Blog Tour - Alice Kuipers

Surprise post today! It's a blog tour post for Alice Kuipers' newest YA novel The Death of Us. When asking if I'd like to take part in the blog tour, Alice mentioned my Letter to the Author posts, saying she could so something similar. I said yes because I'm curious as to what other people would say in those sweet gushing letter to authors they love and because I should really start doing that again. ;)

Bestselling author Alice Kuipers was born in London. She moved to Canada in 2003. Her first novel, Life on the Refrigerator Door, was published in 28 countries and won several awards. Since then, she has published two further award winning YA novels internationally (The Worst Thing She Ever Did, 40 Things I Want to Tell You), with a fourth, The Death of Us, coming out on September 2, 2014. Alice has three small children and she began writing picture books for them. Her first picture book Violet and Victor Write The Best Ever Bookworm Book will be published in December of this year. Alice's website is full of tips and hints for those of you who want to become writers too. You can find out more about Alice and her books on her website or find her on Twitter (@AliceKuipers). :)

Dear Emily St. John Mandel,

I preordered Station Eleven on my Kindle and felt surprising irritation that I couldn’t read it immediately. The description from Goodreads had me hooked: An audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame, and ambition set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse... 

When Station Eleven beamed into my eReader on launch day, I stopped reading everything else and began. Your novel is beautifully written. From the first page, the prose had me lulled into the story. I haven’t finished reading it yet, but I know that this is a book that will stay with me for years. The characters are clearly drawn, vivid, and I cannot stop reading. I’m in the state that I love when I both don’t want to put the book down, but I also want to savour it. I can’t wait to get to the end, but I don’t want your novel to finish.

The book is an adult novel but I think teen readers will love it too. I write YA fiction and Station Eleven will fall into the hands of smart, savvy teen readers who will find it beautiful. And frightening.

The story is of a world in a state of collapse, written through changing timelines and through many perspectives. I had bad dreams of my family suffering from a terrible plague just as you describe. As the mother of three children, the idea that this world isn’t permanent physically hurts. But of course it’s not permanent. Nothing is. Your stunning descriptions of our world before and after the Georgia Flu give me moments of grace and beauty as I hold onto my tiny children. I know I have to send them out into this big, blue world. I have to let them go, whatever the future holds. Your book, despite the death, the destruction, the darkness, gives me light too.

Apparently you’re Canadian. I moved to Canada eleven years ago. Now you live in New York City. You are someone who has transplanted themselves and I feel that in your story. There is a sense of searching for home, something I’ve been doing for years. Once someone moves away, I think there’s always a sense of what’s been left behind. Station Eleven is all about what’s been left behind. What is lost. Yet your book gives me faith that home is exactly where you are in the current moment rather than something to seek. There are passages in the book that I re-read or highlight just because the writing is so fine, or because it takes me somewhere new. The novel is a triumph. You must be so proud of it. 

I can’t wait to read your other books. There are three more and I’ve already ordered one. But I can wait to finish this one. I’m going to take each page slowly as I only have a few pages left. Thank you for writing it – I’m sure it was hard work, but so worth it. It’s a testament to the value of art in a scary planet. I love it.

Alice Kuipers

Thanks to much to Alice for the wonderful letter to Emily St. John Mandel. Go check out The Death of Us (and maybe Station Eleven as well)! :)

Me on A Short Letter to the Author (2)

Dear Tara Kelly,

Your new book Amplified came out on Tuesday. Late Monday night on Twitter, you were kind of freaking out because lots of stores had it in stock and you said it didn't happen with your first book, Harmonic Feedback.

I first read Harmonic Feedback last November, 6 months after the release date. It was a borrow from the library (that I actually put a hold on for, so don't think I didn't want to read it). I think I remember reading a blog post about how your first release day wasn't like other authors, how there wasn't a lot of fanfare or publicity. I'll admit, initially, I didn't think I'd enjoy your book as much as I did. Contemporary YA doesn't fill a lot of space in my bookcase, not unless it can reach out and make me feel something beyond "that was a good story."

Tara, it reached out and made me feel something.

I found myself slipping into Drea's shoes as I read page after page. I could relate to her in some ways more than others (we moved right before I started high school, so I understood the first day at a new school/first day back from summer break situation). I couldn't relate to her in terms of her ADHD and Aspeger's, in terms of how much of a struggle it can be when the world didn't work the way she wished it would, when she wished people would be honest and say what they meant instead of lying to her or making fun of her without her knowing, but after a while I did understand her.

It was a library borrow 11 months ago, it was a library borrow in June when I saw it and (possibly) dove for it on the shelf, and it was a buy in September (I ordered it online). I ordered Amplified online, too (as far as I can tell, no bookstore up here has it on the shelf yet, but don't take it personally, it's Canada).

I've been waiting for Amplified for months, back when it had a different title, way back before it had a cover (the yellow cover with the girl standing on the amp is gorgeous, by the way). Apparently, I added it to my list on Goodreads almost 10 months ago.

So, Tara, I guess I'm trying to say thank you for your books, even though I've only read one of them so far. Thank you for Drea, because she's made of pure awesome. Thank you for writing about music, because it's something I love (even though I can barely play the piano and can't sing to save my life). Thank you for writing about the hard stuff, about the lives of teenagers who don't live in comfy homes in the 'burbs with both parents and 2.8 kids (plus the white picket fence and a dog), about the teens who do drugs and get kicked out of school because not writing about them won't make them go away.

You've gotten some flack for Harmonic Feedback, some nasty e-mails, recently some pretty bad ones. It's not fair that these people/internet trolls attack you personally. I wish I could take their abuse for you so you wouldn't have to read their words.

I wish I could drive down to Seattle and see you in November, finally meet you in person, get my books signed, but I can't. One day.

Never stop writing, Tara, because I'll read it. And, to be honest, I get a kick out of reading "critically acclaimed author Tara Kelly" when I expand the book description for Amplified on Goodreads. Do you? ;)

Yours,

Lindsay

Me on A Short Letter to the Author (1)

This letter the first in a series of posts. More will be written, but there will be no schedule. :)

Dear Brenna Yovanoff,

Today is October 15, 2011. Your new book, The Space Between, comes out in thirty-two days. Today I read an advance copy of that book.

I find I have so many words I could give you about this book, words to give back to you in exchange to the ones you have given me late last night in the dark hours after midnight and this afternoon in the autumn sunshine, but it is hard to write the words that matter most when my eyes fill with tears and my heart jumps up to be the lump in my throat. I feel different after reading this book, so much more than I was expecting.

Perhaps, one day, I will find the words, but for now I have only these and I hope they will be enough. Thank you for this book, Brenna. Thank you so much.

Yours,

Lindsay