Goals for 2012

I'm not a big New Years Resolution person. In fact, I don't think I've ever kept a single one! Well, I take that back. Sometime in high school I probably resolved to quit biting my fingernails, and I managed to accomplish that sometime during grad school. Does that count?

But I am down for goals. I like accomplishing things, like shaving seconds off my lap time in derby, or reading a certain number of books each year. So instead of resolutions, I'm going with goals, which can be accomplished at any time.

This bottle is hanging out at work with me. Love it!

Drink more water ... My liquid diet is made up of mostly Coke and Starbucks grande nonfat iced chai. My body is probably begging for hydration, so I think it's about time I answered the call.

The first bits of work on Book 2

Write a novel ... ok, this is kind of a cheat, because I'm contractually obligated to do this. But I'm going to say that once Book 2 is turned in (around June), I should finish a draft of something else.

2012 Reading Challenge

Lauren has read 0 books toward her goal of 52 books.

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Read 52 books ... this one shouldn't be a problem. I hit 60 in 2011, and 52 is only an average of a book a week. But it's nice to set at least one goal you'll have no trouble accomplishing! This is one you can track along with me (and set you own goal!) over at GoodReads. This one probably also won't be that hard with all the amazing Apocalypsies book debuting this year!

What are your goals for 2012?

I have been hiding ... and here's why

I'm woefully behind on NaNoWriMo. Like, possibly so far behind that without some kind of Popeye-inspired feat of strength and a hiccup in the time space continuum, I likely won't hit 50k by November 30th.

But here's the thing.

I'm not quitting.

I'm going to keep writing, and even if I only hit 20k or 15k on November 30, I'm still going to call that a win. Why? Because that's 20k or 15k more than I had on November 1. Progress! And that's what NaNoWriMo is really all about. And who knows, maybe with that never-say-die attitude, I might actually hit 50k during my epic Thanksgiving road trip to Ohio.

And now onto the why I'm not making my NaNoWriMo goals ... well, remember when I said I got a new job? Well, new job is AWESOME, but it is also BUSY. I work in admissions, our deadline is December 2 (which also happens to be my birthday). So I'm busy learning a brand new job while also working through the busiest and most stressful season of that job's year. So yeah, I haven't been getting my hour-long lunch-writing breaks in.

I've also been knee-deep in roller derby, even though it's the off-season. Long story short, the Boston Derby Dames have, in the past, practices at rinks and community centers all over the city. Lots of commuting, lots of hauling gear, lots of changing wheels to adapt to different types of floors. Well, as a member of the league executive board, I've been helping a team of skaters who are looking for a permanent home for our league. And we found one! We're going through the arduous legal process of securing a warehouse space in Somerville that we can call home.

The good news is that even though I haven't been writing as much, I've definitely been reading. I finished Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Laini Taylor is an ARTIST. Her writing is just beautiful. I don't know how she weaves those stories, but WOW). And then I read Au Revoir Crazy European Chick in one sitting. That's a fun book that is destined to be a movie. If you have reluctant boy readers, put this book in their hands. They'll love it. And THEN I read Pretty Bad Things by CJ Skuse ... in one day! That's another good one to put in the hand of a reluctant boy. That's two books in two days, and now I'm on to Please Ignore Vera Dietz by AS King.

In love with Lola

I finished Lola and the Boy Next Door last night, and I couldn't even begin to wipe the stupid grin off my face. What a perfectly sweet yet totally realistic depiction of love and teen relationships. I'm pretty sure there's nothing I can say about Lola that hasn't already been said by every other person in the book blogosphere (seriously, people are going bananas over this book, and rightly so). So I'll just leave it at saying it was a perfect book, and it lived up to every expectation I had. Stephanie Perkins, you are a goddess. If I ever meet you, I might have to quote one of my favorite flicks, Notting Hill:

Oh God, this is one of those key moments in life, when it's possible you can be really, genuinely cool - and I'm failing 100%. I absolutely and totally and utterly adore you and I think you're the most beautiful woman in the world and more importantly I genuinely believe, and have believed for some time now, that we can be best friends. What do YOU think?

