Monday, 14 September 2009

International YA Blogger Celebration: Thao from Vietnam

Name: Thao
Country: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Blog: Serenehours

Your favourite YA title: I cannot pick one so here's the short list: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen, anything by Melina Marchetta and Stephanie Kuehnert. Seriously, anything :D
Favourite New Find: Audrey, Wait by Ronbin Benway (old for others but new for me. I just finished the book last week and it was more awesome than I expected it to be!)
Bookstore of Choice: Xuan Thu bookstore and Chains of PNC bookstores. I don't think I have a choice since those are the only ones that you can find rather new and popular YA books here in Vietnam)
Author blog you are most likely to be found stalking: Kay Cassidy , Melissa Walker, Elizabeth Scott and many more.

Book Blogging in Vietnam
Best thing about being from Ho Chi Minh City:
It's crowded, it's fun, it's alive each and every single day of the year. Other cities in Vietnam seem to be too quiet to my taste. There are also a lot of hangout places as well as the beautiful sights in Ho Chi Minh city.

What is the state of YA literature in Ho Chi Minh City?
It's growing greatly. A few years ago you wouldn't be able to spot more than ten titles for teens here but now we have a lot. They've started to translate American YA books into Vietnamese, including well known ones and it seems very promising that we'll have more and more to choose in the future.

How accessible are international YA titles in your country:
It's hardly accessible. Meg Cabot has made her name in Vietnam so her books are like everywhere. Same goes with Twilight series (which almost everyone is crazy about now). But that's it. You are still able to find quite a lot of international titles in the bookstores I mentioned above but the majority of them was published a few years ago, and definitely not very popular.

Authors that you would recommend:
Sarah Dessen, Laurie Halse Anderson, Melina Marchetta, Stephanie Kuehnert to name a few. Their books are well written in their own ways and they make you think a lot about yourself, your life while reading them. In other words, the authors are simply awesome.

Most popular YA author in Ho Chi Minh City:
Meg Cabot, I think. Or Stephanie Meyer.

Best thing about YA blogging:
Expressing love for books and spreading it all over the place. There are also chances of meeting lovely book addicts, inspiring authors and very very cool publishers/publicists. It feels like you're ten step closer to the books that you read. You can, too, discover some great novels that you've been unaware of. The list goes on and on.

YA blogs that you would recommend from your own country:
Honestly, I don't know any YA blogs in my country.

Thanks muchly Thao - Thao was the first non-American blogger I got to know via YA blogging so we go way back (to January lol). Tomorrow we are swtiching things up by hitting up Alex and Lauren from A Flight of Minds from delightful Canada.

2 comments:

Steph Su said...

Aww, yay, I enjoyed reading this Q&A with Thao, who's one of the loveliest bloggers I know. :)

Tarie Sabido said...

Woot woot for Thao! Man, I want to visit Vietnam. :o)

Adele, thank you so much for this celebration of international bloggers!!!