Cover Stories: Where She Went by Gayle Forman

Where She Went, the sequel to Gayle Forman's lovely If I Stay (remember that Cover Story?), is finally out! Yay!

Though it's told from Adam's point of view, that's Mia on the cover, obvs. Here's Gayle to share the story of how this book's cover came to be:

"The image that kept coming to mind as I wrote was the Brooklyn Bridge. It plays a pivotal role in the story and for some reason it just stuck because it's so strong both from both a visual and literary standpoint.

I believe that Penguin did experiment with using the bridge initially but decided that it didn't work.

"The challenge for the US publication was marrying the US If I Stay paperback cover--the eerily half-dead-looking girl--with a new hardcover look. But I had to make it extra tricky because, unlike If I Stay, which is from Mia's perspective, Where She Went is in Adam's voice. So how to create a cover that seemed like a package with the paperback but was from a guy's perspective?

"We were obviously departing from the quieter US hardcover look, with the flower, tree and branches, which I loved but would not work at all in terms of a new book about a rock and roll guy, so I'm so glad we had the paperback cover to use as a jumping-off point.

"In the end, in sort of a duh, why didn't we think of it sooner epiphany, we all realized that the US cover had to have another Mia. Because even though the book is from Adam's POV, it's still about Mia. It's about where she went. So the covers are meant to be bookends. One horizontal, one vertical, one passive, one more active. There's no Brooklyn Bridge, and yet the covers are, in my opinion, such a perfect bridge..."

Read Gayle's full Cover Story on melissacwalker.com.

Little Willow's Book Bag

This Week's Picks
A Hundred Words for Hate by Thomas E. Sniegoski
My Evil Twin by Mimi McCoy
Trauma Queen by Barbara Dee

Rock the Drop: Download Banners and Bookplates!

Readergirlz and Figment are going to ROCK THE DROP in honor of Support Teen Lit Day a week from today: Thursday, April 14th. We can’t wait! Here’s how you can get involved:

* Snag the banner at left, created by the uber-talented David Ostow (who blogs hilarious cartoons here), and add it to your website, linking back to this post to share the love, and proclaiming that you will indeed ROCK THE DROP next week!

* Print a copy of the bookplate below and insert it into a book (or 10!) that you'll drop on April 14th. Drop a book in a public spot (park bench, bus seat, restaurant counter?) and you’re done. Lucky finders will see that the book is part of ROCK THE DROP!

* Snap a photo of your drop and email readergirlz AT gmail DOT com with the pic -- we'll be posting lots of pictures of drops happening all over the world, and our friends at Figment will also be featuring the event!

Imagine people around the globe finding copies of amazing books in unexpected places, gifted out of love for YA lit. Everyone can participate to raise awareness of the day!

Not That Kind of Girl: Passing Judgment

Siobhan Vivian's Not That Kind of Girl is our featured title this week, and in her guest post on Monday, she wrote the following:

"One thing I really wanted to impress upon my readers is that making a 'mistake' doesn’t mean that you are a bad person and are not deserving of respect. I think we, as a culture, are so quick to judge. We expect girls to be perfect, to never make mistakes, to always be smart and rational and make the right decisions. I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible!"

Have you ever been quick to judge someone else? A friend, an acquaintance, or even maybe a celebrity or someone in the public eye?

rgz Newsflash: Support Teen Lit Day and Rock the Drop!

Hey rgz,

Just a quick update on our plans for YALSA's Support Teen Literature Day, April 14th, 2011. You know we have ALWAYS orchestrated Operation Teen Book Drop since we began in 2007. Because this past December we teamed up with First Book in A Novel Gift, and helped with the donation of 125,000 YA novels to underserved teens, we are shaking things up a bit.

This year, we are refining our focus and simply encouraging rgz around the world to drop a YA book in their own community to celebrate Support Teen Lit Day. Why not make this the annual honoring effort? Imagine people around the world finding copies of the best literature in unexpected places, gifted out of love for YA lit. Everyone can participate to raise awareness of the day!

Soon, we'll have a banner for your sites and a bookplate for you to download and glue into your donation. We'll have other fun details as well. Watch for all the upcoming info, and be ready to ROCK THE DROP!

rgz TV: Micol's Trailer for Family!!!

