Goodness, there are a lot of banned books, and many of those books are awfully good: funny and sly and charming, or sad, or clever, or just wondrous. Being a teenager is dreary enough, when everyone else is in charge of your life, without being deprived of those doorways into other worlds where you can go and wander about for a little while. As someone who considers a great many people who are not technically real to be among her most boon companions, and likes some books better than most people, it is quite unthinkable to imagine any of those books taken away from us. The ABFFE list of Banned and Challenged Books is pretty much a representative sampling of the books we would invite to the birthday party of our teenage life (WHAT DO YOU MEAN that metaphor does not make sense), and trying to pick our favorite among them is like a more maternally inclined person selecting the most beloved of her offspring. And yet there is a book on that list that is for us--well, it's not our favorite, to be sure. But it is... special.

Go Ask Alice is not, by an critical standard, a good book. To be honest, it is startling to us that anyone still reads Go Ask Alice, let alone that anyone goes to the trouble to ban it. Its narrative is implausible, to say the least; its "teen voice" overwrought at best and nearly unreadable for the most part; its heroine insipid enough to make poor old Bella S. look like a fine strapping young lass you'd like to have on your side in the event of a catastrophe. Although as far as we know the book's authorship has never been definitively established, it is widely assumed to be the work of its "editor," Beatrice Sparks. A therapist and Mormon youth counselor, Sparks made a career for herself out of penning "anonymous" teen diaries--including It Happened to Nancy ("it" being AIDS), Jay's Journal * (descent into drug use, Satanism, animal sacrifice, suicide), Annie's Baby: the Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager (descent into unplanned pregnancy), and Kim: Empty Inside (descent into drug use, eating disorders). Only Jay's Journal came close to the tremendous success of Go Ask Alice, which has been in print for forty years and has sold over four million copies. It's a favorite of book-banners as well: among the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 1990s, #8 on the most challenged list in 2001, and #6 in 2003, according to its Wikipedia entry. Which is, of course, sort of ironic, since the book's titillating narrative arc is like something straight out of a D.A.R.E. pamphlet: Start with acid, end in death (with stops on the way at Sexual Assault, Homelessness, and Like Totally Bad Skin Also Nice Boys Won't Like You).

Go Ask Alice has sported the same cover since 1971: a girl (presumably the titular Alice, although the narrator herself is never named as such) gazing solemnly out from darkness so that most of her face is obscured, and the ominous slogan "You Can't Ask Alice Anything Anymore," a phrase which still gives the ten-year-old in us a little frisson of delight. You can't ask Alice anything any more, of course, because she is dead, after a short and tragic (if highly improbable) descent from LSD-spiked soda** at a party to prostitution, heroin addiction, and moving to (THE HORROR) Berkeley. In between shooting dope and fornicating wantonly, Alice finds the time to exhaustively document the perils of various drugs as well as the many bad trips she has on them, occasionally going so far as to list side effects with a tenacity worthy of a medical student. (The fact that LSD is not remotely addictive does not, apparently, figure into poor Alice's downward trajectory.)

After a heroic effort, Alice gets her life back together, quits drugs, and returns to the forgiving bosom of her parents--but those darn junkie friends just won't let her alone! Determined to bring her back into the fold of depravity, they leave acid-spiked chocolates (!!!) in the home where she is babysitting; a subsequently deranged Alice is thrown into an insane asylum (!!!!) before finally moving with her family to a new town. There we leave her, at last happy and drug-free, only to be informed by an ominous postscript (one can practically hear it being read aloud in the voice of that guy who does voiceovers for movie previews) that Alice dies of an overdose three weeks after the diary's termination. "Was it an accidental overdose? A premeditated overdose? No one knows, and in some ways that question isn't important. What must be of concern is that she died, and that she was only one of thousands of drug deaths that year."

We were probably around ten when we first read Go Ask Alice, and it seemed then an astonishing peek into the glamorous mysteries of adolescence, a perilous state of greasy hair, fretting about one's weight, and constantly fending off depravity in the form of sophisticated older peers administering hallucinogens and demanding one sell narcotics to schoolchildren. We have never lost our passion for novelizations of a dissolute girlhood, though we've since moved on to significantly more literary fare. Phoebe Gloeckner's Diary of a Teenage Girl is one of the bleakest and most brilliant books ever written about growing up female; Blake Nelson's Girl, a novel with which we have been obsessed since its original serialization in Sassy magazine, perfectly captures the particular moment of our own adolescence; Amanda Boyden's Pretty Little Dirty is a fast and furious drug-fueled joyride through 80s hardcore punk--we could make you a whole list of Rejectionist-beloved novels about teenage girls gone awry.

But Go Ask Alice was the first, and while it is certainly the most awful, it holds a special place in our heart. We are clearly not alone in our fascination. The degree to which female adolescence is both fetishized and and criminalized in its pages is a rather sad commentary on our culture. Nothing is more terrifying than the image of the Good White Girl Gone Astray, the girl of wasted potential, besmirched by drugs and sex; and though in other novels we've since read and loved, that narrative is undermined or rewritten, in Go Ask Alice the only imaginable fate for such a ruined creature is death. Where else could she go? Everyone already knows all her secrets. Banning Go Ask Alice seems a strange and confusing move. She's punished enough by the book's own structure (let alone its prose), her story meant to serve as a lesson for other young ladies who might be tempted by the twin demons of narcotics and hanky-panky. Stray to the dark side and end up dead, girls: there's no future in living fast and loose. Or even, for that matter, in having a good time until you're grown up enough to leave.

* Jay's Journal is in fact based on excerpts from the diary of a real person, Alden Barrett. Barrett was a sixteen-year-old from Pleasant Grove, Utah who committed suicide in 1971; his parents sought out Sparks to publicize his story in the hopes it might prevent other teens from killing themselves. Sparks, unbeknownst to the Barretts, used only a handful of Barrett's actual diary entries and made up the rest, including Jay's forays into Satanism and animal sacrifice, which were entirely the work of her imagination.

**Okay, granted, we were not a teenager in 1971; but has this ever actually happened to anyone, in, like, the history of teenagerhood?

Don't forget to link your banned book review on Tahereh's master list! Steph Su is hosting a Banned Books Week Challenge as well, and super-teen Ari of Reading in Color has her own Banned Books Week project going on. Link away in the comments if you wish to alert us to other pleasing Banned Books Week activities.

Hey little creatures! You can keep posting your Humiliations yesterday (OMG IT'S LIKE TIME TRAVEL) because they are AMAAAAAZING and we are not going to post anything of interest in the last fifteen minutes of today or the twenty-four hours of tomorrow for you to read ANYWAY because we are so busy working on our BANNED BOOK WEEK REVIEW POST like you are also! That wasn't a sentence, if you were wondering! It was practically a query letter, it was so not a sentence! A query letter about a man who loses his test--UM NEVER MIND we aren't going to tell you about that query letter we are going to ERASE IT FROM OUR MEMORY TIME FOR BED, REJECTIONIST! See you Thursday, Author-friends!

Rejectionist aged 9: I do not like Kristi L. She thinks she is perfect because she has a stupid club. She says she is making a movie but I doubt it. I don't like Erica either. She is going to be a brat when she grows up. Today is Friday.

Rejectionist aged 10: I miss the simplicity of being pre-puberty. Sixth grade politics suck. I finished People of the Sky. It was awesome! It's very different from Ratha's Creature but it is terrific! I feel tired and depressed. Today I went shopping for clothes with Mom. Terribly boring.

Rejectionist aged 14: I guess it's a testament to my growing maturity that I now find it a source of great embarrassment that two entire pages of this journal are devoted to an obsessive poem about James H. I cringe every time I look at it. He is such an idiot.

I've just been having an episode of intense nostalgia. I went through all my stuffed animals and old baby clothes and diaries from when I was little. There are so many things I forgot about that I don't want to forget about. I'm having this intense need to cling to my past. [This item followed by a transcription of the lyrics to "Punk Rock Girl" by the Dead Milkmen.]

