Elizabeth Scott

I have a lot of favorite authors. Like, twenty: John Green, Maureen Johnson, Justine Larbalestier, Sarah Dessen, Jaclyn Moriarty, Lauren Myracle, Suzanne Collins, Melina Marchetta, and , to name a (many) few. If you personally have a favorite author, then you'll know that if they release a book every few years or even every other year, it can be torturous waiting. Even one a year is sometimes too much. This is one of the reasons why I first discovered Elizabeth Scott. A book review blogger noted that she writes a LOT of books, all of them good. I didn't start reading them until November, though, for some reason, when I read Something, Maybe. Readers of this blog will know that I enjoyed it greatly, and since I've read two of her other books, Love You Hate You Miss You and Living Dead Girl, and am currently reading Stealing Heaven and Perfect You. It is thus jaw-droppingly awesome that she is publishing 3 books this year, because I really like her work. Anyways, so this post is basically about her work.

It comes to you in 3 parts:

1. Love You Hate You Miss You

Today's review is Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott.




Get this, I'm supposed to be starting a journal about 'my journey.' Please. I can see it now: Dear Diary, As I'm set adrift on this crazy sea called "life," I like to think of an inspirational poem I heard not long ago... I don't think so.




LOVE YOU HATE YOU MISS YOU by Elizabeth Scott




2009, HarperTeen, 288p




buy at your local bookshoppes or at THE BIG A (link not provided, as I'm trying to break my Amazon addiction)




Notable awards: BBYA




Notable books by the author: Living Dead Girl; Stealing Heaven; Bloom; Something, Maybe; Perfect You




Summary: It's been 75 days. Amy's sick of her parents suddenly taking an interest in her. And she's really sick of people asking her about Julia. Julia's gone now, and she doesn't want to talk about it. They wouldn't get it, anyway. They wouldn't understand what it feels like to have your best friend ripped away from you. They wouldn't understand what it feels like to know it's your fault. Amy's shrink thinks it would help to start a diary. Instead, Amy starts writing letters to Julia. But as she writes letter after letter, she begins to realize that the past wasn't as perfect as she thought it was--and the present deserves a chance too.




Review *mild spoilers*: LYHYMY was my 3rd Elizabeth Scott book, after Something, Maybe and Living Dead Girl. Those first two are, of course, vastly different, and I suppose that's why I wasn't certain what to expect from this one. After reading, I can say that it's quite close to the middle of the spectrum, because while definitely closer to the Living Dead Girl side, it doesn't get close. I mean, there's hope, you know? LHG was kind of...bleak...to say the least. Though it was good. But this isn't a LHG review in any case, so I digress.




I really liked this one. I only review books I like, it seems, partly because if I don't like a book I generally just don't finish it. You have no idea how many books fall through the cracks because a) they just don't interest me or b) they're terrible. [Hint: I check out maybe 10-15 books every time I go to the library, and I finish maybe seven to nine.] But I really did. Elizabeth Scott is an amazing writer, and I especially love the way she works delineation like a slave driver. Her characterization is eerily spot-on. The people in Amy's school could've been people from my school. Hell, during the scenes in classroom, I could picture them taking place in my English and Science classrooms, that's how real her characters are. Amy's wryly sardonic voice is strangely moving, and it's heartbreaking to read about how she blames herself for something that's not really her fault. The letters to Julia were alive with Amy's anguish and pain, and the way she blames herself for the accident is so freaking sad. The secondary characters were just as vivid, and though I would've liked to see Beth get hers, hopefully by MURDER, the ending was great.




Verdict: Painful, stark, yet ultimately hopeful, Love You Hate You Miss You is an amazing book in the vein of John Green's Looking for Alaska




Rating: 10.




Thoughts on the cover.









2.




On that note, I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE UNWRITTEN RULE!

The Unwritten Rule is Elizabeth Scott's upcoming novel (March 16 from Simon Pulse) about a girl who likes her best friend's boyfriend. It's an intriguing premise, to say the least, and it's Elizabeth Scott. Who, if you haven't yet gotten it from my post, is amazing.

STUFF ABOUT THE UNWRITTEN RULE:

Here's a link to the info page: HERE

Additionally, you may want to visit Readergirlz, where Elizabeth is author in residence. I generally don't visit there much, but you might find it intriguing.

3. Mockingjay

This part isn't about ES, but it is about THG, a completely unrelated acronym.

If you haven't heard yet, it has been announced that the 3rd hunger games book will be called Mockingjay. Cover art and more info HERE.

Long Post

I feel like making a long, well-written, quality post today. This will have to suffice:

I: review one

Today's review is Peace, Love and Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle.

