I supposed to say? Hello, my Negro friends. Welcome to Hobbs Academy, which is whiter than rice and eggshells and vanilla-flavored milk.

It cracked me up because it so highlights the absurdity of the expectation that everyone in a particular minority grouping would want to be friends. Except, also, it isn’t totally absurd that they'd want to at least know each other. Which is it’s a two-worlds thing, I suppose. The next one is more of a conceptual thing that’s funny, but Johnson totally captures how white Americans' “diversity” is “interesting” (and absurd) while non-white people’s ethnicity is generally considered more fundamental and consequential. He’s thinking about his friends:

Technically Rebecca is “one-eighth German, three-eighths Sephardic-Jewish, and one-half Irish.” And Evan has enough Muskogee blood running through him to be a member of the Creek Nation. Still, I didn’t see anyone looking at them when we talked about the Holocaust or the Trail of Tears last year in World History. But let anyone mention Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Will Smith or even the slightly black-looking dude who trims Principal Greer’s prized rosebushes, and suddenly I’m the center of attention.

It got bad during Black History Month.

I own February at Hobbs.

“Becoming Henry Lee”

The first story in the collection is this one by David Woo. It's about an eighth-grade boy with Chinese immigrant parents trying to convince everyone he’s white and being frustrated that all the stereotypical assumptions about him—being good at math and martial arts—were completely wrong. He deals with a lot of crap through eighth grade and into high school (much of which is presented as funny, but still disheartening) until he finally stops trying to be white and trying to be super-Asian, and just stumbling into something totally new that he discovers he loves. Now he has a way to define himself by something he chooses to do, not some happenstance of genetics.

“Why I Won’t Be Watching the Last Airbender Movie"

The next piece is also by an Asian-American author, Gene Yuen Lang. It’s a comic describing his frustration with the casting of the Last Airbender movie. The film was based on a cartoon that celebrated Asian-ness in a fictional Asian-inspired world (he says it showed “a deep respect for and knowledge of Asian cultures”), but all the major characters in the movie were filled by white actors. Lang publishes a call to boycott the movie, especially during release week, and ends up getting another great comics job out of it, all because he braved public scrutiny to stand up for something he believed in.

“Talent Show”

This one is by Cherry Cheva and is about a couple kids auditioning for a high school talent show. She’s stereotypically Asian—petite, cute, relatively quiet at first—but she’s there to do stand-up comedy. And it’s the white guy in the room holding the violin. They have an only-awkward-at-first conversation joking about stereotypes, and by the end they’re friends, even if their auditions don’t go as planned.

“Voilà!”

Debbie Rigaud's story is more sweet than funny, but I still liked it. It’s about a high school girl taking her beloved Haitian great aunt to the doctor. Some classmates doing volunteer work bring a couple of patients in and at first the girl is embarrassed, but eventually her obnoxious but well-meaning classmate suggests she could volunteer as a translator for some of the patients, and she sees clearly that her differentness doesn’t have to only be a burden.

“Confessions of a Black Geek”

This one by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich is about a group of confident, high-achieving (academically) Black high schoolers in the 80s. They assumed they were regarded as equals of their similarly high-achieving white peers. But a cartoon showing Black kids speaking “Ebonics” published in the school paper caused an uproar and it turned into a mess where they ended up getting called “reverse racists.” And this sort of opened the floodgates for all the microaggressions (and more overt stuff) they’d happily ignored for years.

And then comes the main character’s meeting with the guidance counselor, who tells her her intended schools are a “reach,” despite her academic and extracurricular record (which would have been more than sufficient for white students for this particular counselor). And then when she did get accepted to all these reach schools, everyone attributed it to affirmative action. She knew she’d earned it, but it was still heartbreaking to find out what so many people really think when they don't get what they want.

