Monday, July 27, 2009

Wait... What?

Baker and Taylor makes up nice little lists for us to peruse and ponder. It takes most of the guesswork out of ordering new books, really. We can order other books that aren't on the list, but why bother when you can get books like this? Below is the line from the Booklist review of Joaquin Dorfman's The Long Wait for Tomorrow that would have made me spit my drink all over the computer monitor, had I been consuming a liquid at the time:
The next morning, however, Kelly wakes up a new man. He buys Patrick expensive gifts. He kisses Jenna like he means it. He's what they dub the New Kelly McDermott; a pleasant change until Kelly mentions that he is a 40-year-old version of himself who has time-traveled in from a mental institution.

I'm quite alright with timetraveling into future or past versions of yourself and other things of that vein (like 13 Going on 30 or 17 Again) as long as they can explain things properly. But the mental institution? That's a nice touch, Mr. Authordude. Really, you decided that was necessary? H'okay...

Why can't YA just be YA? One of the other books in the list features a protagonist whose parents die in an airplane crash. That's not traumatizing enough, however, because then she also has to face the fact that her Uncle is sexually attracted to her after she goes to live with him. Why oh why do we need to shove so much into these books?

2 comments:

Jill said...

David Lubar has a neat problem novel generator on his site: http://www.davidlubar.com/yakit.html

Kristi(e) said...

That is neat!

One of the other books in the queue featured a girl that not only had to cope with the fact that her parents died in a car crash but also avoid sexual advances from the family member she was sent to live with. Come on guys... let us please ease the silly.