An Evening with Laurie Halse Anderson, Lauren Myracle, and Jay Asher
Stop by the store on November 20th at 7:00 PM to meet three of the hottest teen authors around today -- right here in Doylestown! Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Wintergirls and Speak, Lauren Myrace, author of Peace, Love and Baby Ducks and the Internet Girls series, and Jay Asher, author of Thirteen Reasons Why, will be at our store to host a reading, Q&A, and book signing.
Laurie Halse Anderson is the New York Times bestselling author who writes for kids of all ages. Known for tackling tough subjects with humor and sensitivity, her work has earned numerous ALA and state awards. Two of her books, SPEAK and CHAINS, were National Book Award finalists. Mother of four and wife of one, Laurie lives in Northern New York, where she likes to watch the snow fall as she writes. You can follow her adventures on Twitter, http://twitter.com/halseanderson, and on her blog, http://halseanderson.livejournal.com/.
Lauren Myracle is the author of numerous young adult novels. She was born in 1969 in North Carolina, and holds an MA in English from Colorado State University and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College. Her books include the NYT bestselling TTYL, as well as THIRTEEN, RHYMES WITH WITCHES, and KISSING KATE. You can follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/LaurenMyracle.
Jay Asher lives in California. His debut novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, has been on the New York Times bestsellers list for an entire year and was recently performed on the stage at a high school in Illinois. You can follow his author journey at http://www.jayasher.blogspot.com.
The intensity of emotion and vivid language here are more reminiscent of Anderson's Speak (Farrar, 1999) than any of her other works. Lia and Cassie had been best friends since elementary school, and each developed her own style of eating disorder that leads to disaster. Now 18, they are no longer friends. Despite their estrangement, Cassie calls Lia 33 times on the night of her death, and Lia never answers. As events play out, Lia's guilt, her need to be thin, and her fight for acceptance unravel in an almost poetic stream of consciousness in this startlingly crisp and pitch-perfect first-person narrative. The text is rich with words still legible but crossed out, the judicious use of italics, and tiny font-size refrains reflecting her distorted internal logic. All of the usual answers of specialized treatment centers, therapy, and monitoring of weight and food fail to prevail while Lia's cleverness holds sway. What happens to her in the end is much less the point than traveling with her on her agonizing journey of inexplicable pain and her attempt to make some sense of her life. -- School Library Journal.
From Booklist Fifteen-year-old Carly has a problem—two, actually: her younger sister Anna’s new “real live Hooters-esque boobs.” While Carly was away getting self-actualized at a back-to-nature camp, Anna was busy turning into a hottie, a state that makes “granola-girl” Carly uncomfortably jealous. Now back in her privileged Atlanta suburb, Carly is struggling with feelings of insecurity as she tries to reconcile her newly acquired bohemian belief system with the incredible wealth in which she has been raised. In addition, her crush hardly notices her, she feels trapped between her rival best friends, and her parents seem to be growing more distant with each other by the day. Writing for an older teen audience, Myracle empathetically explores issues of socioeconomic class, sibling rivalry, and parental influence in a story that is deeper and more nuanced than the title and cutesy cover, dotted with rubber ducks and a peace sign, imply. A must-read for fans of Sarah Dessen and Justina Chen Headley.
When Clay Jenson plays the casette tapes he received in a mysterious package, he's surprised to hear the voice of dead classmate Hannah Baker. He's one of 13 people who receive Hannah's story, which details the circumstances that led to her suicide. Clay spends the rest of the day and long into the night listening to Hannah's voice and going to the locations she wants him to visit. The text alternates, sometimes quickly, between Hannah's voice (italicized) and Clay's thoughts as he listens to her words, which illuminate betrayals and secrets that demonstrate the consequences of even small actions. Hannah, herself, is not free from guilt, her own inaction having played a part in an accidental auto death and a rape. The message about how we treat one another, although sometimes heavy, makes for compelling reading.