“Under Berlin” and "Lexicon"

The next piece is “Under Berlin” by G. Neri, and I’m going to admit that I didn’t read it because it was a long poem, and I simply cannot do poetry. For the same reason, I also skipped the last piece, “Lexicon” by Naomi Shihab Nye. I feel kind of bad about this, but trying to read poetry literally makes me feel anxious and/or agitated. I have no idea why.

“Brotherly Love”

The last story is by Francisco X. Stork and it’s about a boy growing up with a very traditional father from Mexico (I assumed? Definitely Spanish-speaking) and an older brother and sister. Their father was always going on about how “real men” behave and the main character engineers an opportunity to speak to his sister when no one else is around, because he’s worried that his brother is doing all these things that make him seem like he isn’t a real man. It’s a funny and ultimately sweet conversation when the character comes to realize what his sister has known all along—that it’s the main character who isn’t the “real man” and his brother has just been looking out for him.

Conclusion

So this was quite a long review for a book that is only 129 pages, but I wanted to talk about each story. Together, they add up to a nice exploration of living in two different worlds, culturally, linguistically, or however. The characters range in ages (eighth grade to graduating seniors), but this feels more lower-YA to me, as it stays fairly light in tone, even when dealing with troubling things.

Review: I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver

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I Wish You All the Best book coverThis is one of the first books about a nonbinary teenager I’ve read. I’m definitely on the lookout for more books like this, too. But this one was good, even though it was heartbreaking to watch the character struggle so much with coming out.

Crisis

Ben comes out to their parents as nonbinary at the very beginning of the book. They knew their parents were conservative, but they still thought it would be okay. They were wrong. Ben’s dad kicked them out immediately after they told them, and they ended up at a Walgreens in their socks.

A Way Out

Fortunately, they had a single lifeline—the phone number for the older sister who abandoned them. She’d hidden it in the bathroom but Ben found it and stored it for all those years, using it when they finally really needed it.

Ben moves in with their sister, who is supportive and well-intentioned (if not perfect) along with her husband. They get Ben enrolled at a high school in Raleigh.

A Fresh Start

Ben’s not comfortable being openly nonbinary, so they still use he/him pronouns at school. But they manage to befriend a boy and his friends (more accurately, the boy, Nathan, goes out of his way to befriend Ben despite them being kind of a jerk). This friendship develops slowly because Ben has major trust issues and doesn’t open up to Nathan until late in the book.

Another aspect of the book I really enjoyed was Ben’s art. They’re always sketching and clearly have a lot of skill, but they’re intimidated by painting. But their new art teacher takes them under her wing and encourages them to try acrylic. Ben takes right to it, producing a lovely painting of Nathan. A school art show provides a focal point for a lot of conflict.

Wrapping Up

I really feel like this book captures the internal struggle people questioning their gender identity go through. It’s not easy and it’s not about other people, like other people often think. Despite the seriousness of the topic, the book still ends on a very positive note. It also successfully shows one way that world can be navigated.

The Spark Award and a Personal Announcement

Posted on by kellyvincent

I had a pretty exciting thing happen this past week. I actually found out on Friday the 13th, which was a good day also because I finally mapped out the rest of UGLIER, something I had been struggling with for months. But the best part was the email I got from SCBWI saying Ugly was the Honor book for the Spark Award in the Books for Older Readers category. They announced it this past Wednesday.

!!!!

For your edification, here is the Ugly cover:

Ugly book cover

SCBWI is the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and most people in the world of children’s publishing are members or interact with it to some degree. They give the annual Spark Award for non-traditionally published books, for either younger readers (board books through chapter books) and older readers (middle grade and young adult). There is always a winner, who receives $1000, but they also have the option of also naming an Honor book (optional in that they don’t always do this), so it’s basically second place or runner-up. No money for that one, but it’s still an amazing honor given that there are hundreds of entries of middle grade and YA books (fiction and nonfiction).

Those of you who know me will not be surprised that my brain went, “Well, you know they only picked it is because it’s LGBTQ-themed.” Fortunately, my brain then went, “You idiot, there’s no way yours was the only LGBTQ-themed book entered.” So then I felt good again.

