Review: Fixing Delilah

"Things in Delilah Hannaford's life have a tendency to fall apart.
She used to be a good student, but she can't seem to keep it together anymore. Her "boyfriend" isn't much of a boyfriend. And her mother refuses to discuss the fight that divided their family eight years ago. Falling apart, it seems, is a Hannaford tradition.
Over a summer of new friendships, unexpected romance, and moments that test the complex bonds between mothers and daughters, Delilah must face her family's painful past. Can even her most shattered relationships be pieced together again?
Rich with emotion, Sarah Ockler delivers a powerful story of family, love, and self-discovery."
- Good Reads




Stats:

• Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
• Release date: Dec. 1, 2010
• Page count: 320
• Unique elements: Description!
• Would appeal to: Fans of Sarah Dessen, romantics at heart, teens with family struggles

~ Jenna's take ~
Favorite lines:

"One by one they floated and swirled and fell to my feet, and when he flashed his up-to-no-good smile with the moonlight soft and blue on his skin, I wanted to stay there forever."

"Mom keeps one hand on the wheel, the other searching for the right button, fingers poking around the dash like a bird for worms as the unsaid end of my sympathy stumbles and slips back down my throat."

"It's funny how someone can be such an integral part of your life, like you laugh at the same jokes and eat your ice cream cones the same way and share your toys and dreams and everything but your heartbeats, and then one day-- nothing."

"I'm squealing and sprinting and dodging Patrick all around the house, nothing but happy and sun and warm all over me, and I feel a release, a free fall of carefree summer days with no end in sight."

I loved this book. I picked it up because once I get attached to an author, I find everything she's ever written, and Twenty Boy Summer, Ockler's debut novel, was AMAZING. The woman is a master at imagery.

I felt like I knew Delilah's personality almost from the first three chapters alone. Delilah is the misunderstood child who isn't allowed to ask questions or discuss feelings. Mom is a workaholic. When D's grandmother dies, they must return to Vermont, where she remembers spending most every summer until her grandfather's death more than seven years ago, when she was suddenly yanked away and not allowed to return. 

Delilah is both nervous and excited about seeing Ricky, her childhood friend. Patrick becomes a yummy male lead, especially when he's helping his dad with construction around D's grandmother's house.

Most everyone can relate to exploring or discovering family secrets!

Once you start reading, the characters (including D's incense burning, eccentric aunt) get in your head, and you won't want to stop.

Write It Out Wednesday: Description

So I just barely made the noon CST deadline for the 2011 Norman Mailer Writing Award. It's open to teachers nationwide and includes 20 single spaced pages of your writing. I entered my YA novel (currently unpublished), Accepting Ellie.

Juding is based on "how well they (writers) achieve several qualities, including the artful treatment of subject matter, originality, quality of insight, voice, and style, and overall aesthetic, emotional, or intellectual effect."
That's a ton of pressure! But the grand prize is $10,000, a trip to New York for a November gala, and a writing fellowship during the summer of 2012! A girl can hope, right?

We're in the market for a new car, so the cash would go to great use!

Even though I'm imagining what all that money would look like floating through the air, what I really want to talk about is description. One of the tricks I use to really describe a person is to Google images of people on the web. This might be cheating, but it certainly helps me. Here is a picture of Kat, my main character's best friend:

I don't expect my readers to envision this exact girl, but I hope they come close.
If you need inspiration for characters, searching images on the web is a good place to start. You can build an entire story from a picture.

It's difficult to describe an object or event in a way that's unique. We have a million cliches, but avoiding those is key. Nobody wants to read a cliche- the lines that stick with a person long after the last page is turned are ones that make him/her see an object from a new perspective. (By the way, you'll see a couple more him/hers- getting back into the use of correct English for my classes!)

Here are some of my descriptions that one of my proofers, Kelly, really enjoyed in my first 11 chapters.
*Tip* If you're asked to edit someone's work, make sure to highlight the things you love along with the critique! It will make the author smile and give him/her hope that he/she is going in the right direction.

At the airport:

I tell him I love him as luggage whirrs around in a circle.

At a funeral home:

I’d lose myself in a place like this, dealing with the end of life every day.

 About a corpse:

I can’t read anything on her face full of freckles, not peace, not pain. Emotion has fled, leaving behind a straight line for a mouth.

This coldness, ten times worse than the new spot of bare bedroom floor in my room, tingles up my back and down my arms, forgetting to exit through my fingertips. 

On kneeling and standing in a Catholic church:

If I did this every Sunday, I’d never need to visit the gym. I also might develop early onset arthritis from using my knees in excess.

A brother reading a eulogy:

Steve’s a balloon that someone put a hole in, the air slowly deflating his shape.

On blood:

The mixture zigzags down the drain like a racing raindrop on a windshield.

What Grandma Jean says:

“It’ll do you some good to refamiliarize yourself with your maker."

    “Sadie Louise! We’re in a church parking lot. That’s pretty close to God. Choose your next words carefully.”

You can see my novel doesn't have a happy beginning...

Anyone else have tips on description?

Yearbook Distribution Day:) and Opening Your Story

It's the time of the year I most look forward to...tomorrow we hand out yearbooks!  Not to brag, but this year, the book is a thing of beauty.  All the kids are so happy with their work, and I know the school will love it.  Wish me luck getting to school by 6:40, and even more luck that my staff gets there by 7:15!

I've been on sort of a blog hiatus, skipping the last Friday, Monday, and Wednesday, but I figured it's never too late to talk about writing!