Please don't be afraid of me, Stephanie Perkins

 Now let's get down to some business. My YA book collection is growing a little faster than my lil Boston apartment can handle. The husband has started giving me the side-eye every time I come home with a new book, which means it's time to pare down my collection. So lucky you guys, I'm going to start giving away books! Here's just a few that I have to send out into the world:

• The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
• Possess by Gretchen McNeil
• Divergent by Veronica Roth
• Ten Things We Did by Sarah Mlynowski

And there may be more added to the list! These are all shiny new hardcovers, not ARCs, read by me. I totally fell in love with all of them (seriously, these are amongst the best books I read this year), but if my collection of books starts to creep off the bookcase that contains it, husband's side-eye will turn to the evil-eye. And frankly, there's way too many fabulous debuts coming up to go on a book-buying ban.

So how can you get one of these books? Stay tuned to Twitter (follow me @laurenemorrill), where throughout the week I'll be letting you know when I'm giving something away. Easy as that! No need for comments or Google forms. Just watch and wait, and you could end up with a fabulous YA title in your mailbox.

UPDATE: For those who may have missed the first tweet ... as soon as this blog hits 100 followers, I'll give away The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer! So if you're reading this and not following, go click on that little Google Friend Connect button on the right sidebar. As soon as we hit 100, I'll announce a giveaway via Twitter!

And since this post is woefully short on pictures, please enjoy this ridiculous shot of my smiling puppy, Lucy. I call this her "senior portrait."

A collection of Friday awesomeness

First thing's first: Meant to Be has a new release date! Mark your calendars for November 13, 2012. You can read straight through your Thanksgiving holiday, and then buy it for all your favorite readers for the holidays!

Thanks for the great comments and tweets on my post about YA guys with heart. Here's a few suggestions that were added in the discussion

• Noah Shaw, from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
• Ky, from Matched
• Luke, from Forgotten (haven't read this yet, definitely going to!)
• James, from Audrey, Wait!
• Ethan Wate, from Beautiful Creatures
• Will Grayson, from Will Grayson, Will Grayson
• Tyler, from Moonglass

Thanks to everyone who chimed in!

The best part of this week was definitely yesterday, when I ran from the train to my apartment in a monsoon just so I could get this out of my mailbox and start reading:

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

It's every bit as good as every other blogger on the Internet said it would be! And the finished product is just gorgeous. I love the colors.

And finally, here's a video of my buddy Hayward Williams, performing an encore at a show he did recently with Jeff Foucault. I've known Hayward for years (he's married to one of my college besties, Kathleen), and he graciously let me steal his name/music to use in Meant to Be (spoiler alert: I thanked him in the acknowledgements, too).

Anyway, his music rules and this cover is awesome.

So enjoy today, this last day of September, and get psyched up for my favorite month, OCTOBER! I'll be eating lots of pumpkin things and planning a trip to New York to meet with some folks in ye olde publishing industry.

REVIEW: If I Stay/Where She Went aka TEAM ADAM!

Last week I noticed a lot of bloggers posting about books it seemed like everyone else had read that they hadn't. Which got me thinking about it on my end. I bought a copy of If I Stay by Gayle Forman about a month ago when I was visiting my mom. I was worried I'd need another book to read if my flight home got delayed, but it didn't, and so I've had If I Stay hanging around on my nightstand ever since. Everyone and their dog raves over it, but it just never jumped out at me to read.

Well, I finished Sarah Mlynowski's Ten Things We Did (review forthcoming on that one, because I really loved it), and I needed something to fill the void between that and the release of Lola and the Boy Next Door. And so on Friday morning, I picked up If I Stay. I read it on  the train ride to get my haircut, on the train ride back, and at lunch. Midway through my meal at Four Bugers, I realized I was going to have to get my lunch wrapped up to go, because I was about the burst into the loudest, hardest sobs of my life.

