Months ago, I submitted Vallar to a site that reviews books and all the reviewers are teenagers. It's called Flamingnet.com. They are an Amazon associate, which means if they sell a book through their site they get a small percentage, but they donate the money to libraries. So they're not a commercial site.
Since Ian Connors is 16 years old in Vallar, I decided to submit to them because it could be considered a young adult book. The funny thing is that when I wrote Vallar I used simpler language on purpose because it's told from the viewpoint of a 16 year old. I had one crit partner who would flog me if I used too big of words saying "A 16 year old doesn't think like that" However from this review, it makes me wonder if I could have been much more complicated. Kids these days are so smart and they also notice everything...as you will see if you read the review I got from one smart kid.
Vallar review at Flamingnet.
At least he or she wants a sequel. That pretty much tells me he liked it.
So here you go fellow writers. It takes awhile, but you can get a review here. In case you're wondering, they don't post the reviews to Amazon. However, it's fun and it's for a good cause.
In other news: I won the Grumpy Bulldog's blog fest last Friday. Wee! Thank you Bulldog. Just for you, I found this picture. Bulldogs can and do run after all.
Charge!
6 comments:
Congratulations on the win!
Poor bulldog having to run on those stubby legs. But maybe there's a nice bone waiting for him.
That's a really cool way to get reviews from a targeted audience.
And congrats on the win!
Congratulations on the win. I'm announcing my winner on Thursday and not saying who won...but you may be awash in Amazon gift certificates very soon.
I wrote a story told from the perspective of an 11 year old once and got called out for using words that an 11 year old would never know. I ignored them though, I knew words like that when I was a kid. It's not like you wake up one day and you just have a grown up vocabulary, if you are a kid that reads then you know stuff adults don't think you know.
Anyway, congrats again on your prize.
Interesting site! I agree with Rusty. Young readers have amazing vocabularies. My son is nine and I never "dumb down" my word choices when I speak with him. If he doesn't understand a word I've used then I explain it to him. And you're right. Kids are smart and they know when you're holding back, though I don't think you did that with Vallar. I'm off to go read the teen review and see what they had to say.
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