YA Book Club: Wanderlove

It's YA Book Club time again! In February we read the club's first contemporary YA selection, The Fault in Our Stars. (Actually, I read it in January and posted here, but of course I had more to say.) As always, thanks to Tracey for founding the club and organizing the blogosphere meetings. This month we read Wanderlove.

Isn't the cover wander-lovely?

Wanderlove is the perfect book to read when you aren't traveling. (Okay, it's perfect to read any time, because it's very good, but stay with me here.) That's because the setting is so richly drawn and such a major part of the book that reading it is like backpacking vicariously. The descriptions were so vivid that, while reading, I swear I wasn't on the crosstown bus but a chicken bus, heading toward the Caribbean (one of my favorite places on Earth) and not the East River. I felt so transported to Central America that I wanted to send a postcard home from my armchair.

I could try to retell all the places I loved visiting through Wanderlove, but my descriptions couldn't do justice to Kirsten Hubbard's. For example: "I toss down my daypack, spread my towel, and for the first time, stick both my feet in the Caribbean. It's warm. Crabs skitter sideways over the sand, and spear-shaped predator fish hover over clouds of minnows. Green ribbons of sea grass sway in the current. Farther out, it looks like someone's swirled a turquoise-tipped finger across a canvas of deep blue." (p. 208) I loved how she wove meticulous details of the setting into a perfectly-paced plot. Which isn't to say that the pace was fast. Like the trip the story follows, the pace was sometimes fast and sometimes a nice beachy-lazy and just like a good vacation, it was over well before I wanted it to be.

It was great to read the setting's effect on the characters and plot. In flashbacks or her memories, Bria is a very different person in LA than she is in Laughingbird Caye. Watching the scenery change as she grows made her arc believable and sometimes moving. The course of the trip and that scheduled flight home created realistic stakes and the unfamiliar environment added tension, especially to the romance between Bria and Rowan. Who doesn't love a travel love story?

The romance and story of self discovery at the core of Wanderlove would've worked fine if the only setting was an LA high school. But by placing the characters in jungle and on the beach, Kirsten Hubbard really elevated Wanderlove to someplace special. This is a love story about two people, but also a love story about travel.

PS: Almost as much fun as reading the book is visiting the book's Tumblr and gushing over the travel photos: (http://wanderlove.com/)

So, what did you think? Were you as captivated as I was by the setting?

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RTW: March Reading

Road Trip Wednesday is a weekly blog carnival hosted by YA Highway. This week's topic is: What's the best book you read in March?

How is March almost over? 2012 is flying by. Add in the burst of early spring we had last week, and I'm seasonally confused.

Anyway, here's what I read this month:

The Thirteenth Tale: Contemporary Gothic meta-fiction for booklovers. I was surprised that I didn't love this one more, but it was still a fun, eerie read.

Hemlock: I've always loved werewolves, so of course I enjoyed this one. In particular, the richly drawn small-town setting is great.

Enchanted Ivy: A sweet YA urban fantasy with a collegiate spin. Don't tell anyone that I pretended the Princeton setting was actually NU while reading.

A Young Wife: Historical fiction set in the Netherlands, Argentina, and New York at the turn of the (twentieth) century. Anachronisms in the dialogue aside, the writing was strong and the characters/plot so compelling. I'm such a sucker for that time period.

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society: An unexpected new favorite; I never knew how much I love epistolary novels until I read this one. It made me want to hop a plane to Guernsey and join the literary society. I will not be trying to recreate the potato peel pie, as I do not live in a world with butter rations. And I love butter. 

Wanderlove: More on this on Friday, when I'll post as part of the YA Book Club!

Right now I'm reading The Art of Fielding. I was skeptical about this one, because it's a 500-page novel about baseball (and I never met a sport I didn't feel meh about). Surprisingly--or not, considering all of the rave reviews--I'm enjoying it very much.

What did you read in March?

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YA Research: I Retook the SAT, Part II

Where were we? Oh, right: I finally finished my full-length SAT practice test. To give you an idea of time, I think I started around noon. I finished a little before 4:00. In retrospect, the time really flew by. And that leads to one of the strangest realizations I had while taking it: I like math. I always did, even trig and calculus. Sure, I needed a lot more time to do the problems on the SAT than allotted, but they were--dare I say it--sort of fun. I got a real sense of satisfaction from remembering how to do probability questions and calculating volume, etc. I kind of wonder now why I never took math past high school.

