Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this lovely, toasty day? I ended up with two books to review this month because this one decided to release a week early, so it’s impromptu book review time! It’s a craft book. I don’t know why I chose a craft book, but I did. Mostly because it’s been a while since I read one, I guess. Anyway, Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel by Jessica Brody was released on July 18th (Dad’s birthday! Happy belated birthday, old man!) from Ten Speed Press. As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Let’s do the thing.

Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel expands on Blake Snyder’s screenwriting guide (Save the Cat!) and tweaks it to make it more easily applicable to YA novels. Along with the expected beat sheets, the author also includes guides to what she calls the ten Save the Cat! story genres. There’s also a chapter dedicated to writing a series and one about creating loglines and synopses when you’re preparing for publication/the agent hunt/whatever you decide to use them for.

The original Save the Cat! is pretty much the only craft book that I remember with fondness. Most I’m either meh about or hate with a passion. This particular craft book is better than most of the ones I’ve read, but I couldn’t get into it when the genres came up (and they’re most of the book). First, the good. I liked the beat sheet. It explains where events usually go and how plotlines merge and diverge and how to make your own beat sheet either before writing, during it, or between drafts. Plus, you can tweak it as needed if your story feels off. It’s a great tool. I also liked that the author discusses how to apply everything to a series and a synopsis. That was all actually very helpful.

My biggest problem with this book was the breakdown of genres. Instead of using traditional genres (fantasy, sci-fi, etc.), the author tries to categorize stories by their essence (rites of passage, buddy love, etc.). That’s cool. I like the idea. But there’s far too much overlap for these genres to be distinct from each other. How do I know? Because a lot of the same books are used as examples in multiple genres. It’s confusing. The author says that’s okay and that many people will disagree as to what books go into which genre, like it’s not a big deal. It’s fine for debates. But she also says each genre needs to include certain things. If my book crosses multiple genres, how do I know what to include? It’s confusing. Especially for newbie writers who might think a craft book is writing law and don’t realize they can break the rules. It’s just too messy for my liking.

The other problem I have with the book is definitely a me thing. I don’t like it when writers use their own work as examples in craft books. It just feels like they’re trying to get me to buy their stuff and they never delve as deeply into their own stuff, like they don’t want to give away spoilers. Meanwhile, they’ve just spoiled every other book they used as examples. This author does it sparingly until the chapter on series which is all about one of her series in the example. It’s annoying to me, but I know most readers don’t care.

As far as the writing goes, it’s a craft book. Starts out a little preachy, but that fades away pretty quickly. Otherwise, it’s long and very repetitive as most craft books are.

Ultimately, I found some useful things in Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel. It was one of the better craft books I’ve read. Apparently there’s also one about writing novels in general, so I might look that one up.

Overall, I gave it 3 out of 5 stars. Craft books are either pretty good (4), meh(2), or bad (0) to me. This one leaned toward pretty good. If you’re writing a YA novel and you’re stuck, it’s worth having around.