Bobby Sky: Boy Band or Die Author Joe Shine on How He Became a Reader (and Writer)
In Joe Shine’s Bobby Sky: Boy Band or Die, charming delinquent Hutch has broken the law one time too many and is given a choice. He can rot in jail, or he can join FATE, Future Affairs Education and Training, where he’ll learn to be the deadly protector of a future famous person. Two years later, he graduates from FATE and is given his assignment: boy bander Ryo Enomoto. But in order to serve and protect, he’ll have to go deep undercover…as fellow band member Bobby Sky.
Here’s Shine on why he was never really a reader, and why he’s a big one now.
Bobby Sky: Boy Band or Die
Hardcover $18.99
Bobby Sky: Boy Band or Die
By Joe Shine
Hardcover $18.99
Don’t read? Don’t enjoy it or have time for it? Guess what? You’re not alone, and it’s okay. I didn’t read much in middle school or high school either, so don’t sweat it. Yeah, now I write books (still weird to me) and I’m nerdily excited to crack open my fresh-off-the-press copy of Wild Bird, by Wendelin Van Draanen, but it took me a while to get here. Tell your parents and your teachers, or whoever is pestering you to read more, to chill. Reading should be fun, and it should be done on your own time.
I’m not going to blame anyone (I’m definitely going to), but did my teachers really think the average teenage boy—bursting with hormones, dealing with TV and video game addictions, and obsessing over getting his license—would enjoy The Grapes of Wrath? They couldn’t have, right? Seriously. To be fair to them, YA options were slim pickins when I was younger. It’s Kind of a Funny Story, the Legend series, Percy Jackson, and The Hunger Games were still all twinkles in their authors’ eyes, if they were even twinkles at all, and Harry Potter hadn’t become Harry freaking Potter yet. But surely (don’t call me Shirley) they didn’t think I would like Grapes? I read it to pass English, but it was brutal. Teen me decided that if Grapes was one of the best books ever then what was the point of reading? So I broke up with books. I watched the movies instead, or read CliffsNotes. And that’s how it went for years on end, and I was okay with it.
So who was the pretty girl across the bar that got my attention and changed my mind about this whole “reading” thing? Her name was Alaska.
I was living in Los Angeles when a friend approached me and asked, “Joe, you read a lot of books, right?” I still to this day have no idea where he got that idea or why I lied and said, “Oh, totally.” He offered me a job reading Publishers Weekly to find great books that would make even better movies. I didn’t know what Publishers Weekly was, and since I still didn’t read I had no clue what a great book even looked like, but a job’s a job, right?
Whatever your feelings on fate are, you gotta admit that stumbling across Looking for Alaska on my very first day of work is pretty lucky. Wait, books were like this now? Like, good and relatable? The floodgates, rusted shut from being unused for so long, were blown wide open, and I haven’t stopped reading since.
Sometime later, an idea hit me. I wanted to be a part of this. I wanted to write books to keep people reading, or at least give it a shot. Funny thing about this new idea: the longest thing I’d ever written was a twenty-page report on westernization. Could I even do this? Could I create characters and stories worthy of saving teen me from giving up on reading? I think Bobby Sky: Boy Band or Die would have given it a heck of a shot.
Bobby Sky: Boy Band or Die is on sale now.
Don’t read? Don’t enjoy it or have time for it? Guess what? You’re not alone, and it’s okay. I didn’t read much in middle school or high school either, so don’t sweat it. Yeah, now I write books (still weird to me) and I’m nerdily excited to crack open my fresh-off-the-press copy of Wild Bird, by Wendelin Van Draanen, but it took me a while to get here. Tell your parents and your teachers, or whoever is pestering you to read more, to chill. Reading should be fun, and it should be done on your own time.
I’m not going to blame anyone (I’m definitely going to), but did my teachers really think the average teenage boy—bursting with hormones, dealing with TV and video game addictions, and obsessing over getting his license—would enjoy The Grapes of Wrath? They couldn’t have, right? Seriously. To be fair to them, YA options were slim pickins when I was younger. It’s Kind of a Funny Story, the Legend series, Percy Jackson, and The Hunger Games were still all twinkles in their authors’ eyes, if they were even twinkles at all, and Harry Potter hadn’t become Harry freaking Potter yet. But surely (don’t call me Shirley) they didn’t think I would like Grapes? I read it to pass English, but it was brutal. Teen me decided that if Grapes was one of the best books ever then what was the point of reading? So I broke up with books. I watched the movies instead, or read CliffsNotes. And that’s how it went for years on end, and I was okay with it.
So who was the pretty girl across the bar that got my attention and changed my mind about this whole “reading” thing? Her name was Alaska.
I was living in Los Angeles when a friend approached me and asked, “Joe, you read a lot of books, right?” I still to this day have no idea where he got that idea or why I lied and said, “Oh, totally.” He offered me a job reading Publishers Weekly to find great books that would make even better movies. I didn’t know what Publishers Weekly was, and since I still didn’t read I had no clue what a great book even looked like, but a job’s a job, right?
Whatever your feelings on fate are, you gotta admit that stumbling across Looking for Alaska on my very first day of work is pretty lucky. Wait, books were like this now? Like, good and relatable? The floodgates, rusted shut from being unused for so long, were blown wide open, and I haven’t stopped reading since.
Sometime later, an idea hit me. I wanted to be a part of this. I wanted to write books to keep people reading, or at least give it a shot. Funny thing about this new idea: the longest thing I’d ever written was a twenty-page report on westernization. Could I even do this? Could I create characters and stories worthy of saving teen me from giving up on reading? I think Bobby Sky: Boy Band or Die would have given it a heck of a shot.
Bobby Sky: Boy Band or Die is on sale now.