So now it's time to show you how this not-young adult did:

Subject	Score Range	# Right	# Wrong	# Omitted
Reading	760	64	3	0
Writing	740 (MC: 69, Essay: 12*)	45	4	0
Math	680	46	8	0

Yeah, the computer grader gave me a 12 on my batshit insane essay. Go figure.

I wanted to give a comparison of this score with what I got as a teen (on the 1600 scale), and that's when I learned the biggest lesson of all: I don't actually remember what my score was. This isn't a cop-out: I tried to find it, but if I kept a copy of my original score report, it must be buried in storage at my parents' house. If you had asked me at 17 if I expected to always remember my SAT score, I would have said yes. For all of the angst that teens attach to the SAT, a decade later they won't just not remember what they got--they won't care. I guess it was important because it helped me get into college, but otherwise the SAT has had no impact on my life. There's some perspective.

For the record, I am fairly certain my '90s score was significantly better on the Math section than what I got on this (I remember being pleased it was above 750); I think Verbal was in the range of this Reading score, maybe a little higher. I am somewhat relieved that I haven't gotten markedly dumber since high school and college. Although, if you consider that I gave myself extra time on all the Math sections--I actually did seriously worse. So scratch that--I am not so hot at the maths now, or at least doing them under time pressure.

In terms of what I learned for my WIP: I can't stress enough how hugely helpful this was as legitimate research for my story. I know now that certain things are inaccurate in the current draft: 
I wrote the it so the essay section comes last; 
my character stresses about analogies that are no longer part of the test; 
I didn't know enough to include any specific types of math problems; 
you are actually penalized for guessing (1/4 point taken off or something). 
It also reminded me of the test-taking experience. It's hard to leave a question blank if you don't know the answer. I couldn't bring myself to do it--I guessed once or twice on the math (but they were educated guesses, Kaplan!). When I answered "E" for seven questions in a row, I started to second-guess myself (The SAT wouldn't really make E be the answer for this many questions, right? I need to change my answers.) Test-taking does weird, superstitious things to the taker's mind. On that first math section, when I realized that I had 2 minutes left to answer 5 questions, I really started to panic. Forget that there were no stakes (except maybe my pride); anxiety is an involuntary response to a timed test. The time pressure made it hard to think straight, and I spiralled into frantic uneducated guessing before I decided I would just keep going for another 5-10. I also got distracted by some of the interesting information in the reading comp passages, something that I remember happening to me as a teen test-taker. There is no time to spare for contemplating information for its own sake on the SAT.

When I start revising, I am going to use this practice test as an experiential reference. I think the specificity that I can add now will really enhance some scenes--and I know I can nail the emotions of standardized test-taking again. So was this the most pleasant way to spend a Saturday? Definitely not, but it was worthwhile research. 

And no matter what I write in the future, I will never, ever attempt to retake the GREs.

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YA Research: I Retook the SAT, Part I

On Saturday, like I promised, I took a full-length online practice test for the SAT. I was doing this as research for a MS, and also because I was equal parts curious and masochistic. (Fact: I would later come to the realization that I was much more masochistic than curious.) If you want to read a hilarious account of another adult doing this, and even warning others about retaking the test as "blog stunt," go here. Unfortunately a friend showed me that post too late to stop my own plans. Anyway, this was for writing research.

The first sign that this was maybe not the most thought-through idea was when I realized that I don’t even own a calculator anymore. FAIL. I had to use my cell, which was even worse because I am a luddite who still uses a dumbphone with tiny keys. 

So I went to the SAT's home page and read these instructions: 

This practice test contains 9 out of the 10 sections you will see on the real SAT. The variable section has been omitted, so there will be a skip in the sequence of section numbers. The 9 separately timed sections include:

•                One 25-minute essay

•                Five 25-minute sections

•                Two 20-minute sections

•                One 10-minute section

My initial reaction: I am not going to make it through this. The last time I took a test was in grad school; it had a limit of two hours. That was years ago. I don’t even like going to hour-and-a-half meetings at work because they seem inhumanely long. I’m one of those people who, while doing sedentary work, actually stands up every 20-30 minutes and stretches or walks to get some water.

