Tardy TBR Challenge Review: Power Play by Sophia Henry

Format: ebook (read as a print ARC)
Pub Date: February 16, 2016
Publisher: Flirt (Random House)
Length: 236 pages
POV: 1st, past
FTC: print ARC received for free from the publisher during RT16
TW: rape, suicide

Yes, it's me, the tardy TBR person. I always seem to lose track of which Wednesday posts are supposed to be up by, and then life just seems to mess with me. Anyway, this month's theme is something different, and since I DON'T read NA, this one definitely qualifies.
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I can't believe I'm saying this, but...there's not enough hockey in this book.

People who know me would be laughing at what I just wrote because I'm not a sports person at all. AT. ALL. I don't even watch the Superbowl, which is the one event even non-sports people watch. I watch my kids in their soccer games and that is it. But since this book has "A Pilots Hockey Novel" on it and features a hockey player as the hero, well...it kinda needed more hockey

This ebook-only story is category length, so I'm assuming it's supposed to be light on details, but even so...you'd think it would be centered around hockey. Not so. It's centered around a family grocery business which recently expanded to include a gift shop.  The narrator is our heroine, Gaby Bertucci, whose family has run the business in Detroit for generations, and she has a major crush on minor league hockey player Landon Taylor.  She flirts with him whenever he visits the store, but nothing happens until her father collapses of a heart attack while Landon is there. His quick thinking and calm presence force their interactions beyond the generic pleasantries they normally exchange and open the door for more.

Review: I Want It That Way by Ann Aguirre

Format: Trade Paperback
Pub Date:  Aug 26, 2014
Publisher: Harlequin
Length: 352 pages
FTC: Review copy received for free at RT Convention 2014

I've been fairly outspoken in the past about my dislike of trends and the authors who chase them. I know that's ruffled a few authors' feathers, but from a reader standpoint, it does seem like some authors chase trends more than others. Ann Aguirre isn't really one of them, although she writes both Young Adult and, now, New Adult. In part, I think, because her writing roots are in Sci-Fi/Fantasy, she's always been a genre jumper.

I've also been fairly outspoken about my general disdain for YA and NA as "genres".  To me, they are not genres, but ways to dumb down marketing to the point where marketing departments aren't really needed. It's the self-service, neatly laid out section of the reading market where readers can pick and choose exactly which age group they want to read about in neat little rows. I greatly prefer the messier way it used to be.  When you got too old for the children's section, you moved on to adult literature. And you got to look at a far wider selection of books than is available in those carefully curated age-based marketing sections.

I try not to be a hypocrite, though, so I'm acknowledging that yes, this is an NA book. But it's also a book that used to be (or could be) filed in the regular fiction section alongside the Outsiders or other YA/NA classics. And even better, it's not written in the first person, present tense!

Here We Go Again...New Adult Bandwagon Rambling

I caught a lot of flack about my post-RT rant regarding the Young Adult bandwagon back in 2011.  And now I see the same thing happening all over again with "New Adult".  I have the same reaction to "genre" trends that I do to overly-hyped books. I stay the heck away from them.

I think what upsets me about both Young Adult and New Adult is that it speaks to our laziness as  readers. These trends, which so narrowly focus on specific ages, seem to be less about helping readers find books they can relate to and more about manipulating them into shelling out more cash. And it also speaks to our increasing reliance on publishers and the book industry to tell us what to read.