Book Review: Revenge and the Wild by Michelle Modesto

Meh.
There was some steampunk.  There were some paranormal creatures.  There was a lot of guilt about how whites treated native tribes in the Old West.  There was blood -- and gore and cannibalism.
The plot worked OK.  The pacing was OK.
The characters were cartoonish.  Seriously, I felt like this was some kind of steampunk melodrama and that Dudley Doright would soon appear on the scene to save the day.

I had to force myself to finish the book because I didn't care about any of the characters or their fates or motivations.  They were all potentially interesting, but this whole book seemed to be the work of someone who'd gotten lucky with their first book; the writing was immature, with no depth.

However, there were no major errors.  So, if you feel like a steampunk/old west/paranormal beach read, this might be for you.  If you can make yourself finish it.

Book Review: Front Lines by Michael Grant

This book is a true alternate history book: no magic, no paranormal, just what would be historical fiction except that a huge change has been made.  In this case, the huge change to history is that the Supreme Court has allowed women to be enlist/ be drafted into WWII.
I found this change to be a very timely thing, as the actual possibility of women's registering for the draft sometime in the near future has recently been suggested (and thrown conservative news comments sections into a tizzy).  I really liked how Grant presented the obvious but often overlooked fact that many girls/women simply wouldn't have the physical strength necessary to make it into combat anyway.  In Front Lines, this is made very clear.
The book has three main protagonists whose stories weave together.  Each girl is very well drawn out as a character, as are the personalities of the supporting characters.  I felt this was a real strong point in the book.
I also loved how the main military conflicts followed were all set in Tunisia.  It's easy to find historical fiction set in Europe during the War, not so much so with the Pacific Theatre, but Africa?  I'd never heard of a book's covering that part of the War before.
Grant seems to have done quite a bit of research.  True, I'm no expert, but I was delighted to read a supporting character's description of the Pacific war hero, General Douglas MacArthur.  On page 231, Grant has a character say, "The general... well, I shouldn't say it, but he's a pompous ass and a showboat...."  I've never read such a thing in print --ever!  But my father, who fought with the unit temporarily assigned to protect MacArthur, has spent 70 years making fun of the general for staging photo shoots in perfectly pressed trousers weeks after the battles were over.  (In those days, there was no instant sharing of pics, so the public was more easily fooled.)
I really liked this book, and I would have given it five stars, but the end is ... lame.
Grant gets us through the battle, lets us know who made it out alive, and then he just stops.  Not even one of the numerous subplots is resolved.  The narrator never identifies herself (or possibly himself), which is even more aggravating that the protagonists with no names in The Invisible Man and Rebecca.  I'm guessing this is a set up for a sequel, but since the book begins and ends with teasers at the end of the war, it all just feels wrong.  And cheap.  It's as if Grant thought, "Oh, the book's getting too long; I'll just stop here."  Boo! Hiss!
Other irritating things include: 1) the book is written in present tense, which is SO ANNOYING, 2) Grant uses "fug" for the F-word throughout the book and "Nigra" for the N-word -- which makes his tone condescending (there are other ways to let readers know what's been said without actually printing the words, if he's concerned about losing his YA readers or making their mommies mad), and 3) in spite of Grant's attempt to be all trendy and cool by writing female protagonists, it's clear he's Mr. Macho Male and too squeamish to deal with the major problem a girl in fighting situations would have: menstruation.  (Kotex and Tampax would have been wondrous and new to country girls entering the army, but pads were held in place with garter-like belts.  Girls would worry about rashes, smells, disposal, leaks, cramps, etc.  This would have been huge!  Grant's characters appear not to menstruate so that he doesn't have to mention "icky" things in a book which includes headless corpses and intestines spilling out. *rolls eyes*)
On the whole, however, this is a very good read, and I enjoyed it.

