2016 Year in Review

Photo credit: Dru! on Flickr

So back in 2014, I started my annual tradition of reviewing all the things that happened over the past year, which I continued last year. 2016's been one prolonged garbage fire, but some pretty big positive things did happen for me. So let's take a look at 2016!

January was a pretty quiet month. I started my last semester of college while silently gearing up for the impending release of my debut two months later. I took both a fantasy and a kidlit class which was truly the perfect way to tie off my college experience.

February I had my birthday and the best birthday present ever: I got my author copies. It was a really amazing moment that I thankfully had the foresight to capture on camera so I could turn it into a happy vlog.

Then March! March was an enormous month. Beyond the Red published and shortly thereafter I flew off to Maryland to speak at SCBWI MD/DE/WV and do a mini-book tour with some lovely fellow Sweet Sixteeners. We had an amazing time and I did my first ever book signings and school visits and did so many panels and all in all it really was a blast. It was the perfect way to welcome my debut to the world and step into Professional Author shoes in an undeniable way. All the while I was working on a secret project which became important a few months later.

April then was finals time. I finished up my last semester of college and graduated with high distinction, in the top 10% of my graduating class. So that was really exciting and felt pretty amazing. I also launched my freelance editing services, which was thankfully welcomed with open arms.

May and June were pretty quiet. I first drafted a manuscript, plotted another, Beyond the Red went into its second printing (yay!) and I also got some fantastic bookish news I couldn't talk about, which meant sitting on my hands until I could talk about it and in the meantime continue working on that secret project. Come to think of it, I guess those months weren't so quiet after all. :)

Then in July I finally got the go ahead to announce my amazing news: Beyond the Red is getting not one, but two sequels! And the first will publish next year! I was over the moon happy about the news, and I finished first drafting Into the Black, a book I'm already very proud of.

August was another quiet month. I started revising Into the Black and joined the Pokémon GO craze, which was fun and actually got me out of my writer cave from time to time. It was, however, a pretty bad month health-wise, so that was unfortunate—and a sign to my doctor and I that I need to move to a stronger treatment regimen.

September and October were full of revisions and multiple rounds of critique partners and sensitivity readers while preparing for NaNoWriMo. At the end of the month I sent Into the Black off to my agent, applied for—and landed—a seasonal part time job, and then...

NaNoWriMo! I mean, November! November was an especially rough month, but the good part is I started and finished my NaNo novel before declaring myself exhausted and swearing not to write for the rest of the year. I'd never first drafted three manuscripts and revised one in the same year before and it was tiring but also really gratifying.

And now, December. This month I've (so far) kept to my not-writing promise while trying to catch up on my Goodreads reading challenge, which I am currently three books away from completing and totally determined to manage it, even if two of those books are comics. I also got the laptop I've been saving for forever, and I sent in an application to grad school for a program of my dreams, so I've got my fingers crossed while awaiting the new year. And that's all I'm gonna say about that. :)

How was your 2016?


Twitter-sized bite: 

.@Ava_Jae shares her 2016 year in review. Did you have any big moments this year? (Click to tweet)

Book Review: HALF LOST by Sally Green

Photo credit: Goodreads

It's going to be hard to write a review about this without spoiling anything, but I will do my darndest. Because this finale to one of my favorite YA Fantasy series deserves a very good review. 

Before I go into how much I loved this book, however, here is the Goodreads summary:

"This is the final battle. 

The Alliance is losing the war, and their most critical weapon, seventeen-year-old witch Nathan Byrn, is losing his mind. Nathan’s tally of kills is rising, and yet he’s no closer to ending the tyrannical rule of the Council of White Witches in England. Nor is Nathan any closer to his personal goal: getting revenge on Annalise, the girl he once loved before she committed an unthinkable crime. An amulet protected by the extremely powerful witch Ledger could be the tool Nathan needs to save himself and the Alliance, but this amulet is not so easily acquired. And lately Nathan has started to suffer from visions: a vision of a golden moment when he dies, and of an endless line of Hunters, impossible to overcome. Gabriel, his closest companion, urges Nathan to run away with him, to start a peaceful life together. But even Gabriel’s love may not be enough to save Nathan from this war, or from the person he has become. 

Set in modern-day Europe, the final book in the Half Bad trilogy is more than a story about witches. It’s a heart-achingly visceral look at survival and exploitation, the nature of good and evil, and the risks we take for love."

