I’ve been studiously posting book reviews here for every book I read. But I’ve also been holding back. In a review, I don’t always go into detail about what I liked or didn’t like because I know people like Anne-Marie and Yvette and even Lacy probably just read the rating, if that, and get on with their lives.

There are other things I’m holding back. Like cool writing exercises I come across. And why I started but didn’t finish a certain book. And how do you possibly decide what to read next when your to-read list is almost a thousand books long?

Adding to that, I know there must be other people out there like me—wannabe young adult writers who devour the latest, hottest YA creation hoping to learn from it, or just to be close to what we so desperately want.

So for the other YA wannabes, but also as an outlet for myself, I’ve created…

YAnnabe

I can geek out to my heart’s content on reading and writing for YA, and you don’t have to wade through book review after book review when all you really want is just a cute picture of Abby every now and then.

Still, I will probably post a monthly roundup of book ratings here because I will always want to spread the word about good books. And you won’t be free from my non-YA book reviews.

But if you like all those YA book reviews, or if you just can’t get enough of me and my opinions, I’ll totally understand if you want to sneak over to YAnnabe and subscribe by email or feed reader.

You’ve timed everything perfectly. She’s fed, she’s well rested, and she has a clean diaper on. You have just enough time to put on her socks and shoes before you have to leave and make it to your one Official Baby Enrichment Activity for the weekend—storytime at the local bookstore.

You sit down, plop her on your lap facing forward, and put her left sock on. But as you turn your attention to the right sock, she’s already pulled off the left sock. Right sock in place, you turn back to the left sock, and she zeroes in on the right. Rinse, repeat, and lather yourself into a frenzy as the start of storytime passes and you’re still trying to get your kid’s damn socks on.

Abby has cold feet pretty much all the time. If we try to sneak socks on her feet after she’s fallen asleep, she knows. When we wake up in the morning, the socks are gone and she’s just lying there like an angel.

So we waited. And plotted. And waited some more. Finally, the weather in Austin got chilly enough to implement our wicked scheme to keep our child’s feet warm at night—footy pajamas.

I picked up a super cute pair of red-and-white jammies at Whole Foods made by Under the Nile. Abby looked adorable in them, and her toes were warm. Success!

But here’s the thing about footy pajamas, or at least footy pajamas with my kid. Abby still soaks at least one diaper by 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. That means the footy pajamas have to come off, the diaper has to be changed, and the pajamas have to go back on, all while she cries and cries and cries her heart out.

This particular pair of pajamas has snaps from the middle of one knee all the way up to the neck. Do you have any idea how hard it is to redo forty-two freaking snaps at 2:00 in the morning in the dark while your baby is crying buckets and you’re barely awake?

So here’s my parenting tip of the day: When in the market for footy pajamas, steer clear of snaps. The zipper is a wonderful invention.

We found some cute, organic, zippered footy pajamas made by Green Babies that are working out much better. They’re a little on the pricey side, although footypajamas.com is having a sale. We figured if we couldn’t invest in a completely organic wardrobe for Abby, we could at least spend $30 on a pair of organic pajamas since she spends 12 hours of every day in pajamas.

While I’ll take these zipper pajamas over snap pajamas any day, it’s not the most ideal solution because we still have to unzip, take both legs out, change the diaper, put both legs back in, then zip back up. There’s gotta be a better way.

To all the parents out there: Do you have an anti-sock child? And if so, what do you do to keep their feet warm at night?

Title: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances
Author: John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: Three interconnected holiday stories of love from three bestselling teen authors.

Review: I wasn’t quite ready to let the holidays go, so I actually put this on hold at the library after Christmas. I felt a little weird cracking it open in my living room now completely devoid of holiday decorations. But I’m glad I did.

These are quick, fun stories that made me laugh out loud several times—not a common occurrence when I’m reading. I loved the sarcastic humor of the characters, especially in the first two stories. The main character in the last story was a little whiny for my taste, but that was kind of the whole point of the story in the first place so I got over it.

I already had John Green’s Paper Towns on my to-read list, but I loved Maureen Johnson’s writing so I’m trying to pick one of her books to add. Maybe Devilish?

Title: The Dead and the Gone
Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 0.5/5
Summary: A meteor hits the Moon, knocking it towards the Earth. Alex Morales lives in New York City with his family and must find a way to help them survive the chaos that ensues.

Review: Goodness. Am I getting persnickety or what?

Before I get any further in this review, you really should check out Life As We Knew It by this same author with a similar premise. That book is worth your time, without a doubt.

With that said, let me get down to business. This book was awful. I almost stopped reading it several times. What kept me going in the end wasn’t wanting to know what happened to the characters. I got the idea that I should take notes as I read it so I can look for those problems in my own writing in the future, and that’s why I finished it.

I was getting so annoyed while reading that I actually read passages aloud to Erik to make sure I wasn’t off my rocker. He assured me that I am not—at least in regards to my opinion of this book.

So what follows is an exercise in trying to articulate what could made a book so awful. Here’s the short version: Skip this book and read something else instead.

