Saturday, April 20, 2013

Pass the Parcel



1. What are your top five favorite YA authors?
Markus Zusak (absolutely brilliant), Laurie Halse Anderson, Suzanne Collins, Lois Lowry, J. K. Rowling, Cornelia Funke, Trenton Lee Stewart (yes, half of these are MG. And there are more than five. I only got seven hours of sleep last night.)

2. What's the last YA book you read and what did you think of it?
As in the last book I finished? It was Notes From a Midnight Driver. I really liked it. After all, the main character is sarcastic ... It was a light read, complete with a grumpy old man at a nursing home, drunk driving, snippets of Yiddish, and an actual spunky, realistic girl character (in a boy-narrated book, nonetheless. My mind is BLOWN).

3. What's your favourite YA genre? (Dystopian, romance, sci-fi, contemporary, etc.)
My favorite YA genre is dystopian (pretty obvious), but I also love books from all genres, when done well.

4. Let's talk characters! Pick a character you love and tell us why?
Hmmm ... (I will not compliment my own character again.)
I love Liesel's dad from The Book Thief. From teaching her to read even though he can't really read that well, to helping her when she wet her bed, to telling her stories and playing his accordion, he was one of the few actually good people in Liesel's life. And he gives a starving man a piece of bread and gets beaten for it. Too bad he had to die.

5. Top YA villain?
I'm not really sure. I liked Hairwoman from Speak. Her name was a nice touch. And, of course, her hair looked awful. She was just a great, perfect typical high school English teacher. Why do they think they have to make reading awful and leech the meaning out of everything? I digress.

I also thought Death was a great villain. His point of view was really intriguing. And of course, in the end, he comes through.
Check out this excerpt:

It's the leftover humans
The survivors.
They're the ones I can't stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them, but now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs.

6. Top YA couple?
I don't know. I don't really read about couples! Umm ... Pass? I liked Skylar and Connor together from Me, Just Different. I seriously can't think of any other couples that I like that were in an actual relationship. Do I really read that little teen romance?



7. With dystopian on the decline, what do you think will be the next hot-trend in YA?
I think it'll be YA thrillers/mystery.

8. What's the next YA book on your to-be-read pile?
Glass Girl by Laura Anderson Kurk. It looks quite intriguing.

9. What's the fastest time you've ever finished reading a book in? (And what was the book?!)
An hour or so? I'm not sure which books I've read specifically in an hour. A lot, though. I'm a very quick reader.

10. (And now for the burning question) Do you think books should be sorted according to colour or title? (This matters.)

I don't sort them by either. I have too many books to care a lot about sorting them (and I'm not really into that sort of thing). I sort them by genre.
For example, on my bookshelf I have a stack of awesome books by my Kleenex box, ones that ... were designed to make me cry? I'm not really sure why the scissors are there, though.

I also have shelves of MG novels, new MG classics, a Roald Dahl shelf, and a Beverly Cleary shelf. I have no idea where my Little House on the Prairie set is, though. Maybe my mom gave it to Goodwill or something. I also have my what-was-I-thinking-when-I-enjoyed-this shelves.


4 comments:

  1. Scissors?! You make me laugh SO hard!!! ;) I'm sorry....I'll give an intelligent comment when I've composed myself from falling off my chair.

    Okay.

    Well, I was going to read The Book Thief, but apparently everyone dies, which is a real downer. Oh well. I'll try it anyway (I'm so very curious about it now, from everyone's fabulous mentions). I also have a shelf of what-was-I-thinking, I don't look at it very often. In my room, my books are ordered according to what I've read, what needs to go back to the library, and my whole collection of Lemony Snicket's books. Which I still love.

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    Replies
    1. My picture was supposed to show up. Yes, there are scissors on my bookshelf. I'm not sure who put them there (but it was probably me). I would've posted a picture, but Blogger was being stupid and not letting me scroll, and it kept doing weird stuff. (There's an excuse for everything, honestly.)
      I love Lemony Snicket's books too. I found out a few weeks ago that his real name is Daniel Handler. That kinda disappointed me, just sayin'. I still think he should've legally changed his name to Lemony Snicket.

      Everyone dies in The Book Thief, which is rather depressing. If you're willing to look past that, though, it's a great read. Or one of my favorites, anyway. Of the thousands that I've read. For all time.
      So no pressure, right?

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    2. I agree!!! About Lemony Snicket--I mean, what kind of a person can be Lemony in one world, and Daniel in another? Seriously?! Gah! He doesn't have as much imagination as we all thought, clearly.

      Ooh, I just read Me, Just Different, too! I really liked it. And that's a great way to sort bookshelves, I reckon.

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  2. I did find Lemony Snicket's books rather repetitive, but still, they were interesting. I really liked Me, Just Different as well. To me, my book-sorting method takes less effort than sorting by color or author. I could never sort them by author, though; that would take far too long.

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Thanks for visiting my blog, A Writer Girl! Comments are totally appreciated, and if you have constructive criticism, I'll welcome that too. Thanks so much for your input.