Waiting on Wednesday (125)

Jessica Darling's It List #1: The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Popularity, Prettiness & Perfection by Megan McCafferty

Jessica Darling wasn't nervous about starting Pineville Junior High. That is, until her older sister, Bethany, told her that entering seventh grade means that everything will change. Hoping to continue the "Darling Domination of Popularity," Bethany presents Jessica with The IT List: The Guaranteed Guide to Popularity, Prettiness & Perfection. — But even armed with her instructions, Jessica stumbles her way through the start of the school year and inadvertently becomes Pineville Junior High's mascot, the mighty New Jersey seagull. Totally not the type of attention-getting her sister had in mind.

New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty's hilarious series opener will have you laughing, cringing, and cheering for the inimitable Jessica Darling.

Back when I was a to-be high school senior still floundering in uncertainty and doubt, I came across Jessica Darling for the first time and swore then and there that I'd read anything Megan McCafferty ever wrote. Like even her to-do lists. Normally I'm wary of prequels but this is Jessica Darling/Megan McCafferty and so I'm not really worried at all. Yup.

This book with the too-long-to-repeat title will be published in hardcover by Poppy on September 3, 2013.

Megan McCafferty signing!

Last Tuesday I had the joy of attending a book launch party for one of my favorite authors: Megan McCafferty! She is the author of the stupendously hilarious and insightful Jessica Darling series, and is now out with a new book, Bumped, a dystopian and her first "official" YA.

Megan's book launch party took place at the Princeton, NJ Barnes & Noble, which is huge and beautiful and stocked full of books and one of the most wonderful chain bookstores I have ever been to. I went there with my school friend Mel, and met up at the signing with Jamie of The Perpetual Page-Turner, Lillie of Alise on Life, Jenna of An Avid Reader's Musings, and Frankie from the First Novels Club.

Megan arrived in a dazzling purple dress and told us about her inspiration for Bumped, which has been "gestating" for three years (I promise I won't repeat any more of her pregnancy puns after that one). Fascinated by our society's, well, fascination with teen pregnancy, what with the high-profile pregnancies of Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin, and by the successes of reality TV shows such as 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom (I'm assuming these are TV shows, as I don't actually watch them, but you know which ones I'm talking about), Megan asked herself what could happen if teens were literally encouraged, pushed to get pregnant.

Then Megan read an excerpt from Bumped that was the most exquisite author reading I have ever had the honor of attending. Seriously. This woman should've been an actress. Or been paid to narrate her own audiobooks. She read a club president election scene, which I vaguely remember as chuckle-inducing when I read the book, but in Megan's hands (or mouth, I should say) became a full-blown giggle-fest which then led to some uncontrollable squawks of laughter. If you have the opportunity to hear Megan read, you definitely should.

Afterwards was the signing, which I felt bad about because there was like the six of us bloggers who had been sitting together and we all took a loooong time with Megan. (Granted, half the time she was talking to the B&N lady about how Rick Riordan, who is her adorable son's favorite author, will be stopping by B&N the next Tuesday--ohshitthat'stoday.) Basically, it was great to just kind of bask in her presence, because she is hands-down my favorite author, not to mention a lot of the other bloggers' and my friend's, too.

That's my friend and me with Megan.

Megan and me. She knew who I was! Ahhhhhhh!

So yeah, the signing was lovely, and I now have an awesome signed copy of Bumped, plus another signed copy that could be yours if you enter my international giveaway by Friday, May 13.

After the signing, the six of us snagged Christi the Teen Librarian and we found TGIF for dinner, which was great because it was bookish with wonderful people. Have you ever realized how much MORE amazing conversations and meals with bookish people are, simply because you have so much in common to talk about? Yeah, I didn't want the night to end, but soon it was time to head back home, and so we parted ways with promises to see one another again. [/end cheesiness]

All in all, it was one of the best nights I've had in a long time, and definitely one of the top ten bookish moments of my life. See Jamie's post and Christi's post for other summaries of the event.

