Reality Boy, by A.S. King, Red Carpet Event

Hey readers, I know I'm never here any more, and for that, I'm sorry. But my friend Amy, from Lady Reader's Bookstuff, is host an release event for one of my favorite books of the year. Which, in case you missed it, I did recently "review."

Gerald Faust knows exactly when he started feeling angry: the day his mother invited a

reality television crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he is still haunted by his rage-filled

youth—, which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle—and his anger issues have

resulted in violent outbursts, zero friends, and clueless adults dumping him in the special education

room at school. 

Nothing is ever going to change. No one cares that he has tried to learn to control himself,

and the girl he likes has no idea who he really is. Everyone is just waiting for him to snap…and he is

starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that. 

 In this fearless portrayal of a boy on the edge, highly acclaimed Printz Honor author

A.S. King explores the desperate reality of a former child “star” who finally breaks free of his anger by

creating possibilities he never knew he deserved.

JL

A.S. King is

the author of the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner, Ask

the Passengers, Everybody Sees the Ants, a 2012 ALA Top Ten Book for Young Adults and Andre

Norton Award nominee, and the Edgar Award nominated, 2011 Michael L. Printz Honor Book </ span>Please Ignore Vera Dietz.



 She is also the author of the ALA Best Books for Young Adults Dust of 100 Dogs, an adult short story collection, Monica Never Shuts Up, and the upcoming REALITY BOY (2013). 

After

a decade living self-sufficiently and teaching literacy to adults in Ireland, she now lives in Pennsylvania

with her husband and children.

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

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Double Post Day!

I know, I never blog any more. So today, I blogged twice!

I'll try to get through this as quickly as possible, because I'm slammed at work. Anyway, if you have time, you can find me:

Talking about my favorite Roald Dahl books at Project Middle Grade Mayhem, or:

Unreviewing Reality Boy, by A.S. King, at YA Confidential.

That's it! Thanks.

Running from Ruby Ridge: Query

I promised I would show you guys this today. I'm a little apprehensive, because with all the time I spend on queries here, you're probably going to expect something phenomenal, but the thing is: queries are hard. I mean sure, I've spent a lot of time on them over the years, and I'd like to think I've gotten pretty good at recognizing good queries, and critiquing those that need a little work.

But writing my own is still hard.

I don't know if it's a matter of being too close to the story, having written it, or whether maybe it's the trap of trying to include too much (or getting stuck trying to be too concise), but writing queries for your own manuscripts is damn hard. That's why I always recruit friends to help me with mine.

The biggest influence on this query is my dear friend and critique partner Susan Kaye Quinn. I'm sure you all know her, so I'll just hyperlink her name, but Susan was one of the few who read the manuscript and helped me with the query. It was she who not only convinced me the longer version I'd written was not necessary, but also gave me the blueprint for the shorter version I'll show you today, that still includes the important points from the longer one I wrote.

After Susan, I got a lot of help from Jessica Corra, Angela Ackerman, Simon Larter, Adam Heine, Bryan Russell, and a bunch of the awesome people over at YA Confidential, like Alexandra, Katy, and Copil.

I highly recommend not going it alone, especially when it comes to queries.

Anyway, it's still a work in progress, but here is the latest version:

Dear Agent:

Seventeen-year-old Micah Neiss is not a nice guy. His probation officer considers him a dope fiend (not entirely false), a burden on the system (debatable), and a complete waste of his time (totally unfair). The truth is the foster system is just as broken as Micah. He’s been running from home to home ever since he can remember, but when bounty hunters for at-risk-teens finally catch him, and drag him off to a wilderness-survival/behavioral-modification center, he wonders if his abusive new “school” might finally break him for good.

Micah refuses to bow to the school authorities, and together with a bullied younger student, Chris, he escapes the mountaintop prison. But their situation goes from desperate to dangerous when an anti-government member of the Aryan nation and his bumbling nephew pick them up. While the men zip along a high-wire of drug-addled paranoia and loaded weapons, what began as a ride soon spirals into a kidnapping. Micah must decide if he should do what he's always done: run and save himself, or prove his probation officer wrong and save Chris, who is too naïve (and high) to appreciate the danger.

RUNNING FROM RUBY RIDGE, a 75,000 word YA contemporary novel with elements of magical realism, will appeal to fans of the psychologically gritty In the Path of Falling Objects by Andrew Smith and readers who enjoyed the magical, honest look at loss in Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King. My short fiction has been published under the pen name Matthew MacNish, in the anthology Literary Foray, from Static Movement Press, and in the online magazine, Vine Leaves Literary Journal. I blog about query letters, and the path to publication, at The QQQE, a Writer’s Digest Top 101 Websites for Writers pick, and contribute to the popular blogs Project Middle Grade Mayhem, and YA Confidential.

That's it. You're welcome to tell me what you think. I've got thick skin. Otherwise, I hope you all have a great, productive day!

A Review at YA Confidential

Man, this is going to be one of those weeks. The day job is out of control, A to Z starts next week, and of course my family made plans to go out of town for Spring Break.

