Book Talk: Send by Patty Blount

I have been counting down the days till I could post about his one! Eeek! I had originally been planning to talk to you about a different book today, but that one got shoved back a week when I started reading Patty Blount's Send.

"It's been five years since I clicked Send.

Four years since I got out of juvie.

Three months since I changed my name.

Two minutes since I met Julie.

A second to change my life."

Daniel Ellison's aims of being invisible this senior year are shattered the morning of his first day of school, when he breaks up a fight in the parking lot. Well, what else could he do? Especially since the other girl there refused to do anything. And Dan knows how much damage bullies can cause. He's been paying for That One Unmentionable Mistake for five years -- paying for it since he clicked Send. Now all he wants with this new name and new identity is a normal life and escape from the man who has been pursuing his family relentlessly. But how can you ever really have a normal life if you can't reveal anything about your past, not even to your closest friends? Not even to your girlfriend?

Cue Julie, the girl who stood by and watched. Despite this, despite the cold looks and devil-may-care attitude, Dan just can't stop thinking about her -- and neither can Kenny, the talkative and very real hallucination. But there's something about Julie -- in her eyes? -- that makes Dan wonder. Something that suggests she knows more than she's willing to reveal. Like she knows his secret.

But Julie has a secret of her own...


I generally do not read much contemporary -- I am through-and-through a supernatural girl. (Off the top of my head I can only name three non-supernatural books I've ever really loved, and Send is one of them.) However, one of my favourite authors, Joy Preble, talked about this book on her blog awhile ago, and it sounded pretty good. On my trip to the USA I must have gone to B&N every other day at least, and I made a point of ordering this book. Joy Preble recommends it, it's from the same publisher as her Dreaming Anastasia series, and the premise is intriguing. Though there was a certain lack of paranormality, I would still give this book a try.

And God, am I ever glad I did!

SEND. WAS. AWESOME. It is my favourite contemporary ever now -- yes, I liked it better than John Green's The Fault in our Stars. Yes, I went there. For one thing, Patty Blount didn't murder my favourite character...exactly. She does other mean things, sure, but all authors do. I'm going off on a tangent. My point is, John Green killed Augustus Waters and Patty Blount didn't, and on top of that, I just liked the plot of Send better. I loved Send. I love so much about it that I don't even know where to start! Daniel has a fantastically hilarious voice, and he is so cute! He leapt onto my top ten favourite narrators list while I was still in the first chapter! And Kenny! Though irritating in the beginning, I really did grow to love Kenny too. All the characters, in fact, were interesting, and FOR ONCE I didn't really despise anyone in the end. I usually hate at least two of them. But it's hard to hate when you understand their motives -- even if they do go over the top with their revenge.

Revenge. The main themes of Send are forgiveness and the dangers of technology, but I think counts as a sub-theme of sorts. Regret plays a part in the story, too. Patty Blount manages to make the themes jump out without trying to force a moral down your throat, which I really love. Her descriptive skills are also great. since I started writing the nerd in me has been admiring similes and metaphors I used to pass without a second glance before. But who couldn't love the line, "As she led me down the first corridor, she shot me a look so cold I was willing to bet it could freeze a nuclear explosion mid-mushroom cloud and still have enough power left over for the fires of hell." Powerful verbs, vivid description, original metaphor, the geeky writer in me is in heaven!

Star rating: 5/5

And for the record, Kenny is my favourite character ;)

You must all read this. You will not regret it, and I know I'm DEFINITELY going to think twice about everything and anything I post on the internet now. Thank you, Patty Blount, for a wonderful read and non-cheesy life lesson all in one! :)

Writing Wednesday: What I Learned From My First Novel

Hello again blog readers! I am back from my wonderful trip to the States. I adore America. Anyway, am now back in England where, surprisingly, it's not raining! Which is why I'm cooped up indoors tapping away on my laptop. Lol. No, not really -- spent all day at Chessington World of Adventures amusement park, which is why this post has come so late in the day. Sorry!

I realise I haven't done Writing Wednesday in a very long time, and I'm not quite sure why. I seem to have an endless stream of Music Monday weeks. Poor abandoned Wednesday. I'm sorry. But anyway, I thought I should return with a bang, so here I am, telling you what I learned writing a book as a teenager.

