Sunday Sunshine: Happy December Edition!

Well, we've made it through November.  I love December--we should start getting some real snow (and in Buffalo, that really means something.)  End-of-year lists start coming out.  And, of course...CHRISTMAS.  I'm a big Christmasser--my mom always goes all-out decorating and baking and picking out the best, most thoughtful, goofiest, most specific gifts.  If you say something to her in passing in June that gives her an idea, the gift will be under the tree in December.  She is the queen of gift-giving.

And this year is the first time we've had enough space to really decorate!  I will post pictures when there is a tree--our very first Christmas tree!  So that's what I'm looking forward to this week.

As I scrambled to get to the 50K mark for NaNo, I slowed down a little bit as a reader.  I only have one book this week.  But, there are a few other things I want to share first:

1) Ghenet Myrthil has issued herself a 12/12/12 challenge: read twelve books in December 2012.  I'm going to challenge myself to do the same.  If you want to see her awesome December TBR, check her out here.

2) For those of you who are in the middle of writing, NaNo or otherwise--you need to see Kristin Cashore's post about how Bitterblue came to be.  You may be familiar with the general story--after she spent three years writing an 800-page draft, her editor suggested that she start revisions by re-writing the story from scratch--but she has given the internet this marvelous gift of pictures.  Pictures of pages entirely scribbled out.  Notes to herself in the margins: "Don't freak out.  You can fix it later."  And the most stunning of all, a picture of the heaps and heaps of paper that made up her many, many drafts before she got to the wonderful finished product.

3) Jaime Morrow and I have been talking about both reading Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird in January, book-club style.  We're hoping we're not the last two writers in the universe to read it, so if you're interested in reading along, let us know in the comments.  I'll post more info closer to January, but I thought I'd test the waters now (and give people time to put the book on their Christmas lists!)

What I Read This Week: 

 Jane by April Lindner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aaaahhhh I couldn't stop reading this one. I don't totally understand why I found it so engrossing--after all, I've read and loved Jane Eyre so I knew what was going to happen! The adaptation was pretty faithful, to the best of my memory, which meant that occasionally there was a moment of, "Wait, why is this an obstacle?" Jane Eyre, while definitely a strong individual with her own quirks and oddities, was also still a product of her time. Jane Moore's quirks sometimes felt a bit too anachronistic. But I was totally willing to forgive that because this retelling was so compulsively readable. And who can resist the good-girl nanny and the bad-boy rockstar?

I would also note that this seems to fall squarely in the "new adult" category, rather than the "young adult" category. I think that's because a) it's a contemporary book where the heroine at least contemplates marriage--ok for YA fantasy/historical but weird in contemporary--and b) the love interest is definitely a grown-up and no one is really freaked out by that. Jane does experience a lot of "firsts" in this book, but they're framed much more as adult firsts than teenage firsts. It definitely felt different than the YA Contemporary I've been reading, so know that going into it. But it's a really fun read, and quick despite its length. Definitely recommended for fans of Jane Eyre (and if you haven't read that yet, do it, and then compare with this version!)

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