PEACE, LOVE AND BABY DUCKS by Lauren Myracle

2009, Dutton Juvenile, 304p

buy

Notable awards: None (yet)

Notable books by the author: Internet Girls series; Winnie Perry series; Kissing Kate

Summary: Growing up in a world of wealth and pastel-tinted entitlement, fifteen-year-old Carly has always relied on the constancy—and authenticity—of her sister, Anna. But when fourteen-year-old Anna turns plastic-perfect-pretty over the course of a single summer, everything starts to change. And there are boys involved, complicating things as boys always do. With warmth, insight, and an unparalleled gift for finding humor even in stormy situations, beloved author Lauren Myracle dives into the tumultuous waters of sisterhood and shows that even very different sisters can learn to help each other stay afloat.

Review: So I'm at Barnes and Noble, right? And I'm looking through the YA section like always. I really want to read Thirteen Reasons Why, but they don't have any copies (!!!), so I'm looking for another book to buy around twenty dollars, because that's all I have to buy books. And then I see some familiar books: the 'ttyl' series and Bliss by Lauren Myracle, all four of which I've read and liked. There's a few other books surrounding it, one of which is Peace, Love and Baby Ducks. I pick it up, and the first thing I notice is that it's a lot longer than Amazon said, which is one reason why I decide to buy it (I resemble fantasy fans in one major aspect: I'm more likely to buy a book depending on how long it is.) I like the concept, too, plus I like Lauren Myracle as an author (the aforementioned Bliss and Internet Girls books rank on my top 100). So I get the book, and I read it. And the thing you most need to know about this book?Peace, Love and Baby Ducks is engrossing. Because I was going to go to the library soon and I had, like, 25 books checked out, I was trying to read six books at once. I was trying to read one chapter of one book, one of another, one of another, and then one of the first, you get the idea, but I kept going back to this one because it was so tautly written, so realistic and hilarious and all those good things that I had to keep going back to it. This is a quality that all Lauren Myracle Books have: I finished the 444-page Bliss in a day, same with ttyl and Kissing Kate. Her books are among the most frequently challenged, but that's because a) book banners are frequently cads, especially YA book banners, and b) she writes about stuff that us teens actually TALK ABOUT. I remember a scene in ttfn, the second Internet Girls book, where the three main characters, Zoe, Angela, and Maddie, are talking about a question one of their classmates asked in health that is kind of dirty. (I won't say what it was, but if you've read ttfn, you probably know what I'm talking about--"Tonnie is a case" should ring a bell.) Well, Peace, Love and Baby Ducks has a few of those, but they're not just put in there for "shock value" like aforementioned cads would have you believe. They're not just mindless smut. This is really what us disgusting teenagers of today think and talk about, and the fact that Myracle knows and presents this realistically is why her books are so popular with both teens and book banners alike. But on to the book itself: Peace, Love and Baby Ducks is about a girl named Carly and her one-year-younger sister Anna and how their relationship changes over a year. There was so much to like about this book: the characters, the story, the writing, the relationship between Anna and Carly. For lack of a better word, I liked the dynamic between the two sisters. Not a) being female or b) having a sister, I wouldn't know what it's like to have one, but you get the feeling from PLB that Myracle does. The secondary characters weren't cardboard, (no teen movie stereotypes here) and Carly's complicated romantic relationship type things were portrayed uber-realistically. Carly herself was a really, really, really, really likable main character, and although she sometimes talked about the hypocrisy and material obsessiveness and printed little whales of everyone around her, she wasn't openly whingeing. Although I couldn't be more different than her, I felt as if I could relate. This is just as amazing as previous Lauren Myracle novels, but it's even better, if that makes any sense.

Thoughts on the cover: I like the cover. Kind of. It's very simple, which I really like about it, and despite the white background, it's eye-catching. I've seen the paperback cover recently (Summer 2010 Penguin Young Readers Group catalog--I am such a nerd), and I have to say, I think I like it better. Sort of. (No image available, because I'm too lazy to do the Powerpoint crop-and-Photobucket thing.) Overall rating: 8.

Verdict: Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks is a realistically written, funny, crisp, and witty story about the (l.o.a.b.w.) dynamics of sisterhood, friendship, and family.

Rating: 9

II: What I'm reading.

I have a problem: I READ TOO MUCH. This isn't a problem, you say? Well, you're right, it isn't. So here's the problem: I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO READ ALL THE BOOKS I OBTAIN.

Right now I'm reading:

Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti

Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier

Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine

Scat by Carl Hiaasen

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

To Be Mona by Kelly Easton

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

Marly's Ghost by David Levithan

and the list goes on and on. That's just an excerpt.

See what I mean?

part 3: next year's books part i

Because I NEVER LEARN MY LESSON, these are some next-year books I really want.

JANUARY

Freefall by Ariela Anhalt

Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn

The Less-Dead by April Lurie

FEBRUARY

Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson

MARCH

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

APRIL

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

The Six Rules of Maybe by Deb Caletti

MAY

Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti

AUGUST

(warning: big picture)

FALL

Hunger Games series book 3 by Suzanne Collins

and on and on and on.

See what I mean?