Never Eighteen by Megan Bostic - Review

Never Eighteen by Megan Bostic
Published: January 17, 2012
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Austin Parker is on a journey to bring truth, beauty, and meaning to his life.

Austin Parker is never going to see his eighteenth birthday. At the rate he’s going, he probably won’t even see the end of the year. The doctors say his chances of surviving are slim to none even with treatment, so he’s decided it’s time to let go.

But before he goes, Austin wants to mend the broken fences in his life. So with the help of his best friend, Kaylee, Austin visits every person in his life who touched him in a special way. He journeys to places he’s loved and those he’s never seen. And what starts as a way to say goodbye turns into a personal journey that brings love, acceptance, and meaning to Austin’s life.

My Review:
What do you do when you know that you are not going to live much longer? Austin visits people who he thinks needs help. He hopes that the things he has to say (that he wouldn't normally say if he wasn't dying) will somehow help them. During this weekend journey, he also does a few things he has always wanted to do but never has.

I have mixed feelings about this book, but I am reviewing it anyway because I signed up to be part of the traveling tour. On the back of the book I read (which was an ARC even though it has now been published), it says what is wrong with Austin, even though it is not on the blurb above. However, when you read the book, you don't know that he is dying until you are probably about 75% through with the book. It makes references to the fact that he is sick, but you don't know what is really going on until almost the end. Overall, Never Eighteen is very sad and makes you think about life and death.  Megan Bostic powerfully portrayed the emotions of many of the characters throughout the book. I found myself wanting to keep reading so I could find out what happened to Austin as well as the people he went to visit. You may not enjoy this book if you do not like emotional reads.

It says this book is recommended for 12 and up; however, I would recommend it only for older YA or adults due to language, references to sex, alcohol and drugs, etc.

Reviewed as part of a traveling tour.

About the author:
Megan (that’s with a long “e”) Bostic is a mere human trying to find her place in the universe and an all-around great girl. Despite the rain and gray (she’s truly solar powered) making her extremely angsty, she’s lived in the Pacific Northwest her whole life, and still does, with her two crazy beautiful girls.

She thrives on the challenges faced in her journey to publication and has documented it vlog style. You can find her Chronicles of an Aspiring Writer on Youtube.

Her writing process she lovingly calls “organized chaos”. She writes on her laptop at the kitchen table next to the sliding glass door so she can absorb as much sun as she can. The “organized” part of the process mostly takes place in her head and involves the beginning and the end of her work in progress. The “chaos” part is pretty much how she sits down and writes with reckless abandon, not stopping to fix, revise, edit, or even breathe until she’s done.

When not writing, Megan is usually chauffeuring her teenage daughters and their friends, watching her girls play soccer, watching movies and TV shows on Netflix, hanging out with friends, spending time at the ocean, or walking the Narrows Bridge.

Megan loves the color black, monkeys, and is a notorious Facebook addict. She’s a proud member of The Class of 2K12 and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. You can also find her on Twitter, Goodreads, and anywhere else cool authors hang out. 

The Boy Project by Kami Kinard - Review, Guest Post, & Giveaway

The Boy Project by Kami Kinard
Published: January 2012
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.

For anyone who's ever felt that boys were a different species....

Thirteen and wildly creative, Kara McAllister just had her best idea yet. She's going to take notes on all of the boys in her grade (and a few elsewhere) in order to answer a seemingly simple question: How can she get a boyfriend?
But Kara's project turns out to be a lot more complicated than she imagined. Soon there are secrets, lies, and an embarrassing incident in the boy's bathroom. Plus, Kara has to deal with mean girls, her slightly spacey BFF, and some surprising uses for duct tape. Still, if Kara's research leads her to the right boy, everything may just be worth it...

Full of charts and graphs, heart and humor, this hilarious debut will resonate with tweens everywhere.

My review:
Kara is the only one of the girls in her grade who has never had a boyfriend, so she decides to take steps to change that. Kara starts taking notes on the boys in her class and sometimes even the cute guy at the mall. She also starts taking notes on the girls in her class, including "Maybelline" and "The Vine," who always seem to have guys interested in them. Kara's project doesn't quite go as she anticipated, and she ends up getting herself into some embarrassing situations because of it. But along the way, she learns a lot and makes some important realizations.

I found The Boy Project to be hilarious. Several times I would read something funny out loud to my teenage daughter, who then grabbed the book to read as soon as I was done with it. It was truly like taking a trip back to junior high school. I think we all knew a "Maybelline" (the girl who always wore way too much makeup) and "The Vine" (the one who was always hanging all over the guys). Kami Kinard has written characters that are easy to relate to and has really captured the awkwardness of middle school/junior high. The charts and graphs were cute and funny and really enhanced the book. Usually the use of multiple exclamation marks bothers me, but it works here. This is an excellent book. I would recommend it for tweens, teens and adults who enjoy MG fiction (and maybe want to reminisce a little).

This copy was reviewed as part of a traveling tour.

Guest post by Kami Kinard
Where’s the Fact in Fiction?

Everyone who’s read an interview with me already knows that I got the idea for writing THE BOY PROJECT while reading my own middle school diaries. But THE BOY PROJECT is a work of fiction. Nothing in the book happens exactly the way things happened in my own middle school life. Still, authors draw on their own experiences, and there are several scenes in the book that were based on my actual tween experiences. These scenes, however, have been fictionalized. I like to call this “ramping it up.” Because in most cases, fiction needs to be bigger, better, and more interesting than what really happens to us!

I thought it’d be fun to create a fact and fiction list to show how reality morphed into fiction.

FICTION: Kara is in 7^th grade and has never had a boyfriend, but everyone else has.

FACT: I had never had a boyfriend in the 7^th grade, (or the 8^th, or the 9^th) but there were lots of other girls who hadn’t either, so I was not alone. I had to make Kara seem like she was the only one in that category to make her situation seem more desperate.


FICTION: In the drawing of Kara’s family, her dad is wearing bargain shoes made of bright green suede and a bow-tie. Kara’s comment implies that he wears a bow tie all of the time.

FACT: I never saw my dad in a bow tie, unless he was wearing a tuxedo. But he definitely had a pair of bright green suede shoes. My brother and sister got a big kick out of seeing that in the book, because we all remember those shoes. (There are some things you don’t need to ramp up because they’re already pretty funny!)

FICTION: During history class, the boy sitting behind Dianna Leroy puts tiny pieces of paper in her curly hair, so that the back of her head looks as white as snow. This later creates a distraction just when Kara needs it.

FACT: I had very curly hair and this happened to me, but instead of creating a distraction when I needed it, it turned a lot of unwanted attention my way. I recently signed a book for the niece of the boy who put those little pieces of paper in my hair… I asked her to tell him thanks for the scene!


FICTION: Mrs. Hill asks the students to write a descriptive paragraph about someone in the room and then she takes them up and reads them aloud in front of everyone. The problem is, the students didn’t know their work was going to be read aloud! This is how Kara finds out that her crush likes her back!

FACT: My English teacher did this to us. There was a boy in the room who liked one of my friends and he wrote a paragraph about her sexy voice. He also described her hair, so everyone knew who he was talking about. But my friend was very shy, and she wanted to crawl under the desk when she heard this read aloud. The boy was pretty embarrassed too. They did not end up together!


So, I’ve just run through some of the tiny scenes from my book that were grounded in reality. Most of the scenes in THE BOY PROJECT, however, were completely made up. Yet there is one big thing in the novel that was not made up at all: Kara’s feelings. When I was in middle school, I felt the way Kara does about friends and wanting a boyfriend. A lot of middle school girls who have read the book tell me that they identify with Kara and they feel like she understands them. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear this, because I know that for these girls, I kept the feelings real.


About the author:
Before she’d finished seventh grade, Kami Kinard had written several books. Most people call these books diaries. Without the details garnered from these early works, The Boy Project might not have been born! A former high school teacher, Kami currently writes from balmy, buggy, and beautiful Beaufort SC where she lives with her husband and two children.

You can find Kami on KamiKinard.com, Nerdy Chicks Rule, Twitter, and Facebook.





Giveaway:
1 winner will receive a copy of The Boy Project by Kami Kinard.

How to enter:
Leave your name and email in the form below.

Optional Additional Entries:
+1 Follow Krazy Book Lady on Twitter and/or like on Facebook.
+1 Follow Kami Kinard on Twitter and/or like on Facebook.
+1 Leave a blog post comment.

Giveaway Details:
Giveaway is U.S. ONLY. This giveaway will run until midnight EST on February 25. Must be 13 or older to enter. Winner will be chosen using Random.org. Winner will be emailed and this blog post will be updated to include the name of the winner. Winner has 3 days to contact me or a new winner will be selected.

Thank you for entering and good luck!

Sorry! This giveaway is now closed.

Winner: Paige B.

Blue Sky Days by Marie Landry - Review, Fun Facts, & Giveaway

*Today is the official release of Blue Sky Days by debut author Marie Landry.* 

Blue Sky Days by Marie Landry
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

A year after graduating from high school, nineteen-year-old Emma Ward feels lost. She has spent most of her life trying to please her frigid, miserable mother - studying hard, getting good grades, avoiding the whole teenage rebellion thing - and now she feels she has no identity beyond that. Because she spent so many years working hard and planning every moment of her life, she doesn't have any friends, has never had a boyfriend, and basically doesn't know who she is or what she really wants from life. Working two part-time jobs to save money for college hasn't helped her make decisions about her future, so she decides it's time for a change. She leaves home to live with her free-spirited, slightly eccentric Aunt Daisy in a small town that makes Emma feel like she's stepped back in time.

When Emma meets Nicholas Shaw, everything changes - he's unlike anyone she's ever met before, the kind of man she didn't even know existed in the 21st century. Carefree and spirited like Daisy, Nicholas teaches Emma to appreciate life, the beauty around her, and to just let go and live. Between Daisy and Nicholas, Emma feels like she belongs somewhere for the first time in her life, and realizes that you don't always need a plan - sometimes life steers you where you're meant to be.

