The Museum of Heartbreak Blog Tour: Top 10 With Meg Leder + Giveaway

Title: The Museum of Heartbreak

Author: Meg Leder
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication date: June 7, 2016
Genre(s): Contemporary
Source: Blog Tour

Pages: 256

Add to Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

In this ode to all the things we gain and lose and gain again, seventeen-year-old Penelope Marx curates her own mini-museum to deal with all the heartbreaks of love, friendship, and growing up.
Welcome to the Museum of Heartbreak.
Well, actually, to Penelope Marx’s personal museum. The one she creates after coming face to face with the devastating, lonely-making butt-kicking phenomenon known as heartbreak.
Heartbreak comes in all forms: There’s Keats, the charmingly handsome new guy who couldn’t be more perfect for her. There’s possibly the worst person in the world, Cherisse, whose mission in life is to make Penelope miserable. There’s Penelope’s increasingly distant best friend Audrey. And then there’s Penelope’s other best friend, the equal-parts-infuriating-and-yet-somehow-amazing Eph, who has been all kinds of confusing lately.
But sometimes the biggest heartbreak of all is learning to let go of that wondrous time before you ever knew things could be broken. 

10 fictional characters you would invite to a dinner party:

1. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables. My favorite character from my favorite book. I would want to sit right next to Anne because she would be full of stories.

2. Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice. I didn’t read this book until I was in graduate school, and I was stunned by how incredible it was. I feel like Elizabeth Bennett and would be good friends.

3. Eleanor from Eleanor and Park. I want to know what she said on the postcard!

4. Park from Eleanor and Park. I want Park and Eleanor to be together again!

5. Owen Meany from A Prayer for Owen Meany. I read this book in high school and it slayed me—it’s so hilarious and heartbreaking, and Owen is one of a kind. I’m sure he’d be shouty at dinner, but so be it.

6. Yuri from Learning to Swear in America. I got a chance to read an early copy of this gem, and fell head over heels for Yuri. He’s delightful and can charm the dinner guests with lots of cool physics trivia.

7. Walt Whitman. Sure, this is kind of cheating, as he was real, but I adore Walt Whitman and think he’d be great at keeping the conversation going if anyone was feeling awkward.

8. Emily Dickinson. Also a cheat, but I feel like Emily would be the perfect companion for anyone who was feeling a little more introverted. She’d be a good listener.

9. Clark from The Unexpected Everything. A dreamy nerd writer? Yes please.

10. Parker, the main character from my work in progress. I’m still getting to know her and I need her to talk to me more about her fears and dreams so I can finish this manuscript!

About Meg Leder:

Website | Twitter

A former bookseller and teacher, Meg Leder currently works as a book editor in New York City. Her role models are Harriet the Spy and Anne Shirley. She is the coauthor of The Happy Book, and spends her free time reading, looking for street art, and people watching. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can visit her on Twitter at @MegLeder.

3 Finished Copies of THE MUSEUM OF HEARTBREAK (US Only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spark Blog Tour: Top Ten with Holly Schindler + Giveaway

Title: Spark

Author: Holly Schindler
Publisher: Harper Teen
Publication date: May 17, 2016
Genre(s): Contemporary, Magical Realism
Source: Publisher

Pages: 304

Add to Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

The local Avery Theater was just a run-down building to Quin—until her mother told her the tragic love story of Nick and Emma that played out on the theater’s stage all those years ago. Quin is convinced it’s the perfect story to rewrite for her drama class, but when she goes searching for more information, she makes a startling discovery—the Avery is rapidly regaining its former splendor and setting the stage for her classmates Dylan and Cass to relive Nick and Emma’s romance. Quin can see the spark between them, but i
t’s up to her to make sure her friends—and the Avery—can both be saved this time around.

Top Ten Reasons You Decided to Become an Author:

In many ways, I don’t feel like I decided to become an author—I feel like I always was an author. But here are my top 10 reasons why I think that is: 

1. Love of literature / reading – I was always an avid reader, starting with the new Little Golden Book I had to have every time I went grocery shopping with my mom. I think writing and reading just have to go hand-in- hand…and it often seems like natural progression for a reader to pick up their own pen. 

2. Love of creativity – I’ve just always gravitated toward the arts. Love visual art—I’m in the midst of wrapping my brain around digital art so that I can move toward doing my own illustrations. And I’m a giant music junkie—I play piano and guitar, and taught music lessons while drafting my earliest manuscripts. 

3. Love of words – This goes along with my love of literature and reading, but I love the power of words. I love the music they create when strung together a certain way. There’s definitely a rhythm to the written word. 

4. Love of having a voice – I was a really shy kid, and in some ways, I feel as though writing was kind of an early attempt to get my voice out there, but really, there’s something about storytelling that just FITS. 

5. Love of storytelling – This echoes #4, I know, but it’s true. There’s something about the craft of storytelling that feels like an integral part of me. 

6. Love of being able to be in someone else’s head – Fiction allows you to explore another person’s thoughts. You don’t often get that in other forms of entertainment—in a movie or on TV, you’re primarily watching characters navigate through a series of problems, but you rarely ever get inside them, hear their thoughts, experience their emotions. I love that fiction allows us all to literally walk in someone else’s shoes. 

7. Love of being able to connect with people – There’s a definite connection you feel as a reader to certain fictional characters. At times, we’ve all slowed down as we neared the end of a book we’ve been enjoying, because we don’t want to let that character go. I love being able to create characters that speak to readers in that way—that become friends of sorts. 

8. Love of being able to create a world – Even in realistic contemporary work, you have to do a bit of worldbuilding…but why stop there? As a fiction writer, you get to go to worlds that are completely of your own making…or travel back in time… 

9. Love of exploring scenarios I’ve never lived through – In realistic fiction, you get to daydream a bit, imagine what it’s like to be an athlete, to be a musician on the stage… 

10. Love the feeling of completion—There’s something almost euphoric about finishing an enormous job—like wrapping up a novel. It feels a little like it must crossing the finish line of a marathon. 

About Holly Schindler:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Author Newsletter

I’m a hybrid author of critically acclaimed traditionally published and Amazon bestselling independently published works for readers of all ages. My previous YAs (A BLUE SO DARK, PLAYING HURT, and FERAL) have received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly, won silver and gold medals from ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year and the IPPY Awards, respectively, been featured on Booklist’s First Novels for Youth, School Library Journal’s “What’s Hot in YA,” and been selected as a PW Pick. 

Going hybrid means that I’ve been able to explore all sorts of new avenues—short fiction, sequels, I’m even going to be branching out into doing some illustrative work. Throughout 2016, I’m releasing one short story a month in the Forever Finley Short Story Cycle. The cycle begins with “Come December”: http://amzn.to/1oPioN5 

Also, in honor of SPARK’s release, I’m holding a sale on PLAY IT AGAIN, the sequel to my YA romance, PLAYING HURT. For a limited time, PLAY IT AGAIN is $.99: http://amzn.to/1qCNVCe 

3 Finished Copies of SPARK (US Only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway