I want to like your book

No, I still haven’t completed my second draft. Shhhh. 

~~~~

Last night I finished reading Rules of Civility by the fabulously-named Amor Towles. I loved it, and I am so glad that I loved it because I love Amor Towles. I know nothing about him except this quote but that’s enough.

I read a fair number of books because I like the person who wrote them. Sometimes it’s because I’m friends with the author, so obviously I like them and buy and read their book. Sometimes, though, I get a glimmer into a person’s mind and I am excited by what I see, like with Amor Towles, or someone is simply entertaining on the internet, like Delilah Dawson or Gail Carriger. If I then check out their books and go “oh hey this sounds cool,” it’s a sale.

So. There’s a lot of debate about the usefulness of having an online platform, but if I am your target audience it totally helps. Very simply, I like supporting people I like. Make me like you, and I’ll probably buy your first book. Write a good book, and I’ll probably buy your second.

goodreads, crazy goodreads

Oh, Goodreads.

If you don’t know, Goodreads is basically an online platform where readers can keep track of books they read and want to read, and rate them, and write reviews, and communicate with other readers and (in some instances) authors. I don’t really hang out there much, but I’ve been poking my nose in a bit over the past few months because SHIT is going DOWN and I love a good train wreck.

It’s pretty much insanity. I’m not going to link to any of the incidents because I don’t want to give any of them more traction, but take my word for it when I say shit is cray cray. Authors have been calling Goodreads reviewers cows and bitches in emails and on Twitter; authors and their friends have been going on massive negative rants on Twitter and blogs about Goodreads and reviewers in general or specific; authors and their agents and their friends have publicly stated they’re going to try to skew review rankings. The list of stupidity pretty much goes on and on.

Dear authors: we remember this shit. Really. I will read any book, regardless of author actions, if it is amazing enough, but if I see you being an asshole I will remember it and I will read your book last and I will get it from a bargain bin because I don’t like giving money to assholes. Especially if you’re an asshole to other bibliophiles. It’s just not cool, guys.

In the name of promoting peace and decreasing stupidity throughout the internet, I offer a few guidelines for the world of online book reviewing. Not all of these are directed at authors.

1. Authors should not comment on reviews of their own books. The only possible exception is to thank the reviewer. But no trying to explain something the reviewer missed, or telling them they’re wrong or missed the point. And no getting your friends to do it for you. You’re not going to convince anyone to change their mind, and you look bad. Just don’t.

2. Authors should not ask their friends to help skew review rankings, either on Goodreads or Amazon or wherever. It’s totally understandable to want to “sink” bad reviews, so that the good reviews are near the top to help sell your book, but ethics aside you don’t want to deal with the public backlash if you’re found out. And seriously, have the sense to not talk about it on Twitter, and be careful with emails. Once you hit “send,” it’s no longer yours.

3. A reviewer not finishing a book does not make that review invalid. I hate when I see people say this. Hate. Basically, the sentiment is “your review is invalid because you didn’t finish the book so you don’t know everything that happened—you can’t judge the entire thing.” Well, no. Not finishing the book is kind of a judgment in itself. If a person dislikes a book enough that they stop reading, what happens at the end does not matter because the rest of the book wasn’t strong enough to carry the reader to the end. I want to stop seeing this argument.

4. No personal attacks, by reviewers or authors. File under: be nice on the internet. (Or, you know, everywhere.) Just don’t be that person.

Basically, it all boils down to this: authors, don’t shit on reviewers. Reviewers aren’t simply book-lovers (i.e., the target audience of an author), they’re hardcore book-lovers, they’re people who love books enough that they want to critique them and analyze them and talk about them with their friends. They’re the book-lovers other book-lovers look to for guidance. And they will remember.

mini book review: The Trial of the Flash

Just finished reading my first book of the new year, Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash. It covers a bunch of issues from 1983-85, when the Flash (Barry Allen) is on trial for murder.

We all know I love me some Flash, and overall I loved this (even though it wasn’t my boy Wally), but man were the Carmine Infantino layouts hard to follow sometimes. Like, headache-inducingly difficult.