Update

Yes, it's been awhile.  Sorry.
Three of my immediate family members have had some serious health problems.  Then my own body decided it was feeling left out and developed a few new weirdnesses requiring multiple doctor visits (during which time, two of my favorite doctors decided to relocate, forcing me to find new ones).
 And school is .... well, in a unique situation.
You see, I've taught at a traditional junior high (grades 7-9) for many years.  And, at the end of this year, our school will be absorbed into the nearby high school, becoming a second campus as the high school shifts from 10-12 to 9-12.   There has been a good deal more durm and strang than usual with registering the 7th graders for a different junior high for 8th grade, registering both 8th and 9th graders at least a month earlier than usual for high school, and the interviewing of teachers for different job placements (as we cannot continue to teach at a school which no longer exists).  As I have not yet been placed, I live in limbo, not even yet able to pack up my numerous files and such in order to move... somewhere.
All this means I haven't done one speck of writing or editing since last autumn.  I've done a good deal of reading, though, so I'm going to try to post some book reviews and not let this blog die. :)

Just Added A Retro-Look 50s Shower Curtain To My Zazzle Store

Yeah, it's a shower curtain.  Isn't it quirky?  I love it.  I may have to buy one for myself.
I took vintage 50s commercial art that Dad drew for a hardware company ad and had it scanned at the highest resolution the camera store offered.  Dad thinks it's fun that we're using his old artwork on Zazzle, so I have his full permission to do this. :)
Thus, if you have a hankering for a unique touch for your mid-century modern look bathroom -- or if you just like the lovely lady with the dangling earrings -- you can zip over to my Zazzle store and buy one of these.
Just click here.

What Happens When Voters Become Educated On The Issues

Every year, I take my 9th grade core classes through two essay-writing experiences, one each semester.
This year, our district provided Chromebooks for each English class, so researching had to include using the new devices.
As we have an election coming up, I decided to have their 1st semester essay topic be "Who would make the best US President in 2016?"  Now that the semester is drawing to a close and the assignment is all but over (although I will still be accepting late essays until this Friday), I thought I'd blog about some surprises I got along the way.
I teach in a working class area.  Most such areas in Utah are highly conservative and highly Republican.  I really and truly expected to have to grade a whole bunch of essays extolling the virtues of Donald Trump.
I set up the assignment by explaining to the kids that in 2012, a lot of people voted for or against Obama or Romney based on skin color or religion.  I told them I hoped they would learn how foolish that was as they researched for their own essays.  I also reminded them that, while they cannot vote in 2016, they will be old enough for the 2020 election.
The kids were assigned to choose three "hot topics" they considered important: education, immigration, women's rights, gun rights/gun control, taxes, transportation, military issues.  I modeled for them how to begin at a given neutral website listing all candidates from all parties, instructing them that they must research four candidates from at least two parties.  Each day, I chose a different candidate's website and a different hot topic to model.  Other than telling the kids that I didn't think Trump's ideas were very practical, I was very careful not to let my own political preferences show; I merely showed the kids how to find information, how to take notes, how to construct the essay.
The results were almost entirely surprising.
I assumed they'd mostly write about Trump, as he was the only candidate of whom they'd heard, and it was clear that many of their parents were impressed by Trump.  I assumed no one would write about taxes (that turned out to be right), I assumed the Republican essays would "win" by a landslide, I assumed a sizable percentage of the kids would opt not to "vote" by not doing their essays (that was correct), I assumed no boys would write about women's rights and that no one would touch the abortion issue, I assumed many girls would go for Fiorina, as the Republican female choice, I assumed their would be much verbal abuse of Hillary.
My first surprise came when kids began to discover that Fiorina's website was useless.  They got mad that it said nothing about her positions on the issues.  Kids resented that she had nothing to say.
Not a single student in either class wrote about Fiorina.
My next surprise was how mad kids got when a few candidates dropped out; kids were miffed when they'd liked what the candidates said and then couldn't use it.
But the biggest surprise of all came when kids finished the research and began to write their essays.  Let me show you the results:
As of this writing, only 31 essays I have been handed in.  That's less than half of the students, although I expect at least five or six more kids will hand things in this week.  This part is no surprise; many kids are just plain lazy.
Of the 31, the "votes" were as follows:

Chris Christie: 1
Ben Carson: 2
Marco Rubio: 1
Bernie Sanders: 4
Hillary Clinton: 23

