The Obvious Game

Today's the publication date for my friend Rita Arens' young-adult novel, The Obvious Game. It is a good book that you should and will read!

The Obvious Game centers around 15-year-old Diana Keller, who's having a tough time, to say the least. Her mom is battling cancer, and Diana's dealing with quite a body image problem, which nosedives straight into an eating disorder. Plus, you know, she's a teenager, and it doesn't get much worse than that.

I'm in mid-reading, myself, and I'm enthralled. Me, a full-fledged adult! So don't think you have to be one of those teens to enjoy this. (Although I'm sure the teenager in your life will love it, as well.)

Rita worked hard to get her book published. Here she is on overcoming rejection.

At some point, I realized I wanted this book more than I cared how embarrassed I had to be to get it published. I think that’s what gets things done. In my heart of hearts, I know that for every writer who just knew the right people and was so amazingly talented and writing the right thing at just the right moment, there are hundreds of thousands who are just like me, for whom every victory is hard won.

I love how refreshingly open Rita is about the process/psychic ordeal for a first-time novelist. Hooray for perseverance!

Would you like a copy of your own? Rita has graciously offered to give away one copy (with a signed bookplate) to a lucky winner. I require a comment with your most awkward teenage moment (or just *an* awkward moment, if there are too many to choose from) and I shall choose the winner by next Thursday, February 14th. 

Update on February 15, 2013 by Alice

WE HAVE A WINNER.

Your anecdotes were all appropriately mortifying (and how!), but this one stood out above the rest. And will give me flashback-nightmares for at least a week.

When I was 14, I had the biggest crush on this football player (with a bowl haircut? what?). So of course, my idiot friends, Bowl Cut, and I thought it'd be super cool to sneak little bottles of booze into the woods outside of a big German fest and get drunk off of god awful cheap liquor. Freshmen are totally smart and consistently make good decisions. Cut to: Bowl Cut wants me to go on a a ride called The Breakdance. You know the one. You're in a pod that's spinning, on an arm that's spinning, while the whole thing SPINS. As we're hurling through the air and the neon lights are wavering back and forth and whizzing up and down, Bowl Cut turns to me and says, "I don't feel so good." I confidently responded, "Me neither, but there's no way I'm going to be sick." Then, my mouth opened. A river of vomit projected out of my face and hit every single other car on The Breakdance. The ride was spinning so violently that there was nothing anyone could do but hope their eyes and mouth were closed at the right time. And guess what? Bowl Cut did NOT want to be my boyfriend after that! I know... I was confused too.

Congratulations, Kate! I'll be contacting you about your copy of Rita's book.

Celebration!

We are now louse-free, as far as I know, and that's good enough for me. I will probably continue to comb Henry's hair for nits until he has children of his own, but I'm done worrying. You don't have to tell me how you thought your family was free of it and then it came back 3 quabillion times, because the helpful community that is Twitter has already told me that. For now I'm happy, okay? LET ME REJOICE! I just wrote "rejuice." Let me rejuice, while I'm at it. So refreshing.

To celebrate my family's newly unmolested scalp areas, I am giving away five (5) (V, Romans) copies of Ann Napolitano's new book, A GOOD HARD LOOK. This giveaway is not at all related to our recent drama, but I'm going to pretend it is. Because we were LOOKING HARD AND ALSO GOOD at our heads! Right? Ahahhahaahaaaaauuugh?

But let's talk about the book, which does not refer to lice, not even once. Ann emailed me a while ago to ask me if I wanted a copy, and when she mentioned that Flannery O'Connor was a character in it, that was all I needed to hear. I have a deep and abiding love for Flannery O'Connor, both as an author and what I know of her as a human being. I find her views on Catholicism especially baffling and compelling. The Habit of Being, a collection of her letters, is among my favorite books. (Speaking of which: I did this interview with Colleen Wainwright, and in it I list my other favorite books, among other things. Like what George Saunders wrote to me, once! And what my epic sixth-grade graphic novel was going to be titled!)