Life is wonderful, an endless string of blue sky days, until Nicholas is diagnosed with cancer, and life changes once again for Emma in ways she never thought possible. Now it's time for her to help Nicholas the way he's helped her. Emma will have to use her new-found strength, and discover along the way if love really is enough to get you through.

My review:
Blue Sky Days is a sweet, emotional love story. Emma has spent her life trying to please a controlling, emotionless mother. At 19 years old, she decides she is ready to take charge of her life and make changes, so she leaves home and moves to another town to stay with her Aunt Daisy. Aunt Daisy is much younger than her sister, and Emma has always had a good relationship with her. Emma almost instantly feels at home in Riverview and meets Nicholas the day after she gets there. She has never had friends or a boyfriend, so it is a new experience for you. But she falls in love with Nicholas right away, and they spend almost all of their time together. When Nicholas is diagnosed with cancer, Emma is there to support him with no hesitation.

Emma seems very mature for a 19 year old, and a few times, it seems like she is having too much reflection and self-realization for her age. There are many expressions of love that may be considered to be "cheesy," and this is even pointed out in the story. However, at the same time, it is just sweet that they feel such a connection to each other. This is a story of changing your life, falling in love, and supporting the one you love during the hardest of times. I enjoyed reading this story. You would like this book if you enjoy sweet love stories. You might not like this book if you enjoy fast paced stories.

A copy was provided by the author for review.

Fun Facts about Blue Sky Days - Guest post by Marie Landry

*I wrote the first draft of Blue Sky Days in 2004 when I was 20. It was only about 34,000 words and I knew it needed a lot of work, but I had no idea what to do with it, so I put it away. During the next seven years, I thought about it a lot, even as I wrote other stories and novels. When I finally brought it out again early in 2011, it seemed to take over my life. I thought about the characters night and day; they always seemed like real people to me, but they became even more real during those months of rewriting and revising. I tripled the word count, and came away with a story I was really proud of. But it did totally consume my life—I’d be doing something else and would hear Emma’s voice in my head, or picture Nicholas doing something, and would have to write it down and then work it into the story.

*Riverview, the setting in the book, is a fictional place in Canada.

*Emma has never done any traveling. She’s never been outside the province, let alone the country.

*I don’t like to name main characters after people I know, but I try to work in the names of some of my favorite people for minor characters. Emma’s middle name is Hazel, after my Grama who passed away in 2011 and was one of my best friends; the husband of the widow who owns the general store was named James, after my brother Jamie, who I’m very close to; and Emma’s dad was named Paul because that was my dad’s middle name.

*When I wrote the book in 2004, Emma’s last name was Stone, but when I started working on the book again in 2011, I realized there was an actress named Emma Stone, so I had to change her last name.

*Blue Sky Days was originally an adult contemporary romance, but after becoming a book blogger and falling in love with young adult books, I made a lot of changes and turned it into a YA book.

*Emma had never had a best friend until moving to Riverview.

*I’ve always pictured Sam, Nicholas’s dad, with a southern accent for some reason…even though he’s Canadian.

*Emma’s favorite band is U2.

*The painting I describe in Nicholas’s hospital room is actually a painting I own. When I was 17, I went to France on a school trip and my best friend and I were wandering around Nice one night and saw an artist on the streets painting with spray paint and sponges. It was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen—the paintings were gorgeous, and if I hadn’t seen them done with my own eyes, I’d never have believed he did them with spray paint. We each bought a painting, and mine is one of my most prized possessions.

About the author:

Marie Landry has always been a daydreamer. She has created imaginary worlds for as long as she can remember, so it only seemed natural that she would become a writer. With a passion for words that started in early childhood, Marie has written a varied range of works, and has been freelance writing since 2009. She resides in Ontario, Canada, and most days you can find her writing, reading, blogging about writing and reading, listening to U2, or having grand adventures with her two precious nephews.

You can find Marie on her blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

GIVEAWAY:
One winner will receive a Smashwords code to download a copy of Blue Sky Days in the format of choice.

How to enter:
Just fill out the form below. (Please note, if you enter other giveaways on this blog, all giveaways may have different entry requirements.)

Additional optional entries: (For 4 total entries.)
+1 Follow Krazy Book Lady on Twitter or like on Facebook.
+1 Follow Marie Landry on Twitter or like on Facebook.
+1 Leave a blog post comment.

Please do not leave emails or usernames in the blog post comments. Please include usernames, etc, in the comments section provided on the entry form.

Giveaway details:
Giveaway is open internationally. This giveaway will run until midnight EST on January 25. Must be 13 or older to enter. Winner will be chosen using Random.org. Winner will be emailed and this blog post will be updated to include the name of the winner. Winner has 3 days to contact me or a new winner will be selected.

Thank you for entering and good luck!

Sorry! This giveaway is now closed.

 Winner: Laura M.