Validated and Feelings

One side effect of this win is that it made me feel validated. I’ve felt like a fraud since writing Ugly because I know people would look at me and say that it couldn’t be authentic because I am not personally nonbinary, or out as gender nonconforming, or using they/them pronouns. Of course, I’ve been thinking about all that since writing it—in fact, when I applied for my MFA, I put my gender as gender nonconforming. Ugly was such a personal story and I really felt the process that Nic went through in exploring her gender because in writing the book, I went through the exact same exploration she did.

I’ve said since then that if I were young, like a teen or in my twenties, it would be a no-brainer—I’d come out as nonbinary. But as someone in my forties, it wasn’t so obvious. There are a lot of considerations and it would impact a lot of areas of my life. It would be difficult for my family and friends (even though I knew they would all be supportive). I’d have to decide if I should come out at work, and that would likely be awkward. It just sounded sort of exhausting—I’d be constantly correcting people. And one thing I’ve learned from reading LGBTQ books is that I would also be constantly coming out, basically every time I met new people and groups. This made me feel tired. So I never did anything about it.

A Real Fraud

But that made me feel like a fraud. One time, an agent responded to a query on Ugly with the question, “Is this Own Voices?” I answered that it was complicated, and I explained that I was not out as gender nonconforming or nonbinary because of my age, but that Ugly was still as authentic as a story could be. She didn’t respond. So I knew for sure that my book would not be respected in the publishing world or the LGBTQ community. And it was frustrating because Ugly was straight from the heart and incredibly realistic. Also, the Own Voices idea always frustrated me because it was itself a binary concept (which I think is one of the reasons many have moved away from using it). Real life is much more gray.

Back to the present. Even though the Spark judges didn’t know how I identified, they obviously felt like the story was authentic and believable, and that felt good to me. For some reason, this recognition emboldened me to finally make the leap.

Coming Out

I have decided that I am gender nonconforming and have started using they/them pronouns. I’ve already come out in some spaces and will be continuing to do that. I’m honestly not entirely sure exactly what this means. Although the terms ”nonbinary” and ”gender nonconforming“ are often used interchangeably, to me they are two different things, and I am still trying to figure out which term best fits me.

But however that ends up shaking out, they/them pronouns feel the most accurate. So I will be using these going forward.

Review: Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen

Posted on by kellyvincent

I’ve been reading more adult novels lately, but while I was out walking, I listened to a YA book by one of my favorite authors, Sarah Dessen. This was Saint Anything.

Setup

Saint Anything book coverThe premise of Saint Anything is that Sydney, a well-behaved teenager who lives in the shadow of her gregarious brother with his oversized personality, has her life upended when that very brother gets himself thrown into prison. Her parents, especially her mom, fixate on supporting the brother and making his prison stay as cushy as possible. But Sydney is torn up by the event that landed her brother in jail—a teen boy riding home on his bike late one night getting hit by Sydney’s drunk-driving brother. The teen survives, but he’s going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Sydney’s mom doesn’t seem to care at all about the kid, even going so far as to blame him for being out so late at his age.

A Fresh Start

At the beginning of the book, Sydney has transferred from the private school she and her brother have always gone to to the public high school, so she can have a fresh start where people don’t know everything about her. She’s pretty shy, so she’s lucky when she stumbles into a friendship with a girl—and then her family—at a pizza shop. This friendship is eye-opening for Sydney because Layla, Layla’s brother Mac, and the rest of their family are very open, in direct contrast to Sydney’s own buttoned-up family. Layla and Mac also come with some other friends. Soon Layla in particular is helping Sydney deal with her stress over her brother, and she’s getting closer to Mac.

Being Seen

Sydney is increasingly frustrated with her mom, who is so focused on her brother that she seems to forget Sydney is alive. There’s also a total creep who was her brother’s best friend and is beloved by their parents, especially her mom, so he’s constantly around. He’s gross and Sydney knows it but nobody else is paying attention to her.

