I received a note today from a friend who read an advance copy of Before You Go (July, 2012).
She wrote, in part:
Dear Jim,
I just want to thank you for sending the advance reader’s copy of Before You Go. From the start I found the book simultaneously compelling and anxiety provoking, since it was clear one of the main characters would wind up dying in the shotgun seat. But I read on, and along the way enjoyed seeing the world through Jude’s eyes.
Although the protagonist is a boy, I think Before You Go will especially resonate with girls, since much of it is about the complex interrelationships between the characters. But both boys and girls are nicely drawn.
Thanks again for sharing Before You Go — with this book, Bystander, and Jigsaw Jones, I’m becoming quite a fan!
Susan
P.S. I must confess I’d never heard of The Cure (what can I say? I think I missed most of the 80’s), but I’ve since listened to Disintegration. You’re broadening my horizons!
A word of explanation: In an early scene to Before You Go, we meet the main character, Jude, as he rides a bus to Jones Beach for his first day of work. Jude plugs in the ear buds and listens to this song . . .
The song became, for this book, and for me, the song. Somehow a guiding light, a sonic north star, the interior soundtrack of Jude’s heart and spirit. Thank you, Robert Smith and The Cure, awesome song. I can absolutely see my character sitting on that bus, head leaning against the pane, staring at the boats out on the water.
A paragraph from the book:
The bus came and everybody shuffled on board, feet dragging. Jude grabbed a seat toward the back, stuffed in ear buds, found The Cure on his iPod, gazed out the window for the ride south on Wantagh Parkway. Jude had been obsessing over the Cure lately, especially the best tunes off “Disintegration.” As a band, they peaked in early 90’s, but Jude liked them anyway. Music was music, it didn’t matter if a song was made fifty years ago in Liverpool, England, or behind some guy’s woodshed five minutes ago. The good tunes stuck and the rest dropped away. Some days Jude could listen to “Pictures of You” on an endless repeat cycle, losing himself in the interplay of guitar, synthesizer and bass. That the Cure’s songs were often dark, brooding and melancholy only made it all the better. Jude had played guitar for eight years now, practicing four, five times a week. Guitar was his retreat. It was a door closing, shutting the world out, and a window opening, connecting him to something other, a rift in space through which he escaped for hours at a time. Jude felt, not without reason, that music had saved his life. But hey, music made everything better –- even bus rides to a particular version of sucks called My First Day on the Job.
Comment: Looking at this now, I realize that I’m such a music guy. As a reader, I’m often bored by passages about furniture and Sally Mae’s wardrobe. The parts that, as Elmor
I read. A lot. As a reviewer and writer, it's part of perfecting my craft. I once had a student ask me how many books I've read in my lifetime. (Hey, I'm not
that old!) I couldn't even begin to come up with a number. But I'll make a guesstimate: I usually read between 10 and 15 books a month.
So last week, when I noticed the #1daybook hashtag on Twitter, I had to find out what all the fuss was about.
Looks like it started over at
Reddit when someone posed the question: What's the best/most unusual/longest/most enthralling book you've read in a day?
It got me thinking. What's the best book I've read in a single day? What book has kidnapped me, held me for ransom, and refused to let go until I closed the back cover?
My answer:
Pictures of You by
Caroline Leavitt. She had me on page one, and by the time I finished a few hours later, I was a blabbering book reader, tugged in multiple directions by conflicting emotions. I felt such a connection with Isabelle, the photography, the sense of place.
I think about that book often, pull it from the shelf and reread snippets - a snapshot of descriptions and characters - that beg to be read once again.
It takes a special book - and writer - to create that sense of empathy with readers. And Caroline's words and story formed that bond for me.
What's the best book you've read in a single day?by LuAnn Schindler. When she's not reading, she's writing about Nebraska at luannschindler.com.
A few days ago, Caroline Leavitt, the extraordinary, award-winning novelist, hilarious Facebook chronicler, and truly generous soul asked me questions inspired by her reading of
Dangerous Neighbors. I had to clear the grateful tears from my eyes before I answered. Please visit Caroline's site (where many authors are featured; you should be visiting anyway) for
the conversation in which I answered, among other things, stunning questions like this one:
The novel meditates on what it means to have “dangerous neighbors” or to feel lost in a new country (or new way of being) where everything is so rapidly changing. There is also the sense that Katherine wants ownership of her sister in terms of loving her. She wants to keep that world small, even as the world around her--and her sister's world--are expanding. In the end, despite the losses in the book, Katherine actually finds surprising connection and hope. (There’s a spectacular few scenes of her carrying a stranger’s baby all over the Centennial.) Even though this novel is set in 1876, the whole idea of dangerous neighbors is remarkably current to me. Would you agree or is this simply my own interpretation speaking?And please read
here, for my thoughts about Caroline's upcoming novel,
Pictures of You.
If I brought just one ARC home from the BEA—the glorious
The Report (Jessica Francis Kane)—I was to have traveled home with two ARCs from the ALA convention. The first, Caroline Leavitt's
Pictures of You, did in fact make it into my bag. The second,
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, was delivered to me at the Egmont USA booth by a fashion-runway-worthy Jill Santopolo, only to be snatched by an eager reader when I oh-so-briefly turned my head. I had to wait until yesterday, when another copy of the ARCs arrived by mail, to read this book that Jill had loved so much. It had made her cry on the train, she said. She had thought that I might like it.
She was right, as Jill so often is.
Between Shades of Gray is an important book—a story that captures the terrifying deportation of a Lithuanian family by the Soviet secret police. Along with tens of thousands of others, 15-year-old Lina, her younger brother, and her educated, lovely mother are packed onto trains and sent toward the bitter cold of Siberia; their father, meanwhile, is sentenced to a prison-camp death. What will survival look like? What will kindness look like? Who is to be trusted? The losses will be great; in an author's note, we learn that more than a third of all Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians were killed during Stalin's ruthless genocide. Goodness, however, also prevails, for Lina is strong and she is faithful—losing and gaining, falling in love, making a record of the life she is living through drawings and words.
Simply and compellingly told, endowed with an honorable and serious purpose,
Between Shades of Gray is the sort of book that wakens new knowledge in is readers. Knowledge of a terrible time, absolutely. Knowledge about the great capacity of the human heart: that, too.
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You read between 10 and 15 books a month? Wow, do you put me to shame. I just finished Diane Keaton's memoir "Then, Again," but with my reading time mostly confined to just before bedtime, it took my a lot longer than one day. How would I best contact you regarding reviewing my book, "Suitable for Giving: A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry?"
http://www.suitableforgiving.com/
Hmmm...Actually, I think I read A Patch of Blue, by Elizabeth Kata, in one day. I was probably a young teenager and cried my eyes out at the ending. I'm pretty sure that was the first book that ever made me cry. Since that was a million years ago, you can see that it definitely stayed with me!