Rejectionist aged 15: Hugh and Ryan and some girl I didn't know came over and we watched this incredibly bizarre movie called The Hunger. I think it was about vampires but it was hard to tell. & I'm learning how to drive finally. These are the things I'm supposed to remember. Also football games and exciting high school moments like crushes on my lab partner in chem (because you abbreviate things when you're in high school, chem and bio and I can't think of anything else. The caf.) and embarrassing things like cute boys seeing your tampons so you can say I could have died!!!! with exclamation points on your pink princess phone to your best friend girl friend later that night. But you'll get in a fight with her over a boy. Who explains that this is not how it is? that these are no longer the rules? (Perry! why did you break up Jane's Addiction you were so much better before Pornos for Pyros) but it's ok I'll live. & maybe have normal children who will regard my high school experience with bewilderment. "but mom!!! you didn't want to date football players?" I wonder if someday angst will be retro along with torn jeans and old flannels. [This item followed by a transcription of the lyrics to "Summertime Rolls"]

AND NOW AUTHOR-FRIENDS!!!! It's YOUR turn!! Link away in the comments! Let the mortification unfold!

Well! That was a busy week, wasn't it! We all know what next week is, right? It is the week Mercury gets the hell out of retrograde, thank you universe, yes! But also it is BANNED BOOKS WEEK. Very apropos, given the theme of this week's activities, no? And an important reminder that book banning is, alas, as timeless a subject as rewriting history in Texas.

So here's an idea that's going around: Why don't we all post a review of our favorite banned book on Thursday September 30? WE KNOW, that is A LOT of assignments, if you are also participating in our Uncontest, WHICH YOU SHOULD BE, but you are WRITERS, are you not? Are writers not made of STERNER STUFF THAN MERE MORTALS? Hmmm? YES THEY ARE. Here's a list of banned books to start with! THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 30 THE ENTIRE INTERNET REVIEWS ITS FAVORITE BANNED BOOK LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN AUTHOR-FRIENDS LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!!!!!!!!

In other news, The Rejectionist wishes to personally thank Mark H. of Indiana, who kickstarted our journey into sartorial nostalgia by posting a Bleach-era Nirvana tour shirt on ebay for the truly astonishing "buy it now" price of ten dollars (!!!!!!!). Just for us, apparently? We are determined to find a way to wear this item to work despite the rather prominent "CRACK SMOKIN SATAN WORSHIPPIN MOTHER FUCKER" emblazoned across its back. Rejectionist FTW! Happy weekend, Author-friends!

We interviewed the lovely Charles Yu for Tor.com! Go read that! Then go buy How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, because it is excellent! Then go to one of his readings and tell him how good his book is! LIKE THE ONE ON SUNDAY AT WORD BOOKSTORE HINT HINT.

Inspired by this weekend's foray into the truly horrifying journals of the young Rejectionist, we bring to you an extra-special Uncontest of EPIC PROPORTIONS. It is the OFFICIAL REJECTIONIST PUBLIC HUMILIATION UNCONTEST and HERE IS HOW YOU ENTER, LITTLE ONES:

On MONDAY SEPTEMBER 27 the Rejectionist shall post DEEPLY EMBARRASSING EXCERPTS from her childhood journals. You know the drill: YOU publish on YOUR blog deeply embarrassing excerpts from YOUR childhood journals and link to them in the comments on that post. And then we will all laugh together at how far we have journeyed from those misty shores of yore, okay? Okay! So unearth those dusty notebooks! Show us your simpering sonnets, your most florid romantic confessions, your magnificently pretentious early attempts at philosophizing, your tortured love poetry! Bring on the WORST! Let the cringing begin!

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 27!!! MASS PUBLIC HUMILIATION!!! MORTIFYING SECRETS REVEALED!!! It will be such total gnarlitude. Let's kick off Banned Book Week with Books We Probably Should Have Banned Ourselves From Writing! Okay? OKAY!

No doubt you have all heard about the latest in book-banning, which flew all over the tinterwebs this weekend and has produced a heartening rallying cry amongst readers, librarians, and educators. We have nothing to contribute to the discussion around Speak that hasn’t already been said, and said beautifully.

However, we are the Rejectionist, and we are here to help. While we do not ever, under any circumstances, support the banning of books in schools, it pains us greatly to see any argument, no matter how reprehensible, being made poorly. And so, as a gesture of goodwill and reconciliation, we wish to offer Dr. Wesley Scroggins our editorial services FREE OF CHARGE. Dr. Scroggins, as someone who read a great many books in high school to someone who clearly, bless your heart, did not, we encourage you to embrace proper usage of the English language, which can be a mighty weapon when it is used correctly. Our commentary on your article follows; while we are actually writing this at work, and thus cannot provide a full analysis of your composition, we have selected certain key phrases to illustrate areas in which you may wish to improve.

