Misfit Adventures: #JenniferNivenInPH Event Recap

Hello there misfit booknerds! Gosh! It's been a while and seriously, I feel both happy and awful about my time off the blog but I'm glad that I somehow found the schedule that would fit me this year. Also, I did not expect work to get in the way of me really getting into reading and going through my bookish resolutions this 2016. I think that's scrapped out for now. *cries in shame*

Anyway, if you guys remember, I blogged about my anticipation of seeing Jennifer Niven, author of All The Bright Places (my favorite contemporary novel for a while now) for her book signing here in the Philippines.

Jen and I are actually very good friends and have been in contact with each other for over a year and I have been supporting (more like stalking lol) her for a long time, and the plan was that we meet each other, say, for lunch or dinner when she gets here. But because of my job and her busy schedule when she got here, with interviews here and there, we couldn't really find the time. I've set my heart into meeting her in the public signing. I said to myself, 30 seconds with her is enough for me and would make my entire year. Just the shortest amount of time meant the world to me, I didn't care at all if it wasn't as how I dreamed it was going to be.

Style Misfit: Book Covers (1st Edition)

Hi there! I was on my way home when I suddenly had a brilliant idea...(I usually get them on the ride to and from school or anywhere) I remember looking at some of Alexa of Alexa Loves Books' post for Mix and Match on the Love-A-Thon mini-challenge and thought, huh! That's really cute! I also see Heidi Heilig, author of The Girl From Everywhere, posting fashion collages and she has the most amazing fashion sense. 

So, basically, I'm putting my fashion sense into the challenge. I think I have very good taste in fashion, though I total lack in execution, I can mix and match some stuff together pretty well...I hope, Here's 5 books I've made fashion collages of.

The Misfit Interviews: Jennifer Niven

Hi there Misfit Booknerds!!! It's been a while since I got to interview and author for the blog but this is clearly an amazing time to introduce to you a wonderful author and dear friend, Jennifer Niven!  I'm sure some of you know her already but let's get to know her a lot better.

SOME DEETS

What's your morning ritual? Or are you more of a night owl? 

•  I’m definitely a night owl!

Do you collect anything? 

• I love ABBA, and so I have all sorts of weird ABBA stuff like ABBA clogs and ABBA dolls and ABBA soap and perfume. I also love the golden age of Hollywood, and have a small collection of movie star jewelry (Bette Davis’s earrings, Carole Lombard’s bracelet, Ava Gardner’s cigarette case, which I use to carry my business cards) as well as a vanity set belonging to Jean Harlow and Lana Turner’s alarm clock from her days at MGM.

How tall are you? 

• 5’7”

Your celebrity crush? 

• Jared Padalecki!

(DAMN YES JENNIFER! YAAAS!)

If you could work with an author for a collaboration, who would it be? 

• David Levithan. Not only is he an amazingly brilliant writer, he’s one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met.

If your name weren't Jennifer, what would it be? (Btw, I really would love to be a Charlie, but my parents love the letter J so. Hahaha) 

• My parents almost named me Larkin, which I’ve always thought was pretty. But I think I’d be something chic and adorably British like Imogen or Clementine.

AUTHOR Q'S

All The Bright Places is such a poignant and heartfelt book. What made you tackle the theme of mental disorders? 

• Thank you! Years ago, I knew and loved a boy, and that boy was bipolar. I witnessed up-close the highs and lows, the Awake and the Asleep, and I saw his daily struggle with the world and with himself. The experience was life changing. Back then, I didn’t talk about it, but it’s important to talk about. I experienced firsthand the stigma associated with mental disorders—both from his perspective and from mine—and I realized that we need to make people feel safe enough to come forward and say, “I have a problem. I need help.” If we don’t talk about suicide or depression or mental illness, how can we expect anyone to reach out for help when they need it most? 

How was your emotional and mental process when writing about Finch? How about with Violet? Who did you love writing best? 

• A young writer asked me recently, “How did you write All the Bright Places without crying over it?” The answer is that I did cry while writing it, but I also knew that it was okay to cry because that meant I was tapping into all of the emotion that was going to help me write what I needed to write. This was true whether I was writing Finch or Violet. But I most enjoyed writing Finch because he was so different from any character I’d ever written before, and also because he arrived so fully formed with such a strong, vivid voice. 

Finch is such an amazing, mysterious character and I couldn't thank you enough for him. Did you ever think that an alternate ending could've happened? 

• While I wanted to create a happier ending for Finch and for Finch and Violet, I knew in my bones that the only ending could be the one I wrote, not just because too many stories about teen mental health are tied up in neat little packages with bows on top, but because it’s the ending I lived with the real-life Finch. It was the story I knew. 

You were on a book tour for the release of All The Bright Places and I love every bit of it! (DO COME TO THE PHILIPPINES!!!) What was your best or most memorable fan encounter? 

• I would LOVE to come to the Philippines!! The book tour really has been wonderful so far, and the highlight for me is meeting readers of the book who have related to it or to Finch in some way. The most memorable of these was meeting a teen in Georgia who has struggled all her life with self-harm, depression, and suicide. She came to an event to tell me that the book had changed her life, that it made her realize she wasn’t alone, and that it made her want to live again. 