Yes, I'm nuts.

Anyway, for now, I've got a book review up over at YA Confidential. So please stop by!

Passenger Cover Reveal

I'm going to be extremely busy today, directing you to three different posts (including this one), but with the A to Z challenge coming up, I've got to fit everything in I can, before April.

So, very quickly, this is the cover for the upcoming and highly anticipated Passenger, the sequel to The Marbury Lens, by Andrew Smith which will be released Fall 2012. In case you live under a rock, or don't know me very well, here is a bit about the book:

Jack and Conner have a plan.

They think it's the only reasonable way to deal with the Marbury lens.

But the four boys - Jack, Conner, Ben, and Griffin - end up scattered in different places at different times. Jack is lost in a Marbury that isn't Marbury, a Glenbrook that isn't Glenbrook, pursued through every crumbling not-world by an uncaring cop trying to solve the mystery of Freddie Horvath's murder, and a deceitful kid named Quinn Cahill who believes he is the King of Marbury. Jack's universe is collapsing in on itself. He finds his friends. He finds his home.

There's always just one thing, and Jack knows it.

This can't be it.

Be excited, because if you do know me, you know that I think The Marbury Lens is one of the best books I've ever read. Passenger looks to be everything it was and more.

Now, I really am sorry to bother you with all these other posts, but like I said, I have to cram a lot of things in before the A to Z challenge begins next month. So, first, please visit Project Mayhem, and read the post I wrote arguing that The Hobbit is Middle Grade.

Then, please visit Afterglow Book reviews, and read my un-review of Please Ignore Vera Dietz, by A.S. King. Then you may go on about your day.

Thank you!

Brooklyn, Burning, by Steve Brezenoff

This is actually only one of two books I really want to talk about. I also want to talk about Please Ignore Vera Dietz, by A.S. King, but I just un-reviewed The Dust of 100 Dogs, by the same author, so I'll try to get to Vera on Monday.

As you know, when I write a post specifically recommending a book, I usually do it at Afterglow Book Reviews. Like I did for 100 Dogs. But Brooklyn, Burning, is different. It's a book unlike any other I've ever read, and it has something important to say. Something that's close to my heart.

Brooklyn, Burning (Carolrhoda Lab), at its heart, is a love letter. It's a love letter from the protagonist, Kid, to Scout. But it's also a love letter to Brooklyn, and a love letter from humanity to music. Centrally, though, it's a love letter from Kid to Scout. Kid is a street kid, a teenager that has runaway from home, we think at first, but later discover Kid's father kicked his child out of the house. Kid spends two summers in the book, working (and sometimes drinking) at a local bar, but mostly playing drums in the basement, with two different guitar players so attractive in their stark humanity, one can't help but fall in love with them.

I'm not here to talk about the plot. This isn't really a book about what happens. This is a book about people. About characters. About who something happens to. In some ways, I'm kind of a moron, because I didn't realize it was laid out plainly in the blurb (I read on Kindle, purchased with my own money), but I soon discovered that Brezenoff was doing something incredibly unique with his characters. Felix, the boy Kid falls in love with the first summer, is clearly described as a boy, but due to the unique style of first person narration, neither Kid, nor Scout, the guitarist Kid falls in love with during the second summer, are ever explicitly described as one gender or the other. It's really a brilliant thing, even if easily missed at first.

That being said, this isn't a LGBTQ issues book. The fact that gender identity is something Kid's friends and chosen family of the streets agree is something each individual has the right to decide for themselves is not the forefront of this tale. But it is what struck me the most about this novel. I thought it was a beautiful homage to the power of character, because it illustrates the point that people are people, and characters are characters, and they don't have to be defined by whether or not they have a penis, and whether or not they are attracted to people with penises. There is so much more to a person than that.

There is music, and there is defiance, and there is loneliness, and there is hope. None of these things is exclusively masculine or feminine, and it really makes for an immersive story experience to read a tale through a lens that is not adulterated by any of the expectations society places upon one gender or another.

I highly recommend you read this book, not only because it's a lovely story, but because it will open your eyes to the idea that there is not only one way to tell a tale.

Here are some places you can find out more about Brooklyn, Burning, Steve Brezenoff, and Carolrhoda Labs:

Steve Brezenoff on Twitter.
Steve's Blog.
Steve's Website.
The Carolrhoda Lab Website.
The Carolrhoda Books Blog.

The Dust of 100 Dogs, by A.S. King

I'm posting over at Afterglow today, so you should just go there, and read this. Now, just so that this post doesn't look too tiny, here is the trailer that I didn't share at the other post:

Everybody Sees the Ants, by A.S. King

I don't really review books, because I think for an author, even an aspiring one, to give critical reviews of someone else's work is a bit of a conflict of interest, but I do like to recommend books I loved.

That's what I'm doing today, over at Afterglow Book Reviews. Please stop by, and read my unreview of Everybody Sees the Ants, by A.S. King.