Eventually, Sydney’s mom notices Sydney, at the worst possible moment, and her entire life is thrown into upheaval. Her parents blame Layla and co for being bad influences, and Sydney has to figure out how to fight for herself, friendship, and love.

I pretty much like everything Dessen writes, and this one was no different. Check it out.

Review: A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi

Posted on by kellyvincent

A Very Large Expanse of Sea book coverSo I’m going to say up front that I loved this book. I wasn’t sure what to expect—I’d seen the Mafi’s dystopian Shatter Me series, but never read it since I mostly read contemporary. But I picked this book out because the setting right after 9/11 with a Muslim main character seemed interesting and I wanted to learn more about the actual experience of Muslim kids at that time, especially anyone wearing such an obvious outward marker as the hijab she wears. I obviously knew things would be bad for her, but I wasn’t sure how bad, or how that would turn into a novel plot.

A Big Start

So the book grabbed me right away with an explosive interaction Shirin has with her new AP English teacher on the first day of school. The instructor looks at her and basically tells her she must be in the wrong class, and when she shows him her schedule, he still assumes she shouldn’t be in there and acts all condescendingly sympathetic with his, “ah, this happens sometimes” crap, still assuming it’s a scheduling error.

At first I found it a little hard to believe he could be this much of an idiot—she’s already spoken to him during this exchange without a “foreign” accent because she’s a native speaker of English—and he just won’t let it go, but then I remembered that just because I am not generally around people who actually think the color of your skin and the presence of a headscarf have any relation to your ability to speak your freaking native language, I don’t actually know other people’s experiences, so yeah. I’m going to trust the author on this. And by the time Shirin loses it with him, I was right there with her and so glad she cusses at him. He absolutely deserved it and I loved her for calling him out so emphatically.

Anger

This anger she has, this impatience for idiotic, judgmental people making assumptions about her, actually drew me in in a really personal way. It will probably seem weird to people, but I actually related to Shirin more than I have to any YA character I’ve read in a while. It was all about the rage. She pretty much hates everybody because she knows they’re all judging, making assumptions about what she’s like and what her life and family are like.

I felt exactly the same in high school. People looked at me and the way I presented myself and disapproved of the way I "performed" my gender (spoiler: I didn’t), and they just wouldn’t let it go. There were constant barbs and I never knew where it would come from, or when. For me, it depressed me but mostly I was angry, and I hated people because they all sucked. If you’ve read my book Ugly, you’ll have seen this in Nic because it’s a semi-autobiographical book, but I actually toned the rage down in that book. Real me was angrier.

So I completely related to the way Shirin basically just tried to ignore people, and assumed there was no value in meeting new people or interacting with anyone around her. When a boy asks some ignorant questions, she assumes he’s being a jerk and only realizes over time that he really is just trying to understand and isn’t judging her, but he doesn’t know how to talk about things.

A Friendship

Anyway, more on the story. The boy in question is her biology lab partner, a white kid named Ocean. He offends her early on, but he perseveres in getting her to work together on their lab work and they even start chatting on AIM at night. A real friendship starts to emerge. This is very confusing to Shirin because Ocean’s just not like the other people she’s dealt with. In the meantime, she joins a school  breakdancing club that her brother starts along with some of his friends, and she starts developing her moves. I know virtually nothing about breakdancing, but the stuff they were doing sounded really physically demanding, and it was cool to see her grow in her skills over an extended period of time (the way that stuff works).

More than Friendship

Shirin and Ocean soon find themselves in an actual relationship, and naturally some of the assholes at the school flip out because Ocean’s this big basketball star so he’s known and considered important, blah blah. After a shitty incident involving Shirin’s face and a thrown cinnamon roll, she takes off her headscarf in the bathroom so she can clean her face, and a girl comes in and takes a picture of her without the scarf—it’s such a horrible violation and really stressed me out for her. She and Ocean deal with more stuff and things come to a head when someone convinces Shirin that it’s in Ocean’s best interest to end things.

