Forgotten ARC Giveaway

I originally left this post last week right before the whole blogger crash happened, so I don't think very many people saw it. I meant to repost it earlier this week, but then I got the flu and blogging became my last priority. So, I'm finally getting around to reposting it now. Today is supposed to be the final day to enter this contest, but I'll extend it through the weekend. So you now have until Sunday, May 22nd to enter. Best of luck.

I was lucky enough to win a free ARC of Forgotten by Cat Patrick from a contest on Literary Life. And OMG, I LOVE this book! So I’ve decided to pay it forward. Now that I’m doing reading it, I’m going to pass the ARC along to one of my lucky followers.

Here are the rules.
1. Follow this blog.
2. Leave a comment on today’s post. (Or last weeks post about this contest, I'll pool the entry's from both.)
3. After you win and read this book, tell at least five other people how fabulous it is.

That’s it. Comment away, and I’ll announce the winner next Monday, May 23rd. Oh, and if you aren’t the lucky winner of this ARC, I highly recommend that you mark your calendars for June 7th, because that is when this amazing story will hit a bookstore near you.

If your curious what this book is actually about, here is the goodreads description.

Each night when 16 year-old London Lane goes to sleep, her whole world disappears. In the morning, all that's left is a note telling her about a day she can't remember. The whole scenario doesn't exactly make high school or dating that hot guy whose name she can't seem to recall any easier. But when London starts experiencing disturbing visions she can't make sense of, she realizes it's time to learn a little more about the past she keeps forgetting-before it destroys her future. Part psychological drama, part romance, and part mystery, this thought-provoking novel will inspire readers to consider the what-if's in their own lives and recognize the power they have to control their destinies.

What Happened to Goodbye

I spent a large chunk of last weekend reading Sarah Dessen’s latest creation What Happened to Goodbye. Naturally, I loved it. More than any specific thing in this story, what I loved the most about it is that it was written by Sarah Dessen. She is definitely my favorite author for a reason. Everything she writes is gold.

Here is the real thing that makes all of Sarah Dessen’s books so amazing. ALL the characters are interesting. Some of her books, like Just Listen deal with serious issues. But a lot of her books have relatively low states. In What Happened to Goodbye, Mclean’s parents went through an ugly divorce so she now lives with her dad and fights a lot with her mom. That has happened to a lot of kids, and isn’t anything earth shattering. Except that Mclean is a really amazing character and Sarah Dessen makes her come so totally alive that you can’t help but care.

Mclean isn’t the only interesting character in this book though. ALL of the characters are interesting. All of the supporting characters who befriend Mclean and help impact her story have interesting stories of their own. And it’s through getting to know these other interesting people that Mclean is able to get to know herself. And this is the thing that makes me love Sarah Dessen’s writing so much. Even the supper minor characters that only show up in the background of one scene are interesting characters with interesting stories.

What Happened to Goodbye is Sarah Dessen’s tenth book. And all ten of her books are set in the same two towns. Yes, this book has scenes in both Lakeview and Colby. And these two town are filled with people and every single one of these people is interesting, with their own story to tell. Some of the characters that only made minor appetences in Dessen’s earlier books played major roles in Mclean’s tale. And some characters that were major characters in past stories made minor appearances here. So even though Sarah Dessen’s books are not a series and can be read in absolutely any order, they all weave together to tell an even larger truth. And that truth is that EVERYONE has a story to tell. Everyone is interesting and important.

If you’re curious what What Happened to Goodbye is about, here is the goodreads description.

In the past two years, Mclean Sweet has moved four times. At each stop, she assumes a new persona, but it never quite works. Whether she's an effervescent cheerleader or an intense drama queen, nothing can permanently dispel the turmoil and rage at her mother since her parents' divorce. Sarah Dessen's novel about a teenager and her restaurant manager father captures the vulnerability that young people often experience after the dissolution of their family. A compelling story; strong characterization; and with a touch of romance.

And if you’re looking for other exciting tales about the interesting lives of the residence of Lakeview and Colby, check out Sarah Dessen’s other nine books: Just Listen, The Truth About Forever, This Lullaby, Lock and Key, Along for the Ride, Someone Like You, Dreamland, Keeping the Moon, and That Summer.

Forgotten ARC Giveaway

I was lucky enough to win a free ARC of Forgotten by Cat Patrick from a contest on Literary Life. And OMG, I LOVE this book! So I’ve decided to pay it forward. Now that I’m doing reading it, I’m going to pass the ARC along to one of my lucky followers.

Here are the rules.
1. Follow this blog.
2. Leave a comment on today’s post.
3. After you win and read this book, tell at least five other people how fabulous it is.

That’s it. Comment away, and I’ll announce the winner one week from today (May 17th). Oh, and if you aren’t the lucky winner of this ARC, I highly recommend that you mark your calendars for June 7th, because that is when this amazing story will hit a bookstore near you.

If your curious what this book is actually about, here is the goodreads description.

Each night when 16 year-old London Lane goes to sleep, her whole world disappears. In the morning, all that's left is a note telling her about a day she can't remember. The whole scenario doesn't exactly make high school or dating that hot guy whose name she can't seem to recall any easier. But when London starts experiencing disturbing visions she can't make sense of, she realizes it's time to learn a little more about the past she keeps forgetting-before it destroys her future. Part psychological drama, part romance, and part mystery, this thought-provoking novel will inspire readers to consider the what-if's in their own lives and recognize the power they have to control their destinies.

The Sound of Literature

For this week’s Road Trip Wednesday, the good people over at YA Highway are asking the question

If you could pick any celebrity to read the audio version of your current work in progress who would it be?

Okay, I have to admit that I’m a bit of an expert on audio books. I have a hard core listening addiction. I spend the vast majority of my time plugged in and listen to a minimum of 3 books per week (often a lot more). I read too, but at least 75% of the books I consume come in audio form.

Listening to this many audio books means I know who the best readers are. My favorite is Full Cast Audio. Basically, there are lots of different audio book publishers the same way there are lots of different paper book publishers. There is Harper Audio, Brilliance Audio, Scholastic Audio, etc., and Full Cast Audio. Full Cast Audio is a publisher, not a reader, but they tend to use the same readers in almost all of their books. With Full Cast Audio, there is a different reader/actor for each character so the dialog sounds like dialog.

There are a lot of characters in my WIP and plenty of dialog, but the story is first person and has a lot of introspection, so a single reader may actually work better. It seems like most full cast audio books are third person. So even though full cast audio books are my favorite, I’m going to play by the rules and pick a single reader.

Since my MC is female, I can’t go with Jim Dale even though he is a total audio book rock star. He reads the Harry Potter audio books, plus a ton of other huge best sellers and just has a great voice for drama. But I need someone that sound like a teenage girl, and that is not Jim Dale.

Cassandra Morris is one of my favorite female YA readers. She has a really young sounding voice. I don’t know how old she is, but I swear she sounds twelve. Since my MC is fifteen, Cassandra Morris may be too young. But I listen to a lot of YA and know that she is frequently used for teen voices. And her voice has a definite innocence to it that would probably work really well with my MC.

Another great common YA reader is Jenna Lamia. Her voice sounds a little older than Cassandra Morris, but is still definitely youthful. I tend to recognize the voices of Jim Dale and Cassandra Morris and other audio book rock stars one the very first work. While Jenna Lamia’s voice isn’t as distinct, it’s just the subtle tone of a female teen. I never really think about Jenna’s voice while I’m listening to her, I just love all the books that she reads. And that says a lot, because an audio book should be about the book not the reader. So if at some future date, Jenna Lamia was hired to read the audio version of something I wrote, you can bet I would be really happy.

Obviously, none of the people that I’ve mentioned so far are “actors” they are all professional audio book readers. And today’s question was about actors wasn’t it? I listened to a book read by Hillary Swank last week. She sounded good. I would never cast Hillary Swank is the lead in a movie based on my WIP, but I could handle her reading it. She’s got a nice voice.

What about you? If you had to pick the actor to read your current WIP who would it be?

Running Dream

My current WIP is a book about a teenager with a serious learning disability. Before I started it, I was working on a book about a teenager recovering from a major sports injury. I liked the sports injury book a lot and definitely plan to go back to it after I finish this learning disability book. Working on these books has definitely shown me something about myself (and my writing). I like books about characters that overcome difficult circumstances. Cute love stories can be fun, but even really well written cute love stories never resonate with me all that strongly. Am I the only person who feels this way? Sometimes I think I must be, because there are a lot more cute romances on the market than poignant books about teens overcoming difficult circumstances.

Running Dream is one exception to this trend. It is a teen overcomes serious sports injury that will be a great comp title to my sports drama once I get back to writing it. It is also just an all-around great book. It’s about a serious runner who is in a tragic bus accident on the way home from a track meet. Her foot is so seriously damaged during the accident that it has to be amputated. One of her teammates dies in the accident and she lost a leg, but the rest of the team get away with minor injuries. The team rallies after the accident to raise money for a prosthetic running leg, so she can return to the track.

I’ve had my share of bumps and bruises. But I’ve never been an amputee. I’ve never even known an amputee. So I learned a lot about prosthetics while reading this book. I also enjoyed being reminded of the resilience of the human spirit. Running Dream is a great read that stands above the average sports drama.