As another school year begins at Republic Schools, parents need to be cautious and inquire as to the nature of the material that their children may be exposed to.

Well! This whole sentence, it is sort of painful, sir. This is the LEADING SENTENCE OF YOUR OP-ED, a sentence which ought to reassure your readers of your masterful command of rhetoric, your general intelligence, and the strength of your argument. We will give you a pass here on “inquire,” although traditionally in American usage “inquire” indicates a formal investigation (i.e. “a Senate inquiry”) whereas the correct usage here would be “enquire;” however, this is a rather subtle distinction which may be challenging for persons who demonstrate difficulty grasping the nuances of language, and “inquire” is not technically incorrect. But “as to the nature of the material that their children may be exposed to”? What is this? Mr. Scroggins, this is what we call A PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION, which is, in general, not a good idea, unless you are a Rejectionist and also greatly enjoy reveling in other grammatical self-indulgences such as rampant abuse of the semicolon, paragraph-long sentences, and hyperbolic excess. When one is making an argument, which you seem to be doing, albeit rather ineptly, it is significantly more effective to eschew such constructions. We do have sympathy for persons who let loose multiple combating ideas into a single sentence, as this is a syntactic adventure upon which we frequently embark with great joy; but you would be better off here not juxtaposing “caution” with “inquiry,” as the nature of the inquiry which you are proposing is not in fact “cautious” at all.

Sex education curriculum in the fourth grade includes topics on reproduction. Is this what parents and taxpayers in this community want their children exposed to in school?

Perhaps not! But they might want their children exposed to SENTENCES IN ENGLISH, which you have denied them! “Includes topics on reproduction”? WHAT IS THIS? It is fucking INEPT, is what it is! We are trying to assume the best of you, sir, but you make it a great challenge! And AGAIN with the passive construction and using “exposed” twice in two paragraphs is just sloppy and now we are beginning to doubt not just YOUR competence but also the ENTIRE EDITORIAL STAFF of the Springfield, Missouri News-Leader who apparently saw fit to allow you these FLAGRANT ABUSES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE which are verily so many knives into our heart thrown by demons frolicking in the lusty pits of hell.

Equally shocking is the content of the high school English classes.

One such book is called "Speak."

Okay, here. We’ll DO IT FOR YOU. “The content of the high school English classes is equally shocking.” “Speak is one such book.” See? Not hard, sounds better. Maybe if you hadn’t slept through high-school English you would be in a better position to comment on its curriculum, Dr. Scroggins.

The content ranges from naked men and women in cages together so that others can watch them having sex to God telling people that they better not mess with his loser, bum of a son, named Jesus Christ.

The comma, Dr. Scroggins, is a friend, not a foe; and a loyal, staunch friend it may be to a writer who treats it with the respect and admiration it is due. Yet you, sir, appear determined here to heap upon this hardworking little ally all manner of abuses; unsurprisingly, in your hour of need the comma has betrayed you, thanks to your callous disregard for its proper employ.

In this book, drunken teens also end up on the beach, where they use their condoms to have sex.

And how, pray tell, does a drunken teen use “condoms to have sex”? We consider ourselves pretty worldly, good sir, but we are quite baffled as to the exact logistics involved in “us[ing] their condoms to have sex.” Perhaps you are more well-versed in the vagaries of kink than this innocent Rejectionist, Dr. Scroggins. A little light shed on the technicalities of this activity would be most useful, as we are left here to our imagination, which we must admit is failing us entirely.

Parents, it is time you get involved!

AT LAST SIR AT LAST WE HAVE A SENTENCE WE HAVE A SENTENCE THAT IS CORRECT THE REJECTIONIST WEEPS AND EMBRACES YOU DR. SCROGGINS AT LAST YOU HAVE MADE A SENTENCE PERHAPS THERE IS HOPE FOR YOU YET.

