Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Waiting for "Vera"


Hello Readers,

I’m sorry I’ve made you wait so long!  (I’m sure you’ve all been dutifully checking back every hour since September 6th, right?)  But have no fear, because I think, once you’ve finished this post, that you’ll agree that it was definitely worth the wait for a sneak peek at A.S. King’s newest novel, “Please Ignore Vera Dietz.”

In “Please Ignore Vera Dietz,” Vera is a 18-year-old girl who’s been dumped by her best friend, Charlie.  Now she’s spitting mad at him (and who can blame her?), but Charlie throws a wrench in her plan to hate him forever when he dies under suspicious circumstances and leaves the whole town convinced that he’s committed a horrendous crime.  Now Vera is confused … can she still hate Charlie, even though he’s dead? And should she reveal what she knows about the night that he died and clear his name?

While most of the novel is told from Vera’s point of view, there are chapters mixed in that are told from the POV of Vera’s dad, who’s doing his best to raise Vera on his own, since her mother left them, and the town pagoda.  Ummm, yeah, I said pagoda. One of these things:


(Now you have to read the book.  You must be curious about a sage, wisdom-wielding pagoda, right?)

There are so many levels to “Please Ignore Vera Dietz,” which is one of the things that I liked most about it.  While I felt most connected to the storyline about Vera and Charlie’s dissolved friendship (I was dumped by my best childhood friend in high school, and I haven’t gotten over it yet), there is a whole other story in “Vera,” when you consider the role that Charlie’s and Vera’s parents play. 

I hesitate to say more about “Vera Dietz,” because I don’t want to give too much away. So, what I’ll leave you with is this: get yourself on the waiting list for “Please Ignore Vera Dietz.” Go to your library and place a paper hold, start begging your parents for an early Christmas present, preorder it from wherever you buy your books, because you don’t want to have to wait any longer than necessary to read this book.  “Please Ignore Vera Dietz” is, easily, one of the best books I’ve read this fall and I know that you’ll agree with me once you’ve read it.  “Vera” is due out on October 12.  You can guess where I’ll be …


Monday, September 6, 2010

Avast! And Read This!

Ahoy Readers! 
How be ye landlubbers today? Swab the decks or walk the plank! 
Okay, that’s the extent of my pirate vocabulary. Apparently I should have paid better attention to that Pippi Longstocking movie I watched while babysitting the other day … 
Either way, wondering why we’re talking about pirates today? It’s because A.S. King, one of our awesome TBF 2010 authors returning for TBF 2011, is upset about pirates. 
But Amy is not upset about “Yo-Ho-Ho-And-A-Bottle-Of-Rum” pirates; she’s upset about Internet pirates. Internet pirates who are stealing her books! She writes about these Internet pirates on her always-entertaining blog. Read this entry first, and then read this one. There is no way that I will be able to say anything about Internet pirates as eloquently and entertainingly as Amy has, but I did want to draw your attention to the issue, readers. 
We all love to read and we all love our favorite authors, so let’s remember that “free” ebook downloads online might sound cool, but they’re not. They mean that we’re robbing our favorite authors of well-deserved royalty payments and that we’re disrespecting our favorite authors. When you download for free, you’re saying, “I want to read your book, but I don’t really care if you’re not getting paid.” And we all want our favorite authors to get paid. Because if they don’t, they may not be able to afford the time or resources needed to write. 
This was kind of a downer post, but it’s important stuff! And I promise that the next post will be way more exciting because … up next? An advance review of the highly-anticipated “Please Ignore Vera Dietz” by A.S. King. Keep checking back!