Review, Interview, + GIVEAWAY: Bumped by Megan McCafferty!

Megan McCafferty is one of my favorite authors. I had the opportunity to read her upcoming dystopian YA, Bumped, back in November, and am finally able to share my review with you, along with a wonderful interview with Megan herself! Exclamation points may be used overexcessively to illustrate my excitement at this!!!

Okay. Let's get straight to it.

Tags: YA, dystopian, teen pregnancy, satire

Summary

Melody and Harmony are identical blond-haired, blue-eyed twins who never knew the other existed until recently. Melody was brought up to be a competitive candidate on the market for professionally impregnated teens. In their world where only teenagers can get pregnant, the Jaydens pay big money for her to be “bumped” by a worthy male specimen to produce their ideal baby.

Meanwhile, Harmony grew up in a highly religious community to be the perfect wife. When she leaves her community to search down Melody and save her sister from her sinful lifestyle, it leads to a huge case of mistaken identity that has both sisters questioning everything they had once believed in about their purpose in life.

Review

Megan McCafferty is the author of the Jessica Darling books, hands-down my all-time favorite contemporary series. The dystopian novel BUMPED is a huge departure from her legacy, but you tone down your instinctual desire to compare it to the Jessica Darling books, it is a fantastically complex story that will provide fodder for thought for multiple rereads.

BUMPED is an example of a dystopian society that is so fully realized and self-sustaining that it becomes very difficult for us outsiders to access. I spent a significant portion of the first half of BUMPED trying to figure out the “rules” of Harmony and Melody’s world, chock-full of futuristic terms, attitudes, and daily routines that seem extremely alien to us.

This may make BUMPED feel like a tryingly slow-moving novel, but once you get into their society’s groove, you quickly realize just how much Megan McCafferty has accomplished. If our currently label-preoccupied, materialistic, and consumeristic society were indeed to suffer from a mysterious virus that makes all adults infertile, you can bet that the resulting society would be almost exactly the one McCafferty has created here. All of the new vocabulary that Harmony and Melody use effortlessly can be traced back to our current world, so that once you’re successfully immersed in the story, you really get it.

At first both sisters came off as a bit flat and indistinguishable for me, but as the story went on they blossomed into uniquely complex individuals that I found myself really rooting for. Melody seems like she’s got everything figured out and going for her, albeit in a rather boring way. The deterioration of her perfect life forces her to finally confront herself with what she really wants, rather than what she was brought up to want. Harmony starts off as an irritatingly preachy girl, but as she becomes further entangled in Melody’s world, and deals with emotional turmoil of her own, I found myself liking her more and more for her determination to do right and stay true to herself in a manipulative world that she does not quite understand.

Supporting characters like Melody’s pregnancy club friends, Melody’s charming best friend Zen, and Jondoe, the star stud whose sperm is in high demand, all have a delightful roundedness to them—roundedness that does not mean they are perfectly bland characters, but instead have the ability to fight for what they want, even if we may not necessarily agree with what they want.

BUMPED is a layered book that will be good for multiple rereads, as each successive reread reveals a new layer of characterization, wordplay, and world-building that you may have noticed in passing in the first read-through but become really impressed by only in subsequent rereads. This, I think, is Megan McCafferty’s ultimate gift as an author: she has a fierce talent for and dedication to writing books that can be enjoyed at multiple levels, good for a permanent fixture on your reread shelf. Avid lovers of her Jessica Darling books, such as myself, will, I think, appreciate that the most about her first foray outside of Jessica’s well-known world, and as a result I’m really looking forward to the sequel and whatever Megan has to share with us next.

Cover discussion: I like my fair share of simple covers, but I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It may be a bit TOO simplistic and "fuzzy" in its intention...?

Balzer + Bray / April 26, 2011 / Hardcover / 336pp. / $16.99

Sent by the author for review. Thank you, Megan!

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Interview with Megan McCafferty

1. Tell us something about your inspiration for writing Bumped. (If you get this question too often, tell us something you don't always mention about the inspiration.)

I have answered this question a lot, but I think that says so much about the subject matter. When people hear “only teenagers can have babies and adults pay them to make deliveries” they’re like, “What the WHAT?!” But is it really all that far-fetched? It seems like nearly every day I read an article (with headlines like “Pregnancy Epidemic: 90 teens, 11 Percent of Student Body, Pregnant” or “Teen Auctions Off Her Virginity for 50K,” or “Meet the Twiblings: The Futuristic Insta-Family”) supporting my idea that under certain terrible conditions, the shocking teen pregnancy policies of Bumped could and would be put in practice. Cultural norms are fluid, not fixed.

2. Many people know you as the author of the Jessica Darling series. Did anything about your writing process change between writing the Jessica Darling books and Bumped?

Everything changed. I grew up in Jessica Darling’s world. I knew it inside and out. I’d never invented a whole world before, so it took me a while to find my footing in the futuristic setting and understand all the characters that inhabit it.

3. Bumped is such a thoroughly realized dystopian world, with its own vocabulary, values, systems, etc. How did you keep track of all the details about this world you created?

Thank you! My husband reads a lot of Sci-Fi. He advised me early on that I shouldn’t even try to accurately predict the future, I should just have a good time with it. So that’s what I did. I had fun with the wordplay and worldplay. Once I was immersed in the story, the new world of Bumped became as familiar to me as the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, NJ.

4. Which character or concept in Bumped surprised you the most his/her/its development?

When I started writing the book, I had no idea that Jondoe had as many secrets as Harmony. He’s as much of a product of his parents’ oppressive expectations as the twins are.

5. Jondoe was a pleasant surprise for me, too. :) Now, what is your favorite season, and why?

Summer. I write drafts in fall and winter, revise in spring. Summer means I can relax and recharge by doing research for whatever book comes next.

6. What was the most interesting thing you did to research Bumped?

There’s a character, Ram, who is just the tiniest bit inspired by Bristol Palin’s babydaddy, Levi Johnston. For a few days I devoted myself to watching his interviews on YouTube so I could borrow his body language and speech patterns. I now know more about Levi Johnston than anyone could possibly need to know.

7. I'll bet that's true! Say you have the power to bring one deceased author back to life. Who would you pick, and why?

I’d bring back J.D. Salinger because it would be amusing to watch him react to his own resurrection. “Goddamn phonies. I’m dead. Leave me alone.”

8. Name one extreme sport you would love to try, and one you will never, ever do. (Yes, you can make an extreme sport up: after all, extreme ironing is an acknowledged activity.)

I had emergency back surgery when I was 25, so you’ll never see me bungee jumping, sky-diving, or otherwise recklessly hurling my body around. Extreme Karaoke is more my style.

9. I like the sound of that! Finally, what dystopian novels would you recommend to readers?

There aren’t too many satirical dystopian YA novels, but Feed by M.T. Anderson is the one I thought about most when I was writing Bumped. It’s brilliant, hilarious and so close becoming a terrifying reality.

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Giveaway Opportunity!

Thank you, Megan, for answering my questions! I am going to her launch party for Bumped next Tuesday, April 26 in Princeton, NJ, so as a gift to you readers, I am going to give away a signed copy of Bumped for one winner! And, heck, let's make it international, because I can't spread the love enough for this amazing author's books. To enter, please fill out this form here, making sure to answer the question relevantly. This giveaway ends Friday, May 13, 2011. Good luck!

Waiting on Wednesday (14)

Another three-parter WoW post because all of a sudden I'm stumbling across so many brilliant sounding reads that I want to share them with you all!

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

There were no surprises in Gatlin County. We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere. At least, that’s what I thought. Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. There was a curse. There was a girl. And in the end, there was a grave.

