Thursday, December 12, 2013

too many books, too little time!


With so many fantasy and urban fantasy series in the market these days, sometimes you just DESPERATELY crave for some good old contemporary fiction. With real characters you want to root for and real problems you can relate to and real insights you can apply to your own life and real lessons to live by.

So I scoured Goodreads (despite the flak on author-bullying the site has gotten recently, I still love it for its user-friendly layout, enthusiastic reader community and comprehensive info on the books) for some contemporary young adult fiction.

And those literary agents, book editors and publishers weren't kidding when they said contemporary fiction is on the rise again. I found SO many enticing contemporary YA books I'm seriously wondering if I can ever finish them.

Here's a list of the top 10 books I'm dying to read.


Contemporary YA books to read (click on the links to read the blurbs):

1. Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell
I've read only great things about this breakout author (she's the 2013 Goodreads Choice Award winner for Best YA Fiction!) and after browsing her books in Kinokuniya last weekend I was SO tempted to buy all her books. The mood of the story and narrator voice kind of remind me of 500 Days of Summer - whimsical and light-hearted with a dash of poignancy.

Plus, FANGIRL. Hello, what better character to relate to?


Ahem.

Anyway, I have high hopes for this book.

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2. Where the Stars Still Shine, by Trish Doller
Gotta love a good coming-of-age story about a girl coming into herself despite the adverse conditions she was brought up in.


3. Love Letters to the Dead, by Ava Dellaira
I'm starting to get into epistolary fiction. Letters are a great plot device for moving the story along and revealing insights about a character. In fact, my novel Until Morning wouldn't be the same - or complete - without the letters Lexi writes to Night, or Sam writes to Lexi. There is just so much about a character you can reveal from the intimate letters he writes to someone special.


4. What I Thought Was True, by Huntley Fitzpatrick
I read her debut novel, My Life Next Door, and really appreciated her effortless writing style, genuine character voice, and the circumstances in the story that didn't seem contrived or melodramatic. Some people say it's too fluffy, and gets draggy towards the end, but I think it's a sweet and refreshing voice. So, next book - on my To Read list!


5. Night of Cake and Puppets, by Laini Taylor
Okay, this is cutting it close, since it's a spin-off novella from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, which is pretty much high fantasy as far as I know. Still, Zuzana and Mik's love story should be monster-free, since they, unlike Karou, are completely human and don't have a secret past (no spoilers here! This is a spoiler-free zone).


6. The Last Forever, by Deb Caletti
I mean, come on. It's Deb Caletti. I've read pretty much every book she has ever written (aside from her latest, He's Gone, which is adult fiction), and she has never disappointed. Sure, I have my favourites, and some that I love more than others. But Caletti's prose is unpretentious, and her characters are so painfully real, their relationships at times so delicate and at times so explosive, they make the stories incredibly compelling. Wild Roses will always have a special place in my heart, but I'm definitely looking forward to this upcoming one.

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7. Wild Awake, by Hilary T. Smith
I think this excerpt is reason enough to read the book:
"People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn't know were there, even the ones they wouldn't have thought to call beautiful themselves."

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I'M IN LOOOOOVE!

Also, mental illness, tonnes of imagery, coming-of-age story about a girl coping with her sister's disappearance? I NEED THIS BOOK NOW!

So many books, so little time. Where to begin? Still, if you have any good books to recommend I ain't saying no to them, because


Also, I've moved on to Act 2 for No Room in Neverland! Wheeee! The plot thickens and I can't seem to stop cackling while doing the happy writer dance.


Okay, I'll explain. Unlike what I've done for my previous novels, where I just plunged into the novel after drawing up a plan for the entire novel and plotted chapters all the way to the middle of the story, this time I decided to write the first draft in script form before rewriting it in prose form. For one, it saves time, since crafting prose takes me more time and effort than writing a script - I can't stop obsessing over each single word. For another, writing the first draft in script form allows me to visualise the entire story before I get down to it proper - it's sort of like a testing ground for me to get to know my characters and the world they live in before writing their story.

I'm trying this method because of my experience with Until Morning. As you know, it started out as a script for my play-writing class. I wrote the first few scenes and then decided to turn it into a novel, and those chapters for which I had the pre-written scenes flowed much easily - I pounded out 10 pages (about 2500 words) in 3 hours.

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So hopefully writing Neverland will be a less angsty process than writing the others. At least I can tackle the mid-story goblin without worrying about prose. And goodness knows that sneaky little bastard is creeping up on me now.

Good times back in Act 1 Scene 11:


Still, I keep telling myself to dig deep. Gouge out everything inside your characters and serve them on a plate, innards and all, and then play with it. (Why yes, I'm PG-13 that way. Why do you ask?)

On a more family-friendly note:


If I had to sum up my main character, Gemma, in one quote, this would be it.

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