And it’s not like a few issues in you could figure out the method behind the madness. No, Infantino would use the exact same panel layouts (usually involving diagonals) and expect you to read them in different directions on different pages with no indication as to which. I’d be halfway through a page or panel and realize I was reading things out of order. It got kind of frustrating, but I’m glad I persevered because the story rollicked right along. It was fantastical at times, and I’m not sure all the law checked out, but hey. I can deal with some over-the-top 80s-era stories and some Perry-Mason-esque legal squibbles if the story is great. Which it was.

Also, there’s one panel where Barry has a really nice butt. It was pretty exciting.

Yes, here at Gracetopia we cover the most important parts of a book in our reviews.

OUT TUESDAY: Zombie Tag, by Hannah Moskowitz

Hannah is one of my biffers, and I’m thrilled to help spread the word about her newest book, Zombie Tag. It hits shelves tomorrow, Tuesday December 20, and it is a pretty awesome piece of MG fiction. (MG is just a label—you bet your boots I’m planning to read it.)

You may recall, last year, I presented the rules for the game of zombie tag (click to refresh your memory). That game plays a major role in the book, aside from just giving it a title, but the book is so much more. Here’s the blurb:

Wil is desperate for his older brother to come back from the dead. But the thing about zombies is . . they don’t exactly make the best siblings.

Thirteen-year-old Wil Lowenstein copes with his brother’s death by focusing on Zombie Tag, a mafia/capture the flag hybrid game where he and his friends fight off brain-eating zombies with their mothers’ spatulas. What Wil doesn’t tell anybody is that if he could bring his dead brother back as a zombie, he would in a heartbeat. But when Wil finds a way to summon all the dead within five miles, he’s surprised to discover that his back-from-the-dead brother is emotionless and distant.

In her first novel for younger readers, Moskowitz offers a funny and heartfelt look at how one boy deals with change, loss, and the complicated relationship between brothers.

Doesn’t that sound awesome? Yes, yes it does.

Check out Hannah’s blog here. This link goes to Zombie Tag on Amazon, but I obviously encourage you to buy it at your local bookstore.

words of wisdom

From CNN’s interview with Amor Towles, author of The Rules of Civility:

I’ve been writing fiction since I was a kid. From the age of 15 to 25, I probably wrote more than 50 short stories, one of which was published in “the Paris Review” in 1989.

Then in my late 30s and early 40s, I wrote a novel set in the farmlands of Stalinist Russia, which I stuck in a drawer. So when I finished the manuscript for “Rules of Civility,” it was the first thing I had submitted for publication in almost 20 years.

One reason for the long hiatus is that I have been an investment professional since my mid-20s. My personal challenge as an artist has been having a day job which is intellectually satisfying and fun — and thus can easily supplant the desire to make art.

But the benefit of having that career has been that I could write without an overwhelming sense of urgency to be published. I could just keep refining my craft until I was convinced I had something worth sharing.

This quote really makes me feel good about my life choices, not gonna lie. Also I want to read his book now.

Also Amor Towles may possibly be the best name ever.

book review: 33 snowfish

It’s been a long time since I read a piece of fiction that made me cry. I can actually only remember one—an Evelyn Waugh short story.

Now we are at two.

33 Snowfish, by Adam Rapp, was recommended to my by the lovely Libba Bray. I had met her at SCBWI New York, and I had said something vague about how I didn’t know if what I was writing was really YA, since even though the characters were the right age it seemed really dark, and she said that you could be a lot darker in YA nowadays, for instance had I read the brilliant 33 Snowfish?

So I read it.

And it was brilliant.

And I cried.

33 Snowfish is the heartbreaking yet hopeful story of three runaways, Custis, Boobie, and Curl. Alternating sections are told by each one (Boobie’s are told in picture form). It’s a dark story. These kids have not had happy lives. One was basically a sex-slave to a pedophile, one is a prostitute, and one killed his parents—all this is what they’re running from, with a kidnapped baby.