Totally awesome, right? Shout out for Micol!

Featured Title: NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL, by Siobhan Vivian

Hey readergirlz: 
It's April, which means we're talking Self-respect on the blog! 
Today we're celebrating Siobhan Vivian's third novel, Not That Kind of Girl, about which Booklist says, 
“It’s rare to see second- and third-wave feminism square off in YA literature so successfully; don’t miss this round.” I heartily concur! I loved how the characters in the novel all grapple with their own notions of feminism and girl power, and how Natalie, the protagonist, reconciles her own conflicted views of sexuality. 

Welcome, Siobhan! 

First off, I am so honored that Not That Kind of Girl has been chosen for Self-Respect month at Readergirlz! Thank you thank you thank you!

With Not That Kind of Girl, the idea of self-respect was always in the forefront of my mind. And I was really interested in exploring the link between self-respect and the way other people judge you. Can you respect yourself when others don’t? It’s a really interesting question, especially when you throw sex in the mix, because everyone has an opinion on what you should and shouldn’t do. Ultimately though, the way you handle yourself is a personal choice, and only you will know what’s a right decision for you.

My personal goal in writing this book was to respect all girls…from the ones who take cell-phone pictures of themselves and send them to boys to the girls who want to stay virgins until they are married. I also wanted to explore the idea that bad choices and mistakes don’t always equal a lack of self-respect.

I think it scares some people to look at sex as a learning process, where you will inevitably make mistakes and (hopefully) learn from them. The things you do, and don’t do, will help you better understand yourself and make you a wiser girl in relationships moving forward.

One thing I really wanted to impress upon my readers is that making a “mistake” doesn’t mean that you are a bad person and are not deserving of respect. I think we, as a culture, are so quick to judge. We expect girls to be perfect, to never make mistakes, to always be smart and rational and make the right decisions. I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible!

The only person you are accountable to is yourself. The only opinion that matters is your own. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t reflect on the decisions you make, and allow other people to influence you, but at the end of the day, if you are okay with the kind of person you are, that’s what matters most. 

Thank you so much, Siobhan, for your thoughtful post and your incredibly thoughtful, nuanced book! 

Tell us, readergirlz - what does self-respect mean to you? 

Cover Stories: Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord

Cynthia Lord's Touch Blue has a cover that is really unique, I think. House, ocean, rocks, Monopoly? I was intrigued. Here's the back story from Cynthia:

"The first time I saw the cover for Touch Blue it was slightly different than the final cover, but the design and all the elements were there: the house, the rocks, and the Monopoly tokens. I was a little apprehensive when the preliminary cover arrived in the mail, because I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know what direction my editor and art director were thinking, but I did know they had struggled with the cover.

"Part of that struggle was due to my first novel, Rules. Rules has an amazing cover, and my audience for Rules was wide and diverse. It stretched from 3rd grade to 8th grade, and it included both boys and girls. It was important that the cover for Touch Blue didn't lose any of that audience, but that's a lot to expect from one cover....

Read the rest of Cynthia's Cover Story, and see the lengths she went to so that the details were right, at melissacwalker.com.

Little Willow's Book Bag

This Week's Picks
Waking Nightmares, the latest Peter Octavian novel, by Christopher Golden
A Hundred Words for Hate, the latest Remy Chandler novel by Thomas E. Sniegoski

March: Hot Topics Roundup

Did you miss any of the conversations this month? Double check! It was all about Risk-Taking.

Risk-Taking:

For the Win: What's so Risky about YA?

For the Win with Cory Doctorow

Harmonic Feedback with Tara Kelly

Harmonic Feedback: What's the biggest risk you've taken for love?

The Julian Game with Adele Griffin

The Julian Game: Toxic friends

True Grit by Charles Portis

True Grit: What did you think of the actress?