Until the summer of last year, I hadn't even considered attempting a work longer than about sixteen Microsoft Word pages, my then-record for longest piece of fiction. Until my Strange Angels (failure of a) fanfiction, I had no idea how much I liked writing. I never finished Reunion, by the way, other than in my head, because that was when I began to plan the work that would become My First Novel -- which was such a daunting and monumental task for me that yes, it does deserve to be a proper noun.

While plotting out this scary endeavour, I read as many craft books and web pages as I could lay my fingers/mouse on. There are still many I haven't read and would like to, but the one thing everyone said was that, to improve your writing, you had to actually, well, write. Duh. So write I did. Even knowing this, the amount I learned just by bumbling along, fingers on keys, missing God only knows how many Friends reruns (not a huge loss since I've seen them all anyway) along the way, astounded me. I flat-out refused to give up. This would never be to a publishable standard -- I knew that from the get-go -- but I was darn well going to finish this little monster/my precious baby (usually it was the latter, but occasionally it really did feel like the former) IF IT KILLED ME. (Coincidentally, I did have a hospital scare, as some of you may remember, and my first thought was, No! I can't die! I'm two chapters from the end! Thankfully, I recovered. Phew! But that interview with Joy Preble about The Sweet Dead Life? That came to you straight from my hospital bed. True story.)

By far the most surprising writing-related thing was this: You, the author, are really not in control at all. You are at the complete, total and utter mercy of the characters. Sure, you can plot and plan and outline all you want, but if they turn around with a better idea, they will make you follow it. Stubborn rascals.

Not wanting to give too much away, I will give an example lest anyone is sitting there like, "what on earth is this nutcase talking about?" Well, my main character is...somewhat of an actress. Following a huge loss in her life, she turns inside herself, yet, to prevent her friends and family from worrying about her and asking questions, she still acts like her happy, bubbly old self. She fools everyone with this façade -- including me. Yes, me. My original vision of Protagonist was the bubbly girl. She was so good at her game, it wasn't until one night in bed where it hit me like a freight train. After that, all the plot pieces started coming together seamlessly, and I knew that Protagonist was so interesting, I couldn't write the story from the point of view of anyone but her. So while for a few days I was marginally irritated that my character was nothing like I thought she was, I'm very happy she eventually showed her true colours. Why? Well, her secrets give way to multiple Very Exciting Plot Twists which just could not have happened had she stayed the optimistic extrovert. I realise now the story she would have produced would have been completely different, and -- not to blow my own trumpet or anything -- I like the way the story ended up. My themes would have been different too. See how so much depends on character? I never believed it before, but now I sure do.

So then about 3/4 of the way through the story, another big revelation occurred. Best Friend and Other Friend knew Protagonist was acting all along, but they didn't tell her because she wanted them to believe she was fine. They knew. Bombshell. Protagonist and I found this out at the exact same time. Unplanned plot twists are always good, and although I did plan out the story before writing (otherwise I just ramble all over the place -- kind of like my blog posts, hahaha), I had characters refusing to do what I said, revealing they knew stuff I didn't intend for them to know, and jumping out of windows (you'll have to wait till it's published to know how that one ties in...mwa ha ha ha ha.) But this made no sense. They're my characters. I created them from the depths of my imagination. I made them up. They couldn't just do whatever they wanted and keep secrets from me, could they?

Um, evidently, yes.

And I loved that.

I also learned about my writing voice and description skills and whether I am a plotter or a pantser and characterisation, but that's to be expected, and honestly I'd bore you if I tried to tell you all about it. So instead, I'll tell you about the other, non-writing-related things I learned -- perhaps the most useful and transferable of which is dedication. My First Novel taught me to push on and finish a project, not to give up no matter what. Finishing this thing was a promise I had made to myself, and I was going to keep that promise. Promise kept? Check. But that required dedication, especially with school and family and social life to squeeze in, and the siren call of American sitcoms telling me to, "watch TV...you can write later...watch me, watch me..."

Last, I learnt about people -- both people in general and myself. Exploring my characters -- especially Protagonist -- and themes required a lot of pondering human behaviour and psychology. How would Situation A affect different people? Why did Love Interest cope so well with Situation B, whereas Other Friend resorted to the only thing he could handle -- outright closed-mindedness -- to the point where he was hurting the ones he loved? And creating these people, I was subconsciously delving into myself. What traits and qualities I value, and which I dislike. How much I would be prepared to forgive. What scares me most. What I can't afford to lose. And what I can.

