Review - Not That Kind of Girl / Siobhan Vivian

Natalie Sterling wants to be in control. She wants her friends to be loyal. She wants her classmates to elect her student council president. She wants to find the right guy, not the usual jerk her school has to offer. She wants a good reputation, because she believes that will lead to good things.
But life is messy, and it's very hard to be in control of it. Not when there are freshman girls running around in a pack, trying to get senior guys to sleep with them. Not when your friends have secrets they're no longer comfortable sharing. Not when the boy you once dismissed ends up being the boy you want to sleep with yourself - but only in secret, with nobody ever finding out.

Slut or saint? Winner or loser? Natalie is getting tired of these forced choices - and is now going to find a way to live life in the sometimes messy, sometimes wonderful in-between. Goodreads.

Review - Siobhan Vivian has constructed a novel that possesses a message about feminism without making it implicit. The fact that the book has been released with a heavy emphasis on the romance shows what the publisher believes it the selling point is. I would query that romance is barely a factor. The protagonist, Natalie, is such a goal orientated, controlling and intense personality that her dalliance at no point felt like it should be branded as a cookie-cutter romance type of story. It is much more important than that.

Avalon High Film - Cast Pictures

Meg Cabot is a favourite author of mine.  She is partly responsible for my return to reading YA literature.  A small confession - I have yet to read The Princess Diaries series but I was completely engrossed in The Mediator series way before paranormal was the bee's knees.

Perhaps I am little behind the times but they are currently making an (Disney ugh) adaptation of Cabot's Avalon High.   Starring Life Unexpected's Britt Robertson, Castle's Molly Quinn (who I love / covet her hair) and a plethora of pretty but ultimately forgettable boys from the Disney stable - it is due for release during November 2010.

5 Contemporary YA Authors Recommend...

For this final '5 Contemporary Authors..." post, I gave each author a list of themes/perspectives and asked them to volunteer their recommendations for our contemp YA reading.  As a reference - click on the book title for the Goodreads link and the authors name to be taken to their official website.

Thanks to Courtney Summers, William Kostakis, Lili Wilkinson, Melissa Walker and Siobhan Vivian for answering my questions and providing some great reading recommendations.

5 Contemporary YA Authors on Tired Concepts & Great Reads

Throw five contemporary YA authors the same question and you will receive five vastly different answers.  Today I asked them that tired question about tired concepts in contemporary (realistic) YA.  You might be surprised by some of the answers.

Also - what have they read this year (within this genre) that they think you should read.  A hearty welcome again to Courtney Summers, William Kostakis, Lili Wilkinson, Melissa Walker and Siobhan Vivian.

5 Contemporary YA Authors on Genre & Gender Battles

Throw five contemporary YA authors the same question and you will receive five vastly different answers.  The proliferation of paranormal and dystopian titles has become an issue in the past few years, arguably kick started by Twilight's success.  What do Courtney Summers, William Kostakis, Lili Wilkinson, Melissa Walker and Siobhan Vivian make of this?

5 Contemporary YA Authors on Envy and Criticism

Being a huge contemporay YA fan I took it upon myself to interview some authors who write within this genre.  You see...I had some questions that need answering.  And boy did they deliver.  Throughout the week I will be posing a series of questions to this talented group and I hope it promotes some discussion.