March Playlist

March Community Service

Rgz Salon: Words in the Dust, Reviewed by Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Rgz SALON member Lyn Miller-Lachmann has been the Editor-in-Chief of MultiCultural Review; the author of the award-winning multicultural bibliography Our Family, Our Friends, Our World; the editor of Once Upon a Cuento, a collection of short stories by Latino authors; and most recently, the author of Gringolandia, a young adult novel about a refugee family living with the aftermath of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. The book is in its second print run and is available for order. (Don't forget to read the fascinating Cover Story for Gringolandia.)

We're honored to have Lyn here as part of the rgz SALON, a feature where four of the top kidlit experts clue us in to the best YA novels they've read recently. Today, she reviews Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy (Scholastic, 2011).

"Thirteen-year-old Zulaikha hardly remembers her mother, a victim of Taliban violence in Afghanistan, or how to write the letters and words her mother taught her. Disfigured by a cleft lip and protruding teeth, called Donkeyface by both the neighborhood bullies and her own brother, and ordered around by her father’s demanding second wife, Zulaikha faces a bleak future. Then she meets Meena, an elderly former professor who was a friend of her mother’s. Meena inspires Zulaikha to learn to read and write, and the American soldiers occupying her village offer work for her father and an operation to cure her cleft lip.

However, promises made aren’t always kept, and when Zulaikha’s beloved older sister is promised to an older businessman who lives far away, the young woman endures terrible loss and finds unexpected allies.

"Reedy, who spent a year in western Afghanistan with the U.S. Army, engages all five senses in describing a setting he knows well. The story begins slowly as the author builds Zulaikha’s world, but Reedy rewards patient readers with fully realized characters rooted in their land and way of life. The immediate and extended family present a large number of characters who could easily blend together, but Reedy succeeds in distinguishing them through a combination of precise physical description, well-drawn personality characteristics, and location within the family and community dynamics. The principal characters—Zulaikha, her immediate family, and the female American officer—go beyond stereotypes in ways that are surprising and revealing; readers are treated to an intimate view of cultural conflicts, changing gender roles, and a society in transition.

"As the United States commits to a military operation under the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine, Reedy’s remarkable novel shows U.S. forces acting for the benefit of a community. At the same time, he doesn’t shy away from depicting the cultural conflicts and other perils inherent in this approach. Female officers behave in ways that shock the local population, expectations give way to disappointment, and buried resentments threaten to explode into violence. Regardless of one’s view of the current action in Libya or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Words in the Dust offers a concrete, emotionally powerful portrait of one girl, one family, and one community that sheds light on many others." -Lyn Miller-Lachmann

True Grit: What do you think of star Hailee Steinfeld?

Our featured book this week is True Grit by Charles Portis.

The new movie (who's seen it) drew attention to this classic title, and some say star Hailee Steinfeld would have been the perfect Katniss in the Hunger Games films. (The honor went to Jennifer Lawrence last week.)

Did you guys see the movie? What did you think of Hailee as a kick-butt leading woman?

Seattle Host Review: Hush by Eishes Chayil

Welcome our brand new Seattle Host, Stephanie Guerra! She teaches children’s literature, young adult fiction and a seminar in writing instruction at Seattle University. She also heads a volunteer creative writing program at King County Jail, and researches and speaks about literacy instruction for at-risk and incarcerated young adults. Stephanie lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband and children. Her debut young adult novel, TORN, will be published by Marshall Cavendish in spring of 2012.

Stay tuned for Stephanie's reports of Seattle book events! Today, she shares a book review of Hush by Eishes Chayil:

"Gittel Chava Klein is the beloved daughter of caring parents, has good friends, and loves her life. So why, at seventeen, is she haunted by memories of her best friend, Devory, who died in the fourth grade?

"Gittel’s tightly-knit religious community has managed to create a social enclave within the bustling world of Brooklyn: inside her neighborhood, the internet does not exist; only Jewish newspapers are read; and everyone wears the same style of clothing that their great-grandparents wore. Boys and girls are educated for their respective roles as Torah scholars or housewives and teachers; and no one knows anything about sex until the week before their arranged marriages.

"Love, respect, and loyalty thrive in this community—but that very loyalty can cause people to protect secrets that should not be kept. As Gittel approaches marriage age, fragments of recollection come together, and she begins to question the facile explanations of her friend’s death offered by her parents and other community members. The more those around her try to 'hush' her questions, the more frantic Gittel becomes to discover the truth—and to make it known. But at what cost? Will any young man want to join lives with a trouble-maker?

