All tagged Caridad Ferrer

Podcast #20: Diversifying the Shelves (Part 2) with Author Sarah Ockler & Blogger Racquel of The Book Barbies

Podcast #20: Diversifying the Shelves (Part 2) with Author Sarah Ockler & Blogger Racquel of The Book Barbies

Sarah Moon
Podcast: Season Two, Podcast

We're super-thrilled to publish the second half of our discussion with author Sarah Ockler and Racquel, blogger from The Book Barbies, about diversifying our bookshelves, how writers can work to authentically represent people of color in their fiction and recommendations for books and authors that do this successfully. You can find the first half over here. 

In this half, we get down to the nitty-gritty and recommend some novels that really, in our eyes, get it right, and why. It's important to emphasize that this is most definitely not a comprehensive conversation--if anything, it's framing questions and talking about our personal experiences. We hope to continue to explore this topic in future episodes. If you'd like to be involved in a future podcast discussion on this subject, get in touch and let's talk.

 

List-O-Rama: Let's Get Musical

List-O-Rama: Let's Get Musical

Sarah Moon
Listorama

This past week, I started and finished reading Jennifer Echols' July release, Dirty Little Secret (which is so, so good). I enjoyed so much about this book, but the stand-out element for me was the way music played such an important role in both the plot and in developing the characters. 

I'm kind of a doofus when it comes to music: I play the ukulele poorly and was a flutist in marching band in high school until I quit band to protest the ill-fitting polyester pants. (That was super-effective.) Because of my musical doofusness, I really admire people for whom music is so ingrained in their lives. I realized that as a result of that, I tend to gravitate to novels featuring music or musical people. Sometimes, much like books featuring sports, the music is just window dressing, but when it's feels real, it's so very good. 

Here are a twelve (!!!) of my recommendations for musically-infused novels you'll want to check out.​

Adios to My Old Life & When the Stars Go Blue by Caridad Ferrer

​Caridad Ferrer is one of my favorite authors you're probably not reading. Both Adios to My Old Life and When the Stars Go Blue are infused with passion for music and the arts in general. (Interestingly, both of these could easily be considered thematically as "new adult.") Adios to My Old Life is focuses on an American Idol-style singing competition, while Stars follows the structure of the opera Carmen and features an incredible touring marching band. 

Amazon | Goodreads

List-O-Rama: 3 Backlist YA Novels You May Have Missed

List-O-Rama: 3 Backlist YA Novels You May Have Missed

Sarah Moon
Listorama

And by “backlist,” I mean books published prior to the explosion in popularity of YA in the last few years. These are a few of my go-to books when I make recommendations to folks who fell in love with young adult fiction and plowed through most of the popular titles.

These are all contemporaries, natch. And bonus: they’re generally way cheaper than new releases, so it’s easier to feed your book addiction. 

Adios to My Old Life by Caridad Ferrer

MTV Books 2006

I adored Caridad (aka “Barb”) Ferrer’s 2010 novel, When the Stars Go Blue (which is inexplicably omitted from lists of “New Adult” titles, by the way), so I immediately bought both of her previous novels. (I’ve actually held off on reading It’s Not About the Accent because then I will have no other books of hers to read—please tell me I’m not the only one who does this.) Frankly, I’m surprised Adios to My Old Life wasn’t more popular when it was released, since it was published during the height of the American Idol craze, when everyone was talking about Idol around the watercooler. Adios follow Alegria, a talented 16 year old from Miami who’s competing in Oye Mi Canto, a reality show searching for the next Latin pop star. This is a fast-paced novel that I read in one sitting.