Because If I Stay is WONDERFUL. I don't want to write a crazy in-depth review, because I think the book really is better if you just sort of enter the world on the first page and get wrapped up in the story. And you will. I finished the book by Friday night, and that was WITH finishing up my copyedits AND cleaning my entire house in preparation for my mom's visit on Saturday!

It was so good, that I hadn't even finished If I Stay yet when I ran out to pick up the sequel, Where She Went. And then I read that in TWO days, and that's while my mom was in town!

The one thing I want to say about Gayle Forman's writing: she makes you feel like you've known these characters your whole life. I don't know how, in about seven pages, she makes you fall so deeply in love with Mia's parents that when the big bad occurs, you can barely hold yourself together. I have never sobbed as hard and as many times in a book as I did while reading If I Stay, and it's 100% a result of the incredibly rich and wonderful characters Gayle wrote.

And the last thing I'll say?

Team Adam. All the way.



Which brings me to the last thing: I now have an Adam-shaped hole in my reading life. I need more of him, or characters like him, which is to say YA guys with some serious heart. Examples? Marcus Flutie, Patrick from Fixing Delilah, Etienne from Anna and the French Kiss, pretty much any of Sarah Dessen's homeboys, especially Dexter, Owen, and Wes.

So, dear blog readers, what books should I read if I want more Adam in my life?! Leave the suggestions in the comments, or tweet them with the  hashtag #YAguys

Happy Weekend!

Wishing everyone a fantastic weekend. I'll be spending my time doing this:

Me blocking Whitey Vulgar of the Nutcrackers

(ignore the crazy eyes...)

photo by David Morris

The Boston Derby Dames have a double header this weekend. First the Boston Massacre will take on Gotham's All-Stars from New York, and then my team, The Wicked Pissahs, will play the Nutcrackers. If you're in the Boston area, you can still get tickets online until midnight, then at the door tomorrow! Doors open at 4pm, first bout at 5pm, second bout at 7pm. It's a fun, family-friendly event, and it looks like rain tomorrow so why not spend your afternoon with us?

Other than wearing booty shorts and roller skates and knocking people around, I'll also be reading this:

I got my ARC of The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler in the mail today! Thanks to Corrie Wachob for sending it on (I won it off her super-hilarious blog). I've already started reading it, and as a child of the 90s (class of 2001 HOLLA!), I am totally digging all the pop culture references. Oh Jay and Carolyn, you had me at "I strapped my discman to my arm."

Hope you have a happy weekend!

REVIEW: Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Let me start this post by saying that Megan McCafferty is one of my all-time favorite YA authors. Her Jessica Darling series is one I've already read through twice, and I keep them all on my shelf because I KNOW I'll read them all again.

When I saw the Megan was working on something new, something dystopian, I had no idea what to expect. I mean, Bumped was announced even before dystopian was a multi-millian dollar gotta-have-it trend. But I figured that whatever she was writing couldn't go wrong ... and thankfully, I was right!

What I loved about Bumped was how fully-formed the world was. I've read some reviews where readers were slightly annoyed by the teen-speak, but I thought it only served to further pull me into the story and better-understand the world of Bumped. Besides, teen slang changes DAILY, and to think that teenagers would still be speaking the same way in the future that they are now seems not only naive, but also unimaginative! By creating and entirely new vocabulary for teenagers that borders on 1984/Clockwork Orange territory, it really served to keep me more closely grounded in this future world. I was able to envision Bumped-world all the time, which also helped me better understand the motivations of the characters. I wasn't trying to contextualize them in my world.

As for the characters? I thought Melody was a great character. Her sister Harmony was, from time to time, a little difficult to take. Just a little bit too Pollyanna-ish in places. I also wanted Zen to wow me a little more ... but when your benchmark is Marcus Flutie? Well, I guess that's a hard mountain to climb! I did love that his defining sexy characteristic was that he was SMART. It wasn't about his hair or his eyes or any of those other stereotypical hot guy traits. McCafferty makes you want Zen FOR HIS BRAIN. Jondoe was really hard for me to wrap my brain around, and I hope to find out more about him in (what I hope will be?) the next book. I couldn't decide if I loved him or loathed him.