I know, right? I'm so deep, you can't even see me any more.

In short, I have a huge debt to My First Novel. One I can probably never repay. Other than, of course, by getting published. One day...

I'll be back on Friday to tell you all about my favourite YA contemporary yet. Yes, that's right. Better than The Fault in our Stars! You won't want to miss this, guys.

Book Talk: Gone series by Michael Grant

This book seems to have come up in quite a few of my e-conversations this week, so I thought I might as well blog about it. It's definitely one of the most violent books I've read to date, but it is YA, so it's not anything overly life-scarring. Also no graphic adult scenes or bad language, so I guess that makes up for all the character-to-character cruelty.

It was a regular day. Then without warning, in Perdido (which, by the way, means "lost" in Spanish, so I thought that was a nice touch) Beach, California, everyone over the age of fifteen disappeared. Poof. But that's not the only supernatural thing going on in 14-year-old Sam Temple's life. Between the orb of light he somehow created that floats in his closet, the incident with his stepfather's hand, and now the enormous, impenetrable dome that surrounds "Fallout Alley" (as the town is sometimes referred to, due to an incident with radioactive fallout) -- the exact centre of which is the nuclear power plant. Coincidence? Probably not, considering the fact that both animals and kids are mutating to develop weird powers. And in a society ruled by teenagers, this will prove to be dangerous -- even fatal.

Fallout Alley Youth Zone -- it's just a FAYZ. Especially for those near their fifteenth birthday. Now Sam -- who can never resist playing hero -- not only has to keep the town together with the threat of Caine and his minions, he also has to find a way to "beat the blink" before it's too late.

I really like the study this book does on what would happen if adults really did disappear. It just goes to show how much would go wrong. If you think about all the wars that have happened in history when the world ISN'T being run by scared, armed, sometimes supernaturally-powered kids now fighting over the limited resources, you can begin to imagine the sheer chaos in Michael Grant's fictional world. this book sin't only a thrilling sci-fi story (sidenote: a sticker on the cover of book 5 claimed, "more thrilling than The Hunger Games". "Pah!" said I at first. But after reading both, I think the sticker was telling me the truth. Just don't tell Suzanne Collins. Shh!), he has also created a social study that doesn't feel like a life lesson being rammed down you throat, and flipped gender and racial stereotypes in his stride. Who could possibly not love Edilio? An illegal immigrant, but he does so much for the town in the FAYZ. There's one point where Sam remarks something like "he and his family would have been deported if the authorities found out, but he's done more than anything to keep the town running." That quotation is probably all wrong but the general message behind it is right. I'll say it: Edilio is my favourite character. Even more than Sam. Yes, I went there. To be fair though, Sam is an extremely close second.

Speaking of characters, I think I hate some people I'm not supposed to, but that's one of the things I like about this book. It bugs me when the author dictates who I should like and who I shouldn't. I like to make up my own mind who I'll root for and who I'll hope gets prematurely picked off.

Here is the Amazon page.

Star rating: In the beginning, I might have been tempted to say 4, but the series gets better as it goes along and it ended on a definite 5/5.

Books in this series:

Gone
Hunger
Lies
Plaugue
Fear
Light


You can tell just by the titles that things get worse before they get better, can't you? But it's worth sticking with sam until the end, even if a certain someone is driving you crazy and you keep wishing she'll go away but know she never will. Not mentioning any names . . . *cough* Astrid Ellison *cough*.

Just do it for Sam. I love Sam. He's one of those characters who you'll forgive even if he screws up big time, because he's got so much on his plate and his intentions are basically good, and he's given up so much for other people. Aww, Sam. Why do bad things have to happen to good people?

On that philosophic note, I shall leave you. Also I'll go ahead and say that I doubt I'll be blogging next Friday, as I'll be packing. Squeal! Holiday time! Yay! Try not to miss me too much ;)

Just kidding. In my absence, see how many books from my recommendations you can read :)

Music Monday: Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne

I discovered this song last week and have been utterly addicted since. It's one of those songs that are beautiful in both melody and lyrics, and I could listen to it over and over and over again (and I frequently do). This song is just so sweet. I love it <3

Enjoy!