How did I ever sit through the SAT and the GRE back in the day? 

Of course, I was taking this at my kitchen table, in pajamas, etc. I ate soba noodles while I was doing it. I only took one real break, and during some of the verbal sections I carried on an unrelated conversation with my fiance. I was mean and frantic and shushed him during the math ones. ("CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF TAKING THE SAT?" is not something I expected to shout at my significant other as a late-late-twentysomething.)

First I had to write the essay. That surprised me--for some reason I was convinced that the essay portion was last. In my essay, I talked about Temple Grandin, Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash, Kathleen Stockett and The Help, and John Lennon. Oh, and some Apple commercials. No, it did not make a lot of sense, even to me.

The first test section I came across was Math. It was a disaster. While I wasn't having a hard time doing doing a fair number of the problems, one of the downsides of not using anything other than basic math for the better part of a decade means that when you suddenly start doing algebra and geometry again, you are SLOW. I ran out of time on question 13 of 20 on that first section. In fact, I ran out of time on all the Math sections. So were I in an actual testing environment, I would have failed the SAT math because of timing issues. I gave myself an additional 5-10 minutes for these sections so I could see how I can do content-wise. Yes, that does constitute cheating. 

The Writing and Reading Comp sections were intertwined, which I didn't realize at first. They were pretty easy, surprisingly. All of the vocabulary now has tons of context. There are no more analogies, guys! Who knew? The reading passages are bone-dry and one was even on black holes. I am personally afraid of outer space (I know, it's a weird fear), so that was not my favorite. The writing multiple-choice questions made you edit sentences. Most of them were totally obvious.

I should add that in taking the online practice test (which itself is an inaccuracy--teens have to take paper tests for the actual SATs), several times when I tried to submit and advance to the next section, the program got flaily and I lost my answers. So I had to go back and redo all those questions. Yes, I punched something and released a strain of profanity. Luckily, I was home alone at the time.

By the time I was down to Section 7, I was finding it difficult to care. There was a lot of construction noise outside of my apartment, and I started to get distracted. I raced through the test. I just wanted to be done, but the questions were endless. And then, after the magical 10-minute final section, I was.

Since this is already the longest blog post ever, I will continue tomorrow with my score and some thoughts on what I learned from taking the SAT--and how that's going to help me revise my WIP.

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Winners!

Shabby Blogs is the cutest.

Thanks to all who entered my Spring Break Giveaway. Random.org picked the winners, and they are as follows--

Hemlock ARC: Kristin Lenz!
 The Last Princess ARC: Valia Lind!
All These Lives ARC: Sophia Richardson! 

I'll send out an email to the winners so I can pop your books in the mail ASAP. Happy Friday!

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SAT Day

I'm taking the SAT* on Saturday.

You read that right. It's been . . . ten-ish years since I took it. I'm so old that my score was on the 1600 scale, and there wasn't any online test prep (to my knowledge), and graphing calculators were the height of technology. (I also probably listened to the Cranberries on a cassette mix tape on my way to the testing site.) I didn't actually do anything to prepare for it, other than read a book my dad picked up at Half Price: TEN TIPS FOR THE SAT. I read it two nights before. I did worry an awful lot beforehand, though. Maybe that counts as prep?

The SAT is a major plot point in my WIP, and while I've done my due diligence in studying up on how the test itself and its administration has changed since my time--I have forgotten some important things. How it felt to take it. What the language of the questions is like. I'm realizing that to really get inside the heads of my characters, who are suffering through that experience, I need a refresher in the form of a full-length, official practice test. Although I am going to take it online because I don't have any Number 2 pencils lying around.
When I took the SAT as a junior, I was happy with my score. (Unlike some future important tests, GRAD SCHOOL LANGUAGE EXAMS I MEAN YOU. AND I STILL CURSE THE DAY YOU WERE WRITTEN.) I am honestly terrified to see what I get this weekend. What's a rhombus again? How do I do algebra? I may wind up getting only the 200 points you get for showing up and writing down your name.

