Title: An Offer You Can’t Refuse
Author: Jill Mansell
Genre: Chick Lit, Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Source: Purchased
Parental Warning: mild sexual situations

“But this was the kind of situation you needed time to prepare yourself for, time she hadn’t been allowed, and now she was doing her usual thing of being inappropriately flippant. Whereas in reality she was filled with a mixture of giddy excitement — maybe twenty per cent — and eighty per cent fear and trepidation.  Because as far as Dougie was concerned, she’d left him without a word, dumped him and run off abroad without a proper explanation.  Had ten years been long enough for him to forgive her for that?”

Summary:
Lola is naive to the world of the rich and privileged.  Yet she’s in love with Dougie, a young man of wealth and consequence.  A young man whose mother has no interest in his slumming with a girl from the wrong side of town, let alone spending the rest of his life with her.  So when financial difficulty arises for her family Lola takes Dougie’s mother up on an offer she couldn’t refuse and leaves him behind.

That is until a chance meeting many years later brings them back into each other’s lives.

Opinion:
The concept of this book is not particularly unique — mom paying off the destitute girlfriend who needs to save her family to leave the rich boy she loves behind.  But still, I enjoyed it none the less.

Most of Mansell’s characterizations (on an individual level) were wonderfully entertaining.  Lola was funny and somewhat outlandish; she wasn’t afraid to be who she was despite leaving the man she loved behind to better the lives of her family. Gabe, her BFF, was a great counterpart with his dry-wit and sarcasm. He brought truth to Lola when she didn’t want to see it and helped her without fail when she set out to improve her situation.  Sally, the former boyfriend’s sister was eccentric and quirky; delightfully clueless and quite careless with the feelings and preferences of those around her.  But done so in the most endearing way.

Dougie, the jilted boyfriend, on the other hand was a bit flat and boring.  I think he was supposed to be stuffy and pompous as a result of having been left behind but that element of the story wasn’t particularly clear.  In the end it just made him blah overall.  His mother was also pretty cliched.  A helicopter mom that had the ability to hover with the best of them she was the type of rich woman offering money that we always see in movies and television shows.  There wasn’t anything innovative of different in her portrayal here.

I didn’t particularly see any chemistry between Lola and Dougie after she left and came back.  As a result I couldn’t quite get into their story and found myself wondering why she was so desperate to have him back.  I frankly thought she was more fun with her BFF Gabe.  Even more honestly, it’s the story about he and Sally that completely steal the show here.

There was definitely a level of predictability in the story but it didn’t lack in fun and entertainment value.  If I’m being honest I think I would have much preferred the novel switch primary and secondary stories.  It would have been better for me if it centered on Gabe and Sally as compared to Lola and Dougie.  So in the end it wasn’t the best chick-lit novel I’ve read but it wasn’t the worst by a long shot.  It’s definitely worth your time if you’re looking for a read that doesn’t require a lot of heavy lifting but packs some good laughs.

It’s my distinct pleaure to be one of many that you will see announce that the second annual Nerds Heart YA tournament for under represented young adult literature is now officially in the works.  On behalf of the awesome organizing committee — Jodie (Book Gazing), Trish (Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin?), Amy (My Friend Amy) and myself — I’d like to express how excited we are to be taking over the reigns from the tournament’s wonderful birth mother Renay of YA Fabulous! fame.  As many of you may (or may not) know, Renay was unable to move forward with planning and organization of the tournament this year so she asked for volunteers to take over in her stead.

Now you’re stuck with us!

This year Nerds Heart YA is hoping to go bigger than ever!  For the 2010 tournament we have loads of great stuff planned for everyone to enjoy and hope to build on the amazing foundation Renay built.  In particular, we’re adding in an extra bracket, meaning we’ll get to showcase 32 books. Further, the central focus of the tournament will be diversity. We’ll be seeking to build dynamic long and short lists of books that represent one of a series of relatively under publicized categories.

Specifically, the lists will consist of books that:

• Were published in 2009
• Have received minimum press on blogs
• Feature characters, or are penned by authors, who fall within the following categories:
  • Person(s) of Color (POC)
  • GLBT
  • Disability/Mental Illness
  • Religious Lifestyle
  • Lower Socioeconomic Status

Nerds Heart YA has always tried to involve those in the blogging world who love young adult literature. In 2010 you will be able to get involved by nominating titles or applying to judge a bracket once the shortlist is created.  In the coming weeks The Nerds Heart YA blog will be updated to provide more information regarding time lines, nomination and judging criteria as well as other fun stuff.   We will need your help! 

For now, keep an eye out and make Nerds Heart YA 2010 all that it can be!  Follow our handy dandy communication devices: Nerds Heart YA Twitter, Facebook Page, and subscribe to the RSS feed of the Nerds Heart YA Blog for continuous updates and content.

Title: Shelter Me
Author: Alex McAulay
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: MTV Books
Source: Purchased
Parental Warning: references to war, mental instability, religious fanaticism, sexual situations

“While Eileen stood far back, Maggie attacked the front of the crate with a fist-size rock and her chipped fingernails, trying to pry it open.  It was difficult and took several minutes of struggle, but when it was over, the crate was open, and both Maggie and Eileen gazed in stupefaction at what lay inside.”

Summary:
Maggie, a teen struggling for normalcy in World War II torn London, is sent by her mother to a “safe place” in the country.  Now living as a prisoner in a school run by religious fanatics she finds herself a player in several precarious and dangerous situations as she attempts to rectify the mess her mother has made of her life.