I still prefer McCafferty's contemporary writing, but I will definitely be on board for any future Bumped books (and I'm guessing there will be, based on the ending ... though I haven't seen anything about it yet).

Read it if you liked: Matched or Delirium, but thought they could have done with more jokes

REVIEW: Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin, or, Adult vs. YA Literary Fiction

Don't forget, today's the last day to enter to win a copy of Sarah Dessen's 

What Happened to Goodbye! Just leave a comment here and you're entered.

Drawing a winner TONIGHT!

Don't read this novel if you have teenagers. Or ever were a teenager — especially a teenage girl. It will bring back high school in raw, oozing detail, like a psychic skinned knee. The cliques, the whispers, the glossy girls, the frantic parties, the stupid drinking, the disconnected sexual encounters and, perhaps worst of all, the carnival of lost souls that is the lunchtime cafeteria. High school: a world so hostile to the outsider that even a Navy Seal might hesitate at the threshold. -Maureen Corrigan, NPR

If I were going to review a review, I'd give that one a big giant A+ and ALL. THE. STARS. "A psychic skinned knee?" Are you kidding me with that? If that phrase doesn't evoke something painful and oozing and awful (which is what portions of this book feel like), then you should just stop reading because no author is going to do it for you. I put it here because I'm pretty sure it captures Rachel DeWoskin's Big Girl Small in a way nothing I could say ever would. The book is just plain good. The tension she builds that pulls you all the way through the story is brilliant, not to mention the fact that she spills the secret BIG BAD right in the middle of the book, yet you're still pulled through. I think I sprinted through the last quarter of the book like I was running down a hill. I loved the narrative thread, the way the book moved from relating the story to actually being IN it in the present again. I loved the way we saw things through Judy's eyes, which meant that often we didn't really get to see things that might have been satisfying. We staying in Judy's mind from start to finish, and the voice was just so strong and impressive that it didn't matter when things happened elsewhere that we couldn't see. 


So since Ms. Corrigan already did such a brilliant job reviewing the book (seriously, she's spot-on, even with her criticism. Her review is the reason I bought the book), I'd like to spend this review talking about something different: Is it YA, or isn't it?


First, the basics: Big Girl Small was published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, a subsidiary of Macmillan. FSG does have a "Books for Young Readers" subsection, but Big Girl Small isn't on it. This was clearly released as an adult literary fiction novel (which is probably why it wound up on NPR ... though it does happen, you don't often hear about YA on NPR).


But the book is about high school, in particular a teenage girl, and it's told in her voice. Judy, the main character, is smart and sarcastic, but also naive. She tells her story in a slightly jumbled way that rings true of a teen girl pouring her heart out about the worst thing that's ever happened to her. 


Big Girl Small is slightly dark and would sit well on a shelf next to anything by Sara Zarr or Courtney Summers. Judy's sarcasm is reminiscent of Jessica Darling. In short, it could totally be marketed as a YA book, and frankly I'm a little bit unsure as to why it's not. The only real difference I see between Big Girl Small and other true-YA books is that Judy's narration is a bit old at times. You can hear a grown-up's voice writing for a grown up. Judy is often super self-centered, as teenagers tend to be, but DeWoskin writes Judy as a little to aware of her own ego. Teenagers don't tend to refer to how egocentric they are, and they definitely don't apologize for it. Sometimes I feel like adults, when not thinking directly about a teenage audience or teenage voice, feel the need to apologize for some of those truly annoying and often abhorrent ways the teenage mind works. I see that in Big Girl Small.


I'm going to email Rachel DeWoskin and ask her what she thinks about how Big Girl Small might fit into the YA world and if she was thinking about a teenage audience when she wrote it. We'll see if she writes me back (her book only came out a couple weeks ago and it's turning into kind of a big deal, so I won't hold it against her if she's too busy to get back to me). 

Until then, what do you think? Why do some books about teens bypass the YA market and head straight to literary fiction? Do you think it's some kind of publishing snobbery? Or is there something subtle that separates the two? Comment away!

Don't forget, today's the last day to enter to win a copy of Sarah Dessen's 

What Happened to Goodbye! Just leave a comment here and you're entered.

Drawing a winner TONIGHT!

I'm Done! Let's Celebrate With A CONTEST!

In case you didn't hear, I revised the entirety of Meant to Be in three weeks and just sent it off to Lauren Oliver at Paper Lantern Lit. Needless to say, I'm pretty psyched! This is my first completed (and revised) novel, thatI started writing a little over a year ago. I've decided to celebrate this auspicious occasion with a giveaway.

Can't Wait To Read: The Future is Us

I could not be more excited, because today on Twitter (and later on Jay Asher's blog), I got the news that Asher and Carolyn Mackler have joined forces to write a YA about a time-traveling AOL CD-Rom.

SERIOUSLY!

From the release: The Future is Us is set in 1996, when less than half of all American high school students have ever used the internet. Facebook will not be invented for several more years. Emma just got a computer and an America Online CD-ROM with 100 free hours. When she and her best friend Josh log on to AOL they discover themselves on Facebook … fifteen years in the future. Everybody wonders what life has in store for them. Josh and Emma are about to find out.

First of all, let me pause for any youngsters who might be reading and going, AOL? Wait, CD-what?!

Once upon a time, the Internet was doled out in units of time, often hours. AOL used to send CDs in the mail that let you get online FOR FREE, but only for a few hours. At first it was a small number, like 10 or 20 or 30. These cds were coveted, because it meant you could go into chat rooms and meet cool people (read: creepers) without your parents having to pay the astronomical fees to hop onto AOL.

But then the Internet arms race started and they had to pump up their guns. Soon you were getting THOUSANDS of free hours. No, really.

It didn't take long for the discs to become all but worthless. When I was in high school I worked at Target, and we had the CDs hanging out at the register to give away for free. Pretty soon people were using them as wall art.

So I'm pretty psyched for a YA novel to be set in, you know, my YA years! In 1996 I was in 8th grade at Maryville Middle School. I was a gawky, awkward mess, but I didn't totally know that at the time. In fact, I'm pretty sure I thought I was hot shit. I rocked my retro-cool jellies, my over-sized plastic candy-colored rings, and more chokers than you could shake a stick at. My parent's should have bought stock in Claire's. I thought baby tees looked HOT on my flat-as-a-board bony frame. I devoured RL Stine books and was obsessed with Carolyn B. Cooney's The Face on the Milk Carton. I quoted Clueless incessantly and dreamed about the day I'd finally get my driver's license and my very own Jeep (spoiler alert: I drove my grandmother's old 1989 Honda Accord). My friends and I spent the week convincing our parents to drive us to the movies or West Town Mall in Knoxville on the weekends. When we couldn't get a ride somewhere cool, we'd go rollerblading (my future derby girl cringes...). I was dying to get to high school so I  could start working on the school newspaper, just like all my favorite YA heroines (Nancy Drew, Elizabeth Wakefield, etc).

I'm trying to imagine that girl discovering Facebook and all that comes with it.... and I really can't. My poor, 14-year-old brain would probably explode.

So yes, as soon as this book is available for pre-order, I'll be clicking the button with vigor.

Oh, and speaking of Facebook ... how 'bout you go "like" my author page? I'll be doing some giveaways there this summer!

Let's have a mid-90s party in the comments ... what were YOU up to in 1996? And guess what? If you comment here, you get a super secret bonus entry in the Future of Us ARC giveaway contest!

REVIEW: Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler

Fixing Delilah

by Sarah Ockler

Per my previous post, I barely made it halfway through this book before I started gushing all over the Internet about how much I loved it. Well, I'm finished, and now I can official say READ THIS BOOK.

