And the winner is...

Congratulations to Romerc for winning a copy of The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball by Risa Green.

Please email me (Jenn) your mailing address so we can send the book off to you as soon as possible. Thanks to all of you for participating.

Girls Just Reading uses Random.org to produce the winner.

Giveaway: The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball

We are thrilled to be able to giveaway a copy of Risa Green's The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball.   

  

In order to qualify for this book, you need to:

• Be a resident of the US or Canada
• Enter the contest by Midnight EST on 12/10/10 
• Fill out the form below

...and good luck! 
Girls Just Reading uses Random.org to produce the winner.

Author Interview: Risa Green

Yesterday I reviewed Risa Green's first YA novel, The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball.  Today Risa Green, author of Notes from the Underbelly and Tales from the Crib, has taken time out of her busy schedule to answer our questions:

GJR:  As a successful author of fiction for adults, what made you decide to venture into YA?


RG: Even though my first book, Notes From the Underbelly, was an adult book, there was a teenaged character named Tick who was definitely my favorite character to write. I used to work as a high school counselor, so I feel like I’ve got a better understanding of teenagers than most thirty-something moms out there. So when it came time to write something new, I kept going back to Tick, and then I decided to just go for it and write a YA book. But given my background, I guess it was a pretty natural transition.




GJR:  Did the book-to-TV process with Notes from the Underbelly change your writing process at all? Do you approach things differently?



RG:  I don’t think that the book-to-TV experience with Notes changed my process at all. Notes happened to be a very episodic book; it was originally written as a series of essays which I then turned into a novel, and so because of that it just lent itself to a television series. But I don’t ever set out to write anything with the thought that oh, I should try to write it to become a movie or a TV show. I think that there’s something organic about writing a book, and sometimes books have a mind of their own and go in directions you don’t always anticipate as an author. If you try too hard to make it into something else, I think the quality of the book would suffer, and it would feel contrived. And honestly, it doesn’t even matter what I write, because between the TV writers and the producers and the network executives, it all gets changed so much that you can hardly even tell it was ever my book to begin with!


GJR:  What was the inspiration for making the focal point of the magic in the story a pink crystal ball?

RG:  The inspiration for the pink crystal ball actually came from my daughter. We were fooling around with a certain toy that rhymes with Tragic Great Call (follow me here), asking it questions about whether all of these amazing things would happen to us, and the toy kept giving us Yes answers. My daughter (who is eight) said, wouldn’t it be funny if all of these things really happened? And I had kind of an “ah-ha” moment, like, hey, that would make a really cool concept for a book!


GJR:  The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball is beautifully poised to become a series. When should we expect book two?

RG:  My hope is for this to become a series, but Sourcebooks, my publisher, hasn’t yet committed to that. So if you want to see another one, please email them and let them know!


GJR:  Will the pink crystal ball society expand with new members? Or is that too much information to give?

RG:  Maybe. Maybe not.



GJR:  Do you plan on going back to adult fiction between or after your YA series?

RG:  I will never rule out adult fiction. I have ideas for books all the time, and some of them are better suited to YA, while others would be considered adult. Right now I’d like to concentrate on YA for a while, but I definitely have a few adult novels festering in the back of my head.


GJR:  Who are your favorite authors to read? Why?

RG:  It’s funny, but when I read adult books, I tend to gravitate towards older male writers. I like Phillip Roth, Nick Hornby, Richard Ford, John Updike, and Wallace Stegner, to name a few. They all seem to write about men in some sort of mid-life crisis, though I’m not exactly sure why I’m drawn to that genre. I must have been a middle-aged man in a past life or something. But I’ve been reading a lot of YA lately, and I’ve really enjoyed some of Meg Cabot’s books, and I like Sarah Dessen a lot, too.


GJR:  What are you currently reading?

RG:  I’m currently reading Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins. It won the Newbery Medal in 2006, and it’s unlike any YA book I’ve read. I’m also reading The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr.


GJR:  What author’s have influenced you?

RG:  In my YA writing, there’s no question that Judy Blume was my biggest influence. When I was a kid, there was just nobody else doing what she did, and it was really liberating to read about girls just like me, who had the same kinds of problems that I had. I was also very much influenced by The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin (also a Newbery winner!). I was ten when I read it, and it was the first mystery book that I ever read, although it was really more of a puzzle than a mystery. I can still remember the exact moment when I figured it all out. I was very inspired by that book when I was writing The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball. I absolutely had it in mind when I came up with the clues that Erin’s aunt Kooky leaves her.


GJR:  What is your question for the pink crystal ball?

RG:  My question for the ball is, of course, will I sell lots of books!  :)

We want to thank Ms. Green for visiting with us.  Be sure to stop by later today for a chance to win The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball.

Jenn's Review: The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball

Summary:  Erin Channing is convinced that she’s the most boring, normal girl on the planet. But when her kooky aunt mysteriously dies and leaves Erin a pink crystal “answer ball” that really is magic, Erin’s boring, normal existence gets turned upside down. With the help of her two best friends, Lindsay and Samantha, Erin deciphers a set of cryptic rules for how to use the ball, while at the same time finds herself falling for a guy she thought she couldn’t stand. But when Lindsay and Samantha try to convince her to break one of the rules and use the ball to solve their own problems, the plan backfires on them, and Erin realizes that she must use her common sense and intelligence to get everything back to, well… normal.

Review:  This is an enjoyable, light YA read.  It mixes a  little bit of reality with a lot of teen drama.  It actually reminded me a little of Ann Brashares' Traveling Pants series, slightly more straightforward with none of the twists or complexity.

Though there were no surprises, I was still compelled to keep reading; thinking I'd just put it down and come back to it, I found myself picking it back up.  Erin is endearing in her rigidity towards rules and life in general and I found myself cheering for her as she learns life doesn't always stay inside the box.  Although I found her friends interesting, I would have loved to get to know them a little better.  (However, I think Risa Green is reserving that for future books as this is set up nicely for sequels.) Erin also learns the importance of a little magic, but that nothing is more important than free will and the choices you make.  And that sometimes, what you believe is more important than what is. 

This is a smart, quick, and easy YA.  I look forward to finding out more about The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball. 

Final Take 3.75/5