Opinion:
I had such high hopes for this book.  I read the blurb online and immediately had to have it so it actually saddened me when I didn’t like it.  Like, at all.

Could my expectations being so high have influenced that?  No question.  But regardless of that the reality of the matter is the book fell short for a variety of reasons outside of that.

The first being that the story was fairly predictable.  I can think of only one element (and giving the author his due it was a very big element) that actually caught me off guard.  For the most part, however, I knew what was going to happen before it did.  I wasn’t even surprised when the end turned out exactly as I anticipated it would from around the second chapter in.

Another aspect that didn’t work for me were the characterizations.  Outside of the fact that we never really delved deep enough into any of the characters to begin with, the readers were faced with a series of cliched characters that didn’t have any overwhelmingly unique qualities from any other story of this nature.  Those who were disguised as good but were really bad were not disguised well enough.  I figured them out pretty much from the chapter each was introduced in.

Lastly, for such a short book there was so very much happening. The reader zoomed from one plot element to another (none of which I want to give away in case you want to read it and maybe be surprised) in a matter of a chapter or two.  In the end, the book did portray the elements outlined in the blurb, but again, my expectations were that it would have focused more on Maggie’s journey on a more personal level than the superficial way it did. So perhaps it wasn’t the book as much as it was me.

Happy Sunday my friends!

Are we all glad that we have an extra day to this weekend or what?  I know I am, it means I can get loads more done on so may different things I’ve got going on.  I’m gonna cut to the chase this morning so here’s what’s going on in my corner of the world:

Book Blogger Convention
In case you missed it, which I don’t know how you could if you read this blog or follow me on Twitter but, the first annual Book Blogger Convention was announced this week.  I’m not going to rehash the gory details here just gonna point you to The Book Blogger Convention Blog and encourage you to poke around and definitely get your registration on!

With the announcement came a flurry of awesome press from bloggers and the publishing industry alike.  Not the least of which was a blurb in Galley Cat — one of the publishing industry’s foremost digital publications.  Big thanks to them for the publicity we’re most certainly grateful for it.

I have to say that we’ve got some super exciting stuff going on that we’ll hopefully be able to announce in the not too distant future!

100 Mile Fitness Challenge
I’m a slacker when it comes to exercise. I know this and I want to change this but fact of the matter is it’s still part of who I am.  Week two of this awesome challenge went by without me doing a single mile (unless I was allowed to count cleaning, walking around the office at work, and all the walking I do when I run errands — but alas, it doesn’t).

The good news is that I was finally able to get a WiiFit yesterday so the change is a comin’ soon!  I’m gonna set that bad boy up and get my work-out on!

Go me!

Blogging & Bookish Projects
As you can see, I’ve also been a slacker on my blog this week.  But this time I totally have a good reason.  The Blogger Convention logistical work and preparation for go live has been super time consuming and has taken a good portion of my blogging efforts.  Now that we have that initial phase under our belts we can move on to other tasks — of course, these will be time consuming as well but not as much.  I’ve also got a couple of other projects in the works that I’m hoping to announce at least one in the coming week.  Once that is done it should be smooth sailing for that project too.

What am I gonna get better about this week?

Delegating my time.  I’ve started to work through my feed reader — one of the things I find most important about my blogging experience is going out and participating in the community.  I’m super happy that I’ve gotten back to that this weekend and hope to catch up completely by Monday evening.  I’ve also got loads of reviews to write.  My goal is to spend some time today writing up a few mini-reviews of books that I read a long time ago. I’d like to dwindle that “to be reviewed” pile down so that it isn’t so daunting.

That’s my week ahead in a nutshell y’all.  How was everyone else’s week? What do you have planned for the next?

I’m so super excited to announce that the first annual Book Blogger Convention is open for business!

Being held on Friday, May 28th, 2010 participants are welcome to join us in New York City for a great day of food, fun and education.

We have a blog set up publicizing all the details we have set forth at this time.  Subscribe to it or check back regularly as it will be continuously updated as new information becomes available.

For your pleasure here are some of the most important general details:

• Date: Friday, May 28, 2010
• Time: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm (registration and breakfast starts at 7:30 if desired)
• Location: NYC Seminar & Conference Center, NYC
• Price: $90 (early bird registration fee if paid by 2/14), $115 thereafter
• What’s Included: light continental breakfast, keynote speaker (TBD), 5 learning sessions, lunch and best of all networking with cool people

At this time we are diligently working towards crafting informative learning sessions with a dynamic and diverse roster of presenters.  Sessions will center around the following topics — professionalism/ethics, marketing, author/blogger relationships, building community, and writing/building content.  Each will be scheduled with both the new and veteran blogger in mind.

I’m not going to go into every minute detail here but rather encourage you to visit the Book Blogger Convention Blog where you can not only Register for the convention but be kept apprised of all the most important information pertaining to the event.  As mentioned earlier it will be updated regularly as new details become available.

I’d like to take the opportunity to encourage anyone and everyone — bloggers, authors, activists, publishing industry types to join in and register. The convention is open to all who may be interested in how technology (specifically blogging) plays a role in the bookish arena.  Outside of the awesome benefit of learning together, for me, the best part about this convention will be the opportunity to meet and connect with others who are interested in, passionate about, and enjoy books and blogging as much as I do.