Moving On

But there’s obviously more to Shirin’s life than Ocean, and the breakdancing performance the and her group do in the school’s talent show has a surprising effect on her life. Still, everything with Ocean feels unresolved, and it’s great to see how they manage to work through things even as the adults around them make their lives so difficult.

It’s also worth mentioning that Shirin is able to lessen her general anger (being angry all the time does not feel good, so this is a good thing) as she comes to see that not all people are the same.

This is totally unrelated to anything else, but I loved that she hides her headphones under her headscarf and listens to music all day. This is awesome.

Last Thoughts

Anyway, I loved this book and am not surprised at all that it was longlisted for the National Book Award. A lot of people will relate to it, but I think a lot of other people may be able to better understand how constant micro aggressions—not to mention physical violence and other full-on racism—can really wear a person down.

An In-Person Event: Shoreline Holiday Market

Posted on by kellyvincent

Last weekend I attended my first book event as part of the Author Event Network, the Shoreline Holiday Market held on the ground floor of the Shoreline City Hall parking garage. The most notable thing was how cold it was basically outside without even the sun to warm us up. It reached the low forties by noon, but didn’t go much higher. I got there about 9 and didn’t leave until after 5, so I appreciated the decent coat I have and the portable propane heater I bought the day before. I actually didn’t appreciate the heater until the propane canister ran out, and then I realized it actually had been helping quite a bit, as it got noticeably colder.

Table Setup

There were six of us there, selling different kinds of books. We each had about 3 feet of table space, and I tried to make the most of it. I feel like my display was pretty good, honestly. Here’s what it looked like:

Shoreline Holiday Market 2022 table display

I’ve definitely got the blues and greens going on, with a splash of purple. Assuming I get the rights back on Finding Frances I’ll have to do a cover with those colors, too.

Before the Storm

I took a couple shots of the full event setup a little before it started, so you can see the scale:

Shoreline Holiday Market 2022

Nobody’s there yet—the quiet before the storm. The event was actually pretty well-attended and our table for a lot of traffic. Here’s my view from my chair:

Shoreline Holiday Market 2022 table back

Selling and Lessons

In the above picture, you can see a sample of the crowd. A lot of the authors did really well, selling upwards of 20 books. I did not do so well, but I learned a lot while I was there. One thing is I’m going to have to come up with better hooks for all of my book descriptions. It’s true that I am able to talk about my books more coherently than I could at the beginning of my author journey. I don’t ramble about plot details or anything, but there’s not much of a hard hook to it. So I’m going to work on that before going to additional events.

I also learned that you don’t want the end spot if you can help it. I saw many people stroll past my table only to stop at the next one when they finally noticed books (and not backtracking to mine). Only a few people took candy without looking at my stuff, but I learned that Starburst are not the best candy to bring when it’s freezing—they were hard as rocks.

Future Thoughts

It looks like none of the 2023 events are until summer, so the Starburst won’t be a problem and I’ve got time prepare some hookier pitches. I was originally hoping to have Uglier out by next summer, but I don’t think that is going to happen because I’ve reprioritized my nonfiction project at least until I can get the proposal done. But who knows; I might get a burst of productivity.

Thank You, Mr. Heater Friend

You were appreciated.

Shoreline Holiday Market 2022 heater

Book Review: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Posted on by kellyvincent

Salt to the Sea book coverSetup

I’ve been on a bit of a historical kick in my YA. This one has been on my shelf a while so I picked it up because I loved Out of the Easy by the same author.

This book is set during World War II in East Prussia, a little pocket area between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea. It’s got four viewpoint characters, all young people—teenagers or maybe a couple in their very early 20’s. There are some other characters in the book who are older, but it doesn’t detract from the sense that this is a story about young people. 

The premise is that there is a group of people walking to a port city to try to board a ship and get out of East Prussia, which is being torn apart by the war, pinched between the Russians and the Germans. It’s definitely a ragtag group, but from a story perspective, it’s a great mix of characters.  

