Books I've Read: Surrender Your Sons

This is one of those books I really wish I enjoyed more.  The premise is fantastic - part Lord of the Flies and part The Miseducation of Cameron Post - but it didn't quite work for me.

Connor lives in a small rural town with his religious zealot mother.  He's gay and has a boyfriend for the first time.  His boyfriend comes from a very supportive family who embraced his coming out without reservation.  Connor is pretty sure his own mother won't be so accepting, but Ario encourages him to stop sneaking around and to tell his mother.

As Connor predicted, it doesn't go well and Connor finds himself on lockdown, allowed out of the house only to help the Reverend deliver meals on wheels.  And there's something weird about the Reverend, and not just the thrall he seems to have the entire town under, especially Conner's mother.  It seems to have something to do with one of the meals on wheels customers, a severely handicapped guy called Ricky.

Then Ricky dies and Connor is dragged from his home by burly guys who claim to be taking him to a summer camp.  The only clue is a note Ricky left in the pages of an old theatre program.

The summer camp turns out to be a conversion camp on a remote island in Costa Rica.  And it's run by none other than the Reverend.  Connor needs to figure out why Ricky wrote the name of this camp on the program he left and what his link is to both the camp and the Reverend before it's too late.

There was lots to like about this story about kids taking justice into their own hands in order to escape a horrendous experience.  There were moments of high adventure and excitement and moments of quite tender romance.  But overall, I felt like there was a little too much going on.  It was difficult to understand why Connor was so invested in Ricky's past when he didn't seem to know him very well, and cared about him less.

The writing itself was often overblown which drew me out of the story because the language didn't feel like Connor's language, the descriptions unlike something a teenage boy would observe.

The other campers were not well-drawn and were defined almost exclusively through the way they looked.  Female campers were given particularly little definition apart from feisty Molly, the girl Connor arrives on the island with.

If you're a fan of action and adventure and kids taking the law into their own hands, this might be a book for you.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read it in advance.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Connor Major’s summer break is turning into a nightmare.

His SAT scores bombed, the old man he delivers meals to died, and when he came out to his religious zealot mother, she had him kidnapped and shipped off to a secluded island. His final destination: Nightlight Ministries, a conversion therapy camp that will be his new home until he “changes.”

But Connor’s troubles are only beginning. At Nightlight, everyone has something to hide from the campers to the “converted” staff and cagey camp director, and it quickly becomes clear that no one is safe. Connor plans to escape and bring the other kidnapped teens with him. But first, he’s exposing the camp’s horrible truths for what they are— and taking this place down.

Weekly Goals 14-9-20

This week is all about revising Standing Too Close.  I've had several people give me feedback, so now it's time to use all that feedback to make the book better.

Fingers crossed I can do it.

And that's about it for this week.   It feels like a small goal, but I think it's going to be a bit of work, so I'll leave it at that.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 11-9-20

This post is part of Lexa Cain's blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Head on over there to sign up!

What am I celebrating this week?

Long weekend away!

Yes, I am taking Friday off work and going away with a friend for the weekend.  We're going up to the snow, not to ski or snowboard, but to have a bit of time out there in nature.  Fingers crossed the weather won't be too bad.   It's pretty darn hideous here right now.

I got the last bits of feedback on Standing Too Close and have some ideas how I can fix a few things, make the book more satisfying toward the end.  Unfortunately, I'm still a little stuck as to what I need to add in the middle, but I'll figure it out.  That's going to be my project for the next couple of weeks so I can keep on track to query through October while I gear my brain up to do NaNo.

But this weekend, I won't be writing.  I'm leaving my laptop at home so I can enjoy my holiday.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Loved: How to Make Friends with the Dark

It's been a long time since I had a book hangover, but this book has been haunting me since I finished it on Sunday.

It's a book about grief and how to cope with it.  Or maybe not how to cope with it since the main character, Tiger, really doesn't cope well.  Maybe it's more about living with grief or the many different ways grief affects us.

Anyway, I found it very powerful and as I said, have been thinking about it for days.

Tiger and her mother had a very close relationship.  Maybe too close.  I felt like Tiger's mother clung too tightly to Tiger, was too protective of her.  And of course, as a teenager, Tiger wanted to be free.

But how do you deal with it when your first taste of rebellion ends with your mother dropping dead suddenly and unexpectedly, before you have a chance to apologise for the words you tossed out in the middle of fight?

This is what Tiger has to reconcile.  Alongside the fact she and her mother have always been alone together, no other family around for support.

As she struggles to negotiate a world without her mother, and the guilt over the last words she spoke to her, Tiger also has to deal with foster care and a string of new homes with new rules and new people in them.  

The only constant is her best friend, Cake.  But when she overhears a conversation between Cake's parents, Tiger knows she needs to stop clinging to Cake like the only piece of flotsam in a storm-tossed sea.

This is definitely not a cheerful book.  Tiger's problems only get worse once she discovers who her father is and that she has an older half-sister who grudgingly agrees to be her caregiver.  The kids in her school-sanctioned Grief Group help a bit - they understand at least - but they don't stop Tiger from making some very bad choices.

Tiger is kind of an annoying character, but somehow it didn't bother me in this book where it probably would have in another. She's so innocent, but I think that's partly because of how much her mother sheltered her from life's cruelty.  She's very passive in many ways, but the overwhelming nature of everything being thrown her way makes this lack of agency feel realistic, rather than pathetic.  She really does have no control over the situations she finds herself in.

I also liked that her friendship with Thaddeus, the foster brother she lives with briefly, remains a friendship.  So often relationships like this in YA end up becoming romantic, and I liked that this time it stayed platonic, even as the two of them supported each other.

This is not necessarily an easy read.  If you've lost someone close to you it will probably feel very raw.  I know it brought up a lot of feelings in me I thought I had long-buried.  And it may not be accurate to the way everyone experiences grief - it's a personal thing that everyone feels and deals with differently.

But I feel like this was an accurate and heartfelt representation of this character's grief and how she responded to not just the loss of her mother, but the loss of life as she knew it before.  At one point Tiger comments that she wishes there was a manifesto to tell her how to navigate through the grief she's feeling.  This is not that manifesto; it's just one girl's experience.

Don't just listen to me, though.  Here's the blurb:

Here is what happens when your mother dies.

It’s the brightest day of summer and it’s dark outside. It’s dark in your house, dark in your room, and dark in your heart. You feel like the darkness is going to split you apart.

That’s how it feels for Tiger. It’s always been Tiger and her mother against the world. Then, on a day like any other, Tiger’s mother dies. And now it’s Tiger, alone.

Here is how you learn to make friends with the dark.

Weekly Goals 7-9-20

I have just got the last round of notes from readers on Standing Too Close, so this week is all about trying to implement all the feedback I have received, and hopefully fix all the flaws in the story.  it may be challenging because different readers have had issues with different things, so I need to really think hard about what is true to the characters and what feels right to me.

I may not get through all of it this week because I'm going away for a long weekend and am not going to take my laptop.  But we shall see how far I can get in my morning sessions.

I'm very keen to get this story right and ready to send out by the end of the month so I can spend October querying while I prepare for NaNo and writing A Stranger to Kindness.  Weirdly, this is a book that came with a title... It's not something that happens to me often.  Most of my stories live in my hard drive for years under the name of the main character (Chris or Sacha) or as hashtags like #juvvielesbian or #suicidequake.  I always take it as a good thing when a title comes first or the title inspires the story that will sit under it.  Even if the title often ends up changing before the book is published. 

Fun fact - An Unstill Life was called The Boyfriend Plague until just before it was published.

And that's about all for goals this week.  Just trying to get through until Friday when I get to go on my trip to the snow!

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 4-9-20

This post is part of Lexa Cain's blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Head on over there to sign up!

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I know, it probably sounds repetitive.  I celebrate the weekend every week.  But I believe it needs to be celebrated every week.

Unbelievable as it sounds, I had another really compelling book idea this week.  Another one I want to write.  Another one I can't start because I still haven't completely finished Standing Too Close.  

This one is a lesbian story.  With religion and other tricky complications.  Kind of a Romeo and Juliet story, although I guess given they're queer, it's Juliet and Juliet.  I can't help thinking it's been done before, but when you think about it, almost every story has been done before.  It's all in the telling.

Anyway...  I'm tucking my delicious little minxes and their naughty shennanigans away for now because I have already announced my NaNo project for this year as being A Stranger to Kindness and that story is way more formed in my head than these newly arrived forbidden lovers.

If only I had the time to read everything I want to read and write everything I want to write...  

But at least I'm not clawing around in search of ideas to work on.  Earlier this year I felt like I had nothing more I wanted to write, like there were no more characters or stories knocking around in my head.  So I'm grateful to discover this is not the case.  I am still a creative being and stories do still flow through me.  

What are you celebrating this week?

Insecure Writers' Support Group - September

It's the beginning of September so it's time for the Insecure Writers' Group!

This month's question really has me scratching my head.  

If you could choose one author, living or dead, to be your beta partner, who would it be and why?

I've been pondering this ever since I first read it.  Do I choose one of my favorite authors, assuming that they'd be interested in reading my stuff as much as I enjoy reading theirs?  Do I pick someone who is good at the things I feel like I'm not so great at in my own writing?  Do I choose someone whose stories are like mine, or someone whose writing style floors me each time I read it?

Several authors passed through my head.  S E Hinton because it was reading her books that inspired me to write my own.  Donna Tartt because her books are both perfectly plotted and gorgeous to read.  Janet Fitch because her descriptions always give me chills and she manages to always tell compelling stories as well as writing beautifully.  Cormac McCarthy because his writing is so distinctive it almost becomes another character.

And the list goes on.  Markus Zusack because he wrote the book I've enjoyed most in the last couple of years. Stephen King for always writing something page-turning.  Mary Lawson for writing quiet books about ordinary people in a way that makes ordinary lives extraordinary.  Russell Banks for writing some of the books I've enjoyed the most over the years.  Sam Shepard for writing the kind of bold, muscular prose I wish I was capable of writing.

The list goes on and on. There are so many writers I've read and admired.  So many writers I'd love to have read my work and give me advice on how to improve it.  Too many to pick just one.  And I've been lucky as a writer too, in that I've had some pretty damn fantastic readers to work with.

In fact, to be honest, the beta reader I'd like to work with the most is my old partner in crime, Lexa Cain.  She was always my biggest champion and my harshest critic and has probably had the biggest influence on my writing of anyone.  We never met in person, and I don't know what has become of her, but she was suffering  health issues when I last heard from her, so I suspect the worst.

I miss her and I miss reading her stories.  I miss her pushing me to dive deeper into my stories and characters, her plotting advice.

 I miss her.