So given how much I loved Half Bad and Half Wild, I had pretty high hopes for Half Lost. I was ready to see one relationship I despised crash and burn; I was ready to see the relationship I'd been dying to see since book one flourish; I was ready to see Nathan come into himself and become the truly powerful witch everyone knew all along he would be.

I got all of that and more.

The character development in this book is truly amazing; at the beginning, Nathan has gone extremely dark side. His obsession with exacting revenge on someone was so intense it was disturbing, and seeing him morph from book one into this dark, hurting person was legitimately hard to read. My heart ached for him, and for Gabriel, who stood hurting by his side as he watched someone he cared so much about become this unrecognizable person.

Half Lost is just as dark and raw as Half Bad and Half Wild. There were moments that made me cringe, and images that were disturbingly vivid. Green doesn't hold back or shy away from the harsh realities of war; it's there on the page for everyone to see, and I found it to be incredibly powerful.

And speaking of powerful, this book nearly made me cry twice. As I've said in my other reviews, I am not someone who cries easily—to this date I've never actually broken down over a book. But there was one moment in the book that made me so happy I actually got teary-eyed, and the other...well, I won't spoil, but I will say if I hadn't taken a break, it's very likely I would've full-on sobbed by the end of the book.

There are a lot of people who took issue with something that happens at the end—and I understand their grievances. But I feel it's important to say that I think what happened was handled really deftly, and it absolutely fit the story; as another reviewer said, it felt inevitable. And for me, at least, I found it a very powerful—and beautiful—ending to a wonderfully memorable YA Fantasy series.

Overall, the Half Bad series will remain on my favorites list. I really enjoyed the diverse characters woven into the story—from a bisexual and biracial protagonist with a learning disorder, to a gay major character, and not one, but two gender nonconforming characters, and more, the Half Bad series is one I'll continue to recommend to those who like (very) dark YA Fantasies and a story that will break you and put you back together again.

Diversity note: As mentioned in the review, Nathan, the protagonist, is biracial, bisexual, and has a learning disorder. A major character, Gabriel, is gay, and there are also two gender non-conforming characters.

What have you been reading lately? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

.@Ava_Jae gives 5 stars to HALF LOST by @Sa11eGreen. Is this dark YA w/ a bisexual & biracial boy MC on your TBR? (Click to tweet)

Like dark YA Fantasy? Want to see queer boys kicking ass? Check out HALF LOST by Sally Green. (Click to tweet)

Book Review: ILLUMINAE by Amy Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Photo credit: Goodreads

Sometimes, when a book gets a ton of hype, I get a little skeptical but I also feel more inclined to at least take a look during a stroll at a bookstore. And I'm so glad I did because Illuminae more than lives up to every ounce of the hype. 

Before I go on, here's the summary from Goodreads:

"This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. 

This afternoon, her planet was invaded. 

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit. 

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again. 

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes."

I started reading Illuminae on New Years Eve, thinking that I'd just read maybe twenty pages or so and continue reading the rest the next day. So I read twenty pages. Then I read two hundred more in the same evening. Because I legitimately could not stop reading.

Teens on two space ships, a mutating, dangerous virus, an unforgettable AI, and an enemy space ship ready to destroy them looming ever closer come together to make this book unputdownable.

I haven't read a found materials book in a long time (maybe ever?) but I have to say, I loved the format. The book is written in e-mails, IMs, interviews, etc. and has intense action and conflict right from the start that kept me ripping through the pages. There are loads of twists (some of which had me cursing out loud while I read), lots of people die, so many scenes broke my heart, and it was just an incredibly good read.

Finally, a note on format: this book is beautiful with some truly creative formatting that had me literally flipping the book around to read certain two-page spreads. I've confirmed with some people who have read the e-book version that the formatting does not work nearly as well in the e-version, so if you get it, I highly recommend getting the print version. It's a brick (nearly 600 pages), but the formatting actually makes it a surprisingly quick read, and I promise you, it is so worth it.

Diversity note: All the major characters, as far as I can tell, were cishet and white with exception to one Chinese character. There's more diversity with minor characters both with race and sexual orientation (mostly really minor characters, to be honest), but representation was lacking in the major cast, aside from PTSD and other mental health issues common amongst trauma victims.