Germ Magazine and even EleanorandViolet.com are real websites right now! How do you explain Germ further to those who have read the book, and would like to submit their thoughts or thank you's? 

•  Germ is a magazine for girls—high school and beyond—that celebrates beginnings, futures, and all the amazing and agonizing moments in-between. The website (www.germmagazine.com) was originally created on the pages of the book, when Violet gets an idea for a new web magazine, one that would inspire and entertain, educate and empower, tackling issues big and small, serious and funny, hard and helpful, while also encouraging young writers and artists and other creative types to share their work. After I wrote the first draft of the book, I thought: What if Germ were real? We launched in January 2014 and work on a strictly volunteer basis. At this moment, we have forty-five staff members, most of whom are between the ages of fourteen and twenty-six. We began in Los Angeles, but we now have staff writers from all across the US, as well as England, Hungary, the Ukraine, and the Philippines (!!), and we have readers all over the world. In addition to being a lifestyle magazine, Germ is also a literary magazine, and we welcome both creative writing and journalistic submissions from readers. We would love to hear from you! (For details on how to submit, please visit the Germ site.) 

What advise could you give to those going through their mental disorders? How do they get help? 

• I want readers to know that help is out there, that it gets better, that high school isn’t forever, and that life is long and vast and full of possibility. I want them to know that they would be missed, that they matter, and that there are others in the world who understand their thoughts and feelings and their pain. I want them to realize that suicide is not a solution and that it can’t be undone. It is a permanent “fix” to situations and feelings for which there are help. And I want them to speak up, to tell someone how they’re feeling—a parent, a sibling, a trusted friend or teacher or adult. (For resources on suicide prevention, please see http://www.germmagazine.com/links/.) 

Are you writing anything new right now that has a chance to be published? Some deets please? 

• I’m working on my second YA novel (which will also be published by Random House and Penguin UK). It’s an unconventional love story of a boy who can't remember faces and a very visible girl who feels invisible. It’s about seeing, being seen, and learning to recognize what’s important. It’s about what makes us love someone. 

And finally, what advise could you give aspiring writers, like myself, who wish to write stories that are outstanding like yours, even be at par with yours?

Thank you so, so much Jennifer! I love you and I'm sure your fans and booknerds everywhere love you too! Thank you for sharing these fun facts about you and your experiences! I am sooo excited for your new novel, you have no idea! And I hope you guys too!

Follow Jennifer on Twitter and on Instagram and like her Facebook page! Also don't forget to check out the Germ website and of course, read her beautiful, lovely book! Thank you Misfit booknerds!

Review: All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Title: All The Bright Places
Author: Jennifer Niven
Publication: January 6th 2015, Knopf Books for Young Readers
Format: e-ARC, 400 pages
Source: From the author (THANK YOU JENNIFER!)
Buy it on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository | iBooks | Kobo | National Book Store / Fully Booked (PH)

SYNOPSIS:

The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.

Misfit Review:

I've contemplated for many days how I will actually write this review.  For a week, I'd stare in front of my laptop, wishing from the heaven's above that it'd give me the right words to describe this book. There was a day that I simply lost it and my brothers kept asking why I was crying. I told them it was because of a book and they laughed at me. Even my other relatives. It was a dark day in my house.

All The Bright Places is a story of two polar opposite characters that meet halfway and find solace in each other. Theodore Finch is the kind of voice you don't get to listen to every day. He's remarkably funny, witty and perceptive of so many things that go on in the world that you simply can't pass him off as just the regular character you fall in love with then forget. He's just extraordinary. Finch is special in many ways.  Violet on the other hand is a girl filled with regret, the stain of losing someone so important to her is what's allowed for her time to stop. The existence of Violet Markey is what brings balance to Finch's world and for Violet, Finch is what's brought that ray of light in her dark, closed world. But things just don't end right there.

I seriously don't know how to explain my current feelings towards the book. How it talks about mental disorders and loss is tragically beautiful. I don't think there was a page in the book that I never felt a heavy burden in my heart and told myself I should stop reading out of the sake of saving my poor, poor heart. It has been hurt by so many stories already that adding something so engrossing would completely shatter it... For now, I am currently adding a few band-aids, asking for a few stitches and waiting for the book gods to heal me.

But let's go back to Finch and Violet. The beautiful tension that they have built upon themselves is impeccable. I've laughed, I cried, I've felt I was either Violet or Finch. And when I say that I've felt I was Finch, I mean, it hits very close to home. That dark swirling feeling he's been feeling the whole time, is something I've been going through for a while. I'll talk about that soon enough. Right now, the rawness of Finch's feelings and his actions are engraved in my heart.

And as I was reading All The Bright Places, I kept telling Jennifer how the book slowly tore my heart into a thousand pieces and how every word and moment felt real and not too distant. Jennifer Niven gives readers a new perspective of wandering, finding ones drive again and also that the smallest of demons, could be the greatest adversary. There's a level of honesty that Jennifer brings into her writing that makes the whole thing so special. It comes from an experience, important to her and luckily will be important to the readers that have been affected as well as educated with this literary experience of a masterpiece. Thank you Jennifer, for bringing us Finch and Violet in your most heartfelt and in no way means to break our hearts kind of way. Well, I think the last one doesn't apply. But seriously, from the bottom of my empty, empty heart, going to be filled with other experiences of love and pain, grief and joys, THANK YOU!

I sincerely ask all Misfit booknerds to please, go to your local bookstore and find a copy of this most wonderfully profound and lovely, lovely book. And I will not hide the fact that it is currently, the best contemporary novel I have read in a very long time. Now, I think it's time to go back into my room and cry a reservoir.

P.S. Do read till the end of the book, to all the acknowledgements and the author's note. I know I have. And I know what I will do.

All The Bright Places is a special book that will be marked in your minds and in your hearts leaving you wandering, to fill maybe an emptiness you never know was there, telling you it is good to be awake... It is good to be alive. It hurts to lose people but it is good to move on and move forward, to find the perfect day. To find the brightest place.

P.P.S. You are all lovely.

About The Author:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

By the time I was ten, I had already written numerous songs, a poem for Parker Stevenson ("If there were a Miss America for men, You would surely win"), two autobiographies (All About Me and My Life in Indiana: I Will Never Be Happy Again), a Christmas story, several picture books (which I illustrated myself) featuring the Doodle Bugs from Outer Space, a play about Laura Ingalls Wilder's sister entitled Blindness Strikes Mary, a series of prison mysteries, a collection of short stories featuring me as the main character (an internationally famous rock star detective), and a partially finished novel about Vietnam. I was also an excellent speller from a very early age.

In 2000, I started writing full-time, and I haven't stopped... I've written eight books (two of those are forthcoming), and when I'm not working on the ninth, I'm contributing to my web magazine, Germ (www.germmagazine.com), thinking up new books, and dabbling in TV. I am always writing.

Stacking The Shelves #8: Sad and Thrilling

Stacking The Shelves is a feature hosted by Tynga’s Reviews where bloggers share what books (both physical and digital) they received, won, bought, and borrowed.

Hey there Misfit Booknerds!!! Lots of good reads this week??? Hopefully! Did you add any good books to your shelves or your e-readers? I have two new books added to my Kindle app and they are some of my most awaited!!!

GIFTED & FOR REVIEW

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

The Remedy by Suzanne Young

I would like to thank Jennifer Niven first and foremost for being especially kind and warm to me everytime I talk to her on Twitter and for especially giving me an e-ARC of All The Bright Places. I know she means well for breaking my heart because of this novel. HAHAHA!

And to Simon and Schuster on Edelweiss for their trust in me always. I know I have been not as active but I will be reviewing all of the books you have granted my request to as soon as I could. 

So how's your stack this week??? Tell me in the comments below! :)

Waiting For Wednesday #15: All The Bright Places + Red Queen

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are just waiting to have our hands on!

Title: All The Bright Places
Author: Jennifer Niven
Publication:  Knopf Books for Young Readers
Expected Release Date: January 6th 2015
Pre-order or buy on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository | iBooks | Kobo

SYNOPSIS:

The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this compelling, exhilarating, and beautiful story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister's recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.

About The Author:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

By the time I was ten, I had already written numerous songs, a poem for Parker Stevenson ("If there were a Miss America for men, You would surely win"), two autobiographies (All About Me and My Life in Indiana: I Will Never Be Happy Again), a Christmas story, several picture books (which I illustrated myself) featuring the Doodle Bugs from Outer Space, a play about Laura Ingalls Wilder's sister entitled Blindness Strikes Mary, a series of prison mysteries, a collection of short stories featuring me as the main character (an internationally famous rock star detective), and a partially finished novel about Vietnam. I was also an excellent speller from a very early age.

In 2000, I started writing full-time, and I haven't stopped... I've written eight books (two of those are forthcoming), and when I'm not working on the ninth, I'm contributing to my web magazine, Germ (www.germmagazine.com), thinking up new books, and dabbling in TV. I am always writing.

Title: Red Queen
Author: Victoria Aveyard
Publication: Orion/HarperTeen
Expected Release Date: February 10th 2015
Pre-order or buy on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository | iBooks

SYNOPSIS:

A thrilling new fantasy trilogy for fans of DIVERGENT and THE HUNGER GAMES.

The poverty stricken Reds are commoners, living under the rule of the Silvers, elite warriors with god-like powers.

To Mare Barrow, a 17-year-old Red girl from The Stilts, it looks like nothing will ever change.

Mare finds herself working in the Silver Palace, at the centre of

those she hates the most. She quickly discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy Silver control.

But power is a dangerous game. And in this world divided by blood, who will win?

About The Author:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

I'm a screenwriter/YA author who likes books and lists. This site is the nexus of my universe.

My book RED QUEEN will be published Winter 2015 from HarperTeen at HarperCollins. I'm repped by the incomparable Suzie Townsend at New Leaf Literary & Media, Inc. 

The genres I'm into include YA, Fantasy, Historical, Adventure, Apocalyptic - if people are dying, I'm buying.