Once I got Ann's book I sat down to flip through it and suddenly the weekend was gone and I hadn't eaten in a long while. It's just that good. I am so bad at writing book synopses, DON'T MAKE ME DO THAT, so you'll have to take my word for it. It's a good book. And I'm not the only person who liked it! Amazon called it "heartbreakingly beautiful and inescapably human." I was going to say that until they did. THANKS, AMAZON. You want this book. I don't normally do giveaways, but I actually asked Ann if I could do one, in this case. Because you need to read this. Okay.

If you want a copy, just say so in the comments. I'll pick five commenters at random, and Penguin Press has kindly agreed to send the winners' copies, so you won't have to wait for me to get off my ass and stumble over to the post office. I must limit winners to the U.S. and Canada, as per the publisher's request. I think they hate foreigners! (They probably don't hate foreigners.) (Although they did try to limit the Canadian winners to "nobody who's too Canadian-y, if you catch our drift.") (No they didn't. I'm sorry.)

Comment! Hurry! I'll be announcing the winners in one (1) week. Good luck.

Seven years!

As of tomorrow, I'll have been writing this blog for seven years. My blog's a first-grader! When I began writing here, Henry was sixteen months old; now he's shaving. (Well, he could shave. His legs, anyway. Kid's got some hairy legs.)

Here's a visual, to help you cry. My baby then:

And now:

I know.

Before I start looking at more pictures of my son as an adorable toddler and spend the rest of the afternoon bawling on the couch, I wanted to say thank you. The last seven years have been action-packed, in both excellent and terrible ways, and through it all you've supported me, cheered me on, and given me a kick in the ass when I needed it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

According to my stats there are many of you who read and never comment. Which is fine, but today, please say hello! Tell me who you are, what brought you to Finslippy, what you're up to, what your favorite cheese is--whatever. I really don't care. I mean, I care, but I'm not going to demand you tell me your life story. But I would welcome hearing your life story! If you felt like writing it. I'll stop now.

As a reward for commenting, you'll be in the running to receive a copy of my friend Jessie Sholl's new book, Dirty Secret. I wrote about Jessie's book on my Redbook blog, but I wanted to do a giveaway here. Dirty Secret is Jessie's story of growing up with a mom who's a hoarder, and it's a doozie of a book. (And yes, I did just write the word "doozie." I couldn't decide between that and "humdinger.") It's funny and harrowing and ultimately uplifting. You will enjoy it! So comment, and a week from today I'll announce the winner.

A winner, and a book

First of all: we have a winner for the Windows Phone 7 giveaway! Erin McDaniel, congratulations on winning, and I hope the phone brings you much enjoyment and, uh, connectivity.

In other news, look at what I received last week. Go ahead, look. Don't turn away from me. Look--not there--over here. Helloooo? Are you--? Good. Stay there.

Ta-da!

It's a book! A book that Eden and I actually wrote, using our hands and brains. Also mouths, for when we spoke to one another. And ears for listening. I should probably stop listing which body parts we used in the creation of this thing.

(Parts of soul, for ripping out.)

These are the "advance uncorrected proofs," with a heavy emphasis on the uncorrected, oh my word. The editor sent us these in un-bound form the week before, and we spent an entire weekend doing nothing but going page by page through the book, correcting typos, images in the wrong places, weird captions that were funny when we thought them up but then seemed clunky on the page, etc. We removed entire sidebars, added over thirty new images, improved image captions--we rearranged entire chapters, here and there. So although I was excited to see this book in actual book form, it also felt weirdly frustrating that the actual book form (for now) is the unchanged version. I'm keenly aware of everything excellent we did to the finished product, and the reviewers are going to get this one. With the typos.

(We did not do that. We do know how to spell "pregnant.")

Our editor has assured us that reviewers are used to typo-ridden advance copies, and so we must forge bravely onward. And look: we wrote a book. A BOOK! With funny illustrations in it!

Eden and I made a book together! We're really proud of our baby. We can't wait to share it with all of you.

Speaking of which, did you know that you could pre-order? If you pre-order, then you might forget that you did, and on March 1st, your doorbell will ring, and it'll be like you got a gift! A gift from yourself in the past! You could order from Amazon. Or Barnes and Noble. Or then there's Powells! And, of course, you could go to Indiebound to buy it from an independent bookstore.

I'm just saying.