Cupid's Arrow: I Heart Books

Jen here, ready to offer my epic love of all things bookish with poetry (thanks so much to Beth for shooting us this arrow!).

An Ode to Books

Piled on the coffee table

stacked upon the shelves

paperbacks and hardcovers

precariously balance themselves

books from the local library

titles from the small bookstore

invisible copies of eBooks, too

waiting on devices

and yet, 

there's always room for more!

Titles of adventure

and stories of days of old

brand new books with unbroken spines

itching for me to hold.

Fiction and nonfiction

cozied up together

stories of romance, or murder,

or danger,

perfect to read

in any weather!

Oh, my precious beauties,

my wonderful little friends,

I love our time together,

even when the story ends.

Books, you have fed my soul

and nourished my heart, too

there will never be another

that I love as much

as you...

But look! There's something new

waiting on my shelf-

thus begins another love,

and each story becomes part of 

myself.

From http://i-wanna-perfect-soull.tumblr.com/

May you find lots of magical books waiting for you this holiday season!

Cupid's Arrow: Thank you for the music

Happy June, Val Pals! Jen here, ready to profess my Gif-filled love of music, thanks to an arrow shot by Kierra.  Challenge accepted!

We've had a musical few Cupid's Arrows lately (y'all saw Sara's awesome post last week, right?) No, I'm not even going to try to top that, but I will let my nerd flag fly and let y'all into my super secret world of bizarre musical tastes.

Ahem.

First, a little background: I'm a child of the 80s, but you wouldn't know it based on my favorite music. I was an only child for 9 years, and my mom and I have always been super close; that matters because I see HER favorite musicians dominating the list of MY favorites, plus a few strange boy bands thrown in for good measure. So, without further ado, here are a few of the singers and groups who make me swoon.

Billy Joel

Via http://rollingstone.tumblr.com/post/85031038476/watch-billy-joel-crowdsurf

He's always at the top of my list, because come on, the Piano Man can crowd surf! I actually got to hear him in concert recently, which was beyond a dream come true. And yes, I have The Stranger...on vinyl.

Queen

Via http://avantgardeaclue.tumblr.com/tagged/freddie-mercury

Freddie Mercury for the win!! Whenever I need to rock out, head bang, and sing myself hoarse, I turn to Queen. <3

The Mamas and the Papas

Via http://spaghetti.co.vu/post/59931753816/the-mamas-the-papas-performing-dancing-in-the

Totally blame Mom for this one. And yes, I will blast the heck out of "Make Your Own Kind of Music" on a regular basis. It was my anthem in high school.

Barenaked Ladies

NO WAY am I doing a GIF search for them! You'll just have to be content with my newest earworm from this group.

 



Frank Sinatra (with Gene Kelly for good measure)

I grew up on musicals (and in them), so I have a total addiction to all the old school performers, but Old Blue Eyes takes the cake. Sigh...that smile!

Via http://itwasbeauty-killedthebeast.tumblr.com/post/87004262892/anchors-aweigh-1945

 
Yup. Totally random music nerd over here. Thanks for shooting us this arrow, Kierra; I had a blast divulging all my strange secret loves! Want your chance to make the Vals confess deep, embarrassing secrets? Shoot us a Cupid's Arrow!

Jen, over and out. Have a great weekend, y'all! <3

Cupid's Arrow: Literary Hearthrobs

Bethany Hagen here, and today's Cupid's Arrow comes from Stephanie over at Chasm of Books, and she has dared a Valentine to profess their love of literary heartthrobs with an epic poem in the style of Beowulf.  I consider Edward Rochester my first boyfriend, so this arrow was a good fit for me.  Here follows an abridged (and hackneyed) attempt at Anglo-Saxon poetry.

Listen! The handsome men of book-pages call to us

with their knotted cravats and tight breeches.

We have heard of them, of the Fitzwilliams and Maxims,

The Heathcliffs and the Rhetts!

Their prowess in wooing goes unchallenged,

their square jaws and stern brows have

felled movie theaters full of women.

And how the avid readers swooned

when the marrying-question was asked,

at long long last.  How the pages were turned

when the kissy-face happened freaking finally.

Lo, these men have only walked Midgard

within the bounds of books, but yet

such male glory still beckons like the rosy-fingered dawn,

(which is also the color of Bingley's hair.)