"Part mystery, part memoir, and part drama, HUSH is a heart-wrenching and inspiring look at the price paid when communities hide dangerous secrets. The author, a Hasidic Jewish woman, has chosen to write under the pseudonym Eishes Chayil—in Hebrew, a woman of valor. (In the novel, the term is used to pressure Gittel to stop asking questions about her friend’s death.) Chayil opens doors to think about the many groups that have silenced voices to protect themselves from scandal, and the urge in all of us to “look away” from things that cause us discomfort or shame. Written in lyrical prose, with a tight and riveting plot, HUSH is a call for attention to a painful issue, written by a woman who refuses to keep silent—a woman of valor."

Featured Title: TRUE GRIT, by Charles Portis

Hey readergirlz:
Happy Monday and welcome to another Featured Title that perfectly exemplifies this month's theme, Risk-taking: True Grit by Charles Portis. 
This cult favorite novel has had a resurgence of popularity of late, due to the equally-riveting Coen brothers' remake of the movie of the same name. In case you've managed to miss both the book and the movie, here's the synopsis via Amazon: 


True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash money. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's blood. With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory. 

True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, like Mattie herself. 


The Wall Street Journal had this to say about the book: 
"Charles Portis details the savagery of the 1870s frontier through an astonishing narrative voice: that of the 14-year-old Mattie Ross, a flinty, skeptical, Bible-thumping scourge."


If you haven't guessed by now, Mattie would have fit right in among the readergirlz - she's a fearless character who faces risk and danger without flinching, even when men twice her size - not to mention her age - falter. 


Now, we divas would never suggest watching the movie instead of reading the book, but it's nice to have more than one mode of storytelling to compare, contrast, and enhance our experience of a work. Here's a clip of Hailee Steinfeld taking about the character of Mattie. 

Enjoy! And tell us about some of your favorite books-to-movies featuring kick-butt, risk-taking female characters! 

Cover Stories: YOU by Charles Benoit

Charles Benoit's Young Adult debut, You, earned this praise from Publisher's Weekly: "Disturbing content blends with skillful, fast-paced writing, adding a thriller spin to the novel's vicious realism." Count me in! And that cover? Shattering. Here's Charles to tell the tale of how it came about:

"I didn’t think about a cover until after the book was done because frankly I didn’t think I’d see it published. It’s dark, which is a good thing, but it’s told in second-person and every author knows that that is simply not done. It was only when Harper Teen bought the rights that I allowed myself to imagine a cover. The first idea I had was along the lines of the cover for Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (below) – clean, white, in a lower case Helvetica-esque font. But the more I thought about the book, the darker my imaginary cover became until it was all black with a white typeface font.

"In addition to writing novels, I work as a Senior Copywriter and Producer for Dixon Schwabl, an ad agency in Rochester, NY. Every day I participate in brainstorming sessions as the art directors work to come up with visuals for the various campaigns. I’m smart enough to restrict myself to high level suggestions and let the visual experts take the lead. I did the same with my cover ideas for You. I told them I saw something dark and text-driven – no cover image, just a few simple words to mirror the simplicity of the title..."

Read the rest of Charles's Cover Story at bn.com's Unabashedly Bookish.

Risk Taking: Reaching Out

Our theme this month is Risk Taking, and this video, "The Seventeenth Minute," illustrates a reach-out risk that can change someone's fate. Made by high school filmmakers, it's currently touring festivals and is well worth the four minutes.

Anyone giving up reading for an hour?

EARTH HOUR 2011

Saturday, March 26th, at 8.30 PM, Pacific

Are you turning off your lights for 60 minutes? 

Earth Hour was founded in Sydney, Australia, in 2007, when 2.2 million individuals and 2,000+ businesses turned their lights off for one hour. Last year was the most supported yet: 128 countries participated. Sydney Harbor Bridge, CN Tower in Toronto, Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Coliseum all stood in darkness.

Add to the symbol of hope for our planet! Set aside your book, and turn out the lights for 60 minutes on Saturday!

