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TMI available August 6th! (Sourcebooks Fire)

Bailey Grant and Megan Farrell have been BFFs since second grade

They’re total opposites

Bailey’s a free spirit. Meg’s got a Life Plan.

Nothing can come between them.

Except a boy…

What People Are Saying

“With amazing authenticity, Patty Blount captures the thrill of gamer culture, as well as the dangers that lurk in an e-world where seeming truth and identity can be conjured like magic. Playing in this space is Bailey, who feels anything but made-up. She has real history, real problems, and a heart just a bit too open to stop her from falling in.” ~ Geoff Herbach

See the book trailer by Jeff Somers:

Send now available! (Sourcebooks Fire)

SEND was a Junior Library Guild Selection 2012 and a Kindle Teen Romance Bestseller.

It’s been five years since I clicked Send

Four years since I got out of juvie

Three months since I changed my name

Five minutes since I met Julie

A second to change my life…

What People Are Saying:

Blount’s first novel is a morality play about releasing the past and seizing the present.
~ Publisher’s Weekly

Dan’s likable first-person voice rings with authenticity…
~Kirkus Reviews

See the book trailer by Jeff Somers:

5 out of 5 Brussels Sprouts for Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Posted at May 23, 2013 4:27 am in Book Hungry, Gone Girl, What I'm Reading

Warning: adult content and some spoilers ahead

I got to choose this month’s Book Hungry selection. I picked Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. This rarely happens, but Karla, Abby, Blake, Kelly, and I all pretty much had the same impression of this book.

We HATED the main characters and by hated, I mean wanted to snatch them from the pages and murder them ourselves.

“But, Patty,” you’re probably saying. “You gave it a 5.”

Yeah, I know and that’s the thing about this book. It’s a total mind-screw that leaves you feeling wrecked and homicidal and sick to your stomach and shaking your fist at the sky, screaming, “I just invested x hours reading and THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS?!? Are you effing kidding me?”

Sorry, no joke.

Gone Girl is a… *thinks*… *thinks some more*… well, story just doesn’t come close to describing this book, but we’ll stick with that word. Gone Girl is a train wreck of a story about Nick and Amy, a couple about to celebrate their fifth year of wedded bliss when Amy disappears. From the first scene, in which Nick imagines opening his wife’s skull, you know theirs won’t be a story that ends happily and yet, you just can’t look away. You turn the pages, you wince, you throw up a little, and you keep reading because — and this is a HUGE because — despite the unlikeable characters, Gone Girl is brilliant.

This was hard for me to get my head around… how can I hate the main characters but still like the book? I’ve done a lot of thinking about this and I think it’s a matter of professional respect. When I was querying one of my first novels, agents sent back the same rejection. “Your characters are not likable.” I took this to mean the book was not sellable and therefore, not publishable. Here’s Gillian whose book not only got published, it became a best-seller and yet, her characters are despicable. This blows my mind.

The book is split into three parts. Within those parts, the chapters alternate point of view between Nick and Amy. Nick’s chapters are real time, starting with the day of Amy’s disappearance. Amy’s are diary entries going back to when she and Nick first met. Typical police procedure is to look at the spouse as the prime suspect and Nick is both stupid and arrogant, so the case against him practically builds itself. Amy is perfect. She’s the trust-fund baby of child psychologists-turned-author parents, who cowrite the Amazing Amy series. Amy’s diary entries frequently include little Amazing Amy references.

Sounds great, right? Oh, and it is — because none of it is real. That’s what Part 2 is for. And just when you think you’ve got this all figured out, Gillian Flynn bashes you with Part 3 and I promise you, by the end of this book, you will hate Nick and Amy as you have never hated anybody before.

Now…here’s the part where you have to ask yourself, “Why do I read?” I read because I enjoy getting out of my own head for a while and into someone else’s. I like falling in love. I like happy endings. But reading Gone Girl didn’t give me happy feelings. Does that mean it’s bad? On the contrary, I think it proves how gifted Gillian Flynn is at her craft. In On Writing, Stephen King says writing is telepathy. Reading this book is one hell of a mind f*ck.

Oh, you’re probably wondering why Brussels sprouts. You won’t BELIEVE what Amy kept hidden in the freezer, inside a box of frozen Brussels sprouts. Are you cringing? Good. That’s how this book works.

Have you read Gone Girl? What was your impression of it? Please check out blog posts from the rest of my Book Hungry sisters:

Blake