• The characters came across with the personality and depth of cardboard cutouts. Their dialogue was stilted and wooden—not realistic for teen characters at all.
• During most scenes, I could only assume that the characters were rendered completely immobile by some silent and unnamed attacker. They didn’t brush hair out of their eyes, bite their lips, furrow their brows, tilt their heads, shift their weight to one foot, cross their arms, uncross their arms, look down, look up, look to the side, or even blink for Pete’s sake. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. But if I went back and counted all the characters’ actions during the scenes of dialogue, I bet the fingers on two hands would be more than sufficient. Personally, I really like those little actions during dialogue, and I longed for them in this book. Those little actions help you know how a character’s reacting to someone else’s words. They give you clues about whether they’re lying or happy or sad or tired. The only way I knew what the characters were feeling was…
• The author tells the characters’ emotions instead of showing them. Don’t tell me that “the priest looked exhausted.” Show me that his eyes have dark circles under them or he’s downing one cup of coffee after another or he keeps pressing the heels of his hand into his eye sockets. It’s more interesting that way. The way I show exhaustion (go from zero to bitch in less than a second) is different from how someone else shows exhaustion (Erik, for example, will fall asleep mid-sentence). And that’s how you get to know a person.
• Too much time was spent on inane details. Pages 88 to 91 describe every step one character goes through to pack a duffel bag for another character. Trust me, that wasn’t necessary for the plot or character development.
• I’m not religious, but the religious parts came across as even flatter than the characters.

But possibly more important than all those writing mechanics, the reason you shouldn’t read this or recommend this to anyone in its target age group is that it’s depressing as hell.

I started the book on Saturday and finished it today. Starting last night and continuing into today, I was feeling pretty down and depressed. It took me a while to figure out this book was the cause. Not only does the book get pretty gruesome halfway through, but it’s also completely devoid of hope. Dark is fine. I don’t mind dark as long as there’s some light to balance it out. I am a devout Buffy fan, after all. But this book goes too far.

Title: Things I Want My Daughters to Know
Author: Elizabeth Noble
Category: Fiction
Rating: 2/5
Summary: A mother dying of cancer writes letters to her husband and each of her four daughters, then keeps a diary in her last days. Her daughters receive the letters and the diary after she passes away and have to reconcile their mother’s advice with what’s going on in their lives.

Review: I had trouble getting into this story. It had so many different “main” characters that I didn’t feel a real connection with any of them. The book switches point of view among the 4 daughters and the husband. (Unless you count all the letters and diary entries from the mom—that would make 6 points of view.) Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if you had a little more time to spend with each character before being switched to the next one, but the switches were too frequent for me to settle into a character.

The story itself is fine, but what’s a story without a character you can settle into?

I also had a hard time reading some of the dialogue. Sometimes there wouldn’t be a paragraph break between text describing the actions of one character and the speech of another character. So I’d misunderstand and think the first character was the one saying it until I got further in the conversation and realized that I was off by a character. Also, when more than two people were talking, the dialogue wasn’t always attributed so I had absolutely no idea who was saying what.

All in all, not a horrible book but also nothing to write home about.

This year, I read almost as many books as the previous 2 years combined. 70 was the grand total for the year. (Who knew having a kid would give me more reading time?)

I’m always looking for book recommendations, so tell me: What were your favorite books last year?

Okay, okay. I’ll go first. My two favorites of the year also make it to my all-time favorites list, so I would highly recommend them to anyone and everyone:

• Nonfiction: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
• Fiction: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

And there are a few more I’d recommend to specific folks…

For the Kids (or Kids at Heart)

• Feathers
• Flush
• Olive’s Ocean
• The Penderwicks on Gardam Street (start with The Penderwicks)
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard
• Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos
• The Underneath

For the Teens

• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
• Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing (start with A Great and Terrible Beauty)

And go ahead and read the Twilight series. It’s not the best stuff in the world, but it’s fun as hell.

For the Aspiring Writers

• How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights
• No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days
• Writer Mama: How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids

For the Expecting or New Parents
Yes, I know you’re tired and/or have a lot to do. But these are all worth it, I promise.

• Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love
• Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk
• The Diaper-Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative
• Good Nights: The Happy Parents’ Guide to the Family Bed (and a Peaceful Night’s Sleep!)
• The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer
• Nursing Mother, Working Mother
• The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child

For the Other Parents

• Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
• Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family

Finally, Some 2008 Stats
I tend to read a novel or two in between every nonfiction book, so these numbers make sense:
Fiction: 66%
Nonfiction: 34%

And here’s the breakdown within the fiction category:
Adult fiction: 13%
YA or kids’ fiction: 87%

Although it’s hard to catch on camera, December was the month Abby started signing. Her first sign was “more,” then she starting doing “dog,” “milk,” and “water.” But here’s a sign every baby learns how to do:

But wait, there’s more! We put together a little end-of-year gift for you—a collection showing how Abby’s grown over the last 10 months. Enjoy!