Cupid's Sweet Six Arrow Thingamajig: Book Rave/Interview With Victoria Scott, Author of FIRE & FLOOD

Guyyyyyyyyyys! It's Paula! Today I'm going to squee about The Crow, Iron Man, Cadbury Creme Eggs, Victoria Scott's awesome new book FIRE & FLOOD!! Aren't you proud of me? Look how bookish my priorities are. I am a professional writer!

Let me start off by saying that thanks to some sort of voodoo mind meld I put on Victoria, I actually got to read this book 8 months ago. I read it in one night when I was supposed to be revising something--I don't even remember what. But yeah. I about died of awesome. And then I had to keep one hand clasped across my mouth going 'Mmmmph' until some of my friends read it too.

Here are just a few reasons why I <3 Fire & Flood: 

1. THAT COVER. I love how stark and yet totally alive the cover is. I love the raindrops in the letters.

2. Tella feels like a REAL TEEN GIRL. Not all of us would become Katniss Everdeen if we got in over our heads in some creepy survival race. It's okay that at certain points Tella longs for her makeup and wonders if the guy walking behind her is looking at her butt. Girls think these things. Not ALL girls, of course, but this is the character Victoria wanted to write and I for one dig how different she is from the normal knife-throwing, rock-climbing, suddenly-good-at-all things YA heroine (though I like those girls too :D)

3. The Pandoras. Oh my sweet Jesus! I need like 6 or 7 of these immediately. I would buy them all in plush, but I really want them in REAL. 

4. The tone of the story. This book could have gotten grim really quickly, but Victoria keeps it from treading into super-dark territory by blending humor into a narrative that's already brimming with romance, mystery, and action.

Okay, enough blabbering on my part. Now let's hear what Victoria has to say about her masterpiece :)

1. Tell us about your book.

FIRE & FLOOD is a YA thriller set in modern day. The main character, Tella, enters a race across Jungle, Mountain, Desert, Sea to try and win the cure for her brother's illness. Each Contender in the race receives a Pandora--a genetically engineered animal--to help them try and win. I had a ton of fun writing this adventure book!

2. What scene in your book do you LOVE the most?

Probably the scene where Tella's Pandora hatches. I can't wait to see what animal readers think it will be. 

3. If you had to pick a YA character you LOVE (and not your own!) who would you pick and why?

I'm going to choose a fan favorite--Hermione Granger. She's smart, sassy, loyal, courageous, and grows as a person across the series. Win! 

4. What's the craziest/most memorable Valentine you've ever received?

It was in fourth grade from a boy I was mad crushing on. I was sure it meant he loved me...even though he gave everyone else one, also. I spent hours reading between those pre-printed lines. 

5. If you were a Brach's candy heart, what phrase would be written on you?

Poisonous. [Paula: Ugh. My least-favorite flavor of candy.]

6. And finally, the all-important choice: flowers or candy?

Flowers, all the way. Specifically, Peonies. 

I don't even know what peonies are, but they sound fun...like PONIES! Thanks for hanging out with us YA Valentines, Victoria! :) *activates mind meld in order to receive book #2* Also, if you guys haven't read THE COLLECTOR, that is one of the most hilarious books ever, and you should read that too--for the bad boy who totally is a bad boy who maybe is a little bit of a good guy but still deliciously bad throughout :) Basically, I am obsessed with everything Victoria writes.

Victoria Scott writes teen fiction and is represented by Sarah Crowe. She’s the author of the Fire & Flood series published by Scholastic, and the Dante Walker trilogy published by Entangled Teen. Her books have been bought and translated in nine foreign markets including the UK, Germany, Turkey, Poland, Australia, China, Brazil, New Zealand, and The Netherlands. Victoria lives in Dallas with her husband and adores cotton candy. Visit her online at VictoriaScottYA.com. 

CUPID'S ARROW: Middle Grade Movies

Just a reminder: ***ARC Giveaway***
I'm giving away a signed ARC at Fiction the New Reality. She's also giving away an ARC prize pack that includes Sara B. Larson's DEFY! Time is almost up to enter. Throw your name in the hat here.

For this week's Cupid's Arrow, not only am I going to profess my love to something, but I'm going to make a plea to bring it back. Since I am a millennial, it's only appropriate that I wax nostalgic any chance I get. So today, I am professing my love to an endangered, possibly extinct, species of film: kids movies.

