Julia Lynn's Thoughts on Things

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Far From You by Tess Sharpe

Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz

Bi-Normal by M.G. Higgins

About a Girl by Sarah McCarry

Over You by Amy Reed

Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez

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5 Sinister Young Adult Books You Need to Read Now (2016)

As the year comes to a close, I’d like to present five outstanding additions to the YA canon that are sure to scare, upset, and/or unsettle you in the best ways possible.

Not to mention, they were five of my favorites this year.

In no particular order...

#5 We Are the Ants by Shaun Davidson Hutchison (Simon Pulse)

*Alien abductions, school bullies that are just as scary, and a healthy dose of nihilism and existentialism? This was easily one of my favorite books of the year.

#4 Tell Me Something Real by Calla Devlin (S&S/Atheneum)

*The writing is gorgeous and sucks you right in, and without giving too much away, this book will likely leave you devastated, but not for the reasons you might initially expect...

#3 The May Queen Murders by Sarah Jude (HMH Books for Young Readers)

*Twisted and deliciously rich with eerie atmosphere, this small town tale takes place in the Missouri Ozarks, and follows a series of gruesome killings as a teen girl tries to unearth a deadly local secret.

#2 My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier (Soho Teen)

*A modern day re-telling of the classic horror novel, The Bad Seed, the story stars a very sweet teen boy and his very much psychopathic ten-year-old sister. that he tries to stop from doing very bad things. And yes, she’s an innocent-looking blonde with cute little dimples and everything.

#1 The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes (Dial/Penguin)

*Holy hell, this book was good. And dark. Very, very dark. A bloody, gory, disturbing YA cult masterpiece with plenty of violence and sky-high emotional stakes, this book had me squirming and wanting to cry every other page. Once you’ve read it, you’ll never be able to look at the cover the same way again.

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The original The Sims game was inherently dark and kind of creepy.

Is it just me?

When I first bought the game back in 2001, I remember it being addictive, awesome, groundbreaking for its time and wonderfully odd. When compared to the later, sweeter installments, and even its many expansion packs, it feels cold and well...kind of creepy in comparison.

The original How to Play instruction manual for The Sims, which I remember vividly but could never find in my house, was snarky and full of witty commentary. Later on the manual was more straightforward, but still retained some of the self-referential humor that is inherent in the gameplay and is, I think, part of what makes the game kind of unnerving.

(To this day, I wish I could find that damn original manual!)

Just looking at that main screen with that one neighborhood you're forever attached to as the jaunty background music plays in the ever-sunny world, even that kind of weirds me out. 

Maybe it's the uncanny valley-ness of the dated graphics, maybe it's remembering the way the kids never aged, how the adults remained awkward and odd and never got any older, and how if the children failed school, they were just sent off to some horrific place only known as "boot camp"...forever. Yes, remember? They NEVER came back.

And when those burglars came stalking in the night and the Buy and Build modes just shut off as that scary, urgent music played and you were left helpless and asleep...

And when the fires started out of nowhere while your Sims made that same plate of salad-looking food and you forgot to install a smoke alarm and you were forced to watch them hopelessly burn to death and run around screaming for their lives...

And in the first expansion pack, Livin' Large, when that awful Tragic Clown appeared and made it impossible for your Sim to rest or eat until they fell ill and eventually just died unless you put that eerie clown portrait in front of the fireplace...if you even figured that out...

Sure, things got more mellow and felt less odd with later expansion packs, especially when you were given the ability to visit shopping areas like Old Town and other places outside of the claustrophobic little classic neighborhood.

And OK, I'm not saying The Sims is a scary game or even that it freaked me out as a child, but I will always look back on the original as being, well...kinda creepy.

[julialynnrubin]

Spring Breakers: Gummo On Acid (Movie Review)

I just got back from Spring Breakers, and I have to hand it to Harmony Korine: he has the uncanny ability to turn scenes that would be rather dull and lifeless in the hands of an average director into disturbing, visceral experiences.  Film-goers expecting a linear story-line and easy viewing be warned, nothing about Korine’s films are linear or easy, and that especially goes for his latest candy-colored masterpiece.  It’s got a killer soundtrack and plenty of naked female flesh for the infamous Male Gaze, but don’t expect lighthearted fun.  There’s so much hedonism, so many half-naked women gyrating on top of each other while grimy men snort lines off their skin, that we start to wonder where the fun stops and the exploitation begins. 

All four girls, and most notably Selena Gomez and Rachel Korine - who deal with some of the film's toughest material - give gritty and engaging performances, and James Franco’s over-the-top character both entertains us and makes us recoil.