But it’s so beautiful. Rapp’s language is vivid and intense, and all the characters are so real. He is not quite as good at Curl’s (the girl’s) voice as he is at Custis’s, I don’t think, but they are all real people. You very quickly understand them and where they’re coming from, even though for most readers it is as if the children live in a foreign land. The strong relationship between young Custis and the older boy, Boobie, is especially well-drawn.

The book is so short and wonderful that to say much about it would be doing it and the reader an injustice. But if you are interested in beautiful YA literature, you should pick this up. Just know that it’s dark.

RAZOW!

Here we have a post in which Grace shamelessly pimps out things she likes.

So. A couple of days ago somebody, knowing my preference for the 1980s Transformers, handed me a small book:

A 20-something girl in a dress and heels gets some pretty funny looks reading this on the subway, let me tell you. Especially when she’s giggling maniacally.

But my God is it good. It details the tragic battle between the Awesomebots and the Fantasticons, which eventually leads them to Earth, and it’s pretty much as amazing as it sounds.

Excerpt!

(Slightly longer excerpt here.)

And not only is the book AWESOME—I wrote my first-ever author-fan letter in response to this book, and Jeffrey Brown responded in approximately 3 hours, which pretty much made my day. Dear Mr. Brown, I love you.

Anyway. If you like the old Transformers and/or things that are funny, you should check this book out. Brown has written other comics (for which I think he is better-known… I’m not really sure) in an entirely different genre, which I will be reading shortly.

win a signed copy of THE NAUGHTY LIST

As mentioned yesterday, my friend Suzanne Young‘s first novel is about to be published—it’s already available via Barnes and Noble! (sneaky, B&N, very sneaky)

Since I am about to see the fabulous Suz in New York City, I thought this giveaway would be a SIGNED, PERSONALIZED COPY of The Naughty List.

As if being a purrfect cheerleader isn’t enough responsibility! Tessa Crimson’s the sweet and spunky leader of the SOS (Society of Smitten Kittens), a cheer squad–turned–spy society dedicated to bringing dastardly boyfriends to justice, one cheater at a time. Boyfriend-busting wouldn’t be so bad . . . except that so far, every suspect on the Naughty List has been proven 100% guilty!

When Tessa’s own boyfriend shows up on the List, she turns her sleuthing skills on him. Is Aiden just as naughty as all the rest, or will Tessa’s sneaky ways end in catastrophe?

The Naughty List. Is your boyfriend on it?

I know, right? You want to read this. (Okay, so some of my geektastic friends who come here for the Star Wars may not want to read this, BUT THE REST OF YOU!! Want to read this.)

To enter the drawing for this book:

If you were in a secret spying-on-boyfriends society, what would your secret agent name be???

Answer in the comments! I will draw a winner on Thursday February 4th (release day!), and the winner will have to email me the name they want the book signed to.  (As well as, you know, an address to mail the book to. Postage is on me.)

Let the games begin!

awesome things happening to awesome people

These two weeks belong to my dear friend Suzanne Young. First, BIG NEWS #1:

Suzanne Young’s A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL, in which a 17-year-old discovers that by performing the good deeds that her body compels her to, she will disappear into the Light and be forgotten, but by fighting “the Need,” her fate could be even more dire, to Donna Bray at Balzer and Bray, in a two-book deal, in a pre-empt, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (World English).

And IN BIG NEWS #2, 8 days from now her debut novel, The Naughty List, is released! (BUY HERE)

You know how people always say, “This really couldn’t have happened to a nicer person?” IN THIS CASE IT IS TRUE.

Congratulations, Suz! You deserve every bit of this.

COMING TOMORROW: A CHANCE TO WIN A SIGNED COPY OF THE NAUGHTY LIST RIGHT HERE AT GRACETOPIA!! Stay tuned.

it’s a wiiiiilde wednesday!!

Aubrey Beardsley illustrated Oscar Wilde’s Salome, creating one of my favorite books ever because omg Beardsley is a genius illustrator. However—and perhaps not surprisingly—the two ended up not getting along very well. Wilde complained about the art, and in retaliation Beardsley drew this cartoon, responding to Wilde’s claim that he never did any research.

Why is it always the most volatile of artistic relationships that produce some of the greatest art?