1. Commenced labor upon our Memoirs; which mostly involved rereading the journals of our adolescence, weeping with mortification, and subsequently looking up the Many Loves of the Young Rejectionist on Facebook. They are none of them quite so glamourous as we remember. We would be GREATLY AIDED in the production of said Memoirs if any one of you beloved Author-friends might be able to provide us with 1. a copy of the 1993 Perry Farrell/Casey Niccoli film Gift, which had a profound effect on our development as a young person 2. all back issues of Sassy magazine, 1988-1994. In return we can provide you with an autographed copy of our Memoirs upon their eventual (hypothetical) publication, also our Undying Gratitude, which is worth its weight in gold, for serious.

2. Walked homeless doggies with our beloved Chérie l'Ecrivain and discussed seminal 1994 Blake Nelson novel Girl, which figured significantly in the adolescences of both Chérie and Le R., further cementing our psychic twinhood. Homeless doggies had to be returned to shelter early, due to unfortunate and unsightly parasite-related issues (of homeless doggies, not Chérie or Le R.).

3. Strategized our Fall Fashions, which center, not coincidentally, around the theme "1994," and will involve the addition of crushed velvet and many thermal items to our stylistic oeuvre. Wore knee-high boots, rejoiced, BECAUSE IT IS NO LONGER A THOUSAND DEGREES. Also, we DO complain a lot, that is totally true, BUT it WAS the HOTTEST SUMMER EVER RECORDED IN THE HISTORY OF NEW YORK. So it wasn't just us.

4. Read all those funny things going around the tinterweb at the moment on the perils of dating writers. Tee hee. But seriously, Author-friends, should you be so fortunate as to have a Support Team of your own, why don't you go and give that person a little hug? Because if OUR Support Team had a job description, it would read something like "Must be handsome and charming, must make appropriate soothing noises in times of Rejectionist emotional duress, must be willing to poach eggs perfectly at odd hours/make flawless crepes upon demand/provide infusions of bourbon as needed, also needs to be all like 'Of course!' when Rejectionist demands construction of YET ANOTHER website, also must drop own projects at moment's notice in order to show Rejectionist how to transpose heads with photoshop/make giant document in indesign/solder jump rings with alcohol lamp, also should know how to cook hamburgers so they are charred on the outside and almost raw in the middle, also must be supportive every time Rejectionist comes home ranting about various injustices which is pretty much every five minutes, also must not roll eyes when Rejectionist is all like 'and then THIS stupid thing happened on the Internet,' also must be willing to stay up until 4am repainting the bathroom the night before Rejectionist Mère comes to visit, also has to drive the Zipcar because Rejectionist has developed inexplicable and incapacitating phobia of driving in recent years. Position is unsalaried and entirely without benefits, although Rejectionist can be sort of endearing when fed and well-rested, but in general, she is a holy terror." Which is to say, if there is anyone on this earth who deserves a lot of gratitude, it is our Support Team. HUZZAH SUPPORT TEAM.

5. It is quite tiring commencing labor upon one's Memoirs and strategizing one's fashions, so we were sure to have a lot of snacks.

The Rejectionist, Lola Pants, and Support Team survived the Great Brooklyn Tornado of 2010; thank you to everyone who expressed concern over our well-being. We actually spent the entirety of said tornado safely underground, wedged among approximately 5,000 increasingly enraged persons stuck on the L train (DOORS CLOSED AC OFF 45 MINUTES IN BETWEEN 8TH AND 6TH AVENUES), including a young gentleman who had clearly spent the entirety of his afternoon ingesting methamphetamine and was not feeling well. Good times were had by all. Some advice: ALWAYS pee before you get on the subway.

Emily Horner
A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend
272pp. Dial.
9780803734203