I'll let you know next week how I did! And we can all have a laugh.

*Question: Do you refer to it as "the SAT" or "the SATs"? I always have said SATs, but maybe I just got it wrong?

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Facts from Fiction

Occasionally I come across a person who does not read fiction. To each his/her own, right? Even more occasionally, though, I come across a person who does not read fiction and does not see the value in reading fiction. (Yes, it's difficult not to punch such people in the face.)

I have roughly 1 million reasons to prove to fiction haters why it's not only a great way to spend your time but important (putting aside my belief that nobody needs to defend what he or she chooses to read). One of those reasons is that just because a text isn't expository or informational doesn't mean it doesn't teach the reader something. And I don't just mean in an emotional/psychological/empathetic sense. I mean facts.

For example, I'm reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society right now, which is charming and fantastic and also an epistolary novel, which I love. It's set immediately post-WWII in the Channel Islands, specifically Guernsey (duh, I guess--that's in the title). Here's my confession: I wasn't really aware of the Channel Islands before reading this. I knew of Guernsey and Jersey, because I am from Wisconsin and two types of cows are named after them.* I knew that they were places, but I always thought they shared a land mass with England. Wrong. They are actually an archipelago in the English Channel. I also had no idea that they were occupied by the Germans during WWII.

*In fourth grade, I believe, you have to memorize all the types of dairy cows: Holstein, Brown Swiss, Jersey, Guernsey, Ayrshire, and the Milking Shorthorn. That was true even if you lived in a city and had never been near a cow, like me.

Would I ever have acquired an interest in the Channel Islands without reading this book? Probably not. I'm not much of a Brit-ophile, and I tend to like my islands tropical. But reading this book has made me extremely interested in Guernsey. I've spend time over the past week indulging the interest I've developed through reading this novel. That is one of the great benefits of reading fiction--it introduces us to ideas, people, and places we wouldn't have known we were interested in otherwise.

What topics have you become fascinated by, thanks to fiction?

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RTW: Where I'd Wander

Road Trip Wednesday is a weekly blog carnival hosted by YA Highway. This week's topic is: In honor of the release of Kirsten's WANDERLOVE yesterday--which is amazing, by the way; get yourselves to a bookstore if you haven't!--we bring you a travel-themed RTW prompt today! If you could wander anywhere in the world, where would it be, and why? 

First of all, how excited am I to read Wanderlove? I adored Like Mandarin, and I've heard so many wonderful things about this book. Plus--it's the March read for the YA Book Club!

Anyway, I was here a year ago today:

Trunk Bay, St. John USVI

Old-school Kodak underwater disposable cameras FTW!

Even though there are a million other places in the world I want to see and where I'd like to be, I'd love to wander back.

Where would you like to wander?

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Putter Time

Are you giving yourself enough time to putter?

"Puttering (or pottering or putzing, depending on your tribe) is an activity, if it can be properly called that, of desultory bliss. It’s a mental and physical wandering that helpfully repels any impulse to be genuinely productive." ("To Putter, Divine" from NY Mag)
Not to assign productive value to puttering (which would, by definition, make it not-puttering), but most of my SNIs and Great Revision Insights appear while I'm puttering around.
Or running, but that's a different story.

How do you putter?

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Breaks between books

"All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes--characters even--caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you." (The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, p. 289)

When I came across this passage in a recent read,* it got me thinking. I'm so addicted to reading that as soon as I turn to the final page of one book, I'm itching for another. There is something to be said, though, for giving yourself a little time to let go of the last story--or let the membrane close (great imagery), as Diane Setterfield puts it. Maybe I'm not giving myself enough space between selections.

Do you take a break in-between books? Or are you a close-one-and-grab-another-off-the-shelf reader?

*Sidenote: if you are not just a reader but a bibliophile, and it you like eerie and Gothic fiction, you might want to check out The Thirteenth Tale

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Springfield-y Settings

This week I've been reading Kathleen Peacock's Hemlock. I don't want to divulge anything spoilery, so the only thing I'm willing to talk about is how much I enjoy the setting.

Which isn't typical for me because I tend to be a very character-driven reader. I appreciate good settings when I read them, but setting is not a story dealbreaker for me. I'm guilty in some ancient WIPs of totally glossing over setting altogether, placing characters in nameless Everytowns and letting their experiences/relationships take center stage.

Hemlock's setting is the fictional town Hemlock, and it's awesome. The world-building for this small town is rich, and I've loved getting to know the residents and streets and landmarks. I've found I really like being immersed in a town while reading, and getting to know the minor-character residents (mayors and baristas and classmates etc.) as well as the protagonists and antagonists. (Maybe this is because I live in a very big place now? Perhaps I miss the community vibe often found in smaller city life?) While reading, it occurred to me that Hemlock reminds me of True Blood's Bon Temps (confession: I've never read the Sookie Stackhouse books nor have I watched past the first season) or The Simpsons' Springfield, one of my most favorite small-town settings of all time. And lo and behold, I was on Kathleen Peacock's website and found this in her FAQs:
Where is Hemlock? Is it a real place?
Hemlock is a bit like Springfield in The Simpsons. Though I’m sure there may well be a real town called Hemlock, my Hemlock exists mostly in my head. It’s a hodgepodge of streets and corners and buildings from places I’ve lived, visited, seen pictures of, or just flat made up.

No way! I totally agree that it is a bit like Springfield, and that's a wonderful thing.

What sorts of settings do you like to read/write?

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One Thing Well

That's my new motto, at least when it comes to weeknights. I used to try to do a lot in my off-work hours: hit the gym, cook dinner, whip up a blogpost for the next day, catch up on other social media, read, call my fam, and get in some writing time. Sometimes I'd go really crazy and try to add cleaning, laundry, or (gasp) some kind of socializing in the mix.

Shocker: I ended up half-assing a whole lot of stuff.

My new philosophy? One thing well.*
On weeknights, aside from the non-negotiables (some kind of exercise or activity to destress; healthy eating, whether I prepare it or someone else does) and quality time with fiance/catching up with friends and family, I get to do one task. And I will try to do it well.

If it's a night on which I want to revise two chapters, I'm not going to try to write a post, too. If I need to vacuum my insanely dusty apartment,** then maybe I'm not going to finish a read-through. I know what my priorities are, and it's surprisingly easier than I thought to balance one-thing-per-night in accordance to them. Maybe I'll clean less if I'm trying to finish a draft. Maybe I'll blog more once a project is off with beta readers. Etc.

And you know what is kind of great? Going to sleep knowing that maybe you didn't get everything done, but you sure whole-assed what you did.

*Slightly different context, but here's a nice post from Zen Habits on Do One Thing Well
**Seriously, why is dust not a form of energy; because if it were, I would be so very filthy rich. Science, please get on that.

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Spring Break Giveaway

Everyone should get a spring break--even if one's life has basically no connection to a school-year cycle. Winters are long and cold and blah, and a few days off or travel to somewhere new (and hopefully warm) is a good, rejuvenating thing.

I took a spring trip the past two years but this year there's no break from routine or winterish weather in sight. (Of course, I am going to be taking a Very Awesome Trip in July, so I'm not exactly throwing myself a pity party over here.) I guess I'll have to settle for travel via books this March.

To share some spring-break love, I'm giving away ARCs of some spring YA books:

The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze (Little, Brown; May 2012)
Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock (Harper; May 2012)

All These Lives by Sarah Wylie (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; June 2012)

To enter, just leave a comment with your name -- and your email address, so I know how to find you.

Extra credit (please let me know in your comment if you qualify for any of these):

+1 New followers
+2 If you're already a follower
+1 Tweeting this giveaway
+2 New follower on Twitter (@rebeccabehrens)
+3 For posting about this giveaway on your blog.
+2 Add me to your blog roll

The contest will end on Thursday, March 22nd at 11:59 pm Eastern time. I'll randomly select the winner from all the entries, and announce him/her on Friday, March 23rd. Good luck!


EDITED: I will ship to one international winner, so if you aren't in the US or Canada, this is open to you!

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YA Saves the Economy

This is too funny not to share. (Thanks, Heather!)

See more at CollegeHumor

I really think he's got something there with PRESIDENT WIZARD.

Happy Friday!

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