Much like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the girls in Spring Breakers slowly descend into a neon-colored jungle of madness as things get fuzzier, dreamer and more intense on their haphazard journey.  And much like Korine’s Gummo (1994),  you’ll see fleeting yet striking images that may give you goosebumps, all carefully edited together to create an unnerving aesthetic that flows like a ballet.  In a way, this is Korine’s Gummo on acid.  I was especially reminded of the former film during Franco’s “Four Little Chickies” song, which recalls the “I Love My Little Rooster” number that accompanied Gummo’s eerie opening.

Selena Gomez’s character breaks down in an unnerving and suggestive scene with Franco that feels like sexual assault, Rachel Korine’s girl sobs naked in a shower after being shot, and Franco, Vanessa and Ashley coolly smoke blunts after violently assaulting spring breakers in hotel rooms.  There’s an eerie, sociopathic vibe to all the nihilism, and we’re impounded with it so hard, so fast, that on many occasions the film unfortunately becomes rather boring and tedious.  Harmony, we get it, you don’t need to play those particularly key bits of dialogue and clips over and over like a tired broken record. The impact remains the same.

Like a Tarantino flick, Spring Breakers is simultaneously intense and funny, but unlike Quentin, Harmony sets up situations that leave you unsure of whether to laugh or cringe.  Most of my theater laughed during the uncomfortably funny and hypnotizing “Every Time” sequence.  Spring Breakers is more of a horror film than a comedy, with an ambiguous ending that, like most Harmony Korine films, will leave you satisfied…but with a bad taste in your mouth.

Go see it for yourself, and you'll see what I mean. It's intense.

GRADE: B

[julialynnrubin]

Review of "Clean" by Amy Reed

It’s not often that I come across a YA novel that manages to be darkly funny and poignant without beating you over the head with a pre-packaged moral lesson. Only Laurie Halse Anderson's contemporary classic Speak comes to mind, and readers may agree that Amy Reed’s Clean has many of Speak's masterful elements in common.

Set in a rehab facility for teenagers, Clean is a sharply written story told through alternating narratives from five seemingly incompatible in-patients, following their personal journeys towards recovery and ultimately deep friendship. Reed paces the novel elegantly through her vignettes, slowing revealing bits and pieces while leaving many questions unanswered, culminating in a thought-provoking piece told by characters you slowly grow to care for as they learn to care for themselves and each other.

Though some readers may find the material shocking, I do not think that it was Reed’s intention to shock, but rather to give an honest portrait of the behaviors and struggles of teenage addicts and teenagers in general. The novel touches on common human issues: dysfunctional and abusive families, religion, sexuality and body image, and despite its potential to turn into a preachy, melodramatic sermon at any second, Reed steers Clean in all the right directions, pulling back at just the right moments.  She captures the subtleties of her characters through some of the most realistically portrayed people I have ever read in a Young Adult book.

Reed scores further points with her blunt and witty character Shirley, the group’s rehab counselor. As with the rest of the characters, our first impressions of her are gradually altered as her tough love and candor become part of what makes her an amazing mother-figure to them. The counseling sessions are written in scant, script-style dialogue void of any physical description, yet impressively manage to be extremely funny, witty, disturbing and emotionally captivating at different times or all at once.

Clean provides insight, beautiful prose and excellent characterization in a concise, easy-to-read novel that approaches the delicate topic of teenage addiction with grace and honesty. Though some characters (bad boy Jason’s abusive father and timid mother come to mind) are a bit cliché and certain sections (moody Eva’s often overly-indulgent essays) fall flat, I highly recommend Clean to young adult and adult readers alike, as well as anyone struggling to understand or cope with the disease of addiction.

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Overview of the Book Publishing in NYC Sector

Overview of Sector: Book Publishing in NYC

The book publishing industry in New York, despite the rise in sales of digital media and e-books, is still a healthy, growing industry. In addition to the major book publishers in the US, which I will describe below, smaller companies exist and many authors create their own companies and imprints or self-publish. Major publishing houses headquartered in New York City include industry giants such as Penguin (USA), HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Random House and Scholastic. The famous Little, Brown & Company, a unit of Hachette Book Group USA, also calls New York City home. Each company has a collection of divisions and imprints (or brand names) in which certain kinds of books and media are produced under. For instance, Penguin Classics, an imprint of Penguin, publishes hundreds of classic books. According to the Citizens Budget Commission of 1997, the top book publishing companies included New York headquartered Simon & Schuster, McGraw-Hill, Pearson P.L.C. and Random House. Now Random House would likely place first in book publisher rankings, in part because it quickly hopped on the e-book bandwagon and did so successfully.

In the publishing industry, The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a 13-digit commercial code used to identify books, assigned to each edition and variation of book. According to ISBN’s website, the purpose of the code is to “identify one title or edition of a title from one specific publisher and is unique to that edition, allowing for more efficient marketing of products by booksellers, libraries, universities, wholesalers and distributors.” Independent publishers may purchase a code for their books, as they are generally assigned through publishing companies based on geographic location (U.S. ISBN Agency).

Simon & Schuster is a division of the CBS Corporation, and primarily publishes books related to various CBS franchises. Besides publishing houses, there are companies such as Alloy Entertainment, an integrated entertainment company that develops ideas for books, films and television series, including books that come with movie & TV deals. Examples include the popular Gossip Girl series (made into a popular CW show), Pretty Little Liars (also now a CW show), and The Clique books (made into a film). Gossip Girl, for instance, is a registered trademark owned and controlled by Alloy. In this way book publishing and other media sectors interact continuously, from advertising to web design, filmmaking, television writing and marketing.

In the process of finding a publisher, it is common for authors to first find a literary agent, an agent who exclusively represents books and is the middleman between the author and the publishers. Literary agents have publishing contacts and will negotiate contracts, rights and business affairs, essentially doing the dirty work so an author can focus on their writing. Agents earn their wages by selling a book’s publishing rights and charging commission, similar to the way a real estate agent does. Although authors do not need an agent to get published, it is a common practice and helps to get them deals with major companies (Agent Query).

Of course, not every publisher is a huge name, and not every author is trying to become one. In New York City there are smaller boutique literary agencies such as Anderson Literary Management LLC, major textbook publishers such as the McGraw-Hill companies and the independent W. W. Norton & Company. Sub-sectors within the book publishing industry include Atlas publishers, Religious book publishers, Encyclopedia publishers, travel guide publishers, technical manual publishers, and so forth. Additional sub-sectors include designers, editors, marketers and companies that produce audio and electronic versions of books and companies that physically assemble books in factories. Over the past few decades, the publishing industry has undergone its share of changes. Recent developments include e-books, which have grown in availability since 2005 (Read an Ebook Week), online companies like Amazon.com (creator of the Kindle), Google and Sony. Online publishing has also grown in the past ten years, with companies like CreateSpace.com allowing authors to upload books directly to the internet to be purchased online, the company providing services from editing to marketing.

The Association of American Publishers, which provides monthly statistics on sales reports, assembled a 2010 Sales Figure Report for Books and E-books. According to the press release, total books and e-books sales in 2010 “jumped +3.6 percent vs calendar year 2009”, e-book sales grew dramatically ($49.5 Million in 2010 vs $18.7M in 2009), and books on other digital platforms also experienced a healthy growth, including audio books. Children’s book categories “saw higher sales in December 2010 vs the year before: Children’s/Young Adults Paperbacks were up +4.5 percent (to $48.9M) and Hardcover Children’s/Young Adults grew +0.2 percent (to $59.7M).” This growth was fueled “by intense competition amongst eReader manufacturers over 2010. Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook and others attempted to undercut each other throughout [the year]” (MacManus), and continue to do so in 2011.

Overall, sales for physical books made approximately the same as e-books,  evidence that print books sales are not obsolete and there is still a great demand for them. However, the reports also show enormous potential for e-books publishers of all kinds, from independent sellers and entrepreneurs to large companies. This also means that a number of books will go straight to e-books, bypassing print publishing altogether. One reason for this bypass is that print publishing, as compared to e-books, is more costly in terms of production time.

Although the sales of physical books remains strong, the second-largest bookstore chain in the country, Borders, has gone bankrupt this year in part because of their failure to get onto the digital books bandwagon fast enough in times of mounting online competition, especially from Amazon.com (“KTLA”).

For my sub-sector, I plan to focus on fiction book publishing in New York, specifically looking at the industry giants in publishing, including Random House, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins.

Works Cited

“About Literary Agents FAQ.” AgentQuery. Web. 19 Jul 2011.

“Borders Announces Liquidation, Closing 400 Stores.” KTLA (2011): n. pag. Web. 19 Jul 2011.. Bureau of Labor Statistics (17 December 2009).

“Career Guide to Industries, 2010-11 Edition: Publishing, Except Software”. U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved 19 July 2011/

Citizens Budget Commission. Media and Communications Industries in New York City. New York: Nicolette Macdonald, 1998. PDF.

“History of E-books.” Read an E-book Week. Web. 19 Jul 2011.

MacManus, Richard. “Top Trends of 2010: Growth of eBooks & eReaders.” ReadWriteWeb 12/24/2010: n. pag. Web. 19 Jul 2011.

“The ISBN Standard.” U.S. ISBN Agency. Bowker LLC., 2010. Web. 19 Jul 2011.