Sugar by Deirdre Riordan Hall (a review)

Sugar by Deirdre Riordan Hall is one my picks for the best books of 2015. I have to read a ton of books as member of the Georgia Peach Book Award for Teens, and Sugar was one of our best loved books. We'll see if the teens of Georgia feel the same way as they vote for the 2016-2017 Book of the Year.

Sugar (Skyscape, 2015) is the tale of Mercy Legowski-Gracia a Junior in high school who is struggling literally and figuratively under the weight of her mother's abuse. Sugar, who got the nickname because she loved sweets, is constantly ridiculed by her mother and brother for being fat. Morbidly obese herself, her mother is confined to her bedroom, which leaves Sugar the woman of the house. Desperate for love she endures the name calling and insults because she believes that she is being a good daughter. To couple the abuse at home she endures abuse at school through constant bullying. While she does have at least one friend, the girl is wrapped in her own issues and doesn't really offer Sugar much help in the way of recognizing her situation or helping to alleviate some of the pressure. And then she meets Even. Even likes Sugar as she is and through a budding friendship-that-could-be-more she begins to come into her own.

I won't give away more than that, but I will say that while this book did get really depressing at times there were a great many bright spots. The imagery surrounding how Sugar feels when she's eating sweets and the physical and emotional reactions she has to eating are really vivid, and I can't say I've seen food addiction depicted in such a way. There are also some fantastically romantic scenes that are rarely written for girls who aren't thin and perceived as beautiful. Fans of romance will want to re-read them over and over, but I wouldn't peg this book as a romance. It's a coming-of-age novel and it's a journey of self-actualization. In the end it just makes you feel good. It isn't that the book has prose that makes you weep or a thrilling page-turner plot-line, but about the very real warmth the book gives you after reading it. It was a joy to read and a joy to share.

One caveat for librarians, I read this using my Kindle Unlimited subscription, but I know that one of my book jobbers had a hard time finding the book so they could order it for my library. I'd check around to make sure you can get a copy. It really is worth it. 

Kindle Unlimited and the ubiquity of Amazon

So, in preparation for the Georgia Peach Award Throwdown I was in a mad dash to get about seven novels on my list read in about three days. I spent too many hours in traffic and too many minutes at a customer service desk at Barnes and Noble and Books A Million trying and failing to get the books that I had left on my list to read. While I racked my brain I opened a box that my husband received in the main wrapped with Amazon Prime tape. The tape listed all the awesome things you can get with your Amazon Prime subscription and one of those was "Read Books for Free via Kindle Unlimited". Aww, Snap! I might be saved. Now, there were caveats. You had to read the books on a Kindle device, not the app to use your Amazon Prime Subscription, but there was a free trial for Kindle Unlimited I could use for 30 days.

I am on day 7.

Might I say that Kindle Unlimited might be the best. Now, there was a similar product on the market a while back, Oyster, that boasted that it was the Netflix for books. You pay a monthly subscription and read as much as you want, but the problem was that you couldn't get most of the more popular books you wanted to read. Kindle, undoubtedly has a similar problem in that you can't get every book that you would want to read on the service, but if you are a big reader then there are enough. Now that Amazon has moved into the publishing arena with their imprint, Skyscape, there are even more titles in the mix. Now, what does this mean for the authors? Are they being compensated enough?

Previously, authors were paid out of a pool with each author getting a cut of total subscriptions, but now authors get paid on how many people actually read their books, still it isn't as much as they'd get if they didn't enroll in the services, but giving a platform to indie authors does allow them to actually get their work into the hands of readers.

What I found most useful, or rather what I'm loving is access to non-fiction titles that I don't necessarily want to put on my shelf, but have great value. These are the ebooks that feed me. I'm reading Plot Perfect : How to Build Unforgettable Stories Scene By Scene by Paula Munier and it is giving me so much life.

So, in short (or long) give it a shot. Whether you're an indie author or if you just want to really get your hands on a great many good titles it's worth a trial.

