posted in I never imagined whining about the fact that a book tournament was ego-stroking books that needed no more ego stroking would result in this. I had no idea, none, zilch, no clue. I am in awe and touched and honored that this idea spread so far and reached so many people (like the authors! Oh gosh guys Drew Ferguson commented on my blog excuse me while I go have a fangirl attack. WHO NEEDS EDWARD CULLEN WHEN YOU HAVE YA AUTHORS.)
The winner of the tournament was My Most Excellent Year, although going into this I wanted to be clear that winning was subjective—as all reading was. The point was to read these books we might not have otherwise read. It was a haphazard project, because on top of doing it and running a very complicated writing exchange and working full time at $dayjob, I dropped the ball a lot (oh ffffff was there more than one ball? I feel like I dropped 1,000 of them, if you were a judge and I dropped your ball I am so sorry).
I dropped the ball in organization, especially. Foreign YA, YA with POC, just to name a couple, were not very well-represented. The process for choosing the books was hard, too, because we all had different opinions. There were many books nominated that deserved to be on the list, and there were many books overlooked that deserved to be on the list.
People have been making noise about Nerds Heart YA 2010 and to them I say: maybe. I’m not sure, for as much fun as I had, I worry that the same issues will crop up. How do we make the nomination process better? How do we evaluate which books didn’t get enough attention? What, really, is our scope? This is the question we need to answer. For instance, if we chose to make our scope book blogs in general, how does that change the process? If we say: what books didn’t get very much love on book blogs last year? Is that more helpful than trying to guess at sales statistics we don’t have access to and word of mouth?
I love that Nerds Heart YA put GLBTQ YA on the map in a very real, focused way, because I don’t see it reviewed often and when I do oftentimes it reads like the summary was lifted from a publishers website with no citation (boy, can we have a Blogging With Integrity site for that?) and most of the reviews spend copy time talking about how the book has gay characters but it’s still totally okay and it doesn’t matter that they’re gay!
Man, I am tired of reading reviews that are basically defenses of reading a book where people make out with someone of the same gender. I’m not kidding! If Nerds Heart YA shows one thing, it’s that these books are good and no one has to apologize for liking them, or defend them like the book can’t stand on its own unless TEH EVIL GAY inside the pages has been declawed with a warning that it’s there, but it’s okay because you’re warned about the gay! You’re safe.
Seriously, GLBTQ YA can be enjoyed, characters can be identified with…it’s all the same, if people step outside their comfort zone.
I would love for Nerds Heart YA to do that with other books that don’t get picked up: books with minority characters, books by minority authors who don’t get the same publisher push as their white counterparts, and I could go on and on and on. Again, I return to the scope issue: what is our scope?
As for Nerds Heart YA 2009: I loved it and was super glad to be a part of it. It taught me a lot about thinking outside the box, and working with people so very different than me, and uhhh trying to match people with books so they didn’t hate me forever and ever? The judges were great, super awesome folks who went above and beyond—because also, this project was about supporting these authors.
Honestly, everyone did a wonderful job, and I feel lucky to even know these people who made this small, tiny, almost insignificant idea I had not only plausible, but a reality. I am benefitted in my corner of the book blog community, endlessly, endlessly, to know such rockstars. Thanks so much, guys.
For those following at home, here’s the final result for Nerds Heart YA 2009, bolded titles denoting the winners.
Round One:
Valentina: My Most Excellent Year versus The Opposite of Invisible
Jodie: The Last Exit to Normal versus What They Always Tell Us. Round One decision.
Natasha: Feathered versus I Know It’s Over. Decision Post.
Ali and Lenore: Alive and Well in Prague New York versus Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before. Lenore’s decision post and Ali’s reviews and decision post.
Mary Ann: Cracked Up To Be versus The Shape of Water.
Trish and Vasilly: The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second versus Debbie Harry Sings In French; decision post.
Kelly: The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine versus Leftovers.
Becky and Kailana: Pretty Monsters versus The City in the Lake
Round Two
Heather: The Last Exit to Normal versus My Most Excellent Year; decision post.
Amy: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before versus Feathered; decision post.
Laza: The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second versus Cracked Up to Be.
Stephanie: The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine versus The City in the Lake.
Round Three
Nicole: My Most Excellent Year versus Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before.
Michelle and me! The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine versus The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second: Part One! and Part Two!
Round Four: Finals!
Chris and Nymeth: My Most Excellent Year versus The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second, Part One! and Part Two!
If I’ve missed a post (and it’s likely), or you’ve written up any Nerds Heart YA posts of your own, please share them in the comments so I can add them to my archive of the project I’m going to be building. Don’t worry if you get caught in the mod queue! I’ll fish you out. Link away! :)
posted on