Signing recap: Jen E. Smith and Lissa Price in Manila + giveaway!

My fangirl heart was overflowing with joy when I found out that Jen E. Smith, one of my favorite YA contemporary authors ever, was coming to Manila. I've been talking to friends and fellow bookworms about my desire to see her here and voila! She arrived with Lissa Price for a signing.

I've said this a lot of times before, but I am a really big fan of Jennifer E. Smith ever since I've read The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. She's amazing and her stories are something I can always relate to. And add to that, Lissa Price, who has written this intriguing set of books, so I was sure we'll have a good time when I see them. And then they're there:

I just had this huge grin on my face (I was sitting in front, so I see them up close!) while looking at them! I loved seeing their faces as they answer questions about their writing and their books.

My question for Lissa was:

Starters' core is very complex (seniors being able to rent bodies of teenagers in order for them to live/feel young once more). Did you already have an idea of how you were going to work around the complexity of it all or did everything simply flow in the process of writing?

Her answer: Lissa is a planner so she has this post it notes where she writes her middle, high points, ending so she has a skeleton of her plot line sorted. But as her characters change, she follows them. It's a delicate back and forth between what she planned and what she discover as she writes.

A few points of the Q&A:

Lissa Price's process in world building of Starters and Enders: 

She went to Costco to get a flu shot but they didn't have enough vaccine for everybody, and so the government set up a triage system where only the very old and the very young will get the vaccine because they're the most vulnerable members of society. Lissa thought if it was a killer disease, then all that was left standing would only be the very old and the very young. What kind of world would that be? And she thought "Ah! That's the kind of world I'd put it in a book". Thus, Starters was born.

Was there ever a time when their editors wanted to remove some parts in their story which happens to be their favorite? 

Jen is an editor so she sees both sides of the process, and she's a believer of it. What's good in the book comes out as you go through draft after draft. But there are times she'll say no, but most of the time she tries to treat it as a perspective she can't see as the writer. She'll take 75 to 80% of suggestions.

For Lissa, the notes a writer gets from the editors oftentimes "stink". She sets them aside for a few days and gets back to it the next time around and sees it more clearly. Editors suggest fixes but it isn't always right, and for her what's important is the characters "work" and she makes her story better her own way.

Lissa doesn't have the cliffhanger ending of Starters in her original draft, her editor asked for it.The line in Statistical “It's not the changes that will break your heart; it's that tug of familiarity.” which is one of the most quoted line among her book? She was right to retain it. :)

On Lissa's writing process and when she decided she wants her book to be published:

Every writer who writes want their books to be published. It took Lissa 9 months to write Starters. She got an agent in 24 hours and the book sold in 6 days. It was quick!

Would Jen want to: meet a British guy in the airport, having a long distance relationship or being friends with a movie star?

She doesn't want a long distance relationship, it's not ideal for her. She'd want to meet a cute British boy on a plane! She loves Graham, but Oliver is her favorite.

Did Lissa intended Enders to be a duology?

Yes she did. When she first started writing, she thought she'd write a trilogy because it was like what she was reading at the time (Hunger Games), but her editor suggested she make it a duology because publishers might be getting tired of trilogies and at the time there aren't a lot of YA duology.

Lissa is entertaining the idea of writing a third book because so many fans asked for it! But nothing is confirmed yet.

How does Jen balance her work as a writer and as an editor?

Not very well. She wrote her first 5 books while working full time and it was just about really wanting it. Getting up really early and staying home for the weekends to meet a deadline, it was a challenge for her. She doesn't think her work as an editor as a day job. And she doesn't edit YA so it's nice for her to be in another genre. Now she has a flexible schedule and she thinks she's a better writer now.

The biggest challenge Lissa had to overcome while writing a book set in the future post war?

It was the whole process of writing a book before she got published, because it's a whole different thing after you get published. You have your editor, guidelines and expectations and the challenge itself is the beauty of it. Everything will change once one gets published!

If you want to listen to the rest of the Q&A, check the recording below:


I had a really fun time meeting both authors, and Jen E. Smith was such a sweetheart! For once I was able to hold a proper conversation with an author that I love! I told her I was tweeting about NBS bringing her here and she was just full of thanks to everyone who made it possible. And oh! You should've seen how cool Lissa Price was when she told us a friend had a first edition of Starters and she gave us pointers on how to take care of a first edition book because it's precious and collectors want them.

And as always, it's twice as fun because I see my friends and fellow book bloggers and really just get to hang out with them and talk about anything we want. And books, of course.

As a bonus, I recorded a video with Jen E. Smith and Lissa Price's message, check it out below!


I can't thank National Bookstore enough for making this possible! Meeting Jen E. Smith was a dream, and having Lissa Price as well? AWESOME! And congratulations for another successful book event. Keep it up!