Looking for a Unicorn - The beautiful and elusive black literary agent (a list)

So, many authors of color toil at their laptops and spill their hearts over their keys in hopes of producing something mildly readable. Sometimes we succeed and then the hard part is finding someone to pimp your lovely work of art out to the highest bidder. That person is an agent. You must respect your agent, you must connect with your agent and sometimes your work may benefit from having a representative with whom you share a similar background. For example, as a writer who places all her stories in the South I love to see that a prospective agent lives below the Mason-Dixon line. That agent goes to the top of my list. So, the same applies to agents of color.

While my list is small it may help someone out there, even if it is just to highlight disproportionality within the publishing industry. If you know of someone to add to the list, let me know.

Also, just because these folks may be of color does not mean they will fall in love with your work. Pay attention to their submission guidelines and preferences.

Ayanna Coleman at Quill Shift Literary-Quill Shift Literary Agency LLC is a boutique agency representing the intellectual property rights of authors who create quality books for children and young adults. Our clients receive dedicated care to ensure long-term careers.

Regina Brooks at Serendipity Lit - Ms. Regina Brooks is the founder and president of Serendipity Literary Agency LLC, in New York, New York. Her agency is the largest African American owned agency in the country and has represented and established a diverse base of award-winning clients in adult and young adult fiction, nonfiction, and children's literature.

Kemi Fedarin - Kemi Faderin joined DGLM as an intern while pursuing her M.S. in Publishing at NYU. She grew up in Ellicott City, Maryland where she went to college and received her B.A. in English. Shortly after graduation, Kemi moved to New York in early 2015. An internship at Liza Dawson Associates solidified her interest in a career in the publishing industry, especially the
agenting side of it.

Georgia McBride at Georgia McBride Media Group - Georgia McBride is founder of Georgia McBride Media Group, home of Month9Books, Swoon Romance, and Tantrum Books. She develops content for film and TV, and is also a speculative fiction writer. Georgia founded the #YAlitchat hashtag and weekly chat on Twitter in 2009.

Monica Odom- Monica Odom joined Bradford Literary Agency in 2015. Prior to joining Team Bradford, she worked for five years managing finance, subrights and social media at Liza Dawson Associates, and became an associate agent there in 2013. Monica earned her Masters in Publishing: Digital & Print Media from New York University in 2014, and has a B.A. in English from Montclair State University.

Selena James at Kensington Books - Selena James, Executive Editor, Dafina Books: African-American fiction (street lit, romance, women’s fiction, and historical fiction) and nonfiction. Fiction (contemporary romance, historical romance, erotic romance, mainstream fiction, multicultural fiction, and women’s fiction).

Janell Walden Ageyman at Marie Brown and Associates - Janell is a literary agent with Marie Brown Associates literary services. Since 1992, when her first book deal was published, she has represented fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults.

Tricia Skinner at Fuse Literary - Tri­cia Skin­ner is an Assistant Agent working with Laurie McLean. Raised in Detroit, Tricia obtained her undergraduate degree from the nationally acclaimed Journalism Institute for Media Diversity at Wayne State University. She earned her graduate degree from Southern Methodist University.


All descriptions are pulled from their respective websites. Again, if you know of anyone else I should add to the list let me know.

View the updated list (October, 2016) here.

Georgia Peach Book Award Nominees for 2016-2017

Whew! The Throwdown is so much fun and the culmination of a year's worth of reading. Fourteen members of the Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers read and request titles to consider during the year and then enlist at least 7 other members of the committee to read the book as well. We rate the titles from 1-5 and then sit in a room for five hours and cull a list of 80+ titles down to just 20. Then it is up to the teens of Georgia to vote on the best of the year, with two honor books as runner-ups.

Every librarian (school and public) has their own criteria for what constitutes a great book for teens. We all bring our unique lens to the work and we all have our own unique populations in mind and for me I search for books that have diverse voices, unique plot lines/perspectives and are important ( do they open the minds of teens to the world around them or themselves). I've given horrible ratings to books with beautiful prose, but are triggering without regard for the teens reading the prose. I've also given high ratings to books that are simple in plot, but have that untangible "it" that makes the reader feel better about life in the end.

Sooo, without further ado, the list. I will also say, that my favorite of the year is a smaller print title that might be harder to find, but is definitely worth it, Sugar by Deirdre Riordan Hall.

The Book of Ivy by Amy Engel, Entangled: Teen (2014)
Con Academy by Joe Schreiber, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2015)
Dime by E.R. Frank, Atheneum Books for Young Readers (2015)
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, Razorbill (2015)
Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone, Disney-Hyperion (2015)
How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon, Henry Holt (2014)
I am Princess X by Cherie Priest, Scholastic Press (2015)
I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios, Henry Holt (2015)
None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio, Balzer + Bray (2015)
The Novice by Taran Matharu, Feiwel and Friends (2015)
Paperweight by Meg Haston, HarperTeen (2015)
The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes, Dial/Penguin (2015)
The Secret Side of Empty by Maria Andreu, Running Press Kids (2014)
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, Balzer + Bray (2015)
Sugar by Deirdre Riordan Hall, Skyscape (2015)
Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee, Putnam (2015)
We Are All Made of Molecules by Susin Nielsen, Wendy Lamb Books (2015)
When by Victoria Laurie, Disney-Hyperion (2015)
Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed, Nancy Paulsen Books (2015)
X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz & Kekla Magoon, Candlewick (2015)

Looking for a Black Boy: On the Missing Love Interest in YA

I was thinking about love interests in YA this week and how I like to create them for my stories. All of my stories are from the female perspective so I purposely keep boys on the brain. What my character will be attracted to really depends on the personality of the character. If she's shy, then her love might be a bit of a show-off or a goofball. If she's tough then I like him to have a bit of a softer side. Physicality doesn't really matter so much and really just comes to me, but one of the things that I've come to demand of myself is that the love interest be a boy of color. I do this because as I'm digging through my vast memory of love interests in YA they are all a little bit the same: tall, white, athletic and brooding.

The images we see and form in our heads when we read are wrapped up in a lot of emotion. With so many black and latino boys and men finding themselves at the mercy of common folk and police who associate some malice with their skin color I want to create a space where that color is an asset, something to appreciate or even desire.

Now, books for reluctant readers are different, but if you've read my post on that you know I think that the reluctant reader space is like the ghetto of publishing. This is not to disparage the writers who write to reach kids who haven't connected to books, rather it shakes a wagging finger at publishing houses that believe that black and latino kids don't read on grade level and thus don't deserve stories with more depth and complexity.

What YA books can you think of that have a boy of color as the love interest?

Shout out to Libertad Araceli Thomas who wrote about Interaccial relationships in YA in her Stacked article. Read it Here!

You can also check out a list of YA reads with black love interests at YA Interrobang

Girls Made of Star Stuff

Can anyone deny that Neil DeGrass Tyson is a science rockstar? I don't think so, and that is why I am compelled to borrow his phrase "star stuff". We are all vast universes unto ourselves, swirling with divine order and fated chaos. We are filled with the possibility and volatility of the same elements that gave birth to planets. How wondrous is that? How awesome?

I've been thinking of myself as a writer and I've had some enlightening discussions on twitter with some of you on whether it is wise to admit that all of my main characters are girls of color. The question has to be broached because you want to be able to reach readers that embody your characters and you want agents and editors to be able to find your work when they are looking for diverse titles, but there is also the fear of being typecast. There is the fear that your books will end up in the Black section of the bookstore where girls of all races won't be able to find them. So much anxiety is built up in how to present oneself to gatekeepers. Anxiety. Fear.

Fear cannot exist where Faith resides.

I have faith in my readers of all colors and ages. I have faith in my work. If I cannot get inside the gate, I'll share shine my light through it. And so, my tagline is a clarion call to all girls who like stories about discovery and magic and strength unexpectedly found. I know you'll like it.

Happy Reading!