Best Books of 2015

So many books, so little time! Here are some of the books that I really enjoyed in 2015, listed alphabetically by title. Click on the titles to read my reviews:

Alex as Well by Alyssa Brugman
All the Rage by Courtney Summers
Dead Ringers by Christopher Golden
A Deafening Silence in Heaven by Thomas E. Sniegoski
Edgewater by Courtney Sheinmel
The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough
Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen
Sounds Like Me: My Life (so far) in Song by Sara Bareilles
Tin Men by Christopher Golden
The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten


Check out my full list: Best Books of 2015 - as posted at my blog, Bildungsroman.


What were some of your favorite books from 2015? Leave the titles in the comments below!

Rgz Street Team: Sarah Reviews Positively by Courtney Sheinmel

The rgz Street Team is a group of teens who bring YA reviews to our blog, led by Postergirl Miss Erin. Find out more.

Today, Sarah reviews last week's featured title, Positively by Courtney Sheinmel:

"When I got sick the first thing that they tested me for was HIV, and I was so afraid that I got it somehow. I didn't have it, but my disease is caused by the immune system. Even though our diseases are very different, I could totally relate to [Positively's main character] Emmy. I know that if I have 100% lung function by the time I am 40 or if my liver doesn't stop from the pills, I am lucky, and Emmy is faced with that too in other ways. There are days that I want to just throw my pills out or not get shots anymore, but I know that decision is a choice between life and death. When I first got sick, I went to a camp for teens with Primary Immunodeficiency and it was similar to what Emmy experienced at Camp Positive. Some of the friends from that time are dead, but they are far from forgotten. The part about the balloons really got to me, because that it what we do every year on my sister's birthday.

"The plot is real, because you are constantly reminded how hard life can be for some people. This book is really original, because it leaves you with so much hope. Shienmel is a fantastic writer. I loved that this is based by her experience from with working The Elizabeth Glaser AIDS Foundation and is really accurate and realistic. I highly suggest that you read this book, it is a story of a girl with so much strength." --Sarah

See Sarah's full rating of this book on Sarah's Random Musings.

Positively: Finding Hope Through Understanding

Our Featured Title this week is Positively by Courtney Sheinmel, and in her post, she talked about how her hopes for people living with HIV have grown and grown.

One powerful aspect of Courtney's book about 13-year-old Emmy, who's HIV-positive, is that it gives us a character who represents that experience. And isn't there always hope in finding a story that you can relate to?

So tell us, readergirlz, what people in your life, or books that you've read, have given you hope because you felt that they understood or spoke to what you were going through?

PS-Don't forget to read the Cover Story behind Courtney's gorgeous novel.

Featured Title: POSITIVELY, by Courtney Sheinmel

I'm so excited to welcome Courtney Sheinmel to readergirlz today! I've seen her out and about at various NYC author functions but hadn't "met" her until her fantastic, moving, and oh-so-HOPEful book, Positively, was chosen as postergirlz pick this month. I loved it when I first read it, so I was glad to have the chance to tell her so in "person."

"Emmy is infected with the HIV virus, and her mother, infected before she married Emmy's father, dies of AIDS at the beginning of the book. Angry and alone, the 13-year-old moves in with her semi-estranged father and newly pregnant stepmother. At a loss for how to help Emmy recover from her grief and alienation, they send her to a summer camp for girls with HIV and AIDS. There she realizes that she is not alone, not the only person to take handfuls of pills on a daily basis, not the only girl who worries about the complications of dating with the virus. She returns home with a new perspective, welcoming her half sister into her life and admitting her newfound desire for a happier, more "positive" existence...  Emmy's situation is compelling and underrepresented in YA fiction." -- School Library Journal

Compelling is definitely the right word! Here's what Courtney has to say about hope:

Once when I was fifteen years old I was babysitting for three kids, two girls and a boy.  The boy had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and back then, in the early 1990s, that diagnosis was often a death sentence.  The conversation turned to what the kids wanted to be when they grew up.  The boy said he planned to be a baseball player.  I always had hopes his future, and at that moment I truly concentrated on it:  Please, PLEASE let him grow up.

Eighteen years have passed, and he’s a grown up now.  A few weeks ago I had lunch with another friend.  She’s a college freshman and she also happens to have HIV.  We were talking about what she wanted to do with her life.  I was throwing out suggestions and thinking, Oh, please, let her find her way.  Hours later I realized her being HIV-positive didn’t occur to me when we were talking about her future – not once, during the entire conversation.  There was just no doubt in my mind that she does have a future – a long and glorious one – ahead of her. 

And that’s the kind of thing that gives me hope, and makes me believe anything is possible.

Thank you so much, Courtney, for visiting with us, for shedding light on an issue that isn't often addressed in children's literature, and for your own irrepressibly positive outlook! 

What do you think, readergirlz: when you think of the future, what do you hope for - for yourself, and for others? 

Story Secrets: POSITIVELY by Courtney Sheinmel + giveaway!

In honor of World AIDS Day (December 1), I am very pleased to welcome friend Courtney Sheinmel today to tell us her story secrets about her beautiful YA book, POSITIVELY.

I met Courtney in New York City when I went for BEA last summer, and she is honestly one of the nicest YA authors around. I wish I had a pic of us together! After the Teen Author Carnival (yes, another awesome author I met there!), we all went out for yummy Mexican food with a bunch of others and ended up talking the whole time.

I'm very excited to get to feature her today, and also to chat about her upcoming book, SINCERELY. Oh, and check out that amazing Be the Link photo (by Andy Tsagaris) below.

Welcome, Courtney!

*****

POSITIVELY is about a thirteen-year-old girl named Emerson (“Emmy” for short) who was born with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. After her mom dies, Emmy has to move in with her dad and his new wife – who is pregnant and preoccupied with things like baking cookies and getting the house ready for the baby. Emmy feels isolated and filled with grief. Her dad ends up sending her to a camp for girls with HIV, where she finds hope and the will to live, even in a world without her mother.

Holly Cupala: I've been fascinated with this story even before I met you. Where did the idea come from?

Courtney Sheinmel: Okay, to tell you that I have to go back to something that happened nearly two decades ago. It was February of 1991, and I was in eighth grade. I read an article about a woman named Elizabeth Glaser. She was infected with HIV and had unknowingly passed the virus onto her two children. Her daughter died of AIDS in 1988, during a time when there weren’t many medications around to treat people with the disease. A couple months later, Elizabeth founded the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, in hopes of raising money to fund research that would save her son. It was one of the most remarkable stories I had ever heard, and I decided I wanted to get involved...


Find out more of Courtney's secrets and enter to win POSITIVELY here...

~Holly Cupala

Cover Stories: My So-Called Family by Courtney Sheinmel

Courtney Sheinmel is back to share the Cover Story behind her first novel, My So-Called Family (read yesterday's Cover Story about Courtney's latest release, Positively).

My So-Called Family is the tale of a 13-year-old girl named Leah who finds out that she was conceived through artificial insemination. So her father is "Donor 730," and though she has a stepfather and younger brother and a loving mom, she wants to know more. So w

hen she finds out that Donor 730 has another daughter around her age, she intends to meet her half-sister!

That sounds like a great book and a tough cover to design. Here's Courtney with the story:

"MY SO-CALLED FAMILY, went through a few different covers before the final version. About a year before the publication date, my editor emailed over a sketch from the cover artist depicting the concept for the cover - a girl, her mother, and the dotted outlines of her unknown father and siblings.I liked the concept and they scheduled a photo shoot. But then when my editor emailed me a few weeks later with the actual cover, it was not at all what I expected. I thought the colors were too jarring, the font seemed off, and I didn't like the ex

pression on the girl's face. They kept the concept, but changed the colors, font and picture, and I really liked the second version. It was the version that ended up on the galleys (left), and I showed them off to everyone I knew.

"Sometime later I found out that the design had changed for a third

time: same concept, same girl, but the colors were different and the mom was taking off the front cover and moved to the back. The final version pops out more (above right), and I'm really happy with it.

"The paperback cover of MY SO-CALLED FAMILY is different than the hardcover - the colors and fonts have changed again (right). It came out September 15th, the same day as POSITIVELY!"

I like the way the cover ended up, and I think the colors on the paperback pop a little more than the blue-green of the hardcover (plus the title stands out more on the paperback). However, I think I like the hardcover better overall. What do you guys think?

Cover Stories: Positively by Courtney Sheinmel

The awesome Courtney Sheinmiel is here to share the Cover Story behind the recently released Positively. The book is about Emerson Price, who was four-years-old when she and her mom were diagnosed as HIV-positive. Now she is thirteen and her mother is dead. Emmy moves in with her father and stepmother, but she feels completely alone. When they send her to a camp for HIV-positive girls, Emmy is certain she's going to hate it. But soon she realizes that she's not so alone after all -- and that sometimes letting other people in can make all the difference in the world.

Here's Courtney:

"While I was writing my second book, POSITIVELY, I kept thinking of the cover of Jenny Downham's wonderful book, BEFORE I DIE (below). The image is so haunting and powerful - a black and white photo of a teenage girl. The expression on her face just seemed to me to be a lot like Emerson, the thirteen-year-old narrator of POSITIVELY. A writer friend suggested that

I send my editor the BEFORE I DIE cover, which I did. He emailed back not to worry; they would come up with something perfect for POSITIVELY.

