Review: If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan

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If You Could Be Mine book coverIf You Could Be Mine is set in modern-day Iran, which is definitely a setting I’m not very familiar with, so I was excited to read it. It’s narrated by Sahar, a seventeen-year-old lesbian, which is not okay in Iran. In fact, it’s illegal and the penalty can be as dramatic as death. The immediate problem for Sahar is that she has been in love with her friend Nasrin for as long as she can remember, and Nasrin loves her back. Of course, they spend a lot of time alone and this allows them to make out uninterrupted, so everything is fine.

Sahar’s mother is dead and her father is detached, so he has no idea. Nasrin’s parents, her mother in particular, are a little more observant. Consequently, they come up with a dramatic solution to save Nasrin from herself and the dire consequences if the girls are caught—they accept the proposal of a man who confesses love for Nasrin.

Sahar doesn’t take to this kindly, of course. She hates him, despite the fact that he’s a successful doctor and seemingly kind and even conventionally handsome. She’s desperate to stop the wedding even though Nasrin herself seems a little resigned. She seems to think they can continue in secret even after she’s married. Sahar doesn’t think that, and she instead comes up with her own dramatic solution. Because while homosexuality is illegal, transsexuality is not and the government will even pay for sex reassignment surgery. It seems perfect—she’ll become a man and she and Nasrin can simply get married.

But of course it’s not that easy. Sahar learns more about the surgery itself and thinks more about the consequences. Does she really want to be a man? What would things really be like if she and Nasrin married as man and woman? Also, is Nasrin truly worth that?

Sahar is a great character, increasingly self-aware as the book develops. She’s a little funny, too. For me, Nasrin didn’t come off so well. She was very believable, but a little selfish and silly for my taste. But there’s more going on in the book than the relationship between Sahar and Nasrin—Sahar’s father has some growing to do, himself. We also see Sahar risking her entire future with her fixation on the sex change, so we’re not sure how things are going to turn out. The book itself is a quick read, and I’d recommend it to anyone vaguely curious about homosexuality in Iran.

Meet Marlowe

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After my conference on Sunday, I drove straight to a cat rescue where I picked up a new cat. Meet Marlowe:

Marlowe the cat

Coming off a conference is always difficult—it’s so intense that it’s kind of a high, so it was nice to have something nice to distract me and make me happy.

Marlowe’s 4 years old and he’s FIV+ (that’s the cat version of HIV), which means he might have a slightly weak immune system, but they’ve found that when kept indoors, FIV+ cats tend to live mostly as long as other cats. One possible issue is that it is communicable, but only by deep bites. The rescue community used to always keep FIV+ separate from other cats, but the thinking has changed and now they mix them in, as long as they don’t fight. So now begins the process of slowly introducing Marlowe to Marvin. I hope they’ll be friends. But now I have three brown tabby cats. Not a very diverse household…

PNWA Conference

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I mentioned in my previous post that I’d be attending the Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s Annual Conference. It’s a regional conference, but it’s also well-organized and respected across the country. Many editors and agents based in New York and other places come out for it. It went really well this year. And it was nice to see all my writing friends, too. 🙂

Writers JourneyOn Thursday I did a master class with Christopher Vogler, who interpreted Joseph Campbell’s anthropological studies of mythology and stories into a pseudo-formula for writers many years ago. It eventually came out as a book called The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, which provides a solid structure framework called the Hero’s Journey, which writers can use to construct a satisfying story. There’s some controversy about the true universality of this story structure (some feminists claim it only applies to men’s stories, for instance). My opinion is that while it is not the only possible good story structure, it can be a useful guide for almost any story. But there are definitely other story structures out there. Regardless, his class was good—Vogler’s a good speaker and he’s very emotionally involved in stories and his work with them, which really draws in the audience.

Queen SugarThursday night, the keynote speaker was Natalie Baszile, author of Queen Sugar. I admit I hadn’t heard of this book, though I’ve bought it and intend to read it because it sounds good. Oprah even picked it up and made a TV show out of it, which is apparently quite good. I know a lot of people snootily look down on Oprah, but I think she generally has good taste in books. Anyway, Natalie’s talk was all about her journey to publication, which was… long. She peppered the speech with family stories, some of which were funny (the box of Louisiana delicacies that were shipped every year, only to arrive as a box of rotting meat) and some of which weren’t (her father growing up in Louisiana and experiencing the small-town embedded racism there).

Friday was all about pitching. I pitched a book I’m writing under a pen name to an editor and four agents and had good results. One of the agents had rejected Finding Frances two years ago so I asked if I could resend it and she said yes. On top of that, I had a request for the first 50 pages of Finding Frances from an editor at a large publisher. I’ll send it to the agent soon, but I’m going to wait until I hear back from the editor who’s already got it before sending it to the new editor.

Fearless WritingOn Saturday, I went to several different sessions, mostly about craft. One was on hooks and how important they are, especially at the end of scenes and chapters. I went to a session about writing nonfiction for kids, something I’ve thought about dipping my toes into. I went to another session on writing diversity, which had a bunch of great tips. Sunday I went to a session called Fearless Marketing, with Bill Kenower,  the guy who wrote the recently-released Fearless Writing. He’s a little intimidating because he’s excessively passionate about everything, but the session was good. One final nice thing about the conference is that most of the sessions are recorded, so I bought fifteen of them on CDs. Gives me something to do on the horrible drive to and from work.

Upcoming Conference

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Starting this Thursday, I’m going to be at a writers* conference, run by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. It’s 3.5 intense days of talking to writers, learning about writing, and learning about the business of writing. I’ve been the last two years, as well, and this time I’m staying at the hotel, which is expensive but saves me the hassle of the hour on the road every day, a drive which is especially frustrating because said day runs early morning to 9:00 or 10:00 at night.

I managed to get two pitch sessions. At PNWA, the sessions are kind of a mad house, quite different from ones I’ve done at other conferences. Here, you are in a room with 150 other people for an hour. Agents and editors sit behind a line of tables at the back of the room. And you line up in front of the one you want to pitch next, get four minutes with them when it’s your turn, and move on to the next line. Depending on the popularity of the people you want to pitch, you usually get two to four pitches done. It all sounds a little intimidating, but I actually have found it’s not. Most of the agents are nice, even if they say no. Still, it’s helpful to have a pitch semi-memorized so you don’t have to read off something. I’m meeting with a friend this evening to practice.

However, I have a dilemma. I can’t decide what to pitch. I feel like I should wait on feedback from the other people on Finding Frances before querying/pitching anyone else. Maybe I’ll get more feedback. I ended up sending the revised manuscript to the agent who said she’d take a second look. (Though the more time passes, the more I’m thinking I should have figured out more things to change…). I was originally planning to pitch Sadie Speaks, however, I just sent that to a freelance developmental editor and she came back with recommendations that I change almost everything. Now, I’m not going to, but many of her points do require some serious reworking. The other option is to pitch a romance I’m writing under my pen name, but I’m only halfway done with the third draft on that one, and that won’t be the final draft, for sure. One thing that is also different about this pitching is that they don’t have a rule that you have to have the manuscript ready to send—you can wait weeks or months to send it. So I could do either.

So, quandary. I guess I’ll prepare two pitches and practice them with my friend tonight and fly by the seat of my pants on Friday, pitch day.

 

* Okay, I admit I never know if that should be “writers’”, “writers”, or even “writer’s.” It drives me crazy, the not knowing.

Review: Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Dollar

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Where the Stars Still Shine book cover

Callie’s mother kidnapped her when she was five in order to keep from losing custody of her, something she believed was imminent. After twelve years on the run, they get stopped for a bad brake light and it’s all over. Now Callie has to go back to Florida to live with her father, who’s remarried and has two young boys.

Of course Callie doesn’t know him at all, although he naturally still feels a strong connection to her. Given her transient upbringing, she doesn’t have any idea how to be a normal teenager. She’s never even been to school. She’s never had friends. She’s had few healthy interactions with men. She also learns that her mom suffers from borderline personality disorder, a mental condition that is presented as treatable by medication Callie’s mom refuses to take.

Once back, Kat, a girl she was very close to before she was taken, immediately befriends her. Kat’s grown up knowing all about Callie and remembering their friendship, but Callie doesn’t remember much at all from the time before she and her mom left. So their friendship gets off to a rocky start because Callie doesn’t know how to be a friend. She also meets Alex, the local hottie, who is immediately interested in her. In addition to Alex and Kat, she re-meets her extended large family. Because it turns out she comes from a giant and enthusiastic Greek family. She struggles to navigate all of this and is frequently overwhelmed.

I thought Callie was really well-drawn. She isn’t a very sympathetic character in the beginning, but I felt that was very realistic, given her lack of exposure to normal social situations. It was a little cliche that she didn’t respect herself because of abuse she suffered when she was eight, but her growth toward some level of self-respect seemed realistic and interesting. Alex’s characterization was not quite as solid, as I didn’t get a strong sense of his motivations with her until closer to the end—if he was serious or just in it for temporary fun. Kat was quite likable and it was fun to see Callie grow to love her as a real friend. Additionally, Callie’s mom doesn’t disappear from the story after she’s arrested. She is bailed out of jail by her parents and then pops up to cause trouble for Callie, who feels a strong loyalty toward her and can’t decide if she should run off with her again or stay with her new, stable family.

One thing that did bug me was Callie’s mom’s mental illness. I already knew a little about borderline personality disorder and did a little more digging on it, because although most of the symptoms seemed more or less right, it’s not generally treatable by medication. Additionally, Callie refers to her mom going through a manic period, which doesn’t happen with borderline—that’s bipolar disorder. Borderline is characterized by impulsive behaviors and problems with emotion regulation, which are also common with bipolar during manic episodes, but the two are distinct. It is true that people who suffer from borderline can also have other mental health issues, but it’s never mentioned that she also has bipolar. Borderline is treated with cognitive (or dialectical) behavioral therapy because it’s more a problem with perceptions than a brain chemistry thing.

Anyway, that didn’t ruin the book for me, but it stood out. Instead, I focused on Callie’s growth as she comes into a much healthier view of her own sexuality and her relationship with men. Certainly, her father (who is a great guy) helps her understand that men can be good. Alex’s treatment of her also adds to that. In the end, it’s not clear where she and Alex will end up, but what is obvious is that she has a real extended family that she is a part of and she and her mom have come to an understanding. Older teen readers will see someone they know in Callie, even if it’s not themselves.

Mitigated Rejection

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So, a couple weeks ago I had full manuscripts (Finding Frances) out with two agents and one editor. I got a rejection back from one of the agents last week. It was a no. However, she was nice enough to give me a lot of feedback, which is the first time any agent has done this. And she read the whole thing (!). She said she enjoyed the book quite a lot and was very complimentary of my writing ability. She pointed out a few specific weak areas of the book, which was really helpful because some of them are things no one else has noticed before. She also said she was sure I have a future as a writer and didn’t even recommend craft books or classes—instead she reminded me that it’s a subjective business and pointed me to the Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents Blog. This is all nice, because a month or so ago, I was feeling like giving up. It’s a hard business and you need pretty thick skin. The weird thing is that I’m not thick skinned at all, but I have sort of developed it in the writing world. Critique groups are good training for this. Sharing something you’ve written is a really personal thing.

The Art of Character book coverAnother nice thing that happened that same day is that one of my former writing instructors offered to do a critique of a chapter or story of mine, all because I recommended a book on character that he ended up using in his summer writing class. It’s really popular with his students and he felt like he owed me a favor. I’m not sure he does, but I’ll probably take him up on that. I’ve got a short story I’m working on, which I may post here eventually. If you’re curious, the book is The Art of Character: Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film, and TV by David Corbett.

Then, I emailed the original agent back to thank her, and she responded that she’d be willing to take another look if I address the issues she raised. So that is very awesome.

At this point, I still have my fingers crossed because Finding Frances is also still out with another agent and an editor, so there’s plenty of hope. And of course, even more promising is having the list of recommended changes from the original agent to work on. I was planning to only address them when I’ve heard back from the others, but now I’m thinking I should go ahead and make the changes. Either way, I should be hearing from the editor soon, but don’t know about the other agent.

Review: Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook

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Getting Reveng on Lauren Wood book cover

The premise of this book is interesting—Helen was betrayed by her best friend, Lauren, in a monumental way at the end of eight grade, which made the promise of starting high school as the local pariah a bit of a nightmare. But Helen gets lucky and her family moves out of state before that can happen, so she gets to start high school in a new place where nobody knows what she supposedly did.

The book doesn’t show the next three years, but we learn in summary that Helen never forgot what Lauren did, even for a second. She spent the whole time plotting different ways to get revenge. She stalked Lauren a bit so she knew everything that mattered to her. Lauren’s become a cheerleader, is one of the It crowd, is very proud of her relationship with a popular boy, and is very active in drama. When Helen gets shipped off back to the midwest to return to her old school—now as a senior—she has a real multi-step plan to get back at Lauren. Basically, she’ll figure out a way to take away the four thing Lauren cares the most about.

So the question becomes, “Is revenge worth it?”

I’m not going to claim that this is a super-deep, philosophical book, but it does take an honest look at this question. Because Lauren’s betrayal really was spectacular, and in retrospect, it’s also clear to Helen that she was never even a good friend at all. Helen was always second best. Helen’s grandmother counsels her against revenge, but she proceeds with her plan. It goes rather swimmingly for a while, until things get a little out of hand. It’s fun to watch Helen try to handle it as best she can, even not everything can be fixed. It’s also interesting to see whether or not Lauren is really redeemed in the end.

I think this might qualify as a nice summer read. I don’t really do summer reads because I am not a fan of heat and sun, but I think I know what it means. So, if you want an entertaining book, go for it.

Progress

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I’ve made a little more progress in making my house look like a real house. I finished painting last weekend and then manually extracted each stupid carpet-pad staple from the subfloor. I got about 75% of the drywall compound off the floor by mopping it earlier in the week, making a bucket full of drywall mud in the process. I primed the floor in two coats so now it’s solid white (well, it’s two different whites because I had to use the two different primers, but still). At least it’s not subfloor-colored with various colors of paint and plaster all over it. I mean, it looks ridiculous, but if you use your imagination, you can sort of see a great room in there. (I don’t mean a “great” “room”, but a “great room”.)

Painted floor

Friday I got my Ikea furniture delivered—in 12 boxes. Sigh. I spent most of yesterday alternating between painting the floor and putting the furniture together.

Dining Room Chairs

Before
Before
After - completed chairs
After

Yay! Marvin only left his paw prints on some of them.

Dining Room Table

Before
Before
After - table in boxes
After

Spiffy Red Sofa

Before
Before
After - sofa boxes
After

Okay, so I wasn’t 100% successful. You try it. It will be so nice when it’s really all together. I have a couple of rugs to put down once the floor is more properly dry, and then I’m hoping the electrician will finally come and finish all that work up (I still have no heaters and have an ancient chandelier), and then I really will get the rest of the furniture put together. I can’t wait.

Old chandelier
Old Chandelier
Lights in box
New Chandelier and Hall Lights

Really, it can happen. I’m convinced.

Oh, and on top of that, my last class finished a couple weeks ago so I’ve finally been able to get back to my writing, like I should. I’m working on getting Sadie Speaks ready to query at the PNWA conference in mid-July, so that’s a lot of work, but it will be good to start getting that one out there.

Review: Wonder Woman (the movie)

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First off, I have to mention that I never watch movies. I’m not exaggerating much—the last movie I saw in the theater was The Hunger Games (that would be the first one), which of course I enjoyed because it was true to the book. I rarely watch them at home, too. There are reasons for this. Second of all, I must also mention that although I quite like graphic novels*, I have never particularly been into the superhero genre. So I went to this movie as a fresh and naïve viewer. I’m not going to give a plot summary here, but instead just look at some of the aspects of it.

I did enjoy the movie. When I do get around to watching a movie, if it’s any good, it totally sucks me in and makes me feel like I’m in some twilight zone for a while even after it’s over, and usually also makes me cry at some point near the end. This one did all that. Additionally, it made me want to go out and learn to fight, something that hasn’t happened since I binge-watched Buffy.

I didn’t even mind (too much) the fact that Wonder Woman was nearly naked most of the time, because on her home island, at least it made sense—why not be comfortable? There were no men around to harass all the women. Confining clothes aren’t great for physical training. And I was surprised, but her sort of weird and ostensibly ineffectual weapons actually worked for me in the movie. I mean, it’s hard to imagine a lasso being too impressive, or a bullet-repelling shield and bracelets, being all that powerful, but I thought it was okay. Plus, there was a fancy sword added to the mix.

However, I have the same issues with it that I very often have with movies (one of the main reasons I prefer TV shows to movies): character development and story. There usually isn’t time in a couple hours to do justice to both. First, while Diana/Wonder Woman herself and the pilot Steve Trevor were developed well enough for me, the supporting characters were flat. Three diverse characters went along with Steve and Diana to the front, a Scot, an Arab, and a Native American, and they weren’t developed at all. They were just sort of there. The same goes for the secretary, who was funny, though.

And the story. There were several points in the movie where I didn’t know why certain things were happening. Take, for instance, the infamous No-Man’s-Land scene, where Diana makes her way across the area between the Allies and German trenches by simply walking with her shield out. She blocks all their gunfire with said shield. First she’s by herself, but then Steve and his buddies follow. For some reason, the soldiers keep shooting at her rather than targeting them. By the time she gets there, all the soldiers are so freaked out that they run off. Now, I didn’t get why they were so freaked out. She wasn’t even attacking—just blocking the bullets. I’d think they’d more likely be transfixed and think she was a god or something magical. There were also some pivotal moments where all the characters seemed to understand what was going on even though I didn’t think it had been communicated.

I guess a big question is whether or not it was really feminist. I’m not sure. Though it is definitely a good thing to have a woman director breaking in in Hollywood—I don’t doubt that. But the movie itself is about female strength—but not normal female strength, just unnatural, female demi-god strength. Does that really empower the rest of us mortals? I’m not sure again. I mean, I suppose in the context of the superhero genre, it does. Most of the male superheroes out there have super-human traits and we still assume they’re celebrating men’s strength. But a bigger problem for me was Diana’s naïvety. She comes across as very simple and idealistic at times, not grasping what’s in front of her. I know she was sheltered from the real world, but still, it made me a little uncomfortable.

Anyway, I guess it’s up for people smarter than me to decide.

 

* Fables, I’m so sad you’re gone, even if you did get a little weird at the end

Review: Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess

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Such a Pretty Girl isn’t a long book, but it packs a lot in a little package. The back cover copy makes it sound like a dark and disturbing story—fifteen-year-old Meredith’s father is being released from prison after serving just three years of his eight-year sentence—and it is a dark and disturbing tale. Her father’s coming home, putting her in great danger. We don’t know exactly why, but we get a sense that something is very wrong. (Actually, kudos to the back cover-writer, because it actually really triggers your curiosity without revealing much, all while managing to remain wholly true to the book.)

Meredith’s father went to prison for abusing several boys in the neighborhood, and everyone hates her for it. She’s a pariah. But it’s even worse than that, because he also assaulted her. And she knows she’s not going to be safe when he returns.

Now, technically, he isn’t moving back into Meredith’s apartment with her and her mom. Because he’s not supposed to be alone with Meredith. No, but he’s got an apartment in the same complex. Officially, he’s reformed and being let out for that and good behavior. But she’s not a naive twelve-year-old anymore and she knows he’s going to come after her again. After all, there were no kids in his prison, so of course he behaved.

Meredith’s mom is a serious piece of work. She is infatuated with Meredith’s father, who she’s been with since she was twelve and he was sixteen. She is basically an overgrown child herself, unwilling to share him. It’s hard to tell if she simply doesn’t believe what he did to Meredith or if she’s only jealous. She doesn’t take the law seriously, either—Meredith’s father is over at their apartment all the time, and she leaves him there while Meredith is home. When Meredith confronts her about this, her response is the classy, “You won’t let it go, will you?” Some people might find it hard to believe a mom could be like this, but it’s realistic—there really are women out there like that. I went to school with a girl who had a mom like that.

One of the obvious questions is, why doesn’t the law do more to protect Meredith? Well, this is one of the problems with the law, really. It’s pretty rubbish at protecting people. People don’t get arrested just for having the potential for violence (which is right, of course). But sometimes the threat of violence is so great that you really do know it’s inevitable, yet still nothing can be done. In Meredith’s case, her mother definitely could do more to protect her, but she is so addicted to him that she doesn’t care. And definitely the people responsible for the conditions of his release could have made them far more restrictive, but the authorities aren’t always on the victim’s side. For instance, a woman with the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence told me about a case where a man drove over his wife’s legs with the car—he was trying to kill her but missed. What happened to him? He was offered and plead guilty to driving with a revoked license. That was it. So although it’s unlikely Meredith would have been left so completely unprotected, it is feasible.

Fortunately, Meredith does have some allies in the complex. One is her boyfriend, Andy, and the other is a former cop (the one who arrested her father) named Nigel. Andy was one of Meredith’s father’s early victims, and his mother is out to get him for it. Andy wants to help protect her from her father, but he has his own life to live and sort of abandons her right after her father arrives. Nigel helps her figure out her options. She also has a grandma in town, but she’s not exactly aggressive in trying to ensure Meredith’s protected. It’s a little odd that she doesn’t try harder, but again, totally feasible. Not all families are functional.

In the end, Meredith solves the problem herself. The book wasn’t exactly a joy to read, but it was very satisfying to watch a girl deal with a bad situation. After you finish it, you will want to wash your hands. The subject matter is icky.

Life Gets in the Way

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I am really bummed because I haven’t been able to do any writing (unless you count blog posts) for a couple weeks and won’t be able to for another couple. I’m taking a certificate course in data science that’s wrapping up with a huge, time-consuming project. On top of that, I’m trying to finish painting my entire downstairs so I can get an electrician out here to install new heaters (not that I need them right now…) and a few other electrical things. On top of all that, I have critiquing I have to do and places I need to be.

Not to mention that it’s supposed to be a holiday weekend and I technically have tomorrow off, but I still have to do some work from home.

Life is so hard sometimes. Wah.

Anyway, it’s weird to not be writing and I feel sort of like I’m forgetting to do something fundamental, like eat.

As soon as my scheduled clears up again, I’m getting right back to Sadie Speaks. I’m in the process of incorporating some more  feedback on it from one of my critique partners. I did a first pass through but there are some larger issues to address. Still, I’m planning to have it ready before the PNWA conference, which is in the second half of July, because I plan to pitch it there. This will be the first time I pitch it. I’ve kind of gotten sick of pitching the first one, Finding Frances, although I do have three full requests out on it right now—one with an editor at Sourcebooks and two with agents. I feel like it’s run its course. With Sadie Speaks, I’ll be querying people I already queried with Finding Frances. But hopefully someone will be interested in it and then will also read Finding Frances and feel tremendous regret at not recognizing its brilliance the first time around.

Sure. Here’s a picture of my downstairs, which is a vast improvement over the last picture I shared. There are many hours of work poured into it. The contractors took down that tacky little half wall, resurfaced the ceiling, and installed new drywall as well as replaced the subfloor around the walls (so it doesn’t smell anymore (!)). I’ve also primed everything, including the ceiling. So much work, and now I still have to take all that paint out of those four cans and apply it to the walls and ceiling. Have you ever painted a ceiling? It sucks. Note that the chandelier in the foreground of the photo is so going away. The box on the floor has its replacement. I can’t wait.

remodeling the downstairs

And here’s a picture of Marvin, for no reason.

marvin on a stepstool

Review: Before I Die by Jenny Downham

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Before I Die (also called Now Is Good, though I prefer the former) is really a remarkable book. I’ve never read another one like it. It’s definitely the kind of story that stays with you. There are other books about teenagers who are dying, but this one feels different.

Tessa is sixteen and she has terminal leukemia. She has months left to live and is struggling with what to do with herself in her time left. She makes a list of things she wants to experience before she dies. They are pretty reasonable to me, given her age, even if some seem silly: to have sex, say yes to everything one day, break the law, be famous, drive, get her parents back together, and finally experience love. She’s a very level-headed girl and knows that the last is impossible in her situation, but a last bit of bittersweet luck allows her to meet a boy who does fall for her.

We’re dropped right into Tessa’s world. She’s been dealing with the cancer for four years and she’s sullen and feeling a little sorry for herself, but who wouldn’t be? She feels cheated and is having a hard time dealing with it. When she starts focusing on carrying out the items on the list, she finds they don’t bring her the satisfaction she hopes for. She starts paying attention to other things and notices little details about the world that most of us miss, imbuing them with personal importance. A bird flying in a straight line across the sky; light bursting through a hole in a cloud.

One of my favorite things about the book is her dad. He’s so sweet despite the fact that he is heartbroken. He really listens to Tessa in a way I think many parents would struggle to do in the same circumstances. She can say one thing and he knows that she really means something else. He’s trying to still parent her even while giving her a great deal of autonomy since they all know there’s no point in teaching her things about life since she’s not going to get to live it. He sets rules, she disobeys him, and he forgives her. The other characters are also good. There’s her insensitive eleven-year-old brother who alternates between telling her horrible things and expressing his love for her in his awkward way. Her friend Zoey isn’t the nicest person, but she’s a friend and she’s got a lot going on in her own life. Tessa’s mom is never going to win mother of the year, but she is believable and finally sort of comes through in the end. Then there’s Adam. The one weakness in the book to me was that I didn’t quite see why he fell in love with Tessa, but if you just accept that that sometimes happens, it works and he’s a good guy.

There was a quietness to the writing itself that made the experience of reading it more powerful. Through the book, Tessa experiences several rages and if you aren’t paying attention you would miss the intensity of them. But if you are paying attention, they are heartbreaking. The book will definitely take you on an emotional ride. It’s the kind of thing that makes you cry when you’re reading it, then makes you cry again later when you accidentally think about it.

Diversity in YA

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At the RT Book Convention, I attended a session with a rather lengthy title—Staying in Your Lane or Getting Out of It: How to Navigate Writing About People Who Aren’t Like You. As you can gather, it was all about the official It topic in YA—diversity and who is allowed—and obligated—to see that it is improved.

Everyone pretty much agreed that there isn’t enough diversity in YA literature and that something should be done about it. But it’s just not clear what that should be exactly. Most writers of YA are white, straight, middle class, etc. Should these writers start writing outside their experience? That isn’t seen as a good solution because it’s hard for them to make those other voices authentic, which does a disservice to the people who are not being represented accurately as well all the other readers who aren’t seeing an accurate experience of The Other.

Obviously we need more writers who aren’t privileged white people. An interesting question came up: should those of us who do fit that mold stand aside to make “more room” for diverse writers? I feel like this misses the point a little—I don’t believe it’s a zero sum game. It’s not like there is a specific and finite number of possible readers. More teens would read for fun if they saw themselves represented in the literature. It’s really on the publishing industry to give diversity more than lip service. A great suggestion was also made as one of the best ways that all us privileged writers can help: we should help to promote all diverse books. Seek them out, recommend them, review them, blurb them, and so on. Everyone should do this.

Another suggestion is simply to make the world of a book more diverse by putting some characters of color/different sexuality/etc. in there. Like the barista at the coffee shop, or the guy driving by in the Toyota, or classmates. The point was that it should be specifically called out. I think a lot of white authors are afraid to make background and secondary characters specifically one race or another, but the point was that it’s better than just picturing it in your head and letting readers miss it.

I also want to address the idea that someone like me shouldn’t try to write about someone not like me. I think this is silly. If we really believed that an author can only write what they know, we wouldn’t have the majority of modern literature. No historical. No fantasy, no sci-fi, no paranormal. Why are the expectations so different for contemporary? One of the important traits of a writer is definitely creativity, but another is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagine what it’s really, truly like. Because all good literature is about the emotional experiences of the characters, and that requires knowing them deeply.

I think too much emphasis is put on presupposed group experience. As if a handful of shared categories guarantees a single shared experience. For instance, I truly believe that I have more in common with a black middle-class girl from the south-central US who attended a state college and has dealt on and off with mental health challenges than a white girl born and bred in New York who attended Brown and is an eternal optimist. Of course our experiences would not have been the same, but in this scenario I really believe race is less important than the sum of the other characteristics. I also think I could do a decent job of writing a lesbian growing up in the middle of the country, because although I’m straight, in Oklahoma people (very) frequently think I’m a man and when they figure out I’m not, many assume I’m a lesbian. So I have some clue how they’re treated.