The Julian Game: Ever Had a Toxic "Friend"?

Our Featured Title is The Julian Game by Adele Griffin, and she gave us a fantastic post on risk-taking in writing on Monday. (Key quote: "Fear the risk, then risk it, anyway—and land that story with plenty of punch, no apologies, and no regrets.")

In The Julian Game, which packs plenty of punch, Raye is seduced into a revenge scheme by the queen bee of the school.

Have you ever had a friend who talked you into doing things you knew weren't right? How did you deal with it?

Cover Stories: Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt

Lindsey Leavitt is a member of The Contemps (along with me) and her new book, Sean Griswold's Head, is a super fun read. Hear more about what I thought at The Contemps blog.

For now, we're gonna talk covers! Here's Lindsey:

"It all started with a head.

"Sean Griswold's Head, to be exact. When I started writing this book, I knew I wanted the story to be about that boy--the one who is always there, the one you know nothing about, except maybe that he wears the same shirt every Thursday, or peed his pants two days in a row in second grade.

So I always pictured Sean's head when I thought of the cover. Kind of like Feed by MT Anderson (right), but with hair.

"I shared this with my editor when we first broached cover design, and she said, great! But we do want to play up the romance angle, so we'll think about it. I never considered the romance to be the focus of the story, but I figured... cool. Give him a HOT head then. Hot heads sell.

"But then I got an email that sales wasn't sure the title would work. We went back and forth for a few months, brainstorming titles. It's an aggravating process--there were some possibilities I liked, but nothing felt right. At one point, my publisher was leaning toward THE SEAN GRISWOLD PROJECT. Here is one cover comp that design came up with that my editor just now sent me (left). I'm glad we didn't use this. I can say that now, right?

"I trusted my publisher, but I was still feeling down about the title madness..."

Read the rest of Lindsey's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.

Featured Title: THE JULIAN GAME, by Adele Griffin

Hello, readergirlz!
This month we're talking Risk-taking on the blog, and today we're lucky enough to have Adele Griffin, author of the amazing Julian Game, with us.

(*Side note - that blue wig Raye wears is amazing - I'm thinking future Halloween costume, for sure.)
If you haven't read this book yet, move it to the top of your pile! Don't believe me? Here's what Booklist has to say about Julian: 


"Raye Archer is warily thrilled when Ella, queen bee at her tony new school, enlists her to seek revenge against gorgeous heartbreaker Julian. With pictures of Raye in a blue wig and slinky top, they create a fictitious online profile (so different from Raye’s low-key, real-life persona); lure Julian into a relationship; and act out Ella’s vindictive schemes. The results are predictable: in online chats, Raye falls for Julian, confesses their deceit, and faces Ella’s full-force campaign of vitriolic harassment. Griffin elevates the mean-girl plot with spot-on insights into teen social politics and quirky, multidimensional characters, including troubled, OCD Ella... [Her] timely cautionary messages about online communication, including its permanence (“One stupid picture could swing back around and punch me when I’m 30 years old”), are never too heavy-handed, and her themes about the appeal of reinventing oneself, the frightening power of manipulation, the futility of revenge, and the true meaning of friendship are timeless."


I'm so excited to have Adele blogging with us today!


Forgive Me Not: Confessions of a Semi-Apologist

 I’ve got a problem with sorry. I use it too much. If someone elbows me in the CVS: “Oh, gosh—sorry!” If I need directions: “I’m sorry to ask, but which way is Brooklyn?” If there’s a problem with my entrée: “So sorry, there seems to be a dead rat in this Bolognese.”

“Sorry” is a bad habit, and an old one. So I guess I’ll blame my childhood. Anyone raised by a single, working parent knows that the excuses start early. Like not enough cash: “Sorry, I’ll bring in my field trip money next week.” Or one car-one-driver: “Sorry I’m late, my brother needed his headgear refitted.” And, of course, the absent father: “Sorry, can I borrow your Dad to (fill in the blank ten thousand times)?”

Yet that same childhood is why I took risks. If my presence was an inconvenience, then it also needed to matter. From grade school on, I was a compulsive contest-contender, queued up for the spelling bee or bug-eyed for the essay competition. Show me the plaque, the prize, or the spot for my name, and I was probably scheming to grab it.