Point of View Characters

Joana is a young, trained nurse; Emilia is a deeply traumatized fifteen-year-old; Florian is on a somewhat noble journey to try to make up for some Nazi evil he inadvertently aided; and Alfred is spineless German soldier with a personality disorder.

The book cycles rapidly through the different characters with very short chapters, usually not more than 2-4 pages. I actually had a little bit of trouble getting into it because I don’t usually read multiple-viewpoint novels, and I found the switching jarring. But I got used to it because I really liked three of the viewpoint characters and I wanted to learn more about them. The fourth viewpoint character is supposed to be despicable, and he absolutely was. However, once I’d gotten used to it, the multiple POVs was cool because you got to see how the characters viewed each other versus what was really going through the others’ heads. 

Inevitable Tragedy

So I think anybody reading this story is probably going to guess the basic outcome. I didn’t recognize the name of the ship they were trying to get to, and after reading the author’s note, I wonder how the name isn’t more known, given the almost incomprehensible scale of the tragedy. 

Conclusion

This is a truly sad story, as any war story must be, but it does such an incredible job capturing what war is like for regular people. You can’t read this and not appreciate how much general suffering there is during war when it’s your homeland that is occupied or serving as the battlefield. Sepetys is a master of the historical novel in my view, based only on the two I’ve read. She skillfully conveys the harsh historical realities her characters are facing and still finds ways to show bravery and the power of the human spirit. I can’t wait to read her others. 

 

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Review: The Paper Girl of Paris by Jordyn Taylor

Posted on by kellyvincent

The Paper Girl of Paris book coverI haven’t been a big reader of historical fiction, even though when I do read it, I usually enjoy it. But I recently read another one I really liked, so I picked up a couple when I went to Barnes and Noble recently. 

One was The Paper Girl of Paris, which I devoured in only two days, which is unheard of for me in the last year and a half. My reading slump has had me taking two plus weeks to finish a book for a long time. Not only did I finish this book in two days, but it never even made it upstairs to my bed, where I do most of my reading. Instead, I read it between doing other things at my desk in front of my computers. 

The Setup

So you can infer that I loved it. It’s actually a dual timeline story, where we switch back and forth between modern-day Paris with Alice and WW II-era Paris with Adalyn, Alice’s great aunt she never knew existed. The setup is pretty simple: Alice’s beloved grandmother has died and left her family’s Paris apartment to her. Alice’s mom, whose mom is the grandma in question, suffers from depression and has been distraught since her mom died and she found out about the apartment, which she had no idea existed. 

The Apartment and the Discovery

Alice goes with her parents to check out the apartment. They are all confused about everything, but Alice is more curious and discovers a diary belonging to Adalyn, who she learns was her grandma’s sister. It’s of course strange that the grandma never told anyone about her family, but it’s also clear nobody really thought about it before. 

Alice takes the diary and starts reading it, loving the information about her grandma that Adalyn shares, because it’s clear they were really close and loved each other. Which makes it even stranger that Alice’s grandma never mentioned her. But she gets a clue on going back to the apartment, when she finds a picture of Adalyn cavorting with Germans during the occupation, so she’s horrified, because from the diary, it sounds like both she and Chloe were passionately opposed to the Germans and their many atrocities. So Alice doesn’t understand how she could change her mind. 

Exploration

So we see Alice starting to explore the diary, which she has to painstakingly type into Google Translate. In the process of spending time away from her parents, she befriends a local boy named Paul who helps her research things. Interspersed with these chapters are full chapters from Adalyn’s point of view. This is the part of the book I loved. 

I’m going to admit that as soon as Alice found the photo of Adalyn with Nazis, I knew what it actually meant, even though it takes Alice a good part of the book to figure it out (the advantage of having more life experience). But Adalyn is one of the people I love reading about—the people who actually did the right thing during the war. 