I’m not saying that white, straight people don’t have privilege—we absolutely do. But we are also individuals with different experiences and have the capability of listening to and learning from others. One of the examples that came up at the panel was that a lot of books about fat girls have been written—and many of those books don’t ring true for us actual fat girls, because they were written by skinny women.

But I don’t think that’s why—I think it’s because they were written by uninformed skinny women. I have been really fat all my life and suffered for it, but I don’t think that it’s impossible for someone who hasn’t experienced it to understand what it’s like. Similarly, people who have never suffered from depression often don’t get it. But again, it’s not impossible. In both cases, it just takes some effort and a real commitment to understanding. Normal people don’t bother with this—but good writers do.

So I don’t think it’s true that a white woman can never write a major character of color authentically. She can’t do it alone, though. A good mix of beta readers, friends who’ve had similar experiences to the character, and loads of research is necessary.

A couple of interesting sites related to this topic that came up in the panel:
http://www.inourownvoices.org
http://writeinthemargins.org

Review: My Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught

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My Big Fat Manifesto book cover

Big Fat Manifesto (in the paperback edition the title starts with “My”) is another book about an overweight girl. Sort of like the heroine in Dumplin’, Jamie Carcaterra doesn’t carry around deep shame about being fat, though she does carry around a deep awareness of it and how she’s perceived as a result of it. And not surprisingly, she’s not quite as confident as she tries so hard to be. Regardless, for her senior year, she decides to write an entire column about weight and related issues in her school newspaper in the hopes of winning a specific journalism scholarship. But Jamie isn’t stuck in her room, hiding from the world, working on her column. No, she has a lot of other things going on—a couple close friends, a boyfriend, a school play.

The book is set up with Jamie’s articles breaking up the chapters, so we get a lot of her direct voice, and it’s really good. She’s smart and a tad snarky but not overly so. The articles are interesting and show a real understanding of what it is to be overweight in America now, and some of the things that are most irritating about the way the media and people in general perceive and talk about fat people. First off, she takes issue with that annoying thing they do when talking about large people on TV—show obese, headless torsos walking down the street. She refers to the “obesity epidemic” itself as “hoo-ha,” which cracked me up. She talks about the absurdity of sizing for women’s clothing (don’t get me started on the fact that I can’t get shirts with sleeves that actually reach my wrists, but that’s not in the book so I’ll stop). She calls out the fact that it’s become socially acceptable to mock fat people.

For a good portion of the book, much of her column centers around a major event in her life—her boyfriend, Burke, is having gastric bypass surgery because he too is morbidly obese. And Jamie doesn’t like this. She is concerned because of health reasons, but there’s also a little bit of her vulnerability coming into play. If he loses a bunch of weight, will he still be her Burke, and will he still care about her? He experiences several complications along the way, and that and her column lead to some twists in her quest for the scholarship.

Not everyone is going to appreciate Jamie’s voice. She is sort of an angry fat girl with a bone to pick, after all, but I think that the book makes a lot of really interesting points. And it definitely does it with style.

Atlanta, Here I Come

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I’m on my way to a writing conference in Atlanta now, probably quite uncomfortably stuffed into an airplane seat and weighing the pros and cons of drinking something—pro, I want to; con, then I might have to use the plane lavatory, which freaks me out a little.

The conference targets romance writing (it’s actually a larger conference for all sorts of book fans as well as writers), but I’m looking forward to picking up lots of general writing tidbits. I’m doing a boot camp that lasts two days and will probably wear me down. But fortunately the sessions don’t start for the rest of the conference until 10. So, wish me luck and fortitude.

This isn’t related. I’m sort of embarrassed that I bought one of these, but I couldn’t resist (it has blue in it—I love blue food*).

unicorn frappuccino
Sparkly

* A biochemist I once knew told me that humans are averse to eating blue food, since it is probably spoiled if it’s that color. More support for my theory that I’m not actually human.