New Mormon Books

… as Latoya Peterson pointed out in a piece for Double X … the current crop of pointy-toothed dramas continues the genre’s fascination with sexual violence and the idealization of the chaste woman. I can’t fault her for taking issue with eroticized depictions of abuse, often against women. But she’s wrong to equate the sexual politics of True Blood with those of the abstinent, repressed Twilight. These two are not the same animal.

Rough Sex With Vampires: What Does “True Blood” Tell Us About Women and Sexuality?
By James Brady Ryan, Nerve.com.
AlterNet.org, July 18, 2009.
http://www.alternet.org/sex/141317/rough_sex_with_vampires:_what_does_%22true_blood%22_tell_us_about_women_and_sexuality/

The success behind the books stems from the ability of Stephenie to convey an array of emotion within each character, mainly Bella, from whose point of view of the books are written, with a few exceptions. Stephenie has written the books in such a fashion that readers don’t simply enjoy them; they climb into the world of the Cullen family. The books span beyond simply an interesting plot; they tug at the emotion and heartstrings of tweens, teens and adults alike.

Twilight Parents 101: Who is Stephenie Meyer?
By Kimberly Sherman, Twilight Parents Examiner
Examiner.com, July 18, 2009.
http://www.examiner.com/x-13198-Twilight-Parents-Examiner~y2009m7d18-Twilight-Parents-101-Who-is-Stephenie-Meyer

This book has received more award and list loving than any book of mine besides princess academy. It’s a very precious book to me and my husband’s favorite. I’m thrilled to have it coming out in paperback.

Presenting…Dashti
By Shannon Hale
squeetusblog, July 17, 2009.
http://oinks.squeetus.com/2009/07/presentingdashti.html

My ideas come from two places: anywhere and everywhere. There is no facet of my life or experience that doesn’t give me ideas for stories. It isn’t a matter of getting ideas, but of filtering out mediocre ideas and shaping those with the potential to be good. And we do shape our ideas; they don’t come in grade-A story form, and they never come complete. My stories are the result of percolation. I get ideas—fractured, isolated bits of dialogue, or theme, or archetypal emotion, and other stuff—that I write down on scraps of paper that eventually make their way onto my computer. They stay there and in my mind, where they bounce around and accrete until a genuine story concept is born. That concept I then work and build consciously, stressing conflict and the inherent emotive theme of the story. I do this until I become confident enough to begin writing.

Interview with Clint Johnson author of Green Dragon Codex
By Michelle Ashman Bell, July 17, 2009
http://micheleabell.blogspot.com/2009/07/interview-with-clint-johnson-author-of.html

…then the Harry Potter comparisons started rolling out. Media pundits everywhere declared Twilight the new Harry Potter. I wondered, flabbergasted, how any person could ever believe such a thing. Potter?! Really? What I saw onscreen was soap opera trash for the tween nation. It didn’t bear anywhere near the universal appeal of the Harry Potter series. But now I’m here, explaining how such a preposterous claim is less an arguable statement and more a joke, an unfunny one at that, like Will Ferrell trying to ice skate.

Do The Math: 8 Reasons Harry Potter Is Greater Than Twilight
By Tim Gomez
Cinema Blend.com, July 16, 2009
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Do-The-Math-8-Reasons-Harry-Potter-Is-Greater-Than-Twilight-13981.html

The book we’re reading first is The Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. It’s good, but it’s written for twelve year olds. If I were twelve, I would be so in love with this book, but at thirty-three…not so much. I’m having a hard time imagining what we’re going to discuss (I’m only halfway through it, so maybe it will surprise me).

Bad Girls’ Book Club
By Brandi Douglass
Douglass Diaries, July 14, 2009
http://douglassdiaries.blogspot.com/2009/07/bad-girls-book-club.html

I’m about to make a very unpopular comparison, one that surely will have some fans trying to revoke my own Whedon fandom: Bella, Buffy, and the bloodsuckers from Twilight and Buffy aren’t all that different.

Girls on Film: Bella, Buffy, and Bloodsuckers
By Monika Bartyzel
Cinematical, Jul 6th 2009.
http://www.cinematical.com/2009/07/06/girls-on-film-bella-buffy-and-bloodsuckers/

It’s no surprise, then, that Stephenie Meyer hit the jackpot with her young adult vampire series, Twilight, which is now a major motion picture enterprise as well. … But as a child of the nineties, and quite possibly the biggest fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I have to ask: what the hell happened to us?

Twilight
By Jessica Ferri, Kissing Dead Girls
Bookslut, July 2009
http://www.bookslut.com/kissing_dead_girls/2009_07_014759.php

Since leaving his accounting job last year, Mormon author James Dashner has been spending his days in libraries, bookstores and movie theaters. But he can hardly be accused of idleness. After all, Dashner is producing books that have him poised for arrival on the national youth fiction landscape.

Accountant to author: James Dashner trumps the odds
By Aaron Shill
Mormon Times, July 1, 2009.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705314078,00.html

This was a fascinating book and a good introduction to the issues surrounding such polygamous sects. It’s also a little violent for tweens, but ought to be fine for older teens.

That said, I also think that it’s written in such a way that it distances this cult—The Chosen Ones—from the sources of most of these polygamous sects in the West, which has historically been the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

You don’t want to be chosen
By Kel Munger
Sacramento News & Review, June 30, 2009.
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/bibliolatry/blogs?date=2009-06-01