I was stunned.  As the kids researched, I thought Carson would be the favorite, as he's conservative, Republican, and has an easy-to-use website.  But it was Clinton by a landslide.
Most of the kids chose gun issues, healthcare, immigration, and either women's rights or education as their hot topics.  Hillary has a lot to say on those issues, and the kids -- even though most of them are very pro-gun rights -- thought she made sense.
And not a single kid who did the assignment even took notes on Trump.  One look at his website, and they saw how silly his ideas were.
Also, I tallied up women's issues:

Kids who wrote about women's rights:
Girls: 11
Boys: 4
Kids who wrote about abortion rights:
Girls: 3
Boys: 2
Kids who were anti-abortion:
Girls: 0
Boys: 0

(Keep in mind that I only helped kids understand what they were reading.  I helped them pick out things like women's pay, healthcare, etc.  If a candidate was indeed talking about abortion, it was often hard for the kids to grasp it through the rhetoric, so I would indicate what it really meant, and then tell the kids they could choose to agree or not.  I never told them what I thought about the issue.)

Things that did not surprise me: I had only 48% "voter" turn out and guns and immigration were of big interest to my students.
Things that did surprise me: Kids who had been pre-disposed toward ultra-conservatism and Republicans, once they actually researched the issues, found the less-extreme Democrat candidate to be the most appealing.

I thought I'd be reading about Trump.  I ended up reading about Hillary Clinton.
I could not be more pleased -- unless more kids had actually done the work.  :D

Book Review & Rant: Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom (Or What Happens When Authors Haven't Been In A School In A Decade)

Because I got it in my December Uppercasebox subscription, the first book I read in 2016 was Eric Lindstrom's Not If I See You First, a YA romance with a blind protagonist named Parker.

I was excited to read it, but I ended up rather disappointed.  It's filled with stereotypes of what men think teenage girls are like and want guys to be like and how adults picture teen bullies.  It's also clear that while Lindstrom "researched" by talking to adults at the Braille society, he never bothered to talk to real teenagers who are blind -- or their friends or their public school teachers.
In 2011, I ranted about authors who assume high school is like it was when they attended.
I did it again in 2015,  with further comments here and here.
Now it's time to do it again.
Authors, if you're going to write about teenagers and school, you need to know what school is like in the contemporary world.
Mr. Lindstrom, if you're going to write about a blind teenager in 2015, you should talk to a few.
At our school, we've had a blind wrestling coach for years.  We've had 3 blind students during the years that I've taught at the school, all boys.  The first one also had developmental problems and was never in regular classes.  But last year we had 2 boys in almost entirely regular classes; one of them was my student.  And I can promise you, Mr. Lindstrom, that boy would laugh at some of the stuff you created -- because it's so wrong.
Let me go back to addressing the readers rather than the writers.
Lindstrom has 16-year-old Parker assigned a student buddy ALL DAY LONG, even though she's attended the school for two years and is fiercely independent.  No way.  No administration would put that kind of burden on a kid.  Parents would sue.  It's absurd.
What really happens is that a paraprofessional is hired -- if needed; every kid is different -- but teachers and students work it out in their own classrooms.  My blind student last year had two seeing students with whom he preferred to work in my class when possible.  During tests and for homework, however, the paraprofessional took over.
Also, Lindstrom seems to be unaware of technology.  Parker uses text-to-speech on her phone, but she does not have a Braille writer for taking notes in class nor any kind of recording device.  Again, this forces other kids to have to tutor her.  This is not reality.
Lindstrom does not have any counselor or special ed teacher or administrator ever checking up on Parker.  No adult seems to know that her father has died.  No meetings are held planning her education and modifications.  No teacher seems to modify anything for her.  No teacher notices when Parker has a meltdown in the commons area and then she and her friends sluff school all day in a massive drama queen party.  No one notifies Parker's aunt (her legal guardian).   This is beyond absurd.
Special needs students have files and are assigned SPED teachers as file holders.  Their progress is monitored; teachers are contacted as often as necessary and parents meet with them at least quarterly.  A student who has a major meltdown would be emailed news to all concerned teachers within minutes.  That student -- special needs or not -- would be with her/his counselor, the parent or guardian contacted, and friends calmed within a few minutes of the meltdown.  Students who bolted from school in emotional crises would be located by the school police and their parents contacted.  All teachers of a student who had lost a parent just before school started would be notified and asked to watch out for emotional needs.  (Yes, I've had several students lose parents over the years.)
Also, Lindstrom has the jock bullies pick on Parker so her love interests can rescue her.  It happens right by her locker.  This is unbelievable.
First of all, it has been uncool for years to pick on the physically handicapped.  Only once in my long years of teaching have I seen a physically handicapped kid get picked on (a wheelchair user -- and every other kid present came to his defense within seconds).  Bullies pick on the emotionally sensitive or mentally slower rather than the physically challenged.  And schools in the post-millenium world have security cameras.  No bully is going to go on camera doing stuff as obvious as what happens in this book.
Do I recommend this book?  Sort of.  It's mostly a romance; if you enjoy high school romances, this might be for you.  (Note: there's no sex or violence, but there's a lot of swearing, if that offends you.)  The characters are fairly stereotyped, although Parker herself has a bit more depth.  The pacing is good. And the book has been edited, which is always a plus.
If you're not a school teacher or a student yourself, the Hollywood version of high school might not bother you as much as it did me.
Give the book a try.  You might like it.