Lissa Price was generously giving away swag to everyone because she brought a ton, and she told us we can use them as giveaways, so I am giving away some! You can win 2 signed bookmarks, a bookplate and a button!

Rules:

Open to PH residents only

Must be at least 13 years old

Ends October 10

a Rafflecopter giveaway

ARC Review: The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

I expected overly romantic scenes and cheesy lines, too much laughter and very light conversations.

I got more than that.

Title: The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith
Release Date: April 15th 2014
Published by: Little, Brown for Young Readers
Source: Publisher
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary:

Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.

Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met.

What does Owen and Lucy really have? Whatever it was between them had started that day when Lucy chased after the elevator in her apartment. Owen was just the new building superintendent's son, Lucy was the daughter of a wealthy, jet-setter parents. They had nothing in common, but the half hour they spent trapped inside the elevator will set in motion the wheels of fate and set their paths to collide in ways they never expected it to.

I loved how Jennifer E. Smith gradually expanded and built both Owen and Lucy's characters, from that citywide blackout and that day's explorations, the tentative conversations, to wherever the current circumstances of their lives took them. I saw a boy grieving for a mother who recently passed away, lonely, lost and untethered, with a father who can barely manage to stay in one place himself. Owen's character appealed to me, at the start because of pity, but as I read on, the hope inside me gradually builds, wishing that he finds a reason that will make him stay and seek out what he wants, and live his own life. The boy deserves a lot, he deserves better. He was smart, with a bright future ahead of him, and he shouldn't be suffering the way he was. I know grief transforms people and Owen loves his father, but to see him with no destination, no permanent place to go home to, just makes my heart constrict in the most painful of ways. 

And then I saw a girl who experiences loneliness akin to what Owen was feeling. Different, but at some level they're the same, missing their family even though they're merely a breath away. Owen's father became a different person when his wife died, and Lucy, though rich, never had enough of her parents attention given to her, never felt as loved as she wanted to. Her older brothers went away for College, her only friends, and so she was alone, her parents traveling to other parts of the world and she was always left behind. It may look like her life was easy, but Lucy just wants her parents to realize that she's there, a kid who maybe does not want to move a few thousand miles from home and go to a new school, a kid who left her heart, possibly, in New York.

What I liked the most about this story is the experiences that both Lucy and Owen went through that gradually shaped what they will become: stronger, more determined and more sure of what they want. They both grew, both encountered truths about themselves through the hardships they faced, the experiences they had with their family, friends. Through their time apart, they discovered what it's like to live in different places, to explore love, the possibilities and complications it can bring to their lives. They stood alone as two separate people but even though they live their lives separately, those moments when the gradual tug of that bond they formed that half hour inside that dark elevator in New York makes them re-evaluate the things they could've had, if they were worth giving a try, worth fighting for, worth seeing through. It was those moments that made me love them, not as a couple, but as two separate people who have this something vague between them that can be something. It was the wait for each of their decisions, if they will make that effort to bring each other closer and see what happens that made me anticipate and hold my breath for both Lucy and Owen.

I savored every moment Lucy and Owen had. The hit or miss vibe, the doubts and worries, the awkwardness, even the way they communicate makes me feel how treasured those moments were. The postcards, letters, emails, the thought exchanges and the struggle to think of what and what not to tell each other. Nothing ever works for a good way all the time. It's not always happy. And there's always that bittersweet edge every time Lucy and Owen touch base with each other at different points of their lives that just endears their story to me. Thousands of miles separate them from each other yet they were still connected by those little things they do and think.

I am once again captivated by Jennifer E. Smith's dazzling writing in The Geography of You and Me. It's such a heartfelt read. That tinge of bittersweet love throughout the novel, the hopefulness, the infinite possibilities in the dizzying, confusing relationship Owen and Lucy had. It was wonderful! There was a certain type of anticipation and that small ache of wanting to find out how it will all end that made me devour this novel in one sitting. 

I fell in love with Jen Smith's writing all over again because of this book. Lovely, lovely, just lovely. Give this book a try and be amazed by how great a storyteller Jen E. Smith is!

My rating:

Content (plot, story flow, character):

Wholeheartedly giving Jen these five butterflies because this novel really deserves it. I was a bit skeptical before reading this since I had issues with This Is What Happy Looks Like, but this novel just blew me away. I loved every bit of it. I wanted more from the ending, but I love how it's open to various interpretations for readers. I'm content thinking that they both got the happy ending they so deserve.

Stunning: Worthy of a Goddess' Praise!

Book Cover:
LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Review: This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

Sometimes it just takes one e-mail sent to the wrong e-mail address to start a wonderful story. In Jennifer E. Smith's romantic follow up to Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, we get to see two different worlds colliding in the small town of Maine, which started because of a pet pig named Wilbur. The rest of this romantic story, as they say, is history.

