by Dave Amaditz and
Marcy Collier
Spring is finally in the air! Say goodbye to the
winter blahs and hello to some great debut novels for your Spring reading.
Marcy and I are super excited to share our picks with you! Thank you to all of
the fabulous debut authors who have agreed to participate. Marcy and I are
looking for many more reviews to follow.
Welcome to April’s version of - First Friday - Five Favorite Things - Debut Novel Day. In this
monthly series, we ask five simple questions about a debut novel that will
hopefully entice anyone reading this post to pick up the novel and read it
themselves, and/or give them at a glance some insight into the author's writing
style and voice as well as how some of the characters might think or act. We do
this by presenting, first, answers to our
Five Favorite Things, followed by the author's answers in a follow-up post.
This month we're pleased to highlight debut YA novelist,
Courtney Stevens and her novel, Faking
Normal,an absolutely riveting book about a girl who
must learn to cope with a secret she’s been hiding since summer, one she’s
literally destroying herself over.
Marcy first learned about Courtney’s book journey from our good
friend Kate Dopirak through an article she submitted to Marcy for the SCBWI
newsletter. You can read that article here.
When we learned that Courtney’s book was out, Marcy
and I couldn’t wait to read it. We were not disappointed. We
hope you enjoy our answers and encourage you to buy the book.
1) What is your favorite line or paragraph from the novel as it relates to
the main character's development and/or growth?
Dave – The section I chose
comes from near the end of the book when Lexi, the main character, has
emotionally come to grips with what has happened to her. She’s in the woods
behind her house watching a bird and wondering why it hadn’t flown south for
the winter. I believe this section contrasts well with what Marcy picked (see below),
which comes from earlier in the novel.
This morning, for one second between my pain and the fear that
Bodee would tell, I imagined what it would be like to be free.
That’s what Bodee is imagining for me, I think. What he wants
for me.
Freedom.
The choice is mine, I realize. I can be the bird clinging to a
windowsill in Tennessee when all my friends are in Florida, or I can be the
bird who flies away.
I can be free.
I decided to keep my secret, and now, I decide to let it go.
Marcy – This paragraph captured
the mental and physical pain of the main character Lexi. This part of the book
really stood out for me as Lexi tries to cope with what has happened to her.
One way she copes is by clawing the back of her neck with her nails.
Blood
smears into the collar of my shirt. It’ll never go into the hamper for Mom to
wash. “You let him. You let him.” God, I wish I could bleed him out of my life.
If only I could make the outside hurt more than the inside.
To
keep myself from scratching deeper, I push open the door a sliver and stare at
my bedroom ceiling. My breath leaves me, and the numbers start automatically.
The compulsion is overwhelming. I have to count.
One.
Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.
Don’t
Blink. My eyes start to burn.
Ten.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. I can’t blink. I’m almost there.
Sixteen.
Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.
Blink.
Dammit.
No
matter. I’ll start over and try again to reach twenty-three.
Sometimes
I stand on my bed and run my hand over the metal air-vent slits as if they’re a
weird form of Braille. Those openings breathe cold air on me. Twenty-two holes
of darkness. Twenty-three spaces of light. It’s hard to count them at night
after they blur into a flat black hole.
Now
I understand all the girls in my school who cut. I used to think of them as
idiots who didn’t know how to cope. Now, I realize they are coping. Just not as
well as I do.
2) What is your favorite chapter ending or cliffhanger?
Dave - My favorite cliffhanger once
again came from late in the book when Lexi has made the decision to confront
her attacker. She writes her feelings which is the step that comes before her
being able to express them verbally. (And I believe I have avoided giving away
any of the mistery.)
I won’t be sorry for this. You are not my BEST BUDDY, you are a
selfish asshole, and I hate what you did to me!
Marcy – Bodee is an outcast in
school. Now his mom was murdered by his dad and he’s living with Lexi’s family.
Bodee can’t go into his house where his mom died and asks Lexi if she could go
in for him.
“I found the earring. And I got you these from the kitchen.” I
hold out the five little boxes of Kool-Aid.
