Book Review: The Vinyl Princess

Title: The Vinyl Princess
Author: Yvonne Prinz
Genre: YA Literary Fiction
Rating: A+

140-Character Summary: Girl has a job at a music store. Her opinions of her mom, her friends, guys, and the world all evolve in time with the literary soundtrack.

First 140 Characters: "I sense him in my midst. The air seems to thin when he's near me. I get light-headed. I don't even have to look up but I can't help myself."

140-Character Review: Prinz's passion for music was clear and, although that's not my passion, it stirred my own passions. Good characters, dialogue and conflict.

140-Character Recommendation/Market Placement/Entry Point: Fans of YA books that 1) Use music as a motif to tell a story (King Dork) and/or 2) Expose you to a new passion (In the Break).

Read the write-up that inspired me to read this book.

Paradigm Shift

Although I have been absent from the blog for a long time, I am not dead. I have just been busy secondary to my own personal choices. But I've still been feeling guilty for ignoring you all and not posting reviews for a while. (Because I have been reading.)

And then tonight, while walking my dog, I was struck by a bolt of mental lightning, thanks to my obsession with listening to The Enthusiasticast podcast. Listen to the first 15:00 of this podcast (you can listen to the whole thing, but promise me you'll come back).

During the discussion on that podcast, although I don't think this was their intention, they talk about the fact that it's impossible for them to give a bad "review"/talk-up of a book on The Enthusiasticast because they only recommend books that blow their doors off. And that's when I decided that I was going to perform a paradigm shift on this blog.

I'm going to keep reading whatever I want (because that's my [and Bobby Brown's] perogative). And, as much as some people will tell you to stop reading a book if you don't love it, I still won't (most of the time) because it's a personal pride issue (that doesn't really make any sense), but I will not review it. I'm only going to spend time reviewing books that I love (with a capital "L") and think that (some of) you may love.

And part of the reason is because, as I said earlier, I'm busy. But the other part of it is the fact that you're busy too. You don't want to waste your time reading reviews of books that you'd probably never read.

So now you can know in your heart of hearts that everything that you read on this blog comes with Heather's overwhelming endorsement.

Enjoy!

(The picture for this post is found here and was founding searching "paradigm" in the tags of pictures in the Creative Commons on Flickr. For what that's worth.)