Bookcase Bizarro: MG/YA Book Reviews, April 2024

MG/YA Book Reviews by a MG/YA Writer

Author News: Wattpad Update

Welcome to the April edition of Bookcase Bizarro!

I’m wrapping up my Wattpad release and am getting ready to launch Shadow Apprentice in book form. The results from Wattpad have been better than expected so far, with a total of 74 Wattpad reads. Small numbers, I know, but I’m just fine with small numbers and slow growth. And hey, more people know about my story now than they did before.

I’m also a MG writer on a platform that’s known primarily for romance, so I was pleasantly surprised to get this number of reads on my very first try. From my research, I also know that one of my target audiences—middle-schoolers—shows up here, too. I got some comments, including one I suspect is from a younger reader, which I’m absolutely delighted about. Still, it’s going to take more than one story to get known around here. 7 weeks is definitely not enough time for a story to attract attention and gain traction. Next time, I’ll dial the posting schedule back to 2 chapters/week and make sure the story stays up for 2-3 months minimum.

To me, Wattpad feels like a cross between a social media platform, a reading/writing app and an online critique group although from the Reddit discussion boards, it appears that the community exchange aspect of Wattpad is being phased out. This change may affect beginning writers, who wish to exchange feedback and learn writing craft, the most. Many experienced writers already focus primarily on their own writing and interact mostly with people who read their stories rather than comment on other people’s work. Why? Shared critiques function best when writers are at a similar skill level to each other (or slightly above). This way, the relationship remains reciprocal and both parties can find value in the exchange. Exchanging comments with a beginning writer, when you aren’t a beginning writer yourself, feels less like a process of mutual support and discovery, and more like unpaid teaching.

I suspect Wattpad also wants to funnel the high-ranking and more popular authors into its own programs. Like any other social media platform, Wattpad wants your content and lots of it. It rewards frequent posters and it uses your IP in service of the site, regardless of whether it actually benefits you as a writer. Case in point: Wattpad Featured Stories. Wattpad invites writers to submit their stories to be featured on the website, but their contract states that writers must commit to keeping their story posted on the Wattpad site for an extended period of time. For how long? Wattpad doesn’t say, and therein lies the rub. I don’t make it a practice to agree to vague contract terms, so I gave Wattpad a very clear timeline on my application for when I planned to take my story down. I received no response, and I did not get a featured story offer, either. (This is hardly surprising, given the high level of competition for these spots.) It gave me pause, though. After all, the whole point of being an indie writer is being able to call my own shots and negotiate equitable terms, not to agree to vague and one-sided contracts. I won’t be joining any Wattpad programs in the future, even if I ever grow popular enough to be invited.

The question I need to ask as an indie author is whether Wattpad can still be a useful part of my platform, especially if I’m only going to post when I’ve got a new story out and am not willing to spend a lot of time reading and commenting on other people’s work?

It’s an open question, but I think the answer is a qualified ‘yes.’ Wattpad is a place where kids hang out, so it’s definitely worth posting my work there, and leaving chapters up for people to sample. Unlike other social media platforms, Wattpad attracts readers, 94 million of them—readers who also may be unique to this specific platform. Wattpad and other serial fiction platforms are unique in another way: they give writers the opportunity to engage directly with their audiences, which is priceless for a MG or YA author. Commenting on other people’s stories however seems more optional, as many writers are not interested in sharing comments outside their own stories.

I think it’s worthwhile exploring paying options outside of Wattpad too, like early release chapters through Patreon or providing a link on my Wattpad page where people can buy the whole book. I envision using Wattpad as a satellite that orbits around Planet Website, peripheral rather than central (much like how I use Instagram). I refuse to get sucked into endlessly producing free content or providing unpaid labour for a digital media company in the vain hope that their algorithms will boost my popularity. They won’t; I’m a slow writer. Audience-building for me will be a slow burn, driven by writing quality books, time-limited online serializations, and an always-free blog and newsletter. And I’d much rather save my comments for other people’s blogs. It’s WAAAY more fun!

Before we get to this month’s book reviews, a quick note to new readers: books that are available from the Toronto Public Library are marked #TPL, because books don’t have to be new or owned in order to be loved.

Middle Grade Book Review

The Stars of Whistling Ridge, by Cindy Baldwin. (Quill Tree, 2021)

Ivy Mae Bloom is tired of the old RV (called Martha) that she, her parents, and two sisters have traveled around in for as long as she can remember. The bedroom she shares with her two younger sisters has grown too cramped, and she can find no privacy, especially from her super-annoying youngest sister, Sophie. But her mother, a fallen star, is charged with tending to the magic that underpins the world, and she helps people through firefly wishes she captures in jars. Mama’s work is so important that the Blooms must keep traveling, no matter how much Ivy Mae wants a forever home.