And Bodee smiles.
Really smiles. Teeth and all. (They’re straight.)
And even though I have thrown up, walked through a crime scene,
and rooted through the remainder of Mrs. Lennox’s life, I smile too.
3) Who is your favorite secondary character and why?
Dave – All along, I was ready
to say that Bodee was my favorite secondary character, for all the reasons
Marcy mentions below. I even had a quote she listed as one of my favorite
quotes. But the more I began reading, the more I began to think that Kayla,
Lexi sister, is also quite a complex character, so I chose her as my favorite
secondary character and have listed below a quote which made me change my mind.
This one came about halfway through the book, and up until this point, the only
side we’ve seen of Kayla is that she is a nasty, spoiled sister. They are
talking about a rumor around the school that someone has been raped and Kayla
is trying to convince Lexi to tell her friends that they should report the
incident.
“I mean, to imagine this guy forcing himself on a girl. Like,
what if that was you? That boy, any boy, lays one finger on you without you wanting
it and I swear I’ll tear him apart. And after that, I’ll let Craig finish him
off.”
“Kayla-“
“You think I’m a self-centered bitch right now, but you’re still
my little sister. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
Marcy – Of course it has to be Bodee. He is such a
complex character. From his Kool-Aid colored hair to the way he knows how to
find exactly the right words to help Lexi and make her feel safe. He has lived
a tough life and is extremely wise. These two incidents show Bodee’s true
character. The first is when Lexi brings him to her fort. The second is at
night when Lexi is trying to fall asleep and looks to her vent to count.
We reach the fort’s ladder in what feels like three steps. A
spider has made a home in the space between the two bottom rungs. Bodee doesn’t
disturb it, but instead takes a high step above the eight legs. I want to
squash it, but I climb over the spider too, since he worked so hard to avoid
it.
“Lex” – he looks over his shoulder at me as we climb through the
opening to the highest level – “your secrets are showing.”
I am neither surprised nor horrified at the way he cuts right to
the core. Maybe, in fact, I’m a little relieved. “I know. Weird day.”
And the
second…
The vent is gone.
A cover from Hatchet conceals the vent’s twenty-two lines and
twenty-three spaces.
And I am smiling and wiping at sudden tears. Because he has
stuck his one precious possession, using four pieces of tape, over the place I
want to avoid.
4) What is your favorite line or paragraph of description?
Dave – There’s more than a few sections I had picked out for my
favorite, but the ones that stood out to me most always focused on her counting
the slats in the air vents in her room, because it’s details such as this that
makes this story so real and so gripping… And so sad.
But he never looked at my face. I know because I never blinked.
I can’t count the slits in the vent without blinking, but that night it was if
my eyelids were wired open. I saw everything. Everything. His eyes were closed
when it started, when he reached for me for comfort, and I froze. When he
kissed me and I stayed silent. And his eyes were closed while he worked.
Because he didn’t want to remember I wasn’t his girlfriend. He didn’t want to
realize he was doing to me the things he wanted to do with her.
Marcy – This paragraph is so powerful, no other comment is necessary.
“You can’t buy him some new wardrobe or cut his hair and make it
all happy. His mom’s dead. His dad killed her. No matter how badly you want it,
there’s no magical cure that makes it go away. Sometimes life just sucks.”
5) What is your favorite line of dialogue?
Dave – It’s the same line I listed above under my
favorite secondary character. Kayla won me over when she showed her true
feelings.
“I mean, to imagine this guy forcing himself on a girl. Like,
what if that was you? That boy, any boy, lays one finger on you without you wanting
it and I swear I’ll tear him apart. And after that, I’ll let Craig finish him
off.”
“Kayla-“
“You think I’m a self-centered bitch right now, but you’re still
my little sister. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
Marcy
– Lexi’s friend Heather has come to
terms in her own way that she will accept Bodee into their inner circle – under
one condition:
“Okay,
be friends with Bodee if you want. Just don’t go drinkin’ the Kool-Aid. If you
know what I mean.”
To read more about Courtney Stevens debut YA novel
Faking Normal please go to:
