Nov 13 2012
Dear Mr. Green, The narrator of your novel, The Fault in Our Stars is Hazel, a sixteen year old with stage four thyroid cancer “with an impressive and long-settled satellite colony” in her lungs. Thanks to a drug treatment she calls “the Miracle” Hazel’s cancer has been kept from spreading further. When she leaves the(…)
Nov 8 2012
Dear Ms. Hoover, I’ve been trying to keep a lookout for new YA books to try, so when NetGalley touted this book and its sequel in an email, I requested the titles. Unfortunately, I don’t think these books are really what I’m looking for in YA: a compelling novel intended for a teen audience(…)
Oct 25 2012
Jia’s preface: The majority of this review is spoiler-free but I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the end of this novel because I know it’ll be a dealbreaker for many readers. I’ll put that discussion under a spoiler tag, however, so just don’t click it if you want to remain unspoiled. Dear Ms.(…)
Jun 28 2012
Dear Ms. McBride, I’ve been in a reading slump lately. It’s probably the result of a speculative fiction overdose. I love these genres but sometimes a girl needs a change. When I saw your novel offered up on NetGalley, I decided to give it a look. I always say I need to read more contemporary(…)
Jun 6 2012
Dear Ms. Patrick, I’ve been on a sci-fi YA kick lately. It’s a result of my wanting to love the dystopian sub-genre but continually being disappointed by its offerings time and time again. I know these are just marketing labels and can shift based on current trends. (With the success of the Hunger Games movie,(…)
May 3 2012
Dear Ms. Norris, I admit I went into your debut novel not knowing much about it. I knew it was a YA. I had an idea about the basic set-up: a girl dies in a car accident and is brought back to life by a classmate. This somehow leads into a race against the clock(…)
Apr 5 2012
Dear Mr. Ness, I feel like quite the scrooge because while I liked your YA novel, A Monster Calls, I didn’t love it the way everyone else I’ve seen reviewing it seems to have done. The book has a powerful and moving story of how it came to be. The idea behind it was the(…)
Jan 16 2012
There are two big tech publishing conferences that take place in the spring. One is Digital Book World and the second is Tools of Change. (The latter is one that I’ve gone to for 3 years). Different companies collect data and present that data at these conferences. One such survey conducted by Forrester Research Inc.(…)
Oct 6 2011
I don’t have any beautiful eulogy to give Jobs and it’s not that I don’t believe that he deserves a beautiful eulogy. He does. He transformed our collective lives. But I have neither the connection nor the knowledge from which to give voice to a remembrance. I’ve read several and these are few I thought(…)
Jul 19 2011
Dear Ms. Leavitt, Elyssa Papa recommended your YA fantasy Keturah and Lord Death to me, saying that it was dark and romantic, and it is both of these things. My husband and I have been reading to each other in the evenings, and we frequently read YA, so I put this one in our reading(…)
Feb 4 2011
Dear Ms. Douglas, Vampire angels must be a trend now in paranormal romance. Who knew? Much like Jane with that selection, I’m not sure why I picked up this book and read it. Angels don’t do it for me. And yet, I managed to finish it despite my ambivalence. Maybe I have a previously unknown-to-me(…)
Dec 9 2010
Breaking from our usual procedure at Dear Author, this is an early review. Twilight’s Dawn doesn’t come out until next March but Jane and I believe that readers should be forewarned. The first half of the review is spoiler-free. The second half, however, is not. I’ve clearly marked where that section begins so readers can(…)
Oct 4 2009
Last Sunday, Kate Duffy passed away. She was a pioneer in the industry. She founded a number of authors and published some of the favorites of romance readers. In 2001, the Brava line was launched with Bertrice Small’s Intrigued. Today, erotic romance is nearly passe. It’s worth remembering her just one more time. Sue Grimshaw(…)
Sep 29 2009
Maili is guesting over at Victoria Janssen’s blog home about her favorite category books. Sadly so many of them are out of print. I’ve read all but one of the stories recommended by Maili and they are worth hunting down and not just because Jane is the heroine in one of the books. Really. You(…)
Feb 16 2009
Dear Mr. Crutcher, I picked up your book DEADLINE because my middle teenage daughter has a problem sitting still for long enough to read her required books for English, and when she does read them, she needs help absorbing them. She started your book, handed it to me and demanded to know "Is the main(…)
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