First of all, I love the way Sarah Ockler writes. She has fabulously snappy jokes without it being a book of "oh look, here's another snappy joke. And another. And ANOTHER!" They flow right into the story, sometimes catching you off guard and making you giggle in a serious moment. Like this one, from the first chapter:

"Left turn in four. Hundred. Feet." An invisible electronic woman navigates us toward the highway from the distant planet Monotone, where everyone is tranquil and directionally adept.

And then there's Delilah, who is just such an excellent character. Fully-formed with a pitch-perfect voice, and like I said before, that's the single most important thing to me when I read YA. If the voice doesn't feel authentic or true, it's hard for me to trudge through another page. What I loved most was that it so clearly captured the "just me-ism" of being a teenager. Delilah is so wrapped up in her dilemmas that she fails to notice that everyone around her has troubles and secrets. Everyone (and thank you, Sarah, for writing interesting background characters with their own lives and stories!). But don't you remember being seventeen and thinking your problems were the only problems and the biggest problems and OH MY GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M GOING THROUGH?!?!?! But what's great about Delilah as a character is that she doesn't stay in that self-centered rut. She grows, and not because Sarah Ockler makes her (don't you hate it when things happen in a book and you can tell the author is just strong-arming the character?). Delilah's growth feels natural, and by the end you want to spend more time with her (oh I hope there's a sequel...).

Oh, and can we talk about the swoon factor? Because holy wow was there some hot smooching in this book.

I've already picked up Ockler's first book, Twenty Boy Summer, and am psyched to dive into another one of her characters. If you're looking for a deep-yet-funny romantic contemporary YA, then this is your book. READ. IT. NOW.

ps- Thanks to Sarah who responded so kindly to my Twitter outpour of love of her book!

Too busy to write, not too busy to read!

I'm going to do a new post soon, I promise. You see, this week is bout week, which means I'm overwhelmed by my alter-ego of Mona Mour, Boston Derby Dame. Tomorrow The Wicked Pissahs (my team) will take on the Cosmonaughties. Both teams are currently undefeated, so it should be a good one. Also, it's sold-out.

photo by David Morris

I think I'll spend my next post explaining all that is wild and crazy about having an alter ego (after tomorrow's game and inevitable victory, of course), but for now, I'll just leave you with this:

I'm currently reading Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler. It's a book I saw floating around on the myriad of YA book blogs I read, and when I realized I had a couple more weeks before Bumped appears on my Kindle (are you dying to read that one as much as I am?!), I decided to check it out. I had Amazon send me the sample (um, best service EVER), and I burned through it, promptly purchasing the entire book. The first night I stayed up until after 1am reading, and I only stopped because I literally couldn't keep my eyes open for another second. I'm definitely going to do a review when I'm finished (especially if the plot is going where I think it's going, and even if it's not Sarah did a fabulous job with misdirection and OH THE MYSTERY!). And juicy plot aside, the voice is incredible. Delilah is totally speaking to me, which is what I'm really looking for in everything I read. For now, just trust that I'm willing to recommend the book without having read the entire thing. It's JUST. THAT. GOOD.

Pretty sure I'm going to finish it well before April 26th, when Bumped finally comes out, so I'm going to hit up Sarah's first book, Twenty Boy Summer, next.

It's not all YA around here!

The very best part of having a Kindle (other than the ones I already enumerated) is how fabulous the pre-order feature is. Don't you hate it when you preorder a book online, then have to wait a few days after the release date for it to actually arrive in your mailbox? Well, with the Kindle, your book *poof* magically downloads on release day. It's a beautiful thing.

Which is how I'm starting Tina Fey's much-anticipated memoir Bossypants. By "much-anticipated," I mean I can't not hear about it on any piece of media I pay attention to, from NPR to Slate to Salon to EVERYONE ON TUMBLR. I swear, I could probably read the entire book just by stitching together all the quotes people are tumbling out there.