I'm going to kind of mesh two posts together.  If you are looking for an author who knows description, check out Sarah Ockler.  She's an amazing YA writer.  I just finished reading Twenty Boy Summer and now I'm on Fixing Delilah.  I love that she always starts her first chapter with an obvious problem.  It's no more than a few lines long, but it definitely hooks you.

The beginning of Fixing Delilah is:
"Claire?  It's Rachel.  I'm afraid I have some bad news."

That's it-- the whole first chapter.  Simple and intriguing.

Combine that with excellent description (and of course a good plot), and you're going places.

Here's description I marked from Fixing Delilah (thank you Kindle for making annotation easy):
(talking about leaves)

"One by one they floated and swirled and fell to my feet, and when he flashed his up-to-no-good smile with the moonlight soft and blue on his skin, I wanted to stay there forever."

Gorgeous.  I love how the reader realizes Delilah's "non-boyfriend" Finn has a naughty side.  And have you ever really noticed how someone looks at nighttime?    

I'm working on a YA novel right now called Accepting Ellie.  I keep changing and changing my beginning because the beginning is crucial...for hooking readers and for hooking agents.  Here's what I changed mine to.  Did I do a good enough job of combining interest with description?  Let me know your thoughts!  I don't know if it's okay to use "subletting" in this instance since that implies payment...

Couch surfers actually exist. There’s a whole website devoted to strangers searching for other strangers who own couches and don’t mind subletting them for free. Anyone can create a profile, pick a destination, then boom, they have an instant friend wherever they're headed. What words come to mind when I hear this, you ask? Suspicious, creepy, and axe murderer, though the website testimonies swear the experiences are fabulous, amazing, and life-changing. I’m fine sleeping on my own couch, but thanks a billion for the offer.

From Sunday afternoon to early evening, I slept on our own cozy sofa the way a person does when she’s bored and way too lazy; drifting in and out, not quite comfortable, mind blending the noises of reality into fuzzy dreams. When a sharp sword slashed through those dreams in the form of a telephone ring, my mood transitioned from peaceful to confused to just plain pissed. My mother brandished an iron in her right hand, which really meant “I’m away from my head right now; please leave a message.” Not a phone, not an exploding microwave, not even a brick through the window would tear her from her task. I shook off the clinging bits of drowsiness and answered the landline. We needed a maid for this.

(That first paragraph is inspired by Keri P., who shared with me her couch surfing experiences.  The thought freaks me out a bit, but she loves it.  She is a much braver individual than I!)

The 1st chapter goes on to discuss an unsettling phone call.  The main character's best friend has been in a car wreck and is undergoing emergency surgery.  Will she survive?  It's the beginning of their senior year and they have so many things to do, so many memories to create. 

That's all for now.  Wish me luck tomorrow.  Dinner is now calling my name.  I'll have to think of something good for the Fun Friday post that isn't Rebecca Black's song "Friday."  Ugh, if I have to hear another one of my students sing that chorus...

Book Review: Where She Went

If you know me, you know I reading love young adult.  In fact, I write young adult lit.  This is one of those keeps-you-up-'til-four-a.m. novels which makes life worth living.  Honestly. 
Aspiring cellist Mia is in a car wreck with her family in book 1. She is in a coma, and has the power to decide if she stays or leaves earth. The story is mostly what she experiences while floating around out of her body. Where She Went is told from her boyfriend Adam's perspective three years later. He's a paparazzi-stalked rockstar and she's a rising clasical musician at Julliard. They're no longer together, but one night in New York, they cross paths.
-Me






Stats:

• Sequel to If I Stay
• Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
• Release date: April 5, 2011
• Page count:  264
• Unique elements:  Almost every chapter starts with a verse from his band's album.  This mostly has to do with Mia ripping his heart out (not mentioning her name, of course).  Also, the suspense and sexual tension constantly build.
• Would appeal to: If I Stay enthusiasts, anyone who likes a guy's point of view, anyone who likes music 

Some of the descriptions in this book are phenomenal.  My favorite one is about the stretching fingers of dawn, but I can't find it right now.  Check out some of these great lines.

Favorite Quotes:

"You were so busy trying to be my savior that you left me all alone."

"I look at her there in the shadows of the shut-down city, her hair falling onto her face, and I can see her trying to figure out if I’ve lost it. And I have to fight the urge to take her by the shoulders and slam her against a shuttered building until we feel the vibrations ringing through both of us. Because I suddenly want to hear her bones rattle. I want to feel the softness of her flesh give, to hear her gasp as my hip bone jams into her. I want to yank her head back until her neck is exposed. I want to rip my hands through her hair until her breath is labored. I want to make her cry and then lick up the tears. And then I want to take my mouth to hers, to devour her alive, to transmit all the things she can’t understand."

And Gayle Forman writes things that resonate with the reader:

"That’s the thing you never expect about grieving, what a competition it is."

"Standing here, in this quiet house where I can hear the birds chirping out back, I think I’m kind of getting the concept of closure. It’s no big dramatic before-after. It’s more like that melancholy feeling you get at the end of a really good vacation. Something special is ending, and you’re sad, but you can’t be that sad because, hey, it was good while it lasted, and there’ll be other vacations, other good times."

I find it refreshing to read a story, especially one involving love, from a guy's perspective. Adam is totally believable and totally hot. I stayed up so late to finish this and recommended it to each of my English classes for the pure sake of its descriptions.

I like this MUCH better than If I Stay. A lady at Barnes and Noble said If I Stay would make me cry. It didn't. I think this second book was much more powerful. It deals with so much raw, human emotion.