Sab The Book Eater: Three-Blog Hop Kick Off: Since You Asked by Maurene Goo

Since You Asked
by Maurene Goo
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Published: June 25th 2013 by Scholastic
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

No, no one asked, but Holly Kim will tell you what she thinks anyway.

Fifteen-year-old Holly Kim is the copyeditor for her high school's newspaper. When she accidentally submits an article that rips everyone to shreds, she gets her own column and rants her way through the school year. Can she survive homecoming, mean-girl cliques, jocks, secret admirers, Valentine's Day, and other high school embarrassments, all while struggling to balance her family's traditional Korean values?

In this hilarious debut, Maurene Goo takes a fresh look at trying to fit in without conforming to what's considered "normal" in high school and how to manage parental expectations without losing one's individuality...or being driven insane.

Wait, what is this?

Basically from July 24th to 30th we will be posting our Q&As with Maurene and at the last day we'll wrap it up with A HUGE GIVEAWAY. So be sure to come back (or drop by ANY of our blogs) to send in your raffle entries!

The blog hop schedule and photos of the prizes can be found at the very end of this post.

My Q&A with Maurene ;)

What is one thing (or some of the things) you learned while writing SYA?

The most important thing I learned is finding my comedic voice. I know, how conceited to think I'm funny, but hey—I'm hoping others find it funny, too! Prior to SYA, I had never written anything that made me crack up as I wrote. And I learned SO MUCH during my editing process—one, that I'm really bad at pacing, I constantly interrupt it to make asides and jokes. Two, that I am a major abuser of certain phrases. You'll have to read the book and figure out what they are ;)

What’s your favorite thing about SYA?

Its extreme realistic-ness. Nothing monumental or life-changing happens for the characters in my book, it's basically a snapshot of a year in the life of normal teens. And while that might sound ho hum to some, I find that I would have loved to read something about people just like me while I was actually a teen. Sometimes you want a magical escape with books, and sometimes you want to relate to the characters (plenty of amazing books do both, of course!).

Which author would you like to work with and why?

I would love to work with so many authors! But in the YA world, I have always been a huge fan of Meg Cabot—I really connect to her characters and her comedic sensibility.

If your highschool self landed her own column in the school newspaper, what would she write about?

I would love to say high school me would have written similar columns to Holly—but realistically, I would have been too chicken and not quite as clever as her. I most likely would have ranted about inane things like not having lockers at our school (they were banned because people were LIGHTING THEM ON FIRE), or not being allowed to go off-campus for lunch. Maybe occasionally I would have tried tackling big topics like racism when I felt like going on my ill-informed soapbox :) I know I'm being hard on teenage me, but I recently discovered my old diary and…woo boy.

Thank you SO much, Maurene for being here today!

About the author

Maurene Goo

Maurene Goo was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where she navigated her childhood by practicing extreme bossy lord-dom over her many cousins. She studied communication at the University of California, San Diego, and received a master’s degree in publishing and writing at Emerson College. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a very old cat.