So even though I knew that little twist (I think most readers would figure it out pretty early, but I’m not entirely sure), there were still some surprises that I enjoyed. One has to do with a museum where Alice ends up being able to give some clarity on a photo the museum had but knew very little about. 

Summary

Obviously I totally recommend this book. If you aren’t a big historical fiction reader, this one might be more palatable since half of it takes place today. But Adalyn’s story is what made the book for me, even though I liked Alice and her story just fine. 

 

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PNWA Conference 2022

Posted on by kellyvincent

I’d been looking forward to the first in-person writing conference since 2019, which finally happened last weekend. I’ve been going to PNWA’s conference for years and during the pandemic they and everyone else switched to online. Although that is very logical, I have gotten to the point where I am so, so sick of online conferences. I went to eight or so. So it was great to be back and to see people I hadn’t seen in a while, and just generally be amongst writers. My friends and I hung out and compared sessions like we used to do.

New People

I also met a few new people, including some agents I was able to spend a bit of time talking to. One of them even encouraged me to reach out about Ugly and my nonfiction project. I’ve emailed her but haven’t heard back yet, but I know she’s incredibly busy, so it probably doesn’t mean anything after just a week. Anyone who’s followed my blog will know I’m not holding my breath at this point, but I am not an idiot and am not going to pass up a possible opportunity. I have no idea what might come of it. 

Writing Conference Fatigue

One additional thing I realized while I was at the conference was that I am also really burnt out on workshops. I napped through several (in my room, don't worry) and went to a few that underwhelmed me, and I don’t think the problem was the sessions—I think I may have just hit my limit of writing workshops needed in my lifetime. 

A Win (for Someone Else, But Still)

One cool that happened is that my fellow YA-writer and friend Stacia Leigh won first place in the contest’s short story category. This was a(n adult) story she wrote about her father’s death, where he experienced some dementia at the end and she imagined what that might be like. I critiqued it I think twice and I already knew it was good, but it was cool that it won. She’s finaled I think seven other times and never made it in the top three before, so this was cool. 

Book Signing Event

Stacia and I also had a table at the book signing they had Friday night. There weren’t that many indie authors—I heard there were about twenty, but it didn’t look like that in the room to me, so I don’t know. But we had the best table by far:

PNWA 2022 full table

Stacia’s is on the left side and her setup is definitely better than mine, but I think mine looks good, too. (Stacia’s also an artist and is way more into crafts than me, so this is more in her wheelhouse than mine.) Here’s a closeup of my side:

PNWA 2022 my side of the table

I recently bought a new display for the books that staggers them vertically, so that will look better. It’s from Clear Solutions. I'm considering painting the wood parts blue or a bluish green, since that's sort of the theme of my display. But here's what it looks like: 

Book display shelf

Anyway, things went pretty much like I expected—virtually no sales for me (two to friends). No one signed up for my mailing list or entered my giveaway. Some people did take candy. Stacia did run into someone she knows from her daughters’ school who she didn’t know was also a writer, and this person bought all five of her books, so that was nice. My own book-purchasing friends paid in cash, but Stacia’s used my Square reader (we had set this up in advance) so now I know this works. 

More Events?

One other thing that came of the weekend is that I met a guy who runs a group called the Author Event Network, which I ended up joining. He works with local events to get tables/tents for the members of the group. The idea is that it’s better for each author when there are other authors around, and I think he can also get better rates since he’s representing multiple people (I’m not sure about this, however).

The annual fee is relatively low, and then you just pay a relatively small fee for any events you actually attend. He only started this in December 2021, and he’s planning on keeping the number of members limited to make sure there are good opportunities for everyone. The remaining events this year are all pretty far from me (out on the Olympic peninsula), but I think I’m still going to try to make at least one to try things out. He says he really does well at these events. I haven’t really tried this, but I know other authors find events worth going to, so I figure I should give it a try. Even if I did decide to quiet quit. 🤷

Kirkus Round 2

Unrelated to PNWA, I also broke my quiet quitting decision by paying for an Kirkus author profile on their website (where it will remain permanently so I can always point to it). They said I could talk about more than Finding Frances (the starred review for that is what inspired them to contact me because there’s a list of recommendations you can be added to if you buy some type of ad), so I also mentioned Ugly.