Must go brainstorm my next WIP now. I hope this song will be applicable to the characters' romance :)

See you back here Friday for the next Book Talk!

Book Talk: Glass Houses by Rachel Caine (Morganville Vampires book #1)

So I'm of two minds about this book. I'm slightly biased against vampire books, because they always seem to feel cliché/Twilight-knock-off to me (the exception being Strange Angels -- but that's not technically a vampire book). But on with the post:

"Welcome to Morganville. Just don't stay out after dark."

It's never easy being freakishly smart, but for 16-year-old Claire Danvers college will be the hardest year yet. Run by vampires, Morganville is not your average small college town, and when Claire gets on Monica Morrell, Queen Bee's bad side, things take a turn so bad she has to flee the dorm and seek shelter with three well-meaning but total strangers.
As if having to lay low and run from the evil Monickettes wasn't enough, Claire soon makes another enemy -- this time, vampire Brandon -- and falls for Shane, one of her new roomies. With the whole town hunting her down -- including the vamps -- Claire will soon discover whether what's worse: Morganville's bark, or its bite . . .

I have two complaints about this book. Firstly, I didn't really love the main character enough. I didn't dislike her, but she was too whiny for my taste. I have read a lot worse though, and there are other characters (Eve, Michael, Shane) that make up for it. Secondly, without giving anything away, there was a cruel twist at the end which made the reader in me shriek "NOOOOO!!!!!" and left the writer with the impression that it was a cheap trick. I would have liked the end, if it had to be a cliffhanger, to be done in a slightly less evil manner. Or at least, for the evil to have been more justified, if you can ever justify evil. I think you only can in fiction, and even then, I will most probably not like you for it. *cough* you know who you are . . .

All that said, it is an internationally best selling series, and I thought the plot was fast-paced and entertaining. There were many clever twists which more than made up for Claire's self-pity and the just-plain-mean last sentence. I don't regret buying this book, and if I could start over I'd definitely still read it, but I honestly don't think I'll ever get around to the next umpteen books (it's a reeeaaallllyy long series).

However, even with my nitpicks, I have a friend who is in love with this series. So do still try it out if the premise interests you. We all have different tastes, after all -- which is why I don't like writing bad reviews. This is about as negative as you can expect me to get. I could rant forever about some of the awful self-published wannabe books I've read -- or tried to -- that were in such dire need of an editor my twelve-year-old sister could have drastically improved them. This is the sister who writes nothing but One Direction and Justin Bieber fanfiction (*sigh*). BUT, if I complained all the time, a) my blog sound like it was written by a stuffy old man and b) I'd just feel mean. Obviously these people really love writing or they wouldn't be doing it; I just wish they'd PROOFREAD a little more carefully. (For crying out loud! YOUR is possessive and YOU'RE is a contraction of "you are"!) Or, better still, pay for a freelance editor to take a look, but I know that sadly not everyone can afford that. This is why I'm still a strong advocate for traditional publishing because, IN GENERAL, it is of a much higher quality. Emphasis on the IN GENERAL. I've read amazing self-published stuff and not-so-great (in my humble opinion at least) traditionally published stuff -- but that's just the point! It's my opinion. Yours will be different. As will your mother's. And my mother's. And my friend Leila's. And her Great Aunt Susan's. And my other friend's dog Maud's -- if Maud could read. I think that french bulldogs are only concerned with how chewable a book is, though, not the quality of the literature ;)

It's Maud!! Say hi to the blog readers, Maud!

So if I read a book I really don't like, you will never hear about it, because it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get a book in print, and the last thing I want to do is have a negative impact on anyone's career. We've all read bad reviews of books we loved. That's one of the more wonderful things about humanity -- we're all different. (One of the not-so-wonderful things is that I can actually see ourselves doing something like The Hunger Games to each other. Big Brother meets the Holocaust. Scary or what?)

Well, I went off on a tangent there, but you can find this book on Amazon here.

Star Rating: 3.5/5

And before I go, I'd like to say that I'm away from the 3rd of August till the 25th of August -- so there will be no blog posts between those two dates. See you on Monday, guys!

An Interview with Joanne and Karen Rock (J. K. Rock) -- Authors of the Camp Boyfriend Series!

