word counts, book review, and Valentine's Day

When I begin a novel, I always ask myself: how long is this going to be? My estimates are never right. In fact, most of the time they're way off. For example, my current book was only supposed to be 50,000 words and it's currently 45,000 and I'm not even sure if I hit the half-way point. My last novel was supposed to be 80,000 and it barely scratched 66,000. I always wonder which is better/worse...to overestimate or underestimate? Or does it even matter?

Book Review! I finished THE REPLACEMNT a few weeks ago and I've been meaning to write a review. I think this is an excellent first novel for author Brenna Yovanoff. She takes YA to a new level. For one thing, the teenagers actually sound and act like teenagers. They swear. They take off their clothes around the opposite sex. And they are funny. Or at least, they think they're funny. Bravo to that! Most writers are terrified to drop the f bomb. Shakespeare forbid they say it in a YA novel. In The Replacement, I was happy to see that wonderful word about two dozen times. Plot wise, I loved it. Lots of twists and turns. The only bit of criticism I have is sometimes certain sections became too telling and/or simply structured. There were also at least 6 typos but I blame the editors/printers for that. I give this book a 9.5/10 and recommend it to all those who want to read a good YA novel.

Valentine's Day was yesterday. Yep.