"A couple months later, my editor emailed me the POSITIVELY cover. It looks nothing like BEFORE I DIE. For one thing, it is full of color. It is so hopeful and it captures the book better than anything I ever imagined. There is a pivotal scene in the book when Emerson and her family release balloons, which is depicted on the cover. I love the way the balloon in Emerson's hand has a red ribbon. As far as I know, the picture was

a stock photo and not a model shoot - hard to believe because it's just so perfect. The one thing I was surprised about was the girl's blond hair; I always pictured Emerson with darker hair. But I am absolutely thrilled with the cover, and now I think of her as a blonde."

I'm so glad the cover got that bright treatment (though I love Jenny Downham's cover too). I just think the feel of it, like a photograph taken in the sun, is so warm and hopeful. What do you guys think?

PS-Courtney will share the Cover Story for her first book, My So-Called Family, tomorrow!

PPS-Courtney is donating a portion of her proceeds from this book to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Very cool.

Courtney Sheinmel rocked the drop! #operationtbd

She left POSITIVELY this morning in sunny Bryant Park. Here's the photo. 

Follow her on Twitter: courtneywrites

Or check out her website.  

Winter Blog Blast Tour (WBBT)

For the past two years, Colleen from Chasing Ray has organized series upon series of author interviews. These blog tours, hosted and posted at various blogs, have been dubbed the Summer Blog Blast Tour (SBBT for short) and Winter Blog Blast Tour (aka WBBT). Each event is one week long and involves a multitude of authors, bloggers, and readers.

Many authors whose works have been mentioned here at the readergirlz blog will be participating, as will four out of the five postergirlz - Shelf Elf, Miss Erin, HipWriterMama, and moi. (I'm sure Jackie will be following, too!) I conducted five interviews for WBBT, one of which will posted at my book blog, Bildungsroman, each weekday morning this week. I kicked things off this morning with author Courtney Sheinmel, who has posted here at readergirlz about hope and family.

Visit Chasing Ray for the master list for this year's WBBT. I also posted the full schedule at Bildungsroman.

Family: Courtney Sheinmel

A few days ago, the two-year-old son of one of my dearest friends was rushed to the hospital. (Before I go any further, let me just tell you that the baby is fine; he got an absolutely clean bill of health.) Moments after the ambulance came, my friend's husband called to tell me what was going on. I dropped the phone, ran outside, got a cab, and raced to the hospital. On the way over, I started to think about what I would tell the receptionist at the ER. I desperately wanted to be with my friend and her son, and I was afraid the emergency room staff wouldn't understand that we were such close friends that really we were family.

The thing is, I've always had a really broad definition of family. I don't think you need to share DNA or be legally related to someone to be their family. Tonight, just before I sat down to write this, I looked the word "family" up in the American Heritage College Dictionary. It was a pretty long entry, so I'm not going to reproduce the whole thing here, but this was my favorite part: "Two or more people who share goals and values, [and] have commitments to each other. . . ."

There are a lot of people in my life who fit this definition, people who are my family in the truest sense of the world, people for whom I am grateful every single day.

When I got to the hospital, I went straight back to the pediatric ER. I spotted my friend sitting on a gurney, the baby asleep in her arms. I sat down next to her, just like I belonged there. A few minutes later, a nurse came over to take the baby's vital signs. He woke up and started to cry. "It's okay,” the nurse said. "Settle down. Your family is here."

Yes, I thought. We are.

- Courtney Sheinmel

Follow the series of family posts.

Hope: Courtney Sheinmel

Thank you, Little Willow, for asking me to describe what "hope" means to me.

I've been struggling to put it into words. Life is such a strange, unpredictable, and often difficult thing – there's a lot to be scared of and of course there's great sadness. It seems like a natural response to just be depressed and want to give up. But hope is the antidote to that. It's the reason to live, the ability to look forward, to expect a lot and believe things will work out. I have always had an elaborate fantasy life. My friends have made fun of me when I've described, often in great detail, my winning the lottery, accepting the Newbery Award, or being invited backstage at a Madonna concert. When you hope, you are setting yourself up for disappointment; but hope is continuing to have faith in your wildest dreams.

My book, Positively, is about a thirteen-year-old girl named Emmy who is HIV-positive and who lost her mother to AIDS. I know it's a really sad story, but I think it's mainly about hope – losing hope, and finding it again.

- Courtney Sheinmel

View all posts labeled with hope.