Joyce Carol Oates, to me, has a subtle kind of genius. In case you weren’t aware, which would literally boggle my mind, she is an author that I can’t even put into a genre, and although she’s written some of my favorite books, I never tend to label them “favorite books.” I’m not sure why this is, but I guess it has to do with how non-showy her books are. Actually, they’re the most realistic of any YA book I can think of.

I’m a huge fan of Jerry Spinelli, I really am, and Stargirl and its companion, Love, Stargirl are great books, but even after reading the latter, they just don’t feel real, just as I feel the same about the Georgia Nicolson books by Louise Rennison (which I LOVE). The characters are stereotypes that make me laugh and that I sometimes feel very sympathetic towards, but after I read the books, they’re still stories. But after reading a couple of books by Oates (Big Mouth and Ugly Girl and After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away) that I happened to just discover this past school year, the characters felt like people. I mean, all I’m saying is that it’s a rare occurence to read a book and feel that sort of connection to fictional characters. Hers are believable, and I’m still sympathizing over here for poor, overgrown Ursula. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about Joyce Carol Oates all weekend because I’ve just begun reading another one of her YA books, Freaky Green Eyes.

I started noticing the book after I beta’d a story by a good friend of mine (Hayley Anne Perkins) called Green that just so happens to involve eyeballs quite a bit (you’ll be hearing much more about this story here in the future). The title Freaky Green Eyes obviously had me a bit worried because, well, … Hello, obvious. But I didn’t realize each time I saw it on bookshelf after bookshelf that it was written by Oates. I finally checked the book out of the local public library when it popped out to me again a couple of days ago, and I guess getting lost in it yesterday just reminded me how much I really do love her writing and her characters.

I’m feeling a bit drained and so I’m not really in the mood to summarize the books for you myself when I know you could just Google them, so all I really want to say is how much I love her books (keep in mind that I’ve only read her YA novels; she’s written so much more that I can’t speak for but am sure is AMAZING — more than a couple of her books have been made into movies after all) and how I really think you should read them.

Haha. Blunt, I know. I guess that’s all.