I was lucky because I was a kid when kids movies ruled. The one that started it all was HOME ALONE. That kicked off a trend in the 90s of movies starring kids, about kids, and for kids. Here's a semi-comprehensive list:

Home Alone 2
The Sandlot
The Secret Garden
Matilda
Now and Then
Hocus Pocus
Casper
Free Willy
Rookie of the Year
Dennis the Menace
Little Big League
Life with Mikey
3 Ninjas
The Little Rascals
Angels in the Outfield
Richie Rich
Now and Then
Blank Check
My Girl
Andre
Monkey Trouble
and my personal favorite...Harriet the Spy

I would also include family movies were the main character was an adult, but kids had substantial roles in the action.

Mrs. Doubtfire
Curly Sue
Jumanji
Beethoven
The Addams Family
Addams Family Values
Little Giants
The Mighty Ducks trilogy

I know, I know. This is turning into a Buzzfeed listicle.

But these movies were amazing, at least to my kid self. And there were so many of them! Looking back, it was an embarrassment of riches for a 10-year-old. Millennials lucked out as Hollywood tried to capitalize on Home Alone's success. Movie studios basically catered to us all throughout the 90s, which also explains the teen movie boom of the late 90s. I admit that I wasn't a big reader growing up, and I realized that a lot of my reading time was spent at the movies.

These movies didn't try to talk down to kids. They were about kids dealing with kid issues. Kids drove the action; kids were the hero. I could see myself in these characters, no matter how outlandish their situation. Being left home alone and creating an elaborate trap for burglars was not something I experienced growing up, but I understood facing my fears and learning to be self-sufficient.

So where are the kids movies of today? Unfortunately, Hollywood has stopped making them. Studios now only want to make four-quadrant, broadly-appealing pictures that are as close to guaranteed moneymakers as possible. Why shell out $10M for a movie that may only make $20M when you can make a movie for $100M that you know will make at least $200M? Studios are producing less films and concentrating their resources on a few big blockbusters. (It's what some fear is happening with publishing.) Today, there are only two types of films available to kids: animated films and comic book movies.


Don't get me wrong. Those are two very lucrative genres that make entertaining films (Frozen and The Avengers just two recent examples). They're movies the whole family can enjoy. Kids can relate to Peter Parker's alienation and The Avengers' struggles with teamwork and Elsa's shame to an extant, but not as much as they can to other kid characters. There will always be a disconnect because these characters are older and inherently more mature. It's important that kids see characters who are on their level and whose world is closer to theirs. There's something to be said for a kid main character dealing with these same issues. Watching Elsa handle her ice power isn't the same as watching Henry Rowengartner deal with his suddenly amazing pitching arm. Tony Stark saving the world from the Mandarin doesn't feel the same as Max saving Salem from the Sanderson sisters.

The only way a kid movie can get made is if it's part of an existing lucrative franchises, hence the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies. The Book Thief was adapted for film, but it was positioned as an Oscar contender and marketed to arthouse audiences, not kids.

So Hollywood, I'm shooting my Cupid's Arrow right into your heart. Bring back kids films! Yes, they probably won't be as lucrative as an Iron Man or a Tangled, but they do have upside. You could come out with the next Home Alone, which made $285M, or $531M adjusted for inflation. (per BoxOfficeMojo) Middle grade books are so awesome because kids get to see themselves in those pages. I think we're depriving them of the incredible experience of seeing themselves on-screen, too.

Cupid's Arrow: Thoughts on Bad Reviews

Hi interwebz!

So I realized it was my turn to do this post about 2 days ago. Problem, since I've been sick for 4 days and when I am sick I HATE EVERYTHING! Sorry Cupid. You missed. Paula is going rogue again.

I was going to do a recap of the #NYE14reads event, which you should totally check out if you need book recommendations, but then I started talking about reviews with some of my friends. And then I started thinking and thinking and once I go down that road I have to just write it out, you know?

So here goes: You probably know that even though I am here on the YA Vals blog and “debuting” in 2014 with my YA contemp The Art of Lainey, that I also wrote 3 books under the name Fiona Paul in collaboration with the literary studio Paper Lantern Lit. I don’t discount or downplay those books when I think of The Art of Lainey as my debut—there’s just a huge difference between writing work-for-hire under the guidance of others and writing your own personal story where you are the one with the copyright and final creative control. Or there was for me, anyway.