Title: This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith
Release Date: April 4th 2013
Published by: Headline Book Publishing
Source: Publisher (Thanks, Sam!)
Buy: Book Depository

Summary:

If fate sent you an email, would you answer?

In This is What Happy Looks Like, Jennifer E. Smith's new YA novel, perfect strangers Graham Larkin and Ellie O'Neill meet—albeit virtually—when Graham accidentally sends Ellie an email about his pet pig, Wilbur. In the tradition of romantic movies like "You've Got Mail" and "Sleepless in Seattle," the two 17-year-olds strike up an email relationship, even though they live on opposite sides of the country and don't even know each other's first names.

Through a series of funny and poignant messages, Graham and Ellie make a true connection, sharing intimate details about their lives, hopes and fears. But they don't tell each other everything; Graham doesn't know the major secret hidden in Ellie's family tree, and Ellie is innocently unaware that Graham is actually a world-famous teen actor living in Los Angeles.

When the location for the shoot of Graham's new film falls through, he sees an opportunity to take their relationship from online to in-person, managing to get the production relocated to picturesque Henley, Maine, where Ellie lives. But can a star as famous as Graham have a real relationship with an ordinary girl like Ellie? And why does Ellie's mom want her to avoid the media's spotlight at all costs?

It was the classic love story set up: he was the hottest movie star on the planet, and every teenage girl in America loves him. He's Graham Larkin. She's a girl from a small town, a gingerhead, tall, lanky and skinny. Her name is Ellie O'Neill and she has a secret. Their lives were as different as night and day, and yet with one e-mail, they connected to each other in ways they didn't know possible. The only problem is, they don't know who each other are. But fate works in mysterious ways, and before they knew it, Graham is in Ellie's small town in Maine, and Graham's searching for Ellie. When they met, sparks fly, but is that enough to keep a relationship that started between two faceless people amidst all the attention and secrets both of them have?

What amazes me in Jennifer E. Smith's writing is how she's able to give such complicated background stories to her characters. There's something in her words that makes her characters seem realistic, a representation of what it's really like to be them: a celebrity constantly thrust into the limelight, and an ordinary small town girl with dreams she wants to fulfill, if only she's more capable of realizing it. If you think Graham Larkin is your typical gorgeous seventeen year old heart throb then you're in for a surprise when Jennifer lets out his secrets one by one. Readers will get an entirely different picture of what he initially is. The same goes for Ellie, who has more to her story that what is initially presented to the readers. The little things that the author reveals for each character, Graham's loneliness and the feeling of isolation for being a superstar, Ellie's fervent wish to attend Harvard despite the lack of money and her real identity, gives them such depth and drives the story forward in a dizzying mix of complications and consequences that just makes you want to read the story more and more.

I have, however, encountered several issues while reading this. Ellie's tendency to lie and mask her feelings made her such an unbearable character sometimes. Her instinct to protect herself kicks off at the most random of times that caused her a lot of problems. Also, it didn't help that her only friend in the world, Quinn, left her when Ellie needed her the most. It didn't feel like they both had done enough to mend their relationship. And was it really that easy to make a scandal go away? Another thing is, I couldn't believe the fact that Ellie's mother insisted that Ellie's father loves her, and yet he didn't even recognize her when she set out to meet him? How can a father who claims to love a daughter just forget her face that easily? That part left me a little bit unconvinced. The reasoning behind why Ellie's father was not present in her life felt weak at best, and contradicting most of the time. These characters have faults, of course, but these small details kept me a bit on my toes while reading.

The upside of this story is that Jennifer E. Smith's writing never lost that trademark funny and romantic combination that makes her books so easy to read. The e-mail exchanges between G and E were such a delight to read. That constant stream of thoughts where you get to know the most random of facts about anything and everything about both characters endears both Graham and Ellie to the readers.

With a romance bordering on cheesy, yet still managing to be sweet on times that matter, This Is What Happy Looks Like is an endearing, entertaining read. Those moments where you feel that it's possible for a superstar to fall in love with an ordinary girl calls out to the hearts of the countless young hopeless romantics out there. Jennifer E. Smith makes it so easy to write a love story that will make the readers swoon and sigh at times, and get that little, satisfied smile when it ends.

What does Happy look like? Let Jennifer E. Smith's new novel tell you, and who knows, you might have your own definition of what it's like by the time you finish reading this book. For the hopeless romantics, for those who loved to feel love, and for those who are just looking for an adorable story, this book is for you.

Content (plot, story flow, character):
This would've gotten a 5 were it not for the issues I mentioned in my review above. I'm not a big fan of Ellie's parents, but I loved Graham for being so down to earth and simple, especially considering he's a popular celebrity. That boy made me laugh and swoon so much!

Shining: Worthy of a Goddess' Love!

Book Cover:
I am in love with that cover. So significant to the story!

ARC Review: The Statistical Probability of Love At First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

A minute can change everything.

That was the case with Hadley Sullivan. Who would have thought that arriving at the airport four minutes late will bring her the most amazing, tumultuous, 24 hours of her life? No one. What are the odds that your life will drastically change in those 24 hours? Who knows? In The Statistical Probability of Love At First Sight, anything is possible.

Including falling in love with a guy having a fantastic accent, hating and loving and making up with your father, fighting with your mother and saying sorry later and most of all, learning how to forgive.

Title: The Statistical Probability of Love At First Sight
Pages: 224
Release Date: January 5th 2012
Published by: Headline
Source: Publicist (thanks to the fabulous Sam!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary (from Goodreads):

Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Imagine if she hadn't fogotten the book. Or if there hadn't been traffic on the expressway. Or if she hadn't fumbled the coins for the toll. What if she'd run just that little bit faster and caught the flight she was supposed to be on. Would it have been something else - the weather over the atlantic or a fault with the plane?

Hadley isn't sure if she believes in destiny or fate but, on what is potentially the worst day of each of their lives, it's the quirks of timing and chance events that mean Hadley meets Oliver...

Set over a 24-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.

It's hard to find the words to describe a novel you love so much. Writing this review is a struggle, so forgive me if I don't make much sense and bear with me if I just go on rambling about how much I love Jennifer E. Smith's book.

Hadley missed her flight to London by a matter of four minutes. It wouldn't have been that bad, except the last thing Hadley wants is to attend the wedding of her father who just left her and her mom, and now he's happy while Hadley still struggles to cope with the fact that she got left behind, that her family is now broken. And then she meets Oliver, also London bound, but for a reason quite different than Hadley's. All of a sudden the 7 hours flight wasn't that bad anymore. Hadley's shared things about her family, her feelings about her parent's divorce, her anger over her father, she's conquering her fear of enclosed spaces and she's getting to know a guy in a way that makes her feel excited and nervous, and all of a sudden she's falling in love. But what happens after Hadley steps out of the plane? Will she see Oliver again? And why was Oliver going to London?

I will say this: The Statistical Probability of Love At First Sight is the most romantic love story I have read this year. This book makes me want to believe in the power of love, destiny and all the romantic things inside my head and that it might have a chance of coming true. It makes me believe in fate, in coincidences, in the fact that two people can meet, talk, and spend 24 hours together and fall in love just like that. It makes you think how simple and easy love is sometimes and that it happens! Just like that, it happens. What are the odds? Let Oliver and Hadley show you.

Hadley is a character I had a lot of fun reading about. She had this realness in her, these problems, fears, feelings and thoughts that you can't help but relate to. And she reads! Hadley can be stubborn and cynical, even bitter at times but deep down she's a daughter who couldn't help but care about her mom, and grow up and allow the people she loves to find happiness of their own, and forgive. She's very likable, your typical teenager who's experiencing the most important 24 hours of her life. I just found myself wishing that this girl who's been through a whirlwind of a day and emotions deserves to get happiness of her own.

Etienne St. Claire, meet Oliver. Because I'm pretty sure this British fellow is going to be in everyone's list of Fictional Hot Guys with Great Accent You Want To Be Your Boyfriend. The accent is just an added bonus because Oliver is just as adorable and witty and quirky and funny even without it. I cannot stop smiling and laughing while reading his every jibe, his every comment about anything and everything. He's that kind of guy with fantastic green eyes who will make you fall in love with him with just a smile and a joke or two. Swoon! There's something about his easygoing attitude that will make you like him, but when you get to see Oliver as someone just like Hadley, hurting, full of questions and struggling with his emotions and life, that seemingly perfect facade fades away and you'll love him all over again.

I became so enchanted with the chemistry, the sweet moments and the romance between Hadley and Oliver that I couldn't let myself think of the possibility of them not ending up together at all. I couldn't bear to take a peek at the end of the book for fear that it won't happen. They just fit. These two people who met at an unlikely place at a trying time of their lives and you'll think that it's just meant to be. Fate. Destiny.

The Statistical Probability of Love Sight just has it all. Utterly romantic love story, emotionally intense scenes, swoon worthy characters and over-all a lovely story that will make you believe that it's probable to fall in love at first sight. Maybe. Why not, when you yourself will fall in love at first sight with this book? Give it a try and tell me if you don't find yourself sighing and curling up into a ball, drunk with hope and happiness and intoxicated with the romance and drama between Hadley and Oliver and their families.

You better read this book when it comes out!

My rating:

Content (plot, story flow, character):

AMAZING, SIMPLY AMAZING!

Stunning: Worthy of a Goddess' Praise!

Book Cover:

I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.