Hopkins writes free verse novels for young adults -- an interesting concept I'll deal with later in the blog dedicated to this book. As far as I can tell, all her books have tragic themes with tragic heroines with tragic endings. Drugs, abuse, prostitution, gun violence, the list goes on. And this just going off what she said during her presentation at the SoKy Book Fest. Apparently, her most popular novel, Crank, and its sequel, Glass, are heavily based on her own daughter's meth addiction. I'm not sure how I feel about the literal transposition from life to fiction. I mean, when speaking about her loved ones to her readers, the author refers to the real life people by their fictionalized names. I smell a law suit.
Anyway, once I'm finished with Burned, it'll be time to crack open another book. What should it be? I've put a poll in the sidebar for you to add your two cents. Only one person has chimed in, and that vote was cast for The Hunger Games. I bet I know who that was.
The run-down, going on book jackets, hearsay, and assumptions alone:
- Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught is the fictional narrative of Jamie Carcaterra, a high school senior who writes an unapologetic column called "Fat Girl" in her school paper. I saw Susan Vaught last weekend, when I learned that she wrote this book I've been seeing on bookshelves everywhere. P. S. It says "SASSY" on the cover, among other random words.
- M. T. Anderson's Feed is one of those YA books that makes people give me funny looks when they learn I haven't read it. (Even Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian names it as one of his favorite books.) From what I gather, it's a futuristic novel in which society has gone and done what all the technological skeptics fear: put chips in our brains. Everyone has a live feed of info streaming at all times. I think the Brothers Green once compared it to having Wikipedia in your head.
- Victoria read The Hunger Games and immediately suggested I do the same. The premise alone is enough to spur an hour-long discussion. Suzanne Collins' futuristic version of the United States is divided up into something like 12 or 13 districts, and each year, each district pulls one boy and one girl's name out of a hat and enlists them in a televised fight-to-the-death competition. Think "The Lottery" meets the Tri-Wizard Tournament meets Survivor meets The Village. Or at least that's what I'm getting after about ten pages.
- Identical is Ellen Hopkins' (the author of Burned) latest book. It's about a set of twins. Something about sexual abuse. I don't know. Maybe I should've put a different book in this spot on the poll.
Suggestions?
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