What is a readalike? It is a book that has a similar mood, subject, style, or tone to that of another book. Take our novel for this months book club, The Lovely Bones by Alice Seabold; if you enjoyed the heart -wrenching tell of a young girls tragic death, but ultimate triumph, then we want to suggest some other novels you might like.

The tone in Lovely Bones is a very serious one, not at every moment, but generally it’s very intense. First and foremost, we have a tragic story, that ends in the happiest way possible. Also, the book is about a young female who is a ghost trying to connect back with her family and friends, and then tries to out her killer. So overall we have a tragic, but enthralling ghost story, that teaches the reader many lessons about life, love and family. Also a less obvious theme in the book, is female empowerment, the concept of overcoming something so tragic and hard, and prevailing against those demons in your attacker and yourself.

So here are a few novels that fit in the same “ghost” aspect that The Lovely Bones protrays:

Lucky: A Memoir by Alice Seabold

(from amazon.com) When Sebold, the author of the current bestseller The Lovely Bones, was a college freshman at Syracuse University, she was attacked and raped on the last night of school, forced onto the ground in a tunnel “among the dead leaves and broken beer bottles.” In a ham-handed attempt to mollify her, a policeman later told her that a young woman had been murdered there and, by comparison, Sebold should consider herself lucky. That dubious “luck” is the focus of this fiercely observed memoir about how an incident of such profound violence can change the course of one’s life. Sebold launches her memoir headlong into the rape itself, laying out its visceral physical as well as mental violence, and from there spins a narrative of her life before and after the incident, weaving memories of parental alcoholism together with her post-rape addiction to heroin. In the midst of each wrenching episode, from the initial attack to the ensuing courtroom drama, Sebold’s wit is as powerful as her searing candor, as she describes her emotional denial, her addiction and even the rape (her first “real” sexual experience). She skillfully captures evocative moments, such as, during her girlhood, luring one of her family’s basset hounds onto a blue silk sofa (strictly off-limits to both kids and pets) to nettle her father. Addressing rape as a larger social issue, Sebold’s account reveals that there are clear emotional boundaries between those who have been victims of violence and those who have not, though the author attempts to blur these lines as much as possible to show that violence touches many more lives than solely the victim’s.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

(from amazon.com) Since the beginning of the school year, high school freshman Melinda has found that it’s been getting harder and harder for her to speak out loud: “My throat is always sore, my lips raw…. Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher, I sputter or freeze…. It’s like I have some kind of spastic laryngitis.” What could have caused Melinda to suddenly fall mute? Could it be due to the fact that no one at school is speaking to her because she called the cops and got everyone busted at the seniors’ big end-of-summer party? Or maybe it’s because her parents’ only form of communication is Post-It notes written on their way out the door to their nine-to-whenever jobs. While Melinda is bothered by these things, deep down she knows the real reason why she’s been struck mute…

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

In a small Mississippi town, Harriet Cleve Dusfresnes grows up in the shadow of her brother, who-when she was only a baby-was found hanging dead from a black-tupelo tree in their yard. His killer was never identified, nor has his family, in the years since, recovered from the tragedy. For Harriet, who has grown up largely unsupervised, in a world of her own imagination, her brother is a link to a glorious past she has only heard stories about or glimpsed in photograph albums. Fiercely determined, precocious far beyond her twelve years, and steeped in the adventurous literature of Stevenson, Kipling, and Conan Doyle, she resolves, one summer, to solve the murder and exact her revenge.
Harriet’s sole ally in this quest, her friend Hely, is devoted to her, but what they soon encounter has nothing to do with child’s play: it is dark, adult, and all too menacing.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

(from amazon.com) As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie’s world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie’s birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie’s own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.

Have you read any of these books? What are some of your favorite novels about ghosts? Did you have any read-a-likes for The Lovely Bones, please let us know?

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?