Wither

State of Life: Sleepy - wish I could sleep a whole night through

Musical Input: The Kill by 30 Seconds to Mars

I'm not normally one for dystopian stories. It's just not my cup of tea - I prefer reading science fiction and fantasy, with the occasional romance thrown in. However, I sat down and read Wither cover to cover in about three hours the other day.

Let me tell you what the book had going against it. It's first person POV, which is very hard for me to get invested in. On top of that, it's first person present tense, which is worse. It's dystopian, which is another strike against it.

And yet it still pulled me in. I devoured it. I haven't had a book do that since Harry Potter and the Dragonriders books.

It just goes to show that I am a sucker for a good story. I do not like Rowlings's writing style, but it doesn't hinder me in the least from loving her stories. The same thing with Lauren DeStefano. Her world was detailed but not slow, her main character had depth and was realistic, and the supporting characters were interesting, aside from one. In his case, I think she deliberately held back with him since his background didn't allow for him to develop much personality, which is interesting writing in and of itself. Wither is the first in the Chemical Garden Trilogy, and believe me, I will be watching for the next two books.

On a separate note, Wither was filed in the YA section of the library. While I would've loved this as a teenager, I don't think that having a 16 year old protagonist should automatically relegate it into young adult. I'm not a teen anymore, and this was an incredible read. Yes, this might be kind of picky, but I think the publishing world has gotten hung up on these categories, with YA being the latest trend. I don't think YA is any different from adult fiction; it just boils down to marketing. Sell it to teens, put a pretty cover on it, and make more money. Yet, this is still the bottom line.

I've noticed that Anne McCaffrey's books have gone through a similar shift. The Harper Hall trilogy feature teenage protagonists, and the latest printings of them have emphasized the youthful characters. The older covers showed Menolly as a bit more mature, even though she's only fifteen, and focused on the fire lizards instead of her.

I don't want this to sound like I'm preaching against publishing. That would be very counter-productive since I'm trying to get published. It's just an observation, along with maybe a touch of my own, over-the-hill opinion.

But in any case, read the book. It's so worth it.