By: Leila Roy,
on 9/7/2011
...because the Salinger Trust* is demanding that Gary Zimet remove this letter by J.D. Salinger about the difficulties inherent in filming Catcher in the Rye from his website.
______________________________________
*Which doesn't appear to have a website? Doesn't everyone have a website? Then again, if there's going to be an organization without a website, it makes sense that it would be the Salinger Trust.
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By: Leila Roy,
on 12/7/2010
By: Leila Roy,
on 6/17/2008
Avalon Green and Halley Brandon have been best friends forever. They've survived their first real separation -- Halley is finally home from her summer-long art camp -- and now they're back together, about to start eighth grade, co-edit the school's fashion blog and plan a huge party in celebration of their friendship. But a lot has changed over the course of the summer -- both girls have made new friends and developed new interests. It doesn't take long for the new changes to cause a clash, and sometimes the people who know you the best can make the worst enemies. Will Halvalon split forever?
While Frenemies will certainly act as a good pick to tide some Clique fans over until the next installment, I personally had a hard time finishing it. It read rather like Mad Libs: storyline, brand name, product, storyline, insult, OMG, blog post, brand name, product, insult, brand name, etc. I just didn't feel much heart, even when Avalon set her "Waterford crystal tumbler of fresh-squeezed orange juice next to the NUMBER ONE DAD coffee mug [she] had made for her father when she was eight" to illustrate that yes, her parents are fantastically wealthy, but that they are also caring and down-to-earth.
Maybe I only have room in my heart for one Tween Mean Girls series*.
*The Clique is pretty darn vapid, I grant you, but I still find it strangely entertaining and, even more strangely, almost charming. Maybe Lisi Harrison just happened to pick a formula that works for me, but I think it's more than that -- The Clique books occasionally feel like the author herself is poking fun at their ridiculousness, and that makes them a bit more palatable. They feel fresher, they have a little bit of zing and zip, whereas Frenemies just felt like the first book in a knock-off series.
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By: Leila Roy,
on 2/22/2008
Add Jezebel to the We're-Grossed-Out-by-HarperCollins-Susan-Katz-and-Tina-Wells Club:
Ms. Wells claims that brand sponsorship will not interfere with Mackenzie Blue's content. "Mackenzie loves Converse...Does Converse want to work with us? I have no clue. But that doesn't negate the fact that Mackenzie loves Converse," Wells told the Times. When reporter Motoko Rich asked her if she would refuse a lucrative contract from Nike even though Mackenzie is a "Converse girl," Wells said, "Maybe another character could become a Nike girl." Don't you see, brands won't be dictating her content at all!
[Later:] While you're feeling the Jezebel love, don't miss the Witch of Blackbird Pond Fine Lines:
As we soon learn, Kit has been forced to leave Barbados not only because she is now penniless, but because a friend of her late grandfather's with "pudgy red fingers with too many rings on them" wanted to forgive the debt and marry her instead. Not so much. But not so fast with escaping from the wealthy, stocky suitors, either! Kit soon catches the eye of William Ashby, one of the wealthiest young men in town, unwittingly tearing him from the hands of Judith. Judith doesn't care, however, because Kit has brought along a new friend in the form of handsome scholar John Holbrook, and she "sets her cap" for him, inconveniently failing to realize that he is desperately in love with her gentle sister Mercy, who no one really notices because she's so pure-hearted and crippled and everything.
*Comment by user Hamsterpants at Jezebel.
By: Leila Roy,
on 2/20/2008
From the NYT (via Read Roger):
In “Mackenzie Blue,” on the other hand, a new series aimed at 8- to 12-year-old girls from HarperCollins Children’s Books, product placement is very much a part of the plan. Tina Wells, chief executive of Buzz Marketing Group, which advises consumer product companies on how to sell to teenagers and preteenagers, will herself be the author of titles in the series filled with references to brands. She plans to offer the companies that make them the chance to sponsor the books.
Well, that's just super.
Not.
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By: Leila Roy,
on 2/20/2008
From the NYT (via Read Roger):
In ???Mackenzie Blue,??? on the other hand, a new series aimed at 8- to 12-year-old girls from HarperCollins Children???s Books, product placement is very much a part of the plan. Tina Wells, chief executive of Buzz Marketing Group, which advises consumer product companies on how to sell to teenagers and preteenagers, will herself be the author of titles in the series filled with references to brands. She plans to offer the companies that make them the chance to sponsor the books.
Well, that's just super.
Not.
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By: Leila Roy,
on 1/3/2008
From Wired:
Renegade artist and head-hunter the Decapitator has been bombarding the streets of London with a signature style of graffiti tag - eerily removing the heads from major adverts around town, replacing them with ghastly, gory stumps. (Before and after images of a gruesomely guillotined model in a print ad, right).
I'm in awe.
*From The Gospel According to Larry.
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By: Leila Roy,
on 5/4/2007
Yes, I read another one. No, I don't know what is wrong with me.