I highly recommend it. If you’re curious, here is what goodreads has to say about this book.

Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She's not comforted by the news that she'll be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg. Who cares about walking when you live to run? As she struggles to cope with crutches and a first cyborg-like prosthetic, Jessica feels oddly both in the spotlight and invisible. People who don't know what to say, act like she's not there. Which she could handle better if she weren't now keenly aware that she'd done the same thing herself to a girl with CP named Rosa. A girl who is going to tutor her through all the math she's missed. A girl who sees right into the heart of her. With the support of family, friends, a coach, and her track teammates, Jessica may actually be able to run again. But that's not enough for her now. She doesn't just want to cross finish lines herself—she wants to take Rosa with her.

Tweet Tweet

I have officiall crossed over to the dark side. I now have a twitter account. You can follow me @katescottwrites. I'm netoriously horrible about using Facebook, so I'm not sure how good I'll be about twitter. But I decided to take the plunge and start tweeting anyway. If anyone has any helpful how to get the most out of twitter type advise, I would love to hear it.

With that, tweet tweet tweetly-deet.

100 Followers Contest

Way back on March 22nd, I announced my 100 Followers Contest. The rules are quite simple. As soon as I reach 100 Followers, I’m going to give one lucky follower a $20 gift card to Powell’s. To enter the contest, all you have to do is be a follower and leave a comment on my March 22nd post recommending one of your favorite books.

When I first announced this contest, I had 80 followers. I now have 90 followers. So there is still time to enter for your chance to win. If you are an old follower and you haven’t entered this contest yet, hop over to the March 22nd post and leave your recommendation. And if you aren’t a follower yet, click the little “follow this blog” button on the side bar and help push me toward my 100 followers goal.

Good luck.

Learning to Write

I wasn’t sure what I was going to blog about today. It’s Cinco de Mio, so I thought about maybe writing something pro Mexican, but I love tacos seems like a weird blog post. Then I got an email from a friend this morning that put everything into a new perspective. This friend of mine is a recent immigrant to the US. She isn’t Hispanic, but her country of origin isn’t what’s important to the point of this post. This friend of mine is a young adult thinking about college. But she’s only lived in the US for a couple of months, and English isn’t her first language.

In order to improve her English writing skills, so she can get into college, she has decided to write an essay a day this summer. She contacted me wanting essay topic ideas. Things like, visit an art museum and describe one of the paintings in great detail. Read a popular book and then write a one page summary of it. Interview a friend and write about the differences in your childhoods.

I think it’s great that this friend of mine is working so hard to teach herself how to write in English, so she can live the American dream and go to college. And I can’t help but notice the symmetry that I received this request for essay topic ideas on May 5th. I won’t get into the immigration debate, except to say that his self-motivated friend of mine does have a Green Card. Still as a writer I’m impressed. I’m impressed that a young immigrant is choosing to write an essay a day this summer to help her improve her English.

At the same time, I’m realizing how much I have in common with this girl. I grew up in US and learning vocabulary and grammar isn’t an issue for me. But I also write every day in order to improve my English. One of the reasons why I blog is because I think it’s fun. But also I blog because it keeps me writing. And even if the things I blog about have nothing to do with the fiction I’m writing, the more you write the better you get at writing. Maybe I should have just told my friend to start a blog. But writing formal essays may be better in terms of college prep.

Girl Wonder

Last night, I went to the book launch for Girl Wonder by Alexa Martin at Powell’s. I’d never heard of Alexia until yesterday, but I try to go to most of the YA book events at Powell’s so I dropped by. I haven’t read Girl Wonder yet, but I totally love Alexa Martin. She was super nice, and adorably shy about the whole launch party/book reading and signing event.

If you’re curious what Girl Wonder is about, here is the goodreads description.

As if transferring senior year weren't hard enough, Charlotte Locke has been bumped to lower level classes at her new school. With no friends, a terrible math SAT score, and looming college application deadlines, the future is starting to seem like an oncoming train for which she has no ticket.

Then Amanda enters her orbit like a hot-pink meteor, offering Charlotte a ticket to something else: popularity. Amanda is fearless, beautiful, brilliant, and rich. As her new side kick, Charlotte is brought into the elite clique of the debate team—and closer to Neal, Amanda's equally brilliant friend and the most perfect boy Charlotte has ever seen.

But just when senior year is looking up, Charlotte’s life starts to crumble. The more things heat up between Charlotte and Neal, the more Neal wants to hide their relationship. Is he ashamed? Meanwhile, Amanda is starting to act strangely competitive, and she's keeping a secret Charlotte doesn't want to know.

Talented newcomer Alexa Martin delivers a poignant story of first love, jealousy and friendship, where the ups and downs of senior year have never been so complicated. What else can Charlotte do but throw her hands up and ride?