Don't confuse this charming and joyful book with the unfortunate glut of YA-narrated-from-the-regret-filled-afterlife (the Rejectionist blames YOU, Jay Asher!). Yep, the titular best friend is indeed dead, but the novel's narrator, Cass Meyer, is very much alive and kicking (or pedaling, as the case may be). Cass and her best friend, Julia, planned on a cross-country summer road trip. When Julia is killed in a car accident, a broken-hearted Cass doesn't let a lack of a car stop her from carrying out their plan; instead, she hops on her bike and pedals toward California, with Julia's ashes in her panniers and a whole set of lessons on love, forgiveness, and letting go ahead of her. The bike trip doesn't quite go as planned, nor does Cass's return to the confusing world of sorting out her feelings upon her return. Between patching things up with Julia's grief-stricken boyfriend and dealing with the technicalities of illicitly staging the last musical Julia wrote, Cass has her hands full figuring out what, exactly, Julia meant to her, and what it means to never be able to say goodbye to the person you loved the most. A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend moves back and forth between the ill-advised cross-country bike trip and the present day, where Cass is realizing--much to her dismay--that she's falling hard for a girl who should be her worst enemy. Also: features a musical about ninjas. Sold. Witty, warm-hearted, and spot-on in its depictions of the confusions and joys of coming to terms with who you are, A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend is far and away one of our favorite YA releases of this (or any, for that matter) year.

In the latest in the series of intellectual faux pas I call my “body of work,” I recently declared that I was going to wait to read the HAWT BUUK OF THE MOMENT, Freedom, by Jonathon Franzen. This was not out of animus for the man himself, or any sort of priggishness toward everyone who is currently reading and enjoying it. Most of my reasons are easy to understand: I am not interested in paying full price for it. I am reading a lot of things at the moment. But most of all, I don’t want to read what everyone else is reading. This may be the inherent danger of being an intelligent, self-aware person rearing its head, namely, that you will invent elaborate personal fictions to justify and explain rather uncomplicated personality flaws, but I’m convinced this isn’t just that old teenager, I’m an INDIVIDUALLLLL, LOOK OUT WORLD, GARLAND IS HERE! thing I did when I was still in high school. I dyed my hair black, I made a ‘zine, I traversed the hidden landscapes of my own emotional and personal fortitude.

There was a lot of Fiona Apple.

But I got over it. I realized that rather than trying to be the weirdest person who ever lived I should write until what I wrote couldn’t be denied. Until people would look at these things and would see a seamless artistry, that all of my choices would be the right ones - that I would not longer go to the ocean looking for inspiration because I would be ocean enough!!! This! This is what I do that makes me happy! This is my love!

“But Garland, if you are living this solitary life of the mind, shining metaphorical lighthouses across the walls of your internal caverns and wrestling demons in the murk, how will you meet your other needs?” they cry.

Are you kidding me? Everybody wants to fuck a writer.

I’m not saying I am above book buzz, I’m not. I’ve never been in position to do anything but notice it. When I was in college, I had no money. So I bought books at half their cover price, usually paperbacks that had originally sold for 50 cents, classics in inferior translations, books on the free cart, the quarter cart, books no one else believed in but me. I read Celine’s “Voyage au bout de la nuit” in a terrible translation, the front cover done up like a working man’s bodice ripper, sitting on a hot cement stadium ramp at the stadium,because it was football season and I stocked the trailers. I was getting paid NOTHING. Pittance. Barely kept me ALIVE. I never learned to traipse over to Barnes for the HAWT BUUK OF THE MOMENT. I had the University Library, but the University Library System is a harsh mistress. Faculty would check out books I wanted to read and use their powers of infinite renewal to keep them for months, books would go missing - 8 floors of books and a staff composed mostly of students? There were fuck ups. Like the time they tried to tell me a book that was in the stacks had never been returned by me. Honestly, get it together, crew.

I certainly mean no offense to any Franziens out there. Ahem. I’m sure he’s just tits. I bet you’re all line-trawlin’ for quotes to slap up on your little “literary musings” blogs, like, “Oh, yes, I have it already, I am awash in disposable income and precious book quotes.” Well I’m poor and I read mostly things I bought at consignment stores. Which, I mean, you all look like suckers to me. SOMETIMES. The second-hand book market in this country is so solid, I’d enjoy it while you can.

Freedom will still be as revelatory in a year. I’m not in the mood for fiction right now. Right now I’m reading a lot of essays, Aldous Huxley’s essays, trying to find something. I cannot seem to give a shit about phantoms. After essays, I’ll be climbing through science books all winter. So I’m going to wait to read it until I am in the proper head space to appreciate it.