Hey everyone! Today I'm very happy to welcome the two halves of the pen name J. K. Rock, Joanne and Karen, to my humble little corner of the interwebs.

I have a confession to make . . . I haven't had the chance to read Camp Boyfriend yet! But I will. You can find it here on Amazon, and the prequel novella, Camp Kiss, is absolutely FREE! I must say that was a good marketing move. Not only do you get to see how it all started, but you can see risk-free whether or not you like Joanne and Karen Rock's writing style. What are you waiting for? Go download it!

So now that I've introduced them, let me welcome J and K!

*round of applause*

Thank you so much for having us on the blog today! We’re so excited to meet you and your blog readers.

1) tell us a bit about yourself and CAMP BOYFRIEND

J – I’m a writer from the romance world who loves Young Adult books and wanted to try writing one. Camp Boyfriend is my first attempt at YA, and it was all the more fun as I wrote it with my sister-in-law, who is an eighth grade teacher and an expert in YA books.

K- I have my first adult romance coming out in the fall, but Camp Boyfriend is my first YA book. As Joanne said, I’m also a teacher and really wanted to write my own YA after years of seeing what kinds of books kids choose for their free reading time. It’s one of the most rewarding parts of my job to help kids who say “I’m not a reader,” find books they can’t put down. In Camp Boyfriend, a girl’s ideal summer is turned upside down when her school boyfriend wants to go to camp with her. It’s a book about friendships, boys, and fun, but it’s also a book about finding your identity.

2) what was the spark for CAMP BOYFRIEND?

J-We wanted to write a book set in the summer because so much can change over a single summer. People go on vacations or they move. They find themselves in different situations than during the school year, and so often that changes them. As we brainstormed settings for a summer story, one of us mentioned “camp” and it just started snowballing.

K-When an idea is right, we know! The ideas started flowing fast and furious as soon as we hit on the summer camp idea. We loved so much about that setting, especially since Joanne and I both attended camp as teens. You never forget those summer friendships, the crazy counselors, the swim tests or- of course- the boys.

3) when did you discover your love of writing?

J- I loved writing even in high school but I wasn’t sure how to use it until I was in graduate school and I realized I wanted to write a novel. I was on track for teaching English at the college level, and did this for a few years before I sold my first book, but the whole time I was teaching, I was writing on the side.

K-I was reading novels behind my math book in high school, so the love for stories was always there. It took a little longer for me to decide I had to write my own, but once I did, I couldn’t stop until I got it right!!

4) if you had to be a fictional character (it can be one of your own or someone else's), who would you be?

J- Can I be Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights? Sure, she dies young. But to be beloved by Heathcliff? Swoon!

K- Scarlett O’Hara. Because who doesn’t want to put off their worries until tomorrow? And – bonus- there is Rhett. Dreamy sigh.

5) what are your literary pet hates?

J- Characters I can’t get behind. I don’t like it when characters keep making bad decisions. It’s fine at the start of the novel, but if they don’t grow and change, why am I reading?

K – Dialogue that doesn’t sound authentic from teens. That drives me crazy because I feel like, if you don’t know how kids really talk to each other, who can you possibly know how they think?

6) if you could only read one book ever again, which one and why?

J- Argh! I find it so tough to choose one of anything. I suppose it’s cheating if my “one book” is a Norton anthology with twenty books stuffed inside? If I only got one book to take to a deserted island, that’s definitely what I’m doing. But okay… non-cheater answer is probably Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. She’s an amazing author and I love that book so much.

K-The Fault in Our Stars. I’m still so in love with that book!  But then, all of John Green’s work amazes me.

7) if not an author, what do you think you'd be doing right now?

J- I would be a college professor, surrounded by books, talking with students about books and reading a lot of books!

K- I adore teaching middle grade and high school students. They inspire me.

8) any fictional crushes? ;)

J- Did I mention Heathcliff? Although lately, I’m also crushing on all the boys Simone Elkeles writes. The Fuentes brothers are dear to my heart.

K- Augustus. He’s all mine! (Hannah here with a sidenote: you're going to have to fight my friend Ellie for him . . .)

9) what's the best thing about your job? Is there anything you don't like?