I can’t wait to read this book for myself, and will likely be posting about it again after I finish it. But since it just hit the shelves yesterday, and Alexa is the cutest little new author ever, I wanted to inform you my literate friends that this is an exciting new book worth checking out.

On a slightly unrelated note. It turns out Alexa is good friends with Liza Schroeder (another YA author I totally love), so I managed to come away from the event with not only an autographed copy of Girl Wonder, but also an autographed copy of Far From You. I love how nice authors are and how everyone in the writing community seems to get along.

Uglies

Back in April, while I was making up a new genre for every letter of the alphabet, I was also reading a lot of exciting new books. And I’ve got to say, I LOVE the Uglies Trillogy by Scott Westerfeld. I didn’t read it until after my D is for Dystopia day, but trust me, this is far and away my favorite dystopia.

The problem with a lot of dystopia (and really books of any genre) is that they’re predictable. Twenty pages into it, you know the ending. It’s obvious who the good guys are and who the bad guys are and who the love interests are and then just spend the next several hundred pages watching everything you predicted unfold.

That is not the case for Uglies. Twenty pages into Uglies, I thought I knew the ending. I was totally wrong. And all along the way, there would be a big twist and I’d think I knew what direction things were going to go, and every time I was wrong. The thing that makes this series so unpredictable is that nobody is totally good and nobody is totally bad. Everyone thinks they are doing the right thing and everyone makes mistakes. Nothing is black and white, only endless shades of gray. And the journey though all these various viewpoints, in this amazingly complex futuristic society, is a very entertaining ride. If you like YA dystopia, you have to read this series. If you don’t like YA dystopia, read this series anyway and maybe it will change your mind.

Here is what goodreads has to say about the first book in the series, if you’re curious about things like plot.

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Z is for Zoink

Today’s post is brought to you by the letter Z. I made it. It’s the final day in the A to Z blogger challenge. I know it’s currently May 2nd, and this was supposed to be an April challenge, but I’m really bad about blogging on weekends. Somehow, I managed to make up a genre for every letter in the alphabet and then list my five favorite books in that genre. But Z? What genre starts with Z? Zoo maybe, although that isn’t exactly a genre and I don’t think I’ve even read five books about animals. I tend to like books about people much better. So Z is for Zoink. Which isn’t a genre at all and really doesn’t mean anything. So it’s going to mean nothing. And I’m going to go with that. Here are five of my favorite books that somehow failed to make in in any of my previous lists. What’s your favorite overlooked book?

Masterpiece Comics by Robert Sikoryak. This is an entertaining blend of classic literature and comic books. Wuthering Heights meets Tales of the Crypt. Dagwood and Blondie meets Adam and Eve. Camus’s Stranger meets Superman. Sikoryak does a really good job of stay true to both the classic and the comic in what can only be called a masterpiece.

What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell. I stuck another Malcolm Gladwell book back on the N is for Non-Fiction day, ‘cause that would be what he writes. Gladwell is my favorite non-fiction writer. He just has interesting things to say. Apparently, he writes for the New Yorker, which I don’t read because I live in Oregon not New York. What the Dog Saw really isn’t about anything, it’s just a compilation of a bunch of Gladwell’s New Yorker articles. It’s really fascinating, and almost makes me want to start reading the New Yorker. But I’ll probably just wait until his fifth book comes out and read that instead.

Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber. This is an OA book that didn’t fit in my I is for International category because it takes place in California, it’s just about people from other cultures. Specifically, it is about Middle Eastern American’s. In the post 9-11 world, Middle Eastern American’s often get a bad rap. So I really enjoyed reading this book and learning more about their culture.

Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney. This is a YA date rape book. Books about rape are tricky. On one hand, they empower survivors and encourage people to speak up. But on the other hand, you have to read about rape, which isn’t exactly a fun light hearted topic. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and Just Listen by Sarah Dessen both do a great job of showing the struggle a rape victim can go through when searching for a voice to speak up. Mockingbirds takes this story one step further and focuses instead on a world that doesn’t want to listen, and a group of kids who battle to change that world so nobody else can get hurt. If you’ve got the stomach to read a book about rape, Mockingbirds is a good one.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray. What is this book about anyway? Mad Cow disease. Clearly, Mad Cow disease is an important issue that teens are facing, so this book really hits at the heart of contemporary YA. Or maybe not. Anyway, this book is really funny. It’s about a teenage boy with Mad Cow disease, who is well mad. As a reader you never know what is real and what is just hallucination. Cameron is the world’s least reliable narrator, but somehow it doesn’t matter. Because Going Bovine is a very entertaining read.