HAH. I may not have read THAT book,the one with the seven figure advance, but I've read books that come from the same damn family - first cousins, mayhap - and I've had much the same response to them. There are times that I try like hell to understand publishing and I fail utterly - books I've read in MS are rejected because "this book won't sell a minimum of 25 000 copies" (like, how would they know?) and books I've read as heavily promoted shiny volumes with embossed covers hold my attention for the first ten pages if that and then I can probably dictate the rest of the plot to you without EVER having read the rest of the book (and these WILL sell 25 000 copies? WHY?)

(I would LOVE to hear your take on my own YA series...)