Now if only the T could stall out somewhere between Central and Harvard so that I get a few extra minutes during my commute to read. Pretty sure I'm not going to want to put this one down.

Don't mind me, I'll just be in the corner hugging my Kindle

I am the proud owner of a wi-fi Kindle. My mom got it for me for my birthday, because she's amazing and has been a cheerleader to my voracious reading ever since I was a wee tot. Sure, the 3G one is better, but my bank account is not set up for constant access to Amazon.com. I need some boundaries, people. Anyway, it seems like I can't refresh my Google Reader without seeing another blog post about the decline of books or some sappy poetry about the smell of the printed page.

It seems like the YA book blogging/authoring community have been early adopters of e-reading technology. Which frankly should say something, people. We WRITE books, and we're not overly obsessed with the physicality of them (don't get me wrong, I will still take great pleasure from walking into a bookstore and purchasing my own book ... I'll probably tell anyone who comes within 10 feet of me that I WROTE THIS BOOK! ME! THAT'S MY NAME! RIGHT THERE ON THE COVER!). Well you can now count me amongst the numbers of people are having a total love affair with their Kindle. And here's why:

An entire library in my hand
From the time I could read, I never went anywhere without a book. I'd even cram a paperback into my purse to go to church as a kid, and my mom used to have to order me to put the book down when we'd go out to restaurants. As I grew older, I found I was having more difficulty traveling with just one book. I needed something fun and frivolous (chick lit or a rom com or whatever fluffy name we're giving to beach reads), and something serious (more along the lines of American Psycho or Looking for Alaska ... two books that probably shouldn't be grouped together. Ever.) Instead of loading my purse down with two or three books (or giving up and going out on the town with a rolling suitcase), now I can have an entire selection of reading material in one lightweight place. This allows me to hop back and forth between Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty and E. Lockhart's The Boyfriend List.
 
Commuting with a free hand
I take the train in to work in the mornings. If any of you are familiar with Boston's MBTA (or The T, as it's known), then you know that it's often late ... VERY late. From switch problems to disabled trains, the average Boston commuter is endowed with a vast knowledge of public transit mechanical jargon thanks to the frequency with which America's oldest subway system breaks down. You know who doesn't care but AT ALL when the train is late? Me. It simply means I get more time to hang out in the station or trapped in the tunnel in my seat, sucked into whatever book I'm reading that day. Plus, the Kindle makes it easy for me to read if I don't get a seat (and still hang on to something while the train heaves and groans through the tunnels), or even use a free hand to clutch my precious grande nonfat iced chai from Starbucks.

I'm saved from heinous book covers
YA book covers are embarrassing. Don't believe me? Simply google the phrase "embarrassing YA book covers" and check out all the blog posts that come up. Just yesterday Forever Young Adult actually composed a song about the terribleness of the hot pink pink covers and close-ups on lips and eyeballs and warm embraces. Like I mentioned, my Kindle goes into heavy rotation when I'm on the train, and there are no shortage of tweets, blogposts, and eyerolls over what insipid trash people read on the T in Boston (I've ready some gut-busting tweets about how everyone and their dog is reading Stieg Larsson books). But with the Kindle, no one knows if I'm reading War and Peace or Hex Hall (though when I start laughing out loud on the train, I'm pretty sure they know I'm not reading War and Peace). Right now I'm reading Jenna & Jonah's Fauxmance by Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin. It's freaking hilarious, a perfectly fun, hoppin' boppin' little book. But do I really need that hot pink cover, complete with hearts and the silly title, on display for the entire Boston commuter population to see? Um, no.

I was one of those people who was initially unsure, who would wax poetic about the smell/feel/taste of a book or whatever. But then I got the Kindle, fell in love, and got over myself. I love the damn thing. I'll still buy books. If I read something that absolutely bowls me over and becomes a new favorite/Lauren classic, I'll buy the actual book. This is why I have everything John Green's ever written and the entirety of Megan McCafferty's Jessica Darling series.

But seriously folks. Can we calm down with the gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair and just learn to love e-readers?