"Professional" Editing

There are SO many books out there that haven't been edited!  The problem is that most of these published first drafts are self-published, and that makes it hard for us other self-published writers to lure potential readers; discriminating readers want edited books, so they avoid ones they believe will be unedited.
As an English teacher who writes, I am extremely picky about editing my own work.  I re-read, revise, edit, and copy edit my manuscripts numerous times before they go out to beta readers.  Then I do it again before they go to my alpha reader/editor, who is another English teacher.  She rips the manuscripts apart and gleefully pens comments everywhere.  I love getting my stuff back from her; she's amazingly thorough and merciless. :D  Then I edit/revise AGAIN.  This means that by the time I release my self-published books out to the world, they've been edited at least a dozen times.
This is why it irks me when traditionally published books which have been "professionally edited and copy edited" are released with glaring errors.  I'm not talking about the occasional typo; I'm talking about "editors" who never passed 7th grade English.
For example, I love Paige Shelton's books, but her editors and copy editors have no freakin' clue what pronouns come after "than" used as a subordinating conjunction, and half the time, they think "alright" is a word.  (It isn't.  Neither is "alot.")
Of course, that's copy editing, which is essentially checking for spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors.  But what happens when you get a "professional" editor who's useless?  You get a confused reader; that's what.
Recently, I read Andrew Hunt's City of Saints, which is an LDS historical mystery.  I really liked the book, but I had to laugh at how profusely in the acknowledgement section Hunt thanked the editing team at St. Martin's Press, saying how much care they'd put into editing.  No, they didn't.  Let me explain.
In the opening paragraph of chapter 2 on page 10, Hunt gives some backstory about his protagonist in 1st person POV, claiming that in 1904, "Dad" purchased land and "just days before my birth, moved the family" into the home described.  At the end of the same paragraph, however, the protagonist says, "I was weeks away from turning thirteen when an unknown assailant.... killed him .... in 1914."
If the kid was born in 1904, how did he get to be 12 -- almost 13 -- in 1914?
Very early in chapter 7, on pages 59-60, the protagonist has a nightmare.  Hunt has him say, "I am twelve years old, about to turn thirteen.  It is 1914 again."  But six sentences later, Hunt has the protagonist wake, saying, "I am no longer eleven.  I am twenty-nine and it is 1930."
If he's 29 in 1930, then he was born in 1901, not 1904, and he was therefore not 11 in 1914.
Elsewhere in the book, Hunt has the protagonist's mother always serve Sunday dinner at 6:00 -- except in the one scene where she serves it at 6:30 for no apparent reason.
Also, in City of Saints, the protagonist's wife is an English teacher.  In the sequel, a Killing in Zion, she's a music teacher.
For this crappy editing, someone got PAID?  Seriously?
This makes me mad as an English teacher, but it makes me doubly mad as a self-published writer whose works are often ignored for fear they haven't been edited.