In between all my reading and prep work for Darcy’s workshop, I managed to sneak in some recreational reading. I’d allowed myself the luxury of reading one YA over several days, instead of my usual 1.5-2 days, but in the end, I’ve read two YAs in 2.5 days. Both by Rachel Vail.
The first one I mentioned yesterday, do-over. I really, really liked the voice in this book. I liked how all the characters were in little worlds of their own too. Having known a lot of artists, I found Vail’s artist father really rang true (I don’t mean his actions were typical artist actions, but the way he was oblivious to a lot of stuff around him when he was working and couldn’t surface). And as a professional (although, mostly in my former life!) actor, it was great to see a book where they did a school play and all the terminolgy and stuff was accurate. You’d be surprised how many published books I read where I think, “Ummm…yeah…that’s the wrong word” or “that’s never happened to me in the theater”. As I suspected, Vail is a trained actor too.
I don’t want to give anything away in Ever After, so I’ll just say it’s about friendship and the twist was really nice and refreshing, especially since I went through something similar, but I’ve never really seen it addressed much in a book (except maybe in The True Meaning of Cleavage, which is actually different, but still about friendhip in the same way…okay, I could explain this but I don’t want to ruin either book for anyone!). I better just stop here.
I’m excited about the authors I’ve been coming across lately. First Adrian Fogelin and now Rachel Vail. I’ve got some more Fogelin to read in my pile and I’m looking forward to that. Anyway, I’ll undoubtedly sneak in another YA before I go, even though I have to read my manuscript again and finish the two text books. I’ve read all three of my workshop groups’ manuscripts and written up the stuff I was supposed to, so I’m feeling rather accomplished.
Read well.
Joelle
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