Still, I did not spend two years writing Venom, Belladonna, and Starling without getting invested in the characters and story, and putting some of myself into those books. So when Venom got eviscerated by both personal and professional reviewers months before it released, it felt like an entire bus stop full of strangers had lined up to punch me in the face. The girl who pretty much got an A+++ on every assignment her whole life now seemed to be getting a big fat D- from The World, and I was not prepared.

For a while, I just kind of dealt with it, mostly by not talking about the book and downplaying the release date. Letting random strangers steal my joy and shame me over what should have been an impressive accomplishment. Yeah, don’t be like me.

No one can tell you how to deal with something like bad reviews. We all handle things differently. But my first author-friends all shared wisdom with me--wisdom that helped me find my peace. Here are some of those thoughts, along with my own, for those of you who are just starting to get reviewed. Maybe they will help you find your peace, too. Got more thoughts? Share them in the comments.


I know there are some people out there who really like punching other people in the face. But these people are not the majority. If you are reading this because you wrote a book, then how's about taking a moment to remember how epic and awesome it is that you wrote a freaking book :) Who does that?? Awesome people, that's who.

The person who leaves a 1-star review is not more important than the person who leaves a 5-star review. Their opinion is not more valid, even if they write 10,000 words. Failure to recognize this is insulting to the people who really love your book, AKA your fans. 

Collectively, the blogosphere hates everything. Might as well write the book YOU want to write. At least that way the person who matters most will like it. 

Reviews are one person’s opinion at one point in time. There are reviews all over the internet that say “Well, I was going to give this 5 stars, but then I thought about it for a day and decided to give it 2 stars instead.” So in that way, reviews are kind of like photos, and even the superest supermodel sometimes takes a bad picture.

I never saw the old woman until someone pointed her out.

Reviewers aren’t criticizing your book, they’re criticizing their own perception of it. People can experience the exact same stimulus and perceive it differently. That’s why my mom thinks my green sweater is brown. That’s why some people see the young woman and some see the old woman. That’s why one reader’s poetry is another’s purple prose. Not everyone is going to read—and therefore review--the story you think you wrote. 

Know your book. My MC is a little shallow and abrasive at first. Some people will dislike that. But I did it for a reason, so seeing those complaints won’t hurt me. If you know why you did what you did, then you'll see that sometimes it’s just a difference in personal taste. 

Once when I was sick and watching Hulu, I heard British dating coach Matthew Hussey say something like this: "95% of people let their happiness be determined by the opinions of random strangers. Don’t be one of those people." I’ve been crushing on him ever since. 

Can you blame me?

If your strategy for dealing with reviews is to avoid them and that works, rock on. But keep in mind you’re denying yourself all the amazing ones. And you’re losing the chance to learn from the critical ones that are RIGHT. Once, a girl wrote a fairly scathing review of Venom, pointing out all of its anachronisms. I pouted. Then I sighed. Because that girl was right, and I told her so. She went on to proof Starling for historical inaccuracies and is now a twitter friend and a member of my street team. If you avoid all your reviews, you deny yourself the chance to turn a lose-lose into a win-win. 

Some of my all-time favorite authors wrote books I just couldn’t get into. Hey, it happens. They’re still my favorite authors. Some people just won’t like this or that book. So, you know, write more books! Or don’t. But either way, not liking your book isn’t the same as not liking you.

This blog post brought to you by the number 7.

Edited to add: In a world where people often feel like they have "earned" or "paid for" great or acceptable experiences, but feel justified in complaining about less than favorable ones (Think about it: when's the last time you stopped on your way out of Burger King to say "Just what I ordered. Stellar job, guys. 4 stars") it sometimes amazes me there are any good reviews at all, let alone that the good outnumber the bad for almost every book. So author-people, when you are obsessively crunching your GR stats, don't forget about all the people who really enjoyed your book, but couldn't quite find the time to tell you about it. And reviewer-people, thanks again for taking the time. We know you have lots of other things you could be doing.

FURTHER READING, OR PEOPLE WHO SAID IT BETTER AND MORE CONCISELY:

 Stephanie Perkins: Would Beyonce be reading this? Spoiler: No. No she wouldn’t.

Jess Spotswood on disliking things, honestly. Maybe we’re all scathing sometimes, and that’s okay.

Kristin Cashore on why Graceling is a really bad helicopter instruction manual.

Rachel Caine takes an in-depth look at some of her 1-star reviews.