A journalist interviewed me this past Thursday for it, which was kind of an odd experience. I was reminded of how weird and awkward I am. The profile is going to run in November, and I paid for a package that includes ads in the print magazine on November 1st and 15th, as well. Hopefully this will do better than my last ads did. This one has both Finding Frances and Ugly in the ad. 

In Summary

That’s pretty much where things are right now. Full steam ahead, also known as puttering along. 

 

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Review: Angel of Greenwood by Randi Pink

Image posted on by kellyvincent

Angel of Greenwood book coverAs soon as I knew this book existed, I bought it. It’s set amidst the Tulsa Race Massacre. I have a special interest in that event because I grew up in Tulsa and knew nothing about it until about five years ago. It blows my mind that this is something that was “forgotten.” It makes me so mad, but it fits right in with all the Republicans who are insisting that the unsavory parts of our history shouldn’t be taught in school because it might make some little white kids feel guilty. A little guilt never hurt anyone, and it would make it easier for them to understand their privilege. I think this is actually quite important. 

The Setup

But anyway, on to the story itself. It’s actually a rather unlikely love story between Angel and Isaiah, the town’s angel and a rough-around-the-edges boy. Isaiah in particular is secretly passionate about poetry, philosophy, and Black rights. He’s a big follower of W.E.B Du Bois and so he hates Du Bois’ nemesis, Booker T. Washington. Their school is named after Washington, and Angel is a fan of his and thinks Du Bois is too much. 

A Bit of Philosophy

So I had of course heard about both of these men, but I knew very little. But when Isaiah and Angel get thrown together for a unusual summer job arranged by their English teacher, they talk about the two philosophies on improving the rights of Black people. From their discussions, it was clear that Du Bois was more aggressive while Washington advocated for quieter change. I sort of imagined it as analogous to the differences between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. 

But I happened to stumble across an article about Washington in The Atlantic and learned a little more about him—his main belief was that individual industry would bring Black people into the country’s economy, and they’d then become valued by everyone. Basically, hard work was critical, but it wasn’t just working hard—it was also working smart. He founded the Tuskegee Institute and ensured that a lot of Black men were trained in trades that would help them join the economy like he wanted. So I thought it was interesting and a little subtle, even though it’s kind of clear to me that that approach is never going to be enough. 

However, the economy perspective not working reminds me of migrant laborers who make it possible for us to have inexpensive fruit, all because they’re being exploited and working for criminally low pay. Also, there are a lot of other people from Latin America that make up a good portion in the back of the house in restaurants across the country, some legal, some not. Their value in our economy (keeping prices low and keeping restaurants open) does not outweigh the hatred that so many people have for them for not being white. 

The Story

Anyway, back to the book. Angel and Isaiah fall in love while riding around in a three-wheeled bike with a sidecar and a bin to store books so they can share books with people in the Greenwood community. This was all in the days leading up to the attacks, which started a little after midnight June 1st, 1921. Each of them plays an important role in helping their neighbors. Despite the bravery and efforts of real people like Angel and Isaiah, it’s known that a several hundred people were killed that night. 

Although everything in the story obviously leads up to the attacks, that night doesn’t dominate it. It really is a story about young people who are living in a rather idyllic place but who are aware that they are privileged to be there, and also know that nothing in life is guaranteed. 

Summary

The book does what historical fiction does best—it shows that the people who lived through significant events were real people who the reader can empathize with. You will root for both Angel and Isaiah not just to end up together, or even just to survive, but to actually to show the greatness within each of them. And the book delivers on that. 

As a totally not important side note, I also absolutely love the cover. It’s dramatic and somehow captures both the violence of that night but also the peacefulness the character Angel embodies. 

 

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