Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Waiting on Wednesday: Payback

Waiting on Wednesday was created by Jill

Release Date (paperback): Oct. 27, 2009

Payback by Rosemary Hayes

Like some of her friends, 18-year-old Halima, a Muslim, has moved with her family to London, and her horizons are beginning to expand. Then, just as she is about to start university, she discovers her father's secret plan: to marry her to the son of a distant relation in Pakistan who once did him a favor. Halima is to be the repayment of the debt, and it's payback time. The question is, will Halima, who is now immersed in a new life far from her former village, find the inner resources to resist? Or will she give in to the pressures of family and culture and forsake her new life in London, along with her dreams? This timely book offers an exciting story of courage and friendship set against a background of traditional cultural attitudes in conflict with contemporary feelings. Payback questions the custom of arranged marriages and Hindu and Muslim attitudes toward them, while inviting young readers to do the same.

It sounds interesting and I'm curious to learn more about arranged marriages, but I'm not a fan of the cover.

Sidenote: Is it just me or has anyone else noticed how hard it is to find YA books with poc to be 'waiting on' (I have a hard time finding books that haven't already been released and I rarely get ideas from other blogs).

5 comments:

  1. Does sound pretty good! And yeah, the cover isn't so attractive tho.

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  2. Sounds like an interesting book. The cover is okay. Has a 60s retro look to me which I can't figure out what that has to do with the story.

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  3. Covers can do so much harm! A suggestion: Go to Arte Publico Press and ask to have them send you their catalog or if there is a place to sign up to get new book info from them. Bilingual Press is another place that publishes POC books. Arte is only Latinos/not sure about Bilingual. That may be one way for you to get info on upcoming books. Not sure if that is what you meant by "waiting on" and I hope the info helps.
    Jo Ann Hernandez
    BronzeWord Latino Authors
    //authorslatino.com/wordpress

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  4. Hi Ari,

    Just wanted to drop by with some interesting news.

    Last year Renay at YA Fabulous ran a blog award to find the best, most under publicised/under hyped/ under talked about YA book published in 2008. She set up a panel of blogger judges who all really loved YA and who came up with suggestions for what should make the shortlist, then they reviewed the books in a bracket type system (where books went head to head and then the winners moved into the next round) until a pair of judges picked a winner. It was a lot of fun and we hopefully raised the profile of a bunch of great books.

    Renay’s decided to do this again and she’s just opened nomination for the longlist. I thought you might be interested in getting some books on to it as your blog is all YA, plus I love your blog and I think your choices would really widen the selection of books on the longlist. If you’re interested here’s the deal:

    You just have to pop over to this post http://yafabulous.echthroi.org/2009/10/14/your-shipment-of-awesome-has-arrived-srs-bizness-edition/ and ask Renay for editing piviledges for the google doc longlist, or tell her you have some suggestions for nominations and leave the book titles and authors in a comment.

    Only YA books first published in 2009 are eligible.

    The books you nominate must be ones you think haven’t got major levels of promotion or chat (on blogs, major awards or in the print press etc) but that you think are still excellent.

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  5. Thanks so much Jodie! I might have missed that. I just went over and commented.
    Thanks Jo Ann for the info!

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