J- I love writing the heroes. It’s so fun to put myself in a heroine’s shoes. Although working with my amazing sister-in-law is a cool job perk too. The only thing I don’t like about the job… hmm… it really is my dream job! But I guess sometimes it’s tough to maintain the fun of a dream job when you work hard at it every day. I try hard to always maintain the fun of writing and never to let it become strictly “a job.”

K- Because this is my first year on the shelves, I’m still amazed by it all and I’m always finding new fun things about writing. Right now, there’s nothing I don’t like about, other than shutting down the computer at the end of the day because… what if I miss something important??!!

10) what's next for you now, after CAMP BOYFRIEND?

J & K – We have so many more camp stories to tell! This is a three-book series- Camp Boyfriend, Camp Payback (4/14) and Camp Forget-Me-Not (8/14). But we have novellas planned in between them, too! Readers already have seen the FREE prequel to the series, Camp Kiss. But we’ve got two more novellas as well, including CAMP CHRISTMAS, which will release this winter.

Thank you so much for having us on the blog today!

Aren't they nice? And I have to say I completely agree with their answers to question 5. I'm glad neither of them said Ethan Kozninsky from Dreaming Anastasia for number 8 . . . HE IS MINE!!! I call dibs.

It was a pleasure to have you here today, J and K! Make sure you download Camp Kiss, everyone! See you back here on Friday :)

Music Monday: Cool by Gwen Stefani

So my friend Leila got this song in my head at lunch today. I love it to pieces, but after four hours it does start to get old . . .

I know we're cool!

Book Talk: The Old Willis Place by Mary Downing Hahn

In keeping with last week's theme of "gems from the past", today I'll be talking about The Old Willis Place by Mary Downing Hahn -- another book and author to blame for my reading addiction. Yes, it is an addiction. But it's a beautiful addiction. I'll be talking about this book because a) it is awesome and chilling and made me cry, i.e. emotional -- the test of any good art, and b) I haven't finished Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children yet (but I'm loving that one too, if anyone was interested).

Mary Downing Hahn was my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE author when I was a preteen. I loved everything of hers that I read, and every time my grandma offered to buy me a book, I'd say "I don't care which one it is so long as it's by Mary Downing Hahn. Also, not *insert list of her books I already own here*." True fact. The annoying thing was that I've never been able to find her here in the UK, so I'd stock up every summer and easter we went to the USA.

I know I usually blog about YA, and I'd call Willis Place a middle grade novel, but it's one of those haunting (pun not intended) books that is so good it doesn't matter what age the protagonist is.

Diana and her little brother, Georgie, are not like regular children. They don't eat, or sleep, and are governed by two strict rules ever since "the bad things" happened -- 1) do not leave the grounds of Willis Place, and 2) do not let anyone see you. However, strong as the fear of breaking these mysterious rules is, the temptation of a friend gets to Diana when a new caretaker and his daughter, Lissa, move in to maintain the dilapidated mansion.
But breaking rules has consequences, and for these two siblings, they may be deadly -- after all, Miss Lillian can break the rules too. . .

Here's the link to the book on the author's website, and on Amazon. Try a chapter here.

Like I said before, I really love Mary Downing Hahn, and though I'd recommend any of her books, I think this one has to be my favourite. It's also the first one of hers I read, so it has a sort of sentimental value. Hahn's writing is always insightful, captivating and beautifully written. You're sad when it's over, as any good book should make you feel. I'm also in awe of how she can make her books utterly unputdownable without the cruel tricks of many YA authors (*cough* evil cliffhangers. *cough* subjecting your favourite character to a fate worse than death.). That is true storytelling skill. When things are sad, they're sad in a good way, if that makes any sense. My only complaint is I wish the books had been longer. But I have that complaint with every book I like. So it's not really a complaint, but a compliment :)

By the way, for any non-horror/paranormal fans, try Stepping on the Cracks. It's a great historical about WWII, and I love love love it. Or for more chills and thrills, Wait Till Helen Comes is wonderfully atmospheric, and that would have to be my next favourite ghost story of hers (that I've read). It's scarier than The Old Willis Place -- and I still find it mind-boggling that it was written before I was even born. I don't know why, but I just can't wrap my head around that.

So, to conclude, if you're trying to get a 9-13 year old to read, I urge you to try Mary Downing Hahn. Try her yourself, even if you're "too old" for middle grade. No one is ever too old for a good story.