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps, and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything. 

Can we just say that if you are not immediately attracted to the stunning cover, then the mysterious synopsis should attract you? I love books where the characters or locations have mysterious histories abound with the paranormal. And there seems to be a strong love interest. Plus, people like Vania and Karin keep on raving about this book on Twitter and Goodreads, pretty much driving me mad with anticipation. And Kami and Margaret are very active on their blogs and on Twitter, which builds up the exictement even more. It sounds like it's gonna be great!

Beautiful Creatures will be released in hardcover by Little, Brown on December 1, 2009.

The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale

What if you were to meet the number-one person on your laminated list—you know, that list you joke about with your significant other about which five celebrities you’d be allowed to run off with if ever given the chance? And of course since it’ll never happen it doesn’t matter…

Mormon housewife Becky Jack is seven months pregnant with her fourth child when she meets celebrity hearththrob Felix Callahan. Twelve hours, one elevator ride, and one alcohol-free dinner later, something has happened…though nothing has happened. It isn’t sexual. It isn’t even quite love. But a month later Felix shows up in Salt Lake City to visit and before they know what’s hit them, Felix and Becky are best friends. Really. Becky’s husband is pretty cool about it. Her children roll their eyes. Her neighbors gossip endlessly. But Felix and Becky have something special…something unusual, something completely impossible to sustain. Or is it?

A magical story, The Actor and the Housewife explores what could happen when your not-so-secret celebrity crush walks right into real life and changes everything.

Shannon Hale is one of my favorite authors and she can clearly do no wrong. I very much enjoyed her previous adult novel, Austenland, and so am looking forward to reading this one!

The Actor and the Housewife will be available from Bloomsbury on June 9, 2009.

And finally, I don't like to post WoW choices if they don't have a cover, but I really really really couldn't resist this one, because this just might be the most highly anticipated book on my list for the next few years. From Megan McCafferty's website:

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Alessandra Balzer at Balzer & Bray/HarperCollins Children’s Books acquired World English rights to New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty’s new novel in a two-book deal from Heather Schroder at ICM. Bumped is a sharply funny and provocative dystopian novel set in a world where only teens are able to have babies, and are contracted by adults to carry them to term. Megan is best known for her Jessica Darling series, which started with Sloppy Firsts and most recently ended with Perfect Fifths.

Can we say, "Holy....!"? Megan's gone dystopian lit! This is going to be awesome. I have no doubt that she'll conquer this new genre the same way she redefined chick lit/YA lit with the Jessica Darling series.

Review: Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty

Publication Date: April 14, 2009

Summary

It’s been three years since Jessica refused Marcus’ marriage proposal, and both of them have moved on with their lives. Jessica now works for the Do Better High School Storytellers Project, traveling across the country to work for ten weeks with groups of girls on finding a voice through writing. She has even found a mini-me in the dregs of Pineville, a cynical teenager with the unfortunate name of Sunny Dae, who gives Jessica meaning to her work. Meanwhile, Marcus has embraced college life, immersing himself in academia and humanitarian projects—and even an affair with an older woman—while elevating his campus reputation as the Sexy Enigmatic Older Man (for lack of a better term) to a sky-high level.

But have they really, truly moved on from each other? A literal collision at the airport as Jessica is latelatelate for a flight to a Caribbean wedding (guess whose!), and Jessica has run Marcus over, barreled straight back into his life as though she never left it. As IF she ever left his life, mind, or heart.

Now, stuck in one another’s company at the airport, Marcus and Jessica are forced to come face to face with their past and everything that they have been imperfect in for the last ten years of their lives. Now comes a resolution to a spellbinding series that is “perfect in its imperfection.”

