Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Hey, don't forget to enter for your chance to win an ARC of the amazing MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES by Jasmine Warga! It's easy peasy, and ending soon!
~ ~ ~
Right now I'm reading a book that obviously took a lot of research. How do I know? Because the author keeps showing me. Rather than losing myself in the characters and their struggles, I feel like I'm in a classroom, learning facts that are loosely strung together by narrative threads. Needless to say, this is not the best feeling for a reader to have.
But it doesn't have to be this way. There are so many good books that required the author to do their homework -- and yet reading them didn't make me feel like I was doing mine! CODE NAME VERITY is about two young women involved in military efforts during World War II. CAMINAR tells the story of a young boy whose village gets caught in the middle during the Guatemalan revolution. STEEL isn't based on a real-world event, but it does involve swashbuckling pirates in the Caribbean, which I'm pretty sure the author doesn't have firsthand experience with.
I guess the thing about research is, you can't have too much or too little. Like Goldilocks, you're looking for the amount that's just right. And that applies to all genres.
What books have you read that clearly involved a lot of research, yet still managed to suck you into the story? Give me your recommendations, please! Because I love learning, I just don't want to feel I'm in school again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
about us
Stephanie, Ingrid, Sarah & Kristan — we read, write, discuss and celebrate Young Adult lit.
on the shelf
ya diversity book club
have a heart
3 comments:
Great discussion post! Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz was full of research on Holocaust internment camps but I never felt like Gratz wrote out a laundry list of the historical pieces. It was weaved into the story, AS IT SHOULD BE. Same with The Lightning Dreamer by Margarita Engle, historical yet written in poetry. It never reads like nonfiction.
I just read a book with research seamlessly interwoven but of course I can't think of it now. That's the balance I'm trying to achieve in my current manuscript. A lot of mythology is central to the plot but I'm trying to avoid the dreaded info dump.
I can think of several that clearly took a lot of work and research, but use it just right (to enhance the character's stories, not overtake them).
19th century Pennsylvania and necromancy: Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard
19th century London with demons, warlocks, vampires: Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
WW1 steampunk: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
1970s Hong Kong, the LDS church in China: Letters in the Jade Dragon Box by Gale Sears
Post a Comment