Best of 2012 and Hello 2013!

January 2, 2013

Happy New Year! This past year was pretty amazing for me. I had two books release, wrote another book, did school visits, book signings, spoke at conferences and managed to catch a few episodes of Parks & Rec  (which I love, as you will see in a moment). But before I get to that, I do want to say thank you to all of those who bought and read my books this year. I love that people are reading DITCHED and telling me that they are craving this sort of fun romantic comedy. All of the feedback has been so encouraging and I promise there will be more!! And to those of you who put a copy of THE CLASSROOM in the hands of a middle schooler, thank you so much. It’s been wonderful to hear about kids who are loving it. And it’s especially cool to come across things on the internet where students are doing book reports or writing short screenplays based on the book. SO COOL!!

Those of you who HAVEN’T read my books yet, I’m assuming you’re stuck under something heavy so all is forgiven. But good luck with that…heavy…thing…that’s on you.

This next year will be very busy for me. I plan to finish writing THE CLASSROOM Book 3–yes, I’m already writing the third one! And I’m finishing up the follow-up teen novel to DITCHED. Also, a bit of good news: THE CLASSROOM was selected to be part of the Santa Barbara County Battle of the Books so it will be on their county-wide reading list. I’ve also been asked to help with their final battle round as guest author. Can’t wait!! And later in the year I’ll be at the Las Vegas Festival of Books. Keep checking back in the EVENTS section as I update it through the year.

Okay. Now. My Best of List from 2012.

BEST BOOKS

The two books on my list this year are both laugh out loud funny. And I don’t mean LOL, slight-smirk funny. No, no. These books made me want to be a better writer. To write funnier.

First up is an adult memoir by Jenny Lawson, aka: The Bloggess. My husband ACTUALLY kicked me out of bed because of this book. I typically read at night before I go to sleep, but this book would have me laughing so hard that I would cry and he couldn’t sleep. So I was only allowed to read it during the day. But even then I’d annoy him because I’d try to read passages to him but I’d do that laugh-snort-foot stomping thing where no words are intelligible and he would calmly twirl me around and say, “Just go read silently in the driveway, sweetheart.”

So that was fun.

But seriously, I got SO much out of this book because I grew up in the south and this memoir is about her childhood experiences in a small Texas town. Hilarious and sweet and probably something I’ll read again in 2013.

Let’s talk about teen novels. As you can tell, I like my books funny. And laugh out loud books are a rare find. Truly rare. But y’all…I found one. I took Me and Earl and the Dying Girl with me on vacation and read it by the pool. Which turned out to be rather embarrassing because I would laugh loudly and then talk TO THE BOOK. “No, don’t do that. Oh, no. Oh my gosh!” Again, my poor husband was like, “Sweetheart, can you figure out a way to read BY YOURSELF??”  After a while I didn’t care that people were staring at me, because I was totally in love with this book. Jesse Andrews has an edgy writing style that is totally fresh. It was JUST what I was looking for. And this wonderful story was flawless. It was a bit of a love story, but really it was one of the coolest stories about a friendship between two boys. They were unlike most of the characters you read about in YA and you will absolutely fall in love with them. Read this book. Seriously. GO.

BEST MOVIE

Ha! Like I had time to go see a bunch of movies. So don’t rely on me for your movie recommendations. But the one movie that I did love, I went to go see it twice. So this year’s best movie goes to MOONRISE KINGDOM.

BEST TV SHOW

This year it goes to Parks & Rec. Though I love Modern Family still. But P&R has really grown on me to the point where I feel like Leslie and Ben are real people and I wonder what they’re doing. They are the cutest couple on TV. Cute cute!!

BEST SONG

Are we all legally obligated to say Call Me Maybe? It’s been seeming that way. Cute song but sheesh! I really loved Mumford & Sons I WILL WAIT. sigh.

BEST GADGET I PURCHASED

Omg I got an iPad!!! Now I just have to pry it out of my kid’s hands.

BEST SNACK I EAT DURING REVISIONS AND REGRET

Snack pack of Oreos. Can we stop talking about this now?

BEST NAIL POLISH COLOR

My new fave: OPI My Private Jet

And finally…the one we’ve all been waiting for!

BEST SMALL KITCHEN APPLIANCE

The Ninja blender. This thing could chop firewood, baby. Love it!!