Review

It’s unlikely that ardent Jessica Darling fans will be disappointed in this last book in the series, not after they have gone with Jessica through her periods of mistakes, growth, regressions, and maturing. PERFECT FIFTHS may start out a little slow, but through a clever and definitely spellbinding use of not-so-very-usual narrative tactics, we readers are taken through an ever deeper discussion and reflection on Marcus’ and Jessica’s bumpy decade-long relationship. We get to relive our favorite moments from the series. Barry Manilow gets extensive “play.” All of the characters that we have grown to love in their complex imperfection (even the truly wince-worthy ones, such as Sara) come back, in one form or another, like this is the fantastical finale to a colorful and dramatic musical.

But it is, of course, the characters of Marcus and Jessica that steal the show. Here is where we cut away all the adolescent and young adult B.S. they’ve been working through in the previous four books. Here is where they—and we readers—discover their true, eternal natures, the ones that their previous behaviors and thoughts were leading up to. This is why the phrase “perfect in their imperfection” is, well, perfect in this situation: what we learn of Marcus and Jessica in PERFECT FIFTHS complements yet improves our previous knowledge of them, and if you didn’t love them before, you’ll loooove them now. I’ve never been one to fangirl on male characters, but if you don’t fall in loooove with the Marcus Flutie that he becomes in this book, then there is no hope for you at all.

It’s always difficult to introduce new characters into a well-established group of characters, but—I don’t want to make assumptions here, because I know nothing, but it just seems this way—there seems to be the possibility of Sunny reappearing in Megan’s future books. Just saying. That’s what it seems like, a little. Just a random (hopeful?) hypothesis.

Also, some readers may be uncomfortable with some extended descriptions of sex and related body parts. While it did not bother me and I actually felt it lent itself wonderfully to the purpose of the book, I can understand why you might not want to let, say, your younger sister or daughter read it. Just wanted to let that be known; it shouldn’t bother most readers, nor should it detract from the reading experience.

Long story short (and without giving too much away; we can discuss the details of our reactions to the book at a later date), PERFECT FIFTHS is un-miss-able, a wonderfully cohesive montage of the previous books in the series, a brilliant ending to a towering achievement. I look forward impatiently to reading Megan’s future works outside of this series, as I think you all will too.

Writing: 5/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Cover discussion: 4 out of 5 - I've always been a fan of the Jessica Darling series' colors--their bright bold blocks of color, the vibrancy of the photos--even though they are slightly cliche for YA and chick lit. You know, the whole let's-lop-off-the-model's-head thing. But I like how it's (supposedly) Central Park that the model is standing on (although Central Park has never looked that green to me when I've gone there), and the high-rise buildings in the background. The relevance of this cover to the story is much more correlated than other covers-and-their-stories... but you will only find out after you read it. :)

Win an ARC of Perfect Fifths, and Life Update

No, I'm not giving the ARC away... but Megan is! She recently held a book trailer contest, and is now holding a contest within a contest! Watch the three winners of the Perfect Fifths book trailer contest on the following links:

Georgette from Georgia

Mallory from New York

Paige from Missouri

All these creative people with time on their hands to spare... but hey, awesome entries and winners!

As we all probably know (since we're such big fans), Perfect Fifths, the fifth and final book in the Jessica Darling series, is out in hardcover on April 14, 2009, but is available for pre-order now, at basically any book-selling site you can think of, so I'm not even going to bother linking to them.

Want to find out how you can enter to win an ARC of Perfect Fifths? Click here! But hurry, the contest ends February 20th. That's tomorrow. *gulp*

As for more personal affairs, I'm going to be AWOL for the weekend, as I'm heading off to my swimming Conference championships. I'm pretty pumped about it, think I'm going to kick a few *ahem* asses, get some personal bests... hopefully win a medal or two? We'll see. I don't like to think ahead for stuff like that; my mental imagery work doesn't extend to that! I'll try to be on and leave comments on your blogs during my mid-afternoon breaks (when I should actually be taking a nap to get ready for finals at night), but I hope you all have a GREAT weekend!!!