Defending YA: My Recommendations Round 1

Recently I stumbled across an article (one of many out there on the topic) about YA Fiction and why, as an adult I should be embarrassed about reading it. I’m not going to lie, I got rather ranty about it on my Facebook page. Maybe it’s because recently I decided to rewrite the first book I ever wrote, Eastern Gods and Western Wars. I started it when I was about 1 6 and finished by 19. I was a young adult when I wrote it and so I’ve tried to keep that voice but clean it up so it’s readable. I was surprised to find I still love the story and the characters. I also wrote it because YA wasn’t what it is now when I was a teenager (late 90’s, early 00’s) and while I know books out there had to exist in the genre, I couldn’t find them. So I wrote my own.

  1. I believe in reading whatever the fuck you like whether its YA, literature, fiction or fantasy tenticle porn- I don’t care- as long as you’re reading something it counts, and you shouldn’t listen to any loud mouth who wishes to push their opinions and shame you out on your choices.
  2. I’ve read some amazing YA in the last year, stuff I desperately wish was around when I was a teen, and so I’m ready to step up and defend the genre.

Instead of Hulking out and picking the article, and that opinion in general, to pieces and peeing on the remains, I’ve decided to meet the negative with a positive and offer up the best YA I’ve read in the last year or so in a series of blogs over the next few weeks. I’ll try and keep it spoiler free but be warned, I’m talking about series’ in whole as well as stand alones.

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Laini Taylor – Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy

‘Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.’

BAM! How’s that for an opening?

Okay, first off is Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy. To give you a bit of back ground I hadnt read any YA in a while when I picked this one up. I had looked at the first book on and off until I caved in and bought it and damn, aren’t I glad I did.

This series is about Karou, a beautiful blue haired girl that is raised by creatures from another land, Elsewhere, who deal in teeth and magic. At the beginning of the series she balances art school in Prague and working for Brimstone. Enter a pissed off angel Akiva and Karou’s life gets turned upside down with repressed memories, intense love and bloody action thrown into the mix.

Ancient battles between Angels and Chimaera, other worlds, resurrection magic. Hell, this series has everything I love going for it. It spans across two worlds as Akiva and Karou try to honour their own people, each other, and try and bring about an impossible peace. It’s Romeo and Juliet but in a fresh, unconventional and non-sappy sort of way. If you’re looking for Twilight, this isn’t for you.

The thing I loved the most about this series is the relationships and the chemistry of the characters. Karou is raised as a human and her interactions between her  and her human best friend Zuzanna as well as the object of her affection Mik (first date recorded beautiful, hilariously, in short story Night of Cake and Puppets). Their conversations are so real, funny and warm, its no surprise most of the reviews you read comment on them.

The series goes through some big themes and if you are a fan of urban- fairytales/ Pans Labyrinth/ epic fantasy seriously give it a go. It is ‘older’ YA, the flashy genre name New Adult would be appropriate here, with characters out of high school. Laini Taylor is an amazing writer, I was often stunned by the beauty of some of her sentences, perfectly executed. My particular favourite paragraph from Book 1 reads as follows:

“It wasn’t like in the story books. No witches lurked at crossroads disguised as crones, waiting to reward travellers who shared their bread. Genies didn’t burst from lamps, and talking fish didn’t bargain for their lives. In all the world, there was only one place humans could get wishes: Brimstone’s shop.”

Laini sets scenes with a strong voice imbuing magic in around you in a fairy tale of angels and monsters. It’s something I wish I had written because its so damn good. I went though this series one after the other, I couldn’t stop myself. It’s complex story telling, things aren’t magically neatened up and she’s not afraid to pull her characters through some serious shit.

If it sounds like your thing, give it a go, you won’t regret it. Find her here

DOSAB

akuivalainen

Sibelius, I Love You

  
I love Sibelius, in fact I probably listen to more of his incredibly visual music when I write than any other classical composer. I spent yesterday afternoon streaming a wonderful piece by ABC Classic FM about the great man in celebration of his 150th Anniversary of his birth and his later years at his house Ainola. If you aren’t familiar with his work he drew much of his inspiration from the Kalevala epic and the forests and lakes of Finland.

Apart from anecdotes like Churchill sending him cigars for his birthday and Hitler sending him a medal and personal note there was also other things that really resonated with me like the fact he worked on his 8th Symphony for thirty years and then tossed it into the fireplace because he felt it would diminish his earlier works, he just didn’t think it was good enough. That is…rough. As an artist I get it. I don’t think I know one writer who hasn’t wanted to burn it all at some point.

Sibelius’ music has a way of twisting into your heart and pulling roughly on the emotional strings. If you’re eyes don’t well once while you really sit there and listen then I would be very surprised (King Christian II Incidental Op.27 I. Nocturne gets me EVERY time). He’s a composer, yes, but he’s also a story teller. He paints images and stories in your mind with notes, so it didn’t surprise me to learn he used to associate different musical notes with colors. I’m sure if he had wanted to he could’ve written a song based on the colours used on any painting of his good friend, the great Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela. They both loved the Kalevala and drew heavily from it, they understood the power of story telling. 

   
When I was in Helsinki last I went to his beautiful monument (it actually features in Rise of the Firebird aswell) and could really SEE his music as I travelled through the country. To my mind he captured the heart and beauty and something inherently Finnish in his music. He never compromised his art, never wrote in a style because he thought it would be popular and make him money, was unflinching focused on the music his heart wanted to create. There’s a lesson for everyone there.

If you like classical, take the time. You won’t be disappointed.

akuivalainen

2015 What the hell happened?

Looking back on 2015 has kind of made me feel like this…

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The really strange thing is that many people I’ve talked to, writers blogs I’ve read etc have all been saying the same thing. 2015 we are all glad to see you go and hope that 2016 will be kinder.

My 2015 in review;

*I wrote two and half novels (only one I am happy with) totalling about 210k  words. Add blogs and and assignments its probably about 250K.

* I edited over 500,000 words…lets not speak of it *sobs*

* I published two novels and all the additional work around them that you can’t fully appreciate until you are forced to do it.

* I continued to work on my degree that I still don’t know how long is going to take me to finish.

Plus a day job and a 3,000km move to a new city.

SO what’s happening in 2016 on the publishing front?

* Ashes of the Firebird (Book 2 of The Firebird Fairytales) will be out in February! Hurray! Covers and interiors will be completed in January so expect sneak peaks and a locked in release date shortly.

*Rise of the Firebird (Final book of The Firebird Fairytales) will also have a 2016 release but I will keep you posted closer to the dates.

I have been pretty tired during the last week or so of holidays just trying to catch up with my own mind and plan 2016 which will hopefully be a lot smoother thanks to the lessons learnt in 2015.

I don’t make resolutions as a rule but I do have a hope for 2016; that I won’t lose a year and have no other memories but work, that I will read some great books that will move me, that I will write some great books that will make me and that people will learn to be kinder and more tolerant than the past year of horror.

2015 I am glad you’re gone. I will not miss you.

akuivalainen