This time, the girls have been un-expelled from OCD, but they have been forced to join an extracurricular activity. They've also been given a quest by the eighth-grade alpha, Skye Hamilton: To earn the right to take charge of the Secret Room* at OCD, the girls have to find the key, which Skye has hidden under the mattress of a boy she's kissed. The list is LONG, and the Pretty Committee is not the only group looking for it.
Meanwhile, Claire's acting career is taking off. She's set to audition for a movie with a multi-Oscar-winning director, which is awesome, but she's feeling left out of all of the Pretty Committee fun**.
"Stand up, you!" bellowed Kori Gedman as she approached their table. A tight tan sweater accentuated her notoriously bad posture. She looked like a croissant.
In the Q&A at the end, Lisi Harrison says that there will be eight Clique books. Only one more, and my torment will end. Oh, wait. She follows that up by saying: "But if you want more, I'll write more". Damn.
She does sound like a good egg, though -- in the section on Becoming a Writer, she says "If someone tells you you'll never be a writer, put on your pointiest boots, take a deep breathe, and kick them in the shin. Write about that!"
I'm curious to see if I'll be able to exert my will power and avoid the next one. Either this one wasn't as entertaining as the last couple, or I've matured. (I'm going to go with less entertaining.)
*A room that the teachers don't know about. Yeah, I don't quite get it either.
**Because it's so much fun to be bossed around and mocked 24/7? I still don't get it.
By: Leila Roy,
on 1/18/2007
It's the mid-2070s, and the United States has changed. It's not the USA anymore, for one thing. It's the USSA -- United Safer States of America. People are encouraged to wear helmets when they walk, beer is illegal, and football was banned for being too dangerous. The Child Safety Act of 2033 made protective gear mandatory in the school sports. And we're not just talking mouth guards in field hockey. Here's what students of the time wear to run the 100-meter dash:
... AtherSafe shoes with lateral ankle support and four layers of memory gel in the thick soles, knee pads, elbow pads, and a FDHHSS*-certified sports helmet. We raced on an Adzorbium track with its five centimeters of compacted gel-foam topped by a thick sheet of artificial latex. It's like running on a sponge.
Jail has been abolished. When people break the law, they are sent to work camps. Almost a quarter of the adult population is serving time -- not surprising, as breaking the law is not very difficult:
"Littering is only a class-four misdemeanor--you don't get sent up for that."
"Mr. Stoltz did."
"That was for assault. Melody Hynes got hurt."
"But all he did, really, was litter. He dropped an apricot when he was unloading groceries from his suv."
"Yeah, then Melody slipped on it and got a concussion."
"She should have been wearing her helmet. My point is, Bo, all the man did was drop an apricot and they sent him away for a whole year. A year of hard labor on a prison farm. For dropping an apricot!"
"But if he hadn't dropped it, Melody wouldn't have gotten bonked," I said. Sometimes my grandfather could be kind of dense.
The men in Bo Marsten's family tend to be quick-tempered (his father is serving time for road rage and his older brother for getting into a fight) and Bo is no exception. Though the Levulor he takes usually prevents violent outbreaks -- it slows his anger reflex (and, in an unfortunate side effect, every other reflex) by a tenth of a second -- but he occasionally "forgets" to take it.
Given his family history, it's not real surprise when sixteen-year-old Bo is sentenced to serve three years for a plethora of violations. (Verbal assault, physical assault -- well, he tried to punch someone -- and causing the outbreak of an itchy rash at his school.**) He is send to Canada (which was annexed to the USSA in 2055) to work in a gourmet pizza factory.
This arm of McDonald's Rehabilitation and Manufacturing Corporation is a terrifying place, full of sharp corners, non-padded clothing, and people who have no qualms about verbally assaulting (not to mention physically assaulting) others. The factory is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a tall fence, beyond which are ravenous, man-eating polar bears. The warden runs an illegal football team.
If the team wins the Tundra Bowl, they will all be treated to early release. If they lose, they'll be Polar Bear Chow.
AWESOME. It's a sports story, a futuristic dystopia story, a juvie camp story and a story that mocks consumer culture. It explores Big Ideas, about government and free will and safety vs. freedom, but without ever feeling like a Frying Pan***, and without ever feeling heavy. It's rare for a book to be both thoughtful and thrilling.
Highly recommended. I'm planning on trying it out on older fans of Holes, as well as teens into Uglies and So Yesterday, Feed and Jennifer Government. Also fans of thoughtful sports stories -- I think there are a lot of Chris Crutcher fans who will enjoy it.
*Federal Department of Homeland Health, Safety and Security. Also, that description totally made me want to re-read Harrison Bergeron.
**Good thing that Those In Charge don't know about the possibly-sentient AI entity that he (oops) accidentally created. He could get twenty years for that, easy.
***Frying Pan Message Books: Books that are so message-driven to such an extent that you feel you are being battered with a Message-Laden Frying Pan. Duh.