Twitter-sized bites:

.@Ava_Jae gives 5 stars to ILLUMINAE by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff. Is this intense, spacey YA SF on your TBR? (Click to tweet) 

Looking for an action-packed, creatively-written YA SF? Try ILLUMINAE by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff. (Click to tweet)

Book Review: CAM GIRL by Elliot Finley Wake (w/a Leah Reader)

Photo credit: Goodreads

So while anything Elliot Wake (Raeder) writes is pretty much on my insta-buy list (and has been since both Unteachable and Black Iris blew me away), when I heard Cam Girl features a nonbinary major character, needless to say I knew I had to buy it ASAP.

So I did. And I'm so glad I did because this book felt really important to me. 

Before I go on, here's the Goodreads summary, as per usual: 

"Vada Bergen is broke, the black sheep of her family, and moving a thousand miles away from home for grad school, but she’s got the two things she loves most: her art and her best friend—and sometimes more—Ellis Carraway. Ellis and Vada have a friendship so consuming it’s hard to tell where one girl ends and the other begins. It’s intense. It’s a little codependent. And nothing can tear them apart. 

Until an accident on an icy winter road changes everything. 

Vada is left deeply scarred, both emotionally and physically. Her once-promising art career is cut short. And Ellis pulls away, unwilling to talk about that night. Everything Vada loved is gone. 

She’s got nothing left to lose. 

So when she meets some smooth-talking entrepreneurs who offer to set her up as a cam girl, she can’t say no. All Vada has to do is spend a couple hours each night stripping on webcam, and the “tips” come pouring in. 

It’s just a kinky escape from reality until a client gets serious. “Blue” is mysterious, alluring, and more interested in Vada’s life than her body. Online, they chat intimately. Blue helps her heal. And he pays well, but he wants her all to himself. No more cam shows. It’s an easy decision: she’s starting to fall for him. But the steamier it gets, the more she craves the real man behind the keyboard. So Vada pops the question: 

Can we meet IRL? 

Blue agrees, on one condition. A condition that brings back a ghost from her past. Now Vada must confront the devastating secrets she's been running from—those of others, and those she's been keeping from herself..."

There are three things you can pretty much expect whenever you pick up one of Raeder's books:

1. Incredibly gorgeous writing.
2. Very sexy scenes throughout. 
3. TWISTS LIKE WHOA.

Cam Girl indisputably delivered on all three points. 

While I found some of the pre-Blue cam girling stuff a bit much for me at the beginning (not a flaw of the book, just a personal taste thing), I'm so glad I kept reading because the story and characters more than made up for it. 

Vada, an artist, deals with chronic pain specifically in her hand and arm from the accident at the beginning of the book. I've read a few books now with characters who struggle with chronic pain, but this depiction resonated the most with me—and the further connection of not being able to do art because of the pain, something I deal with IRL, is something that echoed unexpectedly deeply with me. 

Then there's Vada's relationship with her best friend, Ellis, which I absolutely loved reading. Vada and Ellis have a blurry best friends/more than best friends relationship, but though Vada has accepted that she's bisexual, the thought of having a serious long-term relationship with a girl freaks her out, which is an experience with bisexuality that I haven't seen deeply explored in a book before. It worked really well here in terms of tension and adding a complicated dynamic to Vada and Ellis's relationship, and it felt like a real experience that was important to tackle. 

All of these character elements and more weave incredibly well into the plot, which is messy and complicated and finished off with an ending I totally didn't see coming. I loved the frank discussions about gender and sexuality, and seeing a major nonbinary character figure themselves out and explore their identity is something I really appreciated. 

I loved reading this, will probably re-read in the future, and now I'm even more excited for Raeder's next book, Bad Boy, which features a trans guy major character. If you haven't picked up Raeder's books before and you like (very) steamy, complicated, and dark New Adult books, I honestly can't recommend his writing more.

Diversity note: Vada, the protagonist, is Latina, bisexual, and deals with chronic pain, and another major character is nonbinary (genderfluid). The author is openly bisexual and nonbinary, so it's #ownvoices, too.

Twitter-sized bites:

.@Ava_Jae gives 5 stars to CAM GIRL by Elliot Wake (w/a Leah Raeder). Is this twisty, diverse NA on your TBR? (Click to tweet)

Looking for a NA w/ major nonbinary, disabled, & bi characters? Check out CAM GIRL by Elliot Wake (w/a Leah Raeder). (Click to tweet)