On cussing, eating Ivory soap, and the limits of the F Word in YA

So, in case you've missed it because you're not following me on Twitter (@JennSommersby) or on Facebook (Jenn Sy and/or Jennifer Sommersby), the review for a cracktastic book is up at Best Damn Creative Writing Blog:

http://bestdamncreativewritingblog.com/2011/03/03/review-run-by-blake-crouch/.

Okay, I'll stop now. I just get very excited about this stuff. Like a puppy who piddles on the carpet. But I did talk to Blake Crouch via email, and he's a damn fine human. You should read this book, unless you're squeamish, or have a problem with swearing. It is what it is, but you're sort of a wussy if you can't handle a few "F" bombs now and again. Come on--the story is filled with really bad people trying to brutally eliminate you. You'd cuss, too. I'd wager on it, if I had the first clue how gambling works. But I don't. In fact, in our house, when the lottery tickets are purchased, I'm not allowed to touch them. I might jinx 'em. (Did you know that in Canada, if you win a big fat lottery, you get to keep ALL the money? The Queen doesn't take her cut, not like Uncle Sam. You're jealous now, aren't you? I knew it. But I can't play the lottery because I jinx the tickets. Someone else has to touch them and hang them on the fridge. Ask my friend Lauren about the time we bought LottoMax tickets, and I wouldn't take the ticket from the clerk. Crazy white lady...)

SPEAKING of cuss words (do people really call them "cuss" words? Am I regressing into childhood vernacular?) ... I've got a problem. I mean, I think it's a problem. I sort of cuss like a sailor. I'm pretty good at turning on the filters, i.e., no swearing in front of small children (unless they're my own, and then that rule sort of gets thrown into the garbage disposal 'cuz they're my kids and they often do things that bring swear words to the front of my mouth before I even realize it). When I'm doing the photography stuff, I'm usually pretty aware of not swearing in front of strangers and their offspring. Popping off a resounding "Shit!" when I knocked the camera over last weekend was a slip-up, but it was well deserved. (Knocking over the camera snapped the Pocket Wizard right off the flash plate, and voila! $250 down the tubes. Shit!) I don't cuss at the elementary school, unless we're in the drive-through at the front, and THAT place is a profanity marketplace all by itself. Some people are so incredibly dense and selfish when it comes to dropping off their Pretty Pretty Princesses. "She can WALK, lady! It's only some effing RAIN!"

A little history: As a wee lassie, I played soccer. Eight years worth, thank you very much. (I still sucked after eight years of trying. When puberty was slow to come, I was getting my ass kicked on the field by much bigger girls with fatter thighs and bigger biceps, so I quit. Yeah, I'm a quitter. But I was 4'11" and 100 lb. at 14--didn't wear a bra until high school--so cut me some slack.) The year I was eight, my team was the Terminators (long before the former governor of California took hold of the name and made it his). And this one ref we had on a regular basis, a total cow as I remember, was super lame. Called all the wrong stuff, never penalized the other team for being stupid, everything we think about refs when our team is getting killed on the pitch/field/ice. One game in particular, she blew her stupid little whistle one too many times, and I called her out by dispensing with the F Word. Loudly. It sorta just slipped. In return, she handed me a red card and sent my wee arse to the bench for the remainder of the game.

Worst part of it? My mom was the coach. I ate Ivory soap that day. But it didn't stop me from cussing. There was an incident in 6th grade with my then-friend Ester, but that's a different post entirely.

The POINT, and I am trying to make one: How much is TOO much when it comes to your writing? As I was writing Sleight, I kept in mind my audience: teenage girls, ages 15+, enough angst to keep the pubertals interested but enough drama to (I hope) attract older readers. My girl Gemma is 17, so she's right on the cusp of being a grown-up. The four teen beta readers I "employed" were fine with the language, but another beta reader, an adult, had an issue with the occasional colorful language spewed by my characters. This reader went in and changed my "damns" and "what the hells" to "darn" and "what the heck" -- you get the idea -- and I promptly changed them all back on the third rewrite. There is one use of the F Word, but it's necessary. REALLY necessary. I tried on different word combinations, but they just didn't have the same oomph. And in that scene, nothing short of oomph will suffice.

I've spent a lot of time worrying about this swearing conundrum in the YA realm, and then I picked up a copy of Hannah Moskowitz's Break. It's an amazing book, and the F Word plays prominently in the story, but not gratuitously so. If you're hypersensitive to profanity, this might not be the book for you. But Hannah is a sublimely talented writer, and if anyone can make it work within this context, it's her. After finishing Break, I went back into my manuscript and replaced those words I felt had been wrongly sanitized. I was inspired by Hannah's bravery, and felt that a little naughty language peppered here and there was worth its weight. It needs to be there. Come on, people -- they're words. And I'd be a liar if I didn't fess up to the fact that fu*k is one of my all-time favorites. What other word can say so much with so little?

I throw it to you, now. How much is too much?

Next post: On handling criticism, my strategy for doing so as I head into indie publishing (will involve Irish whiskey and chocolate, no doubt), and how Dr. Foran destroyed me when, after years of teachers/professors telling me I could write, he said that my work sucked rocks. I was 25. That day still haunts me...

Originally appeared on ChicMom, but now on GoodReads: REVIEW of cracktastic YA, *Break*

Break by Hannah Moskowitz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What were you doing during your junior year in high school? Chasing boys? Cheering on the home team? Worrying about the perfect prom dress (or if you were even going to make it to prom)? Fighting with your parents because of their crazy restrictive curfews?

I don’t know what Hannah Moskowitz did to keep it real during eleventh grade. And considering she’s only nineteen, those days were, well, like, yesterday. I know one thing she did do, though. She got herself a little publishing deal with one of the biggest houses in the country. In the world. She wrote a book called Break, and it is easily the most uninhibited, mind-numbing, high-concept YA (young adult) book I’ve ever come across.

From the back cover: Jonah is on a mission to break every bone in his body. Everyone knows that broken bones grow back stronger than they were before. Jonah wants to be stronger—needs to be stronger—because everything around him is falling apart.

YA isn’t just for the under-20 crowd anymore. And even though Break was published by a children’s imprint, it’s anything but juvenile. Moskowitz has infused a maturity into her work that clearly relegates her in the realm of prodigies—human beings that age shouldn’t know the stuff she’s writing. The story sounds simple enough—a kid hell-bent on self-destruction who finds that breaking his bones provides the rush and release other kids get from cutting, huffing, or drinking. But Jonah, and the life he is surrounded with, is complex and entangled. His baby brother never stops crying, for undiscovered medical reasons; his parents are embroiled in a taut, passive-aggressive, not-in-front-of-the-kids marriage; and his not-much-younger brother suffers from deadly allergies to milk, and pretty much everything else on the planet. Moskowitz’s vivid description of the mother’s sloppy lactation habits alone is enough to make the reader scratch her head and say, “How the hell did she know about this?” Moskowitz writes with a level of profundity unseen in most adult writers I read (and I read a lot), infusing deep psychological underpinnings in the latter scenes of the book where Jonah comes unraveled, or quite literally, broken.

The best advice I’ve ever received from a writing instructor was that, as writers, we must inject tension into every single scene. Moskowitz has done this; each page is ripe with tension of varying shades, from the stomach-curdling description of Jonah’s bones as they snap to the sexual tension of a seventeen-year-old boy involved in a relationship with his “non-girlfriend” Charlotte. The interpersonal relationships between Jonah and secondary characters are believable and heartbreaking, another testament to Moskowitz’s skill as a gifted teller of stories.

Moskowitz has a poet’s sensibilities in her tight, terse sentences, choosing every word for its merit rather than the beauty of its sound as it rolls off the tongue. If you have a sensitivity for the “F” bomb (which the writer uses with regularity), Break might turn you off, but understand that her choice to include such language is completely in alignment with Jonah’s character. The dialogue is true to type, and honest in its presentation. More compelling is the fact that Moskowitz wrote Break from an entirely male perspective, while she is female, not a small feat in any literary undertaking.

It is interesting to note that after reading Break, I emailed the writer to ask how many of her own bones she had broken in the process of writing this book. She emailed back within moments: none. Yeah, it’s that good.

Beyond my fascination with Moskowitz’s knack for shock value lies a visceral, educated writer who packs a powerful punch into every single sentence. On her acknowledgments page, she gives a thumb’s up to Chuck Palahniuk, a phenomenal novelist who twists humor and the macabre into a lickable candy stick at every turn. I am a diehard Palahniuk fan, and Moskowitz is the Palahniuk of her generation. If he hasn’t read this book, he should; it’s like listening to Gershwin and hearing the threads of Rachmaninov in the piece. Delicious. He would be so proud of sweet young Hannah.

Moskowitz, whose next book Invincible Summer is due out in 2011, is a cutting-edge up-and-comer to add to your must-watch list. This first example of her talents promises a long career of smart, excoriated fiction that sucks the reader in and holds them by the throat for the duration of the story. Break is a quick read, but one that will leave a lasting impression long after the final page has been turned.

And check out her blog at http://hannahmosk.blogspot.com/.

LOVE LOVE LOVE!





View all my reviews

Book review - terrific book by young Hannah Moskowitz

The review for teen phenom Hannah Moskowitz's first book, Break, is up! Check it out at http://www.chicmommagazine.com/book-article.php?id=172. Terrific book from an incredible talent. The girl will become a household name.

Enjoy! (And go buy the book!)

There is greatness among us, in the next generation...

So...I came across this young writer by the name of Hannah Moskowitz. And when I say young, I mean 19. Half my age. She's published her first novel, Break (Simon & Schuster Children's imprint, Simon Pulse), and the second, Invincible Summer, is due out next year.

HOW a then-17-year-old girl wrote this book...she's nothing short of a prodigy.

Break is the story of a teenage boy ...well, let's let the back of the book tell you much better than I can: 

Jonah is on a mission to break every bone in his body. Everyone knows that broken bones grow back stronger than they were before. Jonah wants to be stronger--needs to be stronger--because everything around him is falling apart. Breaking, and then healing, is the only way he can cope with the stresses of home, girls, and the world on his shoulders.

When Jonah's self-destructive spiral accelerates and he hits rock bottom, will he find true strength or surrender to his breaking point?

I came across this lovely writer and immediately ran out to buy this book. Then I spent two hours devouring it. Delicious. Frightening, raw, visceral, but delicious.

You should run, not walk, to Chapters/Barnes & Noble, and get your copy. 

I will be publishing a thorough review on Chic Mom Magazine (chicmommagazine.com) in the coming week to two weeks, so stay tuned!

Yay, Hannah!