Some novelists are obvious risk-takers; others don’t wear it on the outside. But who cares how you get there? What counts is the plunge, the air beneath your feet as you leap into the unknown. I still get knee-jerk guilt each time I force life into a nasty character or make an unsettling plot choice. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my writing life, it’s that the apology can’t lead the way. In fiction, I know that to risk wisely is also to chart a direction toward my most creative possibilities. My advice? Fear the risk, then risk it, anyway—and land that story with plenty of punch, no apologies, and no regrets.

Adele Griffin

March, 2011

Well-said! Writers need to take risks in order to create fiction that matters, and Griffin does so to great effect with The Julian Game!

(*That pic above is Adele at the Standard Hotel in NYC - a backdrop ripe for risk-taking. But she's  saving her best vacation stories for her next visit to the blog...)

What I love best about Julian is that Raye takes a risk - but ultimately finds the strength to face the consequences of her behavior, too. 

Thanks again for joining us, Adele! Now, tell us, readergirlz - who are some of your favorite risk-takers in YA lit?

Cover Stories: The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

James Dashner's The Scorch Trials, a companion to his novel The Maze Runner (shown below right), came out in the fall. Its dramatic cover was designed even before he'd turned in a draft of the book! Here's James to tell the story:

"For this cover, I always envisioned a bleak, menacing vision of the wasteland known as the Scorch, which is exactly what it ended up being. My publisher wanted to design a cover before I’d even turned in the first draft, so my editor asked me for a detailed description of what I think the cover scene should look like. I wrote about a paragraph or so for the artist, Philip Straub, and he did that scene that ended up on the cover...

Read the rest of James's Cover Story at Unabashedly Bookish, on bn.com.

Rgz Street Team: Sarah Reviews The Sweetness of Salt by Cecilia Galante

The rgz Street Team is a group of teens who bring YA reviews to our blog, led by Postergirl Miss Erin. Find out more.

Today, Sarah reviews The Sweetness of Salt by Cecilia Galante:

From the publisher: Julia just graduated as her high school valedictorian, has a full ride to college in the fall and a coveted summer internship clerking for a federal judge. But when her older sister, Sophie, shows up at the graduation determined to reveal some long buried secrets, Julia's carefully constructed plans come to a halt. Instead of the summer she had painstakingly laid out, Julia follows Sophie back to Vermont, where Sophie is opening a bakery—and struggling with some secrets of her own. What follows is a summer of revelations—some heartwarming, some heartbreaking, and all slowly pointing Julia toward a new understanding of both herself and of the sister she never really knew.

"I could relate to Julia really well. I have always been the overachieving sister who tends to be less dramatic and always wondering about who exactly my sisters are and also if what I am doing is right. Sophie was also amazing and I loved her strength. I could feel their emotions and fears about what was happening. The plot of this book was really entertaining and exciting. I liked that their were a ton of secrets within the book that kept me engrossed. I found this contemporary book to be very enjoyable..." --Sarah

See Sarah's full review of this book on Sarah's Random Musings.

Cover Stories: The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell

The lovely Saundra Mitchell is here today with a rollercoaster ride of a Cover Story for her latest novel, The Vespertine! Here goes:

"I didn't have a specific image in mind for the cover, but I knew in my soul that I wanted the book to be in russet, sunset colors. The main character, Amelia, can see the future, but only at sunset--and the book is full of loving descriptions of that time of day.

"My editor, Julie, sent me a note one Thursday afternoon and asked for a detailed description of Amelia, the main character. She told me that the design department was scheduled to start my cover the next day.

"She didn't ask for any particular input beyond that. But I come from a filmmaking background, where we make contact sheets for everything from paint colors, to car styles, to actors. So I put together this contact sheet and forwarded it with my notes.

"When I wrote the book, I'd had Malese Jow in my mind as Amelia (I loved her as Anna on The Vampire Diaries) and I'd taken all the clothing directly out of Harper's Bazar, circa 1881-1889. Lucky for me, costume designers do the same thing. The exact gown that Amelia wears in my book is the same pattern that costume designer Janet Patterson used when dressing the cast of Portrait of a Lady. And of course, everything in sunset colors, because that's how I saw the book.

