Writers' Chasm

Frostbite by Richelle Mead Second book in the Vampire Academy series Rose loves Dimitri, Dimitri might love Tasha, and Mason would die to be with Rose… It's winter break at St. Vladimir's, but Rose is feeling anything but festive. A massive Strigoi attack has put the school on high alert, and now the Academy's crawling with Guardians—including Rose's hard-hitting mother, Janine Hathaway. And if hand-to-hand combat with her mom wasn't bad enough, Rose's tutor Dimitri has his eye on someone else, her friend Mason's got a huge crush on her, and Rose keeps getting stuck in Lissa's head while she's making out with her boyfriend, Christian! The Strigoi are closing in, and the Academy's not taking any risks… This year, St. Vlad's annual holiday ski trip is mandatory. But the glittering winter landscape and the posh Idaho resort only create the illusion of safety. When three friends run away in an offensive move against the deadl...

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic. This Week's Topic: What was the best book you read in September? Unfortunately college didn't leave much time for reading for fun in the last month. However, I did manage to fit a couple books in. I'm very late to the Anna and the French Kiss party, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. St. Clair is a great love interest and the romantic tension is crackling throughout the entire book. After all the wonderful things I heard about this book, it kind of let me down but I think I'll enjoy it much more when I read it again. I can't wait for Lola and the Boy Next Door! Full review here

Before I begin, I should mention that I don't have any e-textbooks. All of these points are inspired by a friend of mine that bought all of the textbooks she could on her Kindle. 1. No resale This is the main disadvantage that I didn't even think about until she mentioned it. If you buy hard copies of your textbooks, you can sell them somewhere and get some or most of that money back. But if you buy the e-book versions, you can't sell that anywhere. 2. No highlighting I'm not positive but I think there are some e-readers that have highlight capabilities. But if you don't own one of those, then you lose the ability to highlight and make notes as you read the chapters in your hard copy textbook. I highlight a lot when I'm reading because I find it helps me focus rather than constantly zoning out. 3. Pages can be messed up One of my friends with e-textbooks found out that, for one of her books, if she needs to get to another page she has to flip through the section...

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic. This Week's Topic: What themes, settings, motifs, scenes, or other elements do you find recurring in your work? I made a list of things that I realized were recurring in my works, but it's quite old. My recent works have been so different in nature that I'm having trouble thinking of something for this post. A few things that are on the old list are business owner parents, white rooms, and characters that can't pick out clothes on their own (I've had two main characters whose best friends helped them pick out outfits at least once over the course of the story). I think the majority of my early main characters also had brown hair and brown eyes. I was an unimaginative person when it comes to ...

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home. I did just read this book now after hearing people rave about it so long. I kind of wish I'd read it months ago. Don't get me wrong, I loved this book. But after hearing people talk about how it was such an awesome book, my expectations got too high and I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. Though I did want to read it again immediately after finishing it so that's a good sign. It started a little slow for me. I sta...

So...I blame Labor Day for my completely lack of ability to remember what day it is. I told myself I was going to do RTW and then I forgot it was Wednesday (I also had classes from one until seven in the afternoon so that didn't help). But because this week's topic was so AWESOME, I decided to do it two days late. Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destinat ion and get everybody's unique take on the topic. This Week's Topic: What non-YA character would you love to see star in a YA book as themselves? I'm going to cheat and do a couple because I'll be sitting here all night if I try to pick just one. Numair Salmalin If you don't know who this is, you need to go read Tamora Pierce's Immortals series right away. Meaning NOW. I think he was my first fictional love way back in m...

Sorry about my complete lack of blogging on Monday and Wednesday. College has me a whole lot busier than I expected. I have now been at college for over a week and it's giving me a whole new perspective on the debate about college-age main characters. I feel kind of lonely knowing that there aren't many main characters out there that are my age. I didn't enjoy the adult books I've read enough to want to read more, but I feel kind of out of place reading YA (not that I intend to stop any time soon). Why do you think there aren't many college-age MCs? Is it because we're kept so busy that there isn't enough time for interesting things to happen (not true)? Is it because the differences between college campuses (in contrast to the fact that most high schools are relatively the same) make it a difficult task? Is it because there's a stigma attached to college kids that says we don't read (which my hall has repeatedly disproved)? Does anyone hav...