When Ivy Mae steals her mother’s entire collection of jars to wish that home into being, the Blooms are stranded in Whistling Ridge with Aunt Agatha and Aunt Ruth, Mama’s two star sisters. Ivy Mae makes friends and discovers the story of Lydia Lovelace, one of Whistling Ridge’s first settlers, who died of a broken heart when the man she loved turned around and married someone else. Ivy Mae knows how it feels to be betrayed by someone you love; her youngest sister, Sophie, tattled on her for stealing the wishes. She decides she is exactly the right person to write Lydia’s story. Not only that, but her two new friends, Simon and Ravi, invite her to enter her story into the Lovelace festival and join with her to create a display. Ivy Mae knows that the project is her ticket to convincing her parents to park Martha and stay in Whistling Ridge for good. She just has to make sure they don’t leave before the festival.

Something’s gone rotten at the heart of the town, and the star sisters don’t know how to fix it. The insides of apples turn into swirling grey smoke, and blooming flowers transform into masses of crawling bugs. Fireflies are few and far between, so it’s difficult for Mama to replenish her wishing jars. Not that she has much time for wishes, as she bands together with her sisters to find out what’s poisoning the town. Then Ivy Mae finds a clue in the town’s past to what might be causing the bad magic. If she shares what she knows, she may help to save Whistling Ridge, but she will lose her one and only chance at a forever home.

Other reviewers have pegged Ivy Mae as an unlikeable, ‘spoiled’ child, but I think this criticism misses the mark. As the oldest child in her family, Ivy Mae is starting to individuate from her parents and think about what she wants for her own life. Like many parents (okay, all of them), the Blooms have difficulty adjusting to Ivy Mae’s adolescent needs. Baldwin is careful to portray them as bewildered rather than antagonistic. They genuinely don’t see what’s wrong about traveling around from place to place in a camper, and neither do Ivy Mae’s younger sisters, but readers may sense that this might change for them in time as well. Ivy Mae isn’t spoiled; she’s growing up. She wants her own space and privacy that isn’t available to her in Martha. Any eldest child will empathize with Ivy Mae’s resentment against her youngest sister, Sophie, and the parental expectations and responsibilities that come with being the eldest.

Baldwin does not have a problem with throwing her main protag under the bus, either—a strength that’s difficult for many writers. Ivy Mae makes the morally bankrupt decision to use her mother’s wishes—all 9 of them—to get her heart’s desire: a permanent home. Ivy Mae knows what she’s doing is wrong, and she does it anyway. This is such a relatable experience, almost delicious in its naughtiness and with more than a hint of adolescent rebellion to come. Baldwin explores all the grim consequences of Ivy Mae’s choices without ever hammering home a moral. She doesn’t need to. Ivy Mae’s ethical enough to feel torn with regret over what she’s done, even as she tries to convince herself that her project on Lydia Lovelace will force her parents to see her point of view. Astute readers will recognize the lying and manipulation involved in such anguished self-justification, especially since there are plenty of parallel clues planted inside the story. Still, the thrill of trying on somebody else’s badness is Just. So. Good.

So is the moral conundrum facing Ivy Mae: if she shares her knowledge of the past with the star sisters, she might help to save Whistling Ridge, but she will also lose the town that’s become a home to her. Baldwin’s magic system is intricately connected to this central conflict. While I was initially unwilling to buy into the concept of Ivy Mae’s mother and sisters as fallen stars, Baldwin’s tight interweaving of plot and theme ultimately convinced me. Star magic is wishing magic, and as Ivy Mae knows, wishes can sometimes go bad. Ivy Mae’s youngest sister, Sophie, provides the first clue as to what might be happening in Whistling Ridge and Ivy Mae listens, finding a home in something other than a physical place—just as Whistling Ridge plants itself into the hearts of her vagabond family.

Quill Tree’s proofreading needs some improvement. Chapter 4 presents identical versions of the same paragraph in two different places. It coincides with some of Baldwin’s sublime poetic imagery, which makes it all the more jarring. Hopefully, the editors will correct their error in later editions.

Older MG readers on the cusp of adolescence will find much to relate to, especially if they are the eldest in their families. (#TPL)

YA+ Book Recommendation

The Housekeepers, by Alex Hay. (Graydon House, 2023)

I can highly recommend Alex Hay’s The Housekeepers (Graydon House, 2023). Think Upstairs, Downstairs meets The Great Train Robbery. Guess who orchestrates the thefts? The housekeepers! Funny and hard-hitting. 15+. (#TPL)

Thanks for being a Bookcase Bizarro reader! I’ll be back next month with more author news, and more MG/YA book reviews. See you then!

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