"The first time I saw the cover, I cried! Because what I saw first was the concept art for the cover..."

Read the rest of Saundra's Cover Story (and see the three versions of the cover) at melissacwalker.com.

Harmonic Feedback: What's the biggest risk you've taken for love?

In Harmonic Feedback, Drea reaches out to Justin even though she's afraid that, when he gets to know her and learns the truth about her diagnosis, he'll reject her for not being "normal." I think this is something we can all relate to, "normal" or not (and what does "normal" mean, anyway?!), which is why it's so satisfying to see Drea challenge herself and learn to make connections.

So, readergirlz, what we want to know is: what's the biggest risk you've ever taken for love?

Rgz Street Team: Olivia Reviews The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

The rgz Street Team is a group of teens who bring YA reviews to our blog, led by Postergirl Miss Erin. Find out more.

Today, Olivia reviews The Lying Game, by Sara Shepard (which will soon be a show on ABC Family, too!):

"In The Lying Game, the author of the Pretty Little Liars series, Sara Shepard, presents the classic long-lost identical twin premise—but with an interesting twist.

"The story is told through the perspective of Sutton Mercer, a 17-year-old girl who exists as a spirit and believes that she has been murdered but doesn’t remember many of the details of her life or her death.

"Sutton watches as Emma, a 17-year-old girl who has been in foster care all her life and looks exactly like her, discovers Sutton’s Facebook page. Emma’s foster brother had shown her a video of Sutton on the internet, and Emma noticed their likeness and immediately believes that Sutton is her long-lost sister. Emma sends Sutton a message, and Sutton responds quickly, inviting Emma to come visit her in Arizona—even though the real Sutton is no longer alive.

"The story unfolds as Emma goes to Arizona to visit Sutton. Expecting an emotional reunion with her sister, she is shocked to discover that Sutton’s family and friends believe that she is Sutton, and she is easily able to take Sutton’s place as Sutton herself is missing. At first, Emma expects Sutton to return, but eventually she realizes that something might have actually happened to Sutton—especially after she starts finding notes and getting text messages telling her that Sutton is dead—and that she will be next if she doesn’t “keep playing along” and pretend to be Sutton.

"While Sutton appears to have lived a charmed life of wealth and luxury, surrounded by beautiful and popular friends, as Emma gets deeper and deeper into Sutton’s life she discovers that everything was not as it seemed. Sutton was obviously the 'queen bee,' the leader of her clique of friends, and adored by many. However, she made a lot of enemies along the way, too—especially because of her infamous contest with her friends called 'the lying game.'

"As Emma puts together more and more pieces of the puzzle that is Sutton’s life, Sutton begins to regain memories as well, though she is still generally unclear about who her murderer might be. Emma and Sutton are both simultaneously solving Sutton’s murder, and the reader is able to attempt to solve the mystery as well, and is presented with many different suspects and pieces of evidence that could incriminate them throughout the book.

"While the book did not have a conclusive ending (much like many of the Pretty Little Liars books), the reader isn’t left with a complete cliffhanger and the next book in the series, Never Have I Ever, will be published in August 2011.

"Like Shepard’s other novels, The Lying Game is fast-paced and exciting. While Shepard does give the basic information necessary to understand the story, she doesn’t reveal some of the incidences or characters that are brought up throughout the book, as Sutton herself does not remember these parts of her life. Some of these smaller mysteries are resolved through Emma’s investigations, but others are left unsolved, presumably for later books in the series.

"Also, while it would have been easy for The Lying Game to fall into many of the predictable teen-novel stereotypes (such as 'long-lost-siblings' or 'mean girl clique'), the novel is actually very refreshing and original, partially because of the mystery and suspense aspect of it.

"I would recommend The Lying Game to anyone who enjoyed the Pretty Little Liars series, or anyone who wants something more than a surface-level young adult novel. While I won’t claim that I was especially enlightened or enriched after reading it, it was a real 'page-turner' and kept me entertained." --Olivia