2010 Debut Author Challenge

Holy smokes blog-world! Two posts in one day! It's a miracle. Which will likely never happen again. But for now I bask in my momentary sense of accomplishment.

So I am blogging again today because I’m joining yet another challenge extremely late. But I’m going try my darndest to complete it anyway! This challenge is the 2010 Debut Author Challenge hosted by awesome YA book blogger Story Siren! The general guidelines are:

-read at least 12 Young Adult or Middle Grade novels from debut authors (note: these authors may have published adult or children’s books before but these must their first YA or MG novels)

-all are welcome to join in, including non-bloggers

-the challenge runs from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010

-the novels should be debuting in 2010

So I’m going to do my best to read at least 12 debut novels in the next few months before the deadline hits! Getting a hold of the books might be a tricky sometimes but I am moving to Pittsburgh in a few weeks for grad school and their awesome public library system should help me out in that part of the mission. Below is my list. I would love to get through all of them by December 31, 2010 but there’s a strong possibility that will not happen. But I will read at least a dozen of these awesome, exciting new books! YAY! I love new books.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken 
Forget-Her-Nots by Amy Brecount White
Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
A Love Story: Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner
Boys, Wolves, and Other Things That Might Kill Me by Kristen Chandler
Three Rivers Rising by Jame Richards
The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney
Deception by Lee Nichols
Sea by Heidi R. Kling
The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin by Josh Berk
Happyface by Stephen Emond
Crossing by Andrew Xia Fukuda
No and Me by Delphine de Vigan
Tell Me A Secret by Holly Cupala
YOU by Charles Benoit

Thanks again to Story Siren for hosting this great challenge!

The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson

The Bermudez Triangle

Maureen Johnson

SUMMARY: Nina Bermudez, Avery Dekker, and Melanie Forrest have been an inseparable trio known as the Bermudez Triangle for years. Now, the summer before their senior year of high school they will be spending a significant amount of time apart for the first time. While Nina goes off to Stanford for a ten-week summer program, Avery and Mel stay at home in upstate New York and begin jobs waitressing at P.J. Mortimer’s Fine Food and Drinks Emporium. Within those ten-weeks, some big events happen in the separate lives of the Triangle. Nina falls for the sweet eco-activist Steve but must also face the fact that he lives in Oregon and so she likely won’t see him after the summer until they hopefully both end up at Stanford the next fall. Meanwhile, Mel has finally had a real kiss—with Avery. When the trio is reunited, relationships will change and the next year will be full of confusion, revelations, and division. Can the Bermudez Triangle survive?

ONESMARTCUPCAKE THINKS: I’ve been planning to read Maureen Johnson for a while. Actually, I feel slightly ashamed that I haven’t been reading her since she first started publishing. But being an English lit major for four years limited my recreational reading time. So I’m still playing catch up on awesome YA fiction.

Anyway, I’ve finally started reading Maureen Johnson and I’m definitely not going to stop anytime soon! The Bermudez Triangle was a great, fun, and unique read. The characters are all individuals with three-dimensional personalities and emotional lives. Also, it does something I really appreciate; it tells the ‘after’ story. What do I mean by that vague phrase? Well, in many movies and books, the story builds up to an important event; the heroine falls in love or gets her first kiss. But here, Johnson places these big moments at the beginning of the narrative and then spends the majority of the novel exploring what happens afterwards. The story expands on life after that first kiss and the struggles of making summer love work in the real world. Also, she allows the relationships to be messy and imperfect, which I also greatly appreciate.

The Bermudez Triangle also does a wonderful job portraying the complexities of teen sexuality and romantic relationships. The novel’s characters are diverse and the narrative spends equal time on the straight, gay, and questioning characters. Johnson treats each girl’s journey through love, heartbreak, and recovery with balanced details and obvious sympathy. I loved reading a novel where sexual identity plays a role but does not become a single identifier of a character’s role or personality. Also, Johnson works to explore the universal difficulties in maintaining friendships and balancing relationships with friends and lovers. Johnson’s story is a pretty successful attempt to show the lives of three young women with honesty and respect. I felt emotionally invested from the first few pages and thoroughly enjoyed the entire reading experience. Also, Johnson writes with great humor and elegance and so her writing, like all good writing, is a pleasure to read.

4 ½ / 5 STARS

Now, I can’t close this post without noting the controversy that has surrounded this book in recent years. Although I had been planning to pick up at least one of Maureen Johnson’s books this summer, I picked this book first because I heard about the censorship issues it faced in 2007. I first heard about the Bartlesville, Oklahoma challenge to this book via catching up on John and Hank Green’s Brotherhood 2.0/Vlogbrothers videos. On a side note, they’re hilarious and awesome and everyone should watch them; I’m proud to say I am a belated but now devoted Nerdfighter! Anyway, back to The Bermudez Triangle challenge. In April 2007, the Bartlesville school district decided to pull The Bermudez Triangle from the shelves of the Mid-High school library. The objections seem to be primarily that the book “has no moral fiber” and promotes immoral actions, such as homosexuality. It should be also noted that the book contains essentially nothing sexual beyond kissing between girls or between boys and girls. Maureen Johnson recounted the saga that followed in detail here on her blog so I won’t go into all the details—better to hear from the witty author/blogger herself! But if you don’t already know the story and you care about teenagers, books, and our first amendment rights, please go and check it out; you can trace the story through her archives beginning in April 2007. The conclusion to the so-called ‘Battle of Bartlesville’ was that the book was allowed to stay in the library but only on a reserve shelf where it could be checked out for school use with a parent’s permission. So, as Johnson wrote on her blog, the ending was sort of success (in that the book is still on the shelves) but in more significant ways it was almost worst than a full banning. I mean, because this fun and touching novel contains a romantic relationship between two girls, it has been relegated to a separate shelf. What kind of message does that send to a confused and nervous young woman or man who is thinking about her or his sexuality? How would that make even an openly gay teen feel? Situations like this are the reason that I am perhaps very sensitive and a little hard-line about censorship.

In conclusion, if you haven’t read The Bermudez Triangle or any of Maureen Johnson’s other YA fiction, you should remedy that as soon as possible! I for one am glad that I did!

GLBT Reading Challenge 2010

So since I’m new to this whole blogging thing, I’m also new to the idea of online reading challenges. I can’t believe the fun I’ve been missing out on! So I’m going to be jumping onto two 2010 challenges very late in the game this week in an attempt to get into the swing and so be ready to go all out next year. The first challenge I’m joining is the GLBT Challenge 2010.

The Challenge is located at the Blog That Dare Not Speak Its Name, which was developed specifically to house this challenge and accompanying informational posts and mini-challenges by Amanda of The Zen Leaf. The challenge began in January 2010 and runs through December 2010. It also has three levels of participation:

-Lambda Level: Read 4 books.

-Pink Triangle Level: Read 8 books.

-Rainbow Level: Read 12 or more books.

Also, overlap with other reading challenges is acceptable.

Because I’m entering late, I’m going to aim at the Pink Triangle Level of 8 books. Because I’m not required to post a list when I begin the challenge, I’m just going to jot down some possibilities here; I promise to post a final list at the end as well as keep track as I go along!

I coincidentally just completed a great YA book with GLBT themes and characters and so it will be my first review for this challenge. Look out for a review of Maureen Johnson’s The Bermudez Triangle likely tomorrow to start this challenge off!

Other Possibilities includes:

Ash by Malinda Lo

Keeping You A Secret by Julie Anne Peters

The God Box by Alex Sanchez

Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger

Another Kind of Cowboy by Susan Juby

Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

Sprout by Dale Peck

More suggestions are welcome!