I don’t judge you for reading it, I wish I had the money to buy it hot off the press. I wish I had little quotes I liked from it, before too long has passed and talking about Franzen’s new book is far too gauche. But, hey, we’re adults now. There is no syllabus. We don’t have to all read the same thing at the same time. We’re meant to stumble around on our own, thousands of books to choose from, and start furnishing our interior life of the mind - picking Kafka for depth and dread, Atwood for Femininity, Baker for precision, Wallace for street credibility, Hesse for stalwartness of spirit and German vigor, Morrison for perfect sentences and broken hearts that just keep beating, Dostoyevsky for all the sad frozen people passing in and out of carriages, Burroughs for morbid kink, Pynchon for good measure, DeLillo for Pynchon, Sedaris because everyone else is, Palahniuk because all of the dudes do, Borges to pack your dreams, and Brautigan because you grew up in the South and wanted to impress your Dad - FOR EXAMPLE.

When I read Junot Diaz last summer, I read all of the reviews right after. I did not need to read it when it came out. I may just read a decade back for the rest of my life, weed out all the so-so novels that had good PR and word-of-mouth but weren’t ABOUT anything, the ones that don’t show up on any decade wrap-ups.

YESSSSSS. Filter my choices for me, ravages of time!

I mean, I never finished his first one. WHAT??? There’s some syrup up there in the hundreds that makes it hard to finish. Too much damn syrup in novels these days.

Garland Grey, newest addition to the Rejectionist stable of fiancé/es, is a writer from Texas and contributor to Tiger Beatdown. He maintains garlandgrey.com.

We got hold of Joan Aiken at a very early age, when Le R. Père came home from a business trip bringing us a copy of Nightbirds on Nantucket (which same copy we still own, incidentally, and which he probably would not have purchased had he any idea of the subsequent effect it would have on our deportment and habillement). Dido Twite is, hands-down, one of the greatest children's book characters of all time: an intrepid and resourceful urchin of disreputable appearance and razor-sharp intellect (ahem! not unlike A CERTAIN OTHER PERSON WE KNOW! i.e. OUR SELF), possessed of a cool head and a keen wit, sturdy throughout the direst of crises, and inveterate foiler of rampaging wolves, inebriate fathers, deranged queens, conspirators against governments, and evil persons posturing as relatives. Though Aiken wrote over a hundred novels for children and adults during her lifetime, it's her Wolves series that we love the very best: set in a slightly off-kilter nineteenth-century England, where someone is always plotting to overthrow the government via some plan as nefarious as it is ridiculous (giant cannon in Nantucket/kidnapping/exploding cathedral/disguised impostor/&c).

Aiken's villains never do things halfway, and Dido and her friends are obliged to endure any number of travails, which they invariably do with great cheer. (Poor Dido was supposed to drown at the end of Black Hearts in Battersea, but was rescued from this ignominious fate by the intervention of an agitated young fan, who insisted Aiken bring her back.) With a Dickensian zest for wackadoodle plot twists and delicious character names, Aiken was one of the most masterful stylists ever to turn a hand to children's books. Her stories are every bit as enjoyable as an adult as they were when we were small, and contemporary writers from Philip Pullman to Lemony Snicket owe an immense debt to her limitless imagination and inimitable style.

There is a very nice little film about Joan Aiken here; beloved indie Small Beer Press recently put out a (FABMAZING) collection of her Armitage family short stories; when you read the Wolves books you must be sure to purchase the Sandpiper editions (linked herein), which have the original Edward Gorey cover illustrations.

The vampire was looking at us. The vampire continued to sparkle. "Funny you should bring up publishing," said the vampire. "You know, I'm working on a memoir. I've had a very interesting life. It's not all high school, for vampires. I don't know where you people get these ideas. I've never been to high school in my life. I'm not fond of teenagers. Not even to eat. You know, vampires are very sensitive persons. I much prefer to lay about quietly listening to Disintegration on repeat--"

I broke in. "I love that album! That's my favorite album!"

The vampire was not pleased at being interrupted. The vampire shot me a peevish glance. "--listening to Disintegration ," it continued, "and collecting crushed-velvet leggings--"

I couldn't help myself. "But I have so many pairs of crushed-velvet leggings! We have an awful lot in common!"

The vampire was sparkling more aggressively now. The vampire rolled its eyes and sighed huffily. "I'm not fond of teenagers or other kinds of people either," it said, looking at me. "I don't like people. But I have a very nice memoir, it's all written out, and I think it has a lot of potential for a broader market."

"Broader than what?" "Steve" said.

The vampire coughed. "Well, I've self-published my memoir," it said. It scuffed the floor with the toe of its boot. "I didn't properly research the market," it admitted sadly. "But it's doing very well in the Amazon Break-Through Novel contest."

Maybe we were a little drunk by then. I know it was hard keeping things in focus. The light was draining out of the room, going back through the window where it had come from. Yet nobody made a move to get up from the table to turn on the overhead light.

“Listen,” Cretinous said Cretinous went on. “Let’s finish this fucking bourbon. There’s about enough left here for one shooter drink all around. Then let’s go eat. Let’s go to the new place The Library. What do you say? I don’t know, this vampire is really tiring me out. I don't much like this vampire. Jesus, but I feel depressed all of a sudden.”

"I think this project has real potential," Winston said. "I think it would be a mistake not to move forward with a project like this."

"Steve" cleared his throat. "I'm just not sure why you didn't look into other options," he said to the vampire. "You've really limited yourself with this whole self-publishing thing."

"I know," the vampire said. "But I have a very compelling story. I have a real story to tell. It's not every day you read a memoir by a vampire."

"There's that whole Anne Rice series," I pointed out. I was trying to be helpful. The vampire didn't seem to appreciate my advice.

"Is Anne Rice a vampire?" said the vampire. "That's fiction," said the vampire. "This is fact. This is better than some lady going to Bali and eating a lot of sandwiches."

"I think she ate spaghetti," said Winston.

"They don't have spaghetti in Bali," said Cretinous. "Jesus, you're an idiot."

“I could eat something myself,” the vampire said. “ I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my life. Is there something to nibble on I just realized I’m hungry. What is there to snack on?”

“I’ll put out some cheese and crackers,” Winston said, but he just sat there. ¶ But Winston just sat there. He did not get up to get anything.

Cretinous turned his glass over. He spilled it out on the table.

“Bourbon’s gone,” Cretinous said.

"Steve" said, “Now what?”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rejection, Parts One, Two, and Three.

Marcy Dermansky
Bad Marie
240pp. Harper Perennial. 9780061914713

"Sometimes, Marie got a little drunk at work." So opens Marcy Dermansky's hilarious and gleefully unrepentant Bad Marie, a novel about what happens when a lady stops being polite, as they say, and starts getting real. Marie's a baby-snatching, husband-stealing, bad-decision-making stone fox, and it's a testament to Dermansky's skill as a novelist that each staggeringly poor choice on Marie's part only makes the reader adore her more. After Marie's release from prison (accessory to armed robbery, but it wasn't her fault), Marie's old friend Ellen does her a good turn by hiring her to nanny Ellen's two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Caitlin. Unfortunately, Ellen is as patronizing as she is insufferable, and Marie ends up preferring the company of Caitlin--along with Benoît Doniel, Ellen's passive French-novelist husband, whose dolorous paean to a suicidal girl obsessed with sea lions Marie read obsessively while serving out her sentence. Marie steals Benoît, Caitlin, and Ellen's favorite red kimono, and runs off with these items to Paris, where she is beset by a series of increasingly ludicrous situations, with Caitlin (a passionate advocate of the restorative powers of macaroni and cheese) an ever-present companion. Oblivious and irredeemable, Marie is also quite lovable, and her winningness transforms what would otherwise be a bleak novel indeed into a wicked, funny portrait of a remarkable lady whose singleminded pursuit of a good chocolate mousse is admirable in the extreme. Untimely pet death, movie stars, bank robbery, ill-advised trips to a variety of countries: Marie gets to have all the adventures a lady could possibly want, and then some. It is a good thing we did not have this novel as a teenager, is all we can say.

Bad Marie is the September book club book at our beloved WORD bookstore, which means it is TEN PERCENT OFF ONLINE AND IN THE STORE FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER, AHEM. You can purchase it here. If you live in New York you can eat chocolate pudding and discuss the novel with Marcy Dermansky at WORD on October 2; you can also see her read at the KGB Bar on September 9 (an event that's a benefit for Behind the Book, a super awesome nonprofit to whom you should give many of your hard-earned dollars). We are not making up the chocolate pudding. We told you WORD is the best bookstore ever!