Thanks for hosting me, Kristen! Hello, readers of Kristen’s blog―thanks for stopping by!
Adolescence. When every day is spent on the edge of a glorious revelation that never quite comes and every penny spent on day-to-day dreams that fill our universes.
We live our teenage years searching for things. Our identities, our beliefs, the approval of our peers, the approval of our elders, a way to rebel, a path to follow, love, friendship. We live them in a state of constant turmoil and change. It’s a time of firsts, when most everything we experience is new. We’re terrifyingly eternal. We’re dreadfully finite.
And as such, it’s a perfect environment for growing stories in.
For teens reading YA, it’s the perfect escape. You dive into the characters’ world, cheer them on, commiserate with them, share their victories, and forget about your raging hormones for a little while.
As you probably know, while its name indicates that it’s targeted solely at teenagers, tons of older people read YA, too. Can anyone blame them? Adolescence is such a bright and dark time in our lives, intense and multifaceted, that it begs to be returned to, if only through books and stories.
Ultimately, I think there are two universal components to adolescence: change and loneliness. Often in adolescence comes one of the times of most radical change of a person’s life. And because we’re trying to discover our identities and define our beliefs while surrounded by people immersed in the same inner struggles, and we haven’t really found our place in the world yet, we can definitely feel lonely, even if we’re not all alone. It’s easy to relate to that, whether you’re fourteen, forty-four, or a hundred and four.
Writing it, though? I’m sure some people write YA because it’s what’s hot and what publishers want at the moment. But most writers, I think, are drawn to it for the same reason that readers are―because that handful of formative, frustrating, exciting, and scary years is full of some of the best stories we can tell.
Jimena is touring this week to promote the upcoming release of her YA Urban Fantasy novel, Blue Rabbit, on December 28.
About Blue Rabbit
In Knoxville, Tennessee, there’s a bridge to another world.
When they first cross it, Erika and her friends feel like they’ve stumbled into a dream. Magical and mysterious, the other world becomes their little paradise, a place to explore and escape from their everyday lives. Until one night a boy from school, Mike, follows them to the other side―and he’s kidnapped by strange and powerful Creatures.
Back home, everyone thinks Erika and the gang are responsible for Mike’s disappearance. The dream has become a nightmare. How can they negotiate with these Creatures to rescue Mike and clear their names? And why are the Creatures fixated on Erika, who feels drawn to their world even as she senses the danger?
There is still a chance to win a free copy of the book when it’s released! Click the cover to find it on Goodreads and add it to your “want to read” shelf. Jimena will select five random winners from everyone who adds it before Saturday.
About the Author
Jimena Novaro always knew she would be a writer. It just took her a few years to realize that she wanted to do it full-time, and relegate things like going into outer space and being an opera prima donna to hobbies. She loves reading and writing science fiction, fantasy, and YA. A self-proclaimed geeky sort of nerd, she spends a lot of her time fangirling over her favorite shows, books, and bands and educating herself about super-important topics such as how to survive an arrow wound and whether or not you can shoot a gun in space. Sometimes she gets super serious and rants about some socio-political issue or other.
She’s a member of the awesome fantasy authors group Mystic Quills. You can find her free epic fantasy serial, The Withering Sword, on her website (a new chapter comes out every Sunday!) Her first book, Blue Rabbit, a YA urban fantasy, comes out this December!
Find her here:
Website: http://www.jimenanovaro.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JimenaNovaro
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7170198.Jimena_Novaro
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JimenaNovaroWriter
