How Far Is Too Far?: Navigating the World of Young Adult Fiction

Few of us are immune to the sensation that is Stephenie Meyer. She dominates the bestseller lists, reduces teenage girls to catatonic wrecks, and has the entire literary world talking. Readers choose labels such as “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob” with the aggression of soldiers preparing for battle. Even I, a snob with a natural aversion to the subgenre of supernatural fiction, could not deny the sudden rise of the enigma that was Twilight. Journalists and peers alike claimed that Meyer’s creation had ousted J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter from popular consciousness; others believed it merely filled the hole Rowling’s recently-completed epic had left.

My expectations were high for Twilight. I wanted to love it. I wanted to be as enthralled by it as the rest of the female population appeared to be. I wanted to speak their secret language, to be ‘in’ on that juicy secret that no-one could stop whispering about.

I was bitterly disappointed. Perhaps I was always going to be. My opinions on Meyer’s writing, the characters, and the nuances of the plotline are, however, irrelevant.

I am referring to the relationship between the central characters: Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is one such novel. Anderson takes us inside the head of Melinda Sordino, a darkly humorous and artistic teenager trying to survive her first year of high school. Melinda is an outcast. She has been ever since a blurred trauma over the summer. As a result of this, she lost her friends. Strangers stare at her in the hall. She is bullied, teased, and ignored. It is a sharp contrast to the rise of Bella Swan, who achieves almost stratospheric popularity in a matter of hours after moving to the new town of Forks, Washington.

Read more HERE

7 Sci-Fi Books To Read Before You See Avatar

Most science fiction films never really leave Earth: they just tinker around with robots or crazed computers of post-apocalyptic landscapes. Well, not James Cameron’s Avatar, because this time there’s an actual alien planet and actual aliens on it. So if you don’t know your Arrakis from your Admiral Ackbar, read on to get a grounding in some of what you’re going to see…

Dune
Frank Herbert (1965)

The granddaddy of science-fiction epics, Frank Herbert’s masterpiece takes place on a world where a substance, spice melange, essential to interstellar travel is produced – something a little similar in price at least to the unobtanium that Avatar’s human explorers are determined to mine. A new ruling family, the Atreides, are sent to rule the planet and ensure that the spice flows (because the Spice must flow), but when son Paul Atreides finds himself in the wilderness beyond the human cities, he realises that Dune’s secrets go far beyond anything humanity had guessed.

Read more HERE

1. Beautiful Creaturesby Kami Garcia

2. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater 

9. Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins

Read the rest of the list HERE

*Join OBS as we read & discuss ‘Shiver’,  it is November’s YA Book Club! read more HERE

Check out Amazon’s other lists, like Editor’s Top 100, Editor’s Top 10 Literature & Fiction, Top 100 customer favorites, etc. Read them all HERE

 Disney sets release date for San Antonio author’s latest book

San Antonio author Rick Riordan will release his newest book title next May through Disney Book Group’s Disney-Hyperion imprint.

The Kane Chronicles, Book One: The Red Pyramid is a new fantasy book that brings ancient Egyptian mythology to life in a modern-day setting. Disney-Hyperion has scheduled a release date for the book on May 4, 2010, in both print and audio editions. When a magical accident unleashes the Egyptian gods on the modern world, siblings Carter and Sadie Kane must find a way to defeat the evil god Set before he can destroy them. The Kane Chronicles represents Riordan’s newest book series aimed at children 10 and up.

Riordan is also the creator behind the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, which has sold more than 7 million copies to date in the United States and has been printed in 32 different languages. The first book in that series, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, has been adapted for a movie that will hit theaters on Feb. 12, 2010.

Read more HERE

What did you think of today’s book news? Do you agree with the opinion on Young Adult fiction? Are you a fan of any of the books on Amazon’s lists? Lastly, will you read Rick Riordan’s new series?

She’s still only 19, but twilight star Kristen Stewart is already taking Hollywood by storm – on her terms
By Lauren Williams from sundayherald.com

KRISTEN STEWART  is America’s latest teen screen idol. The star of passion-wracked vampire saga Twilight, she has the world at her feet. But as befits a young actress whose career is studded with misanthropic roles, Stewart can prove a prickly subject to interview.

“It’s like when I got the Twilight job and I had a media training session,” she says when I ask about her dislike of interviews. “I had been acting for eight years, and I thought, F*** you!’ I was like, Do you think you are going to wrap up all my little insecurities and throw them out the window? I have been working for eight years. Do you think you are going to prep me to put soundbites in my mouth? Not going to happen ‘” She trails off as her passionate flurry subsides.

As the female lead in Twilight, the vampire saga drawn from the best-selling books of Stephenie Meyer, Stewart has already helped the franchise sink its fangs into $380 million at the box office, returning almost 10 times its production budget.

Her talent is there for all to see, from her breakthrough movie, the 2002 thriller Panic Room, where she plays Jodie Foster’s surly 11-year-old daughter, through to 2004’s Speak, in which she stars as a 14-year-old girl who chooses not to speak after being raped.

She stars as Em in the bittersweet indie comedy Adventureland, written and shot by Greg Mottola, who directed The Daytrippers and Superbad. Despite a somewhat misguided marketing campaign and stunted box office performance in the US (with only $16m taken), Adventureland is a spry, imaginative and thoroughly engaging tale that flicks between light slapstick chuckles and darker, more poignant and soulful comedy.

She also starred in Cold Creek Manor (2003) with Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid; Fierce People (2005); Zathura (2005); and then The Messengers, In The Land Of Women (both 2006) and The Cake Eaters (2007), taking prominent roles in all three films.

“I hate gossip,” she says. “I guess that’s a reason why I never really felt that comfortable at high school. I was pleased to leave. Now I’m over 18, people are like, Okay, do you feel like an adult now? You are not a kid any more, technically. Do you feel that now you have more privileges, do you feel differently?’ And I have to say that I feel as though nothing has changed. Nothing at all. I feel like I have been the same all through my life, really. I’ve always felt like an adult.

Read more HERE

If you are still not sure about whether you like Kristen or not, I suggest you read this whole article! It gives you an in depth look at the women behind Bella Swan. It covers all of her previous work, which is incredible, if you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing a phenomenal actress in the making check out ‘Speak’ or ‘Cake Eaters’. You will be shocked by how talented she really is!

Are you a fan of Kristen Stewart? Have you gotten a better understanding of why she is awkward in interviews? What do you think about her past movies?