Starstruck, by Rachel Shukert
Rachel Shukert's Starstruck steals most of its plot from Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, but Shukert's YA novel is a vast improvement on Susann's dour melodrama, transforming a silly and overwrought story into something smart, ambitious, and utterly engrossing...
Unexpected best-sellers
According to THR, Scandinavian production companies Zentropa and Nordisk Film are working together on a film version of Frans G. Bengtsson's 1941 novel The Long Ships. I was surprised there was much of a demand for a cinematic adaptation of 1940s adventure story set in 10th century Sweden (particularly one with such a pulp fiction-y cover)...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Starstruck, by Rachel Shukert
This week's Book Giveaway title is Rachel Shukert's Starstruck, which we'll be reviewing tomorrow. Shukert's book features promotional quotes from Anna Godbersen and Jillian Larkin, both of whom are known for their YA series sent in the 1920s, so I'm assuming Starstruck is set in a similar time period. (Although that's clearly Veronica Lake hair, which is totally 1940s, but maybe the artist was aiming for...
Is it three-dimensional, though?
I have no use for this utterly awesome mobile based on the art work of Belgian children's author and illustrator Tom Schamp, but I want one. (Maybe hanging mobiles above adults' beds will become a hot design trend...?) I also want more of Schamp's books to be translated into English...
Vampy!
Speaking of upcoming literature-to-TV transformations, NBC has unveiled the trailer for their take on Dracula, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. As far as I can tell, this show will be a 10-episode miniseries that is still set in Victorian London, but reworks the original plot...
Summer Rental, by Mary Kay Andrews
Mary Kay Andrews's 2011 novel Summer Rental sticks to the formula that has served her so well in the past: loads of female bonding, a love story, a woman-in-peril subplot, and a healthy dash of angst. Lifelong friends Ellis, Dorie, and Julia have made plans to spend a month together in a North Carolina beach rental, hoping for a break from their respective personal and career problems. Maryn Shackleford is a total stranger, but...
More John Christopher
According to Publishers Weekly, the late science fiction author John Christopher is having his backlist digitized and several of his older books republished, including his famous Tripods trilogy from the late sixties...
More prime-time fairytales
ABC is pinning their hopes on more fairytale action: they've ordered a spin-off of their popular series Once Upon a Time based on Alice in Wonderland, creatively titled Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. Here's the cast list and official synopsis...
Manicpixiedreamgirl, by Tom Leveen
In addition to being saddled with a painfully quirky title that lights up my Spellcheck like a Christmas tree, Tom Leveen’s novel Manicpixiedreamgirl features one of my least favorite YA character types: the wishy-washy teenage male. Leveen’s protagonist is high school student Tyler Darcy, a kid blessed with a long-term (by high school standards) relationship, a supportive family, and a loyal circle of friends. Tyler has literary ambitions, and...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Manicpixiedreamgirl, by Tom Leveen
The phrase "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" gives me a rage headache, and I'm equally irritated by unconventional word spacing (WHY?!?), but Tom Leveen's Manicpixiedreamgirl has had solid reviews, so who knows? Maybe my heart will grow two sizes today, and I'll learn to love both the phrase and its lack of Strunk-and-White-approved spacing. (Spoiler: No, I won't.) Either way, Mr. Leveen's book is our current Weekly Book Giveaway selection...
A guide to adulthood
If you're looking for a literary graduation gift, you might want to check out Kelly Williams Brown's Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps. I usually give out copies of Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm (my personal Guide to Life), but this Publishers Weekly excerpt from Ms. Williams Brown's book is pretty great...
Congratulations, Ms. Tapahonso!
In a bit of closer-to-home poetry news, the Navajo Nation has just announced its first Poet Laureate: Luci Tapahonso, a poet, college professor, and novelist whose writing often blends English with Diné, the Navajo language...
Ugh.
The first trailer is out for the film adaptation of Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Game, but any appeal the movie might have held for me is trumped by Card's long history of being a jackass...
Poetry in space
If you have dreams of becoming an intergalactically famous poet, now's your chance: NASA is promoting its upcoming launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft (MAVEN) via its "Going to Mars with MAVEN" project. Mission managers have invited the poetry-writing public to submit haiku written for the occasion...
Legal wrangling
This is a depressing story, so I hope she wins: 87-year-old To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee says that her literary agent Samuel Pinkus (the son-in-law of her long-time agent Eugene Winick) took advantage of her poor health to trick her into signing over the copyright of her book to him...
Jane Eyre's Daughter, by Elizabeth Newark
The front cover of Elizabeth Newark's novel Jane Eyre's Daughter features a blurb announcing that this is “A Superb Tale for Lovers of the Brontë Classic”. That's not a promotional quote from a reviewer, mind you—it came straight from the publishers, who, sadly, are somewhat overstating their case...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Jane Eyre's Daughter, by Elizabeth Newark
The front cover of our current Weekly Book Giveaway pick, Elizabeth Newark's 2008 novel Jane Eyre's Daughter, announces that Newark's book is "A Superb Tale for Lovers of the Bronte Classic". That's usually the kind of thing you should let someone else say, but whatever...
Free Comic Book Day reminder (and helpful guide!)
This Saturday (May 4th) is Free Comic Book Day, and NPR has put together a list of recommended titles. I realize that "free" already makes a lot of stories more appealing, but this is more helpful than it sounds: there are boatloads of comics on offer this year...
Adults behaving badly
I had no idea that anyone wanted to make a modern-day film adaptation of Henry James's grim 1897 novel What Maisie Knew, but apparently someone did, and it should hit theaters tomorrow. I will never understand how movies based on stories like this (depressing, melodramatic, and stocked with hopelessly unappealing characters) get made, and yet no one will give me a Georgette Heyer adaptation...
A very serious yawn in the making.
Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender have just been cast as Lord and Lady Macbeth in an upcoming movie adaptation of Shakespeare's play, according to NME. I've read several glowing...
RIP, E. L. Konigsburg.
We've been meaning to write about children's author E. L. Konigsburg's death for a week now, but we're disorganized. Sorry, Ms. Konigsburg, no disrespect was meant—we will always love you and your glorious 1968 novel From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which opens with a paragraph that spoke to the very souls of thousands of nerdy, finicky children...
Strands of Bronze and Gold, by Jane Nickerson
In case you were wondering, we didn't actually plan on reviewing two books about twisted relationships between hyper-controlling men and vulnerable young girls this week. This pairing was pure serendipity—creepy serendipity, if that's not a contradiction in terms.
Set in the antebellum South, Jane Nickerson's Strands of Bronze and Gold...
How To Create the Perfect Wife: Britain's Most Ineligible Bachelor and His Enlightened Quest to Train the Ideal Mate, by Wendy Moore
Most of the critical coverage of Wendy Moore's How To Create the Perfect Wife: Britain's Most Ineligible Bachelor and his Enlightened Quest to Train the Ideal Mate, a stranger-than-fiction account of the life of the 18th century radical Thomas Day, has focused on the biggest scandal of Day's life: his attempt to transform a 12-year-old orphan into his ideal of the perfect woman. This is totally understandable—that element of the story is pretty juicy...
It's a more successful combination than you'd think.
All too frequently, the Internet is a cruel and judgmental place that provides an anonymous forum for humans to display their creepiest selves. Thankfully, the Internet is also an unending source of marvelously weird and specific gifts, like these pictures of Disney Princesses re-imagined as sloths...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Strands of Bronze and Gold, by Jane Nickerson
This week's Book Giveaway title is Jane Nickerson's Bluebeard retelling Strands of Bronze and Gold. We're planning to review Ms. Nickerson's book tomorrow, along with Wendy Moore's historical nonfiction title How To Create the Perfect Wife. Sadly, the two stories have more in common than you'd think...
Everyone I know is getting this for Christmas
Earlier this month news came out that—at long, long last—Allie Brosch's Hyperbole and a Half book is finally on the way! I am ridiculously excited. Hyperbole and a Half is an Internet treasure, and I was genuinely sorry to hear about Brosch's struggles with depression...
Never again, Marvel. I do not forget.
Marvel's 2011 Thor movie is, bar none, my least favorite superhero movie ever. To be fair, I liked Chris Helmsworth's enjoyably dim portrayal of the title character, Tom Hiddleston's campy take on Loki, and Kat Dennings's sunny performance as Natalie Portman's assistant. Unfortunately, literally every other character sucked...
Too Lifetime?
Judy Blume's 1981 novel Tiger Eyes has been made into a movie. The film, directed by Blume's son Lawrence and co-written by the author, is due out June 7th. I've never been a huge Blume fan—most of her best-known books were written before I was born, so the buzz was long over by the time I was old enough to read them, they're too angst-ridden for my taste, and any shock value they might have had was pretty much nil in my house...
Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly
I avoid books about the French Revolution (angry mob stories freak me out), reading about time travel (the laws of causality!), or plots that hinge on the deaths of children (...this one is self-explanatory, right?). All three are featured in Jennifer Donnelly's YA novel Revolution, so the fact that I not only finished her book, but even found it reasonably entertaining, is a testament to the author's storytelling abilities...
Visual confusion
Awkward! Beth Reekles's The Kissing Booth and Claire LaZebnik's The Trouble With Flirting feature strikingly similar cover art: the models are posed differently, but it's clearly the same photoshoot. This is why using stock photos can be dangerous, dear readers. These books aren't connected; they're not even from the same publisher...