Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress by Tina Ferraro

Being dumped right before prom is Nicolette’s nightmare, and when Rascal, the hottie (hot-hottie) of Nic’s dreams who invited her to prom in the first place, makes it a reality, she’s left with one gorgeous dress that fits her in all the right places, and nowhere to wear it. And the worst part is that not only does she have the dress as a stunningly painful reminder of her (almost) happily ever after, but she also can’t stop thinking about Rascal. Too bad the reason he dumped her is coming back for vengeance; and she just got her claws done...

Add to that the fact that her parents’ divorce has basically eliminated her dad from her life, and her mother hasn’t sold a house in weeks and you’ve got her life! But Nicolette’s determined to turn it all around, even if it means mooching rides of her best friend Allison’s (pain in the butt) brother Jared, and having to deal with the rivalry between him and Rascal that may (or may not) be about her.

But Nicolette doesn’t really mind, especially because she’s finding out that hanging out with Jared might totally be worth the social risk…. And then some.

With conflicting feelings about Rascal, his surprisingly sudden interest in her, and feeling confused about Jared’s intentions, WHILE worried about how her own feelings could affect Allison, Nicolette’s more than a little lost. Zipping up and applying gloss isn’t going to help with this one, and so what? It’s not like she’d ever get a chance to wear her dress again anyways… right?

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Yet another fab book by Tina! I actually cried at the end of this one. XD It's not like it was because the subject matter was so deep but it had such a happy ending which I <3 and I just couldn't help it! XD *secretly loves crying over books* (Better reading experience! ;P)

Anyways I really cared about how Nicolette's story would end and I was pretty happy with the way it ended. :) I thought the idea for the book was really smart and it was just an amazingly cute, fun read.

5 stars!


(Sorry this was so late guys! I meant to post it on Thursday but life happened so now it's late. XD Hope you like!)

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ReaderGirl

Tina takes over the blog, oh my!

Reader Girl was kind enough to contact me, to say how much she enjoyed reading The ABC’s of Kissing Boys. Which delights me, of course! And got me to thinking about the elements I enjoyed most about writing it. And while that answer might differ depending upon my mood (a-hem), today my thoughts returned to the character who made the book come alive, and brought me some of my favorite moments.

I need to backtrack and explain that while I had the idea, the theme, the setting, the main character and her family for the book early on, the “hero” eluded me for quite some time. I kept plopping in characters (I call it “auditioning”) but nothing worked...and I was at the point of scrapping the whole book...until the morning my 15 year-old freshman strutted onto the scene...

His name is Tristan Murphy. And I must say, he is not your average high school freshman. Already over six feet, he’s buff from years of playing water polo, has water cooler blue eyes--and a man-sized crush on the two-grades-ahead Parker Stanhope. Who, I am sorry to say, does not seem to notice that he is alive.

But one day, circumstances occur in which she lowers herself to speak to him. And she incidentally discovers that he’s an expert in the one area of schooling where she seriously needs tutoring: kissing.

You see, Parker’s in a curious and serious jam. Her soccer teammate-friends got promoted to varsity without her, and the only way she can finagle her way onto varsity involves giving the prom king the kiss of a lifetime at the sports fair kissing booth. Yes, it's far-fetched, but it could work.

Which happens to be what Tristan studied at summer camp, wiling away the evenings with the other counselors. He learned about butterfly kisses and steam kisses and caterpillar kisses, and played games like Spin the Bottle and unwrapping Starburst candies in his tongue.

But that was just for fun. And with girls he didn’t care much about. Now this is Parker, the girl of his dreams. Who is giving him this one chance. Who is expecting him to be cool and smooth and in charge...

Can he do it?

The morning of their first lesson, he showers, changes his shirt three times, puts on aftershave (even though he hasn’t had to shave yet this month). Only to find her in an oversized T-shirt and ponytail. Is this all she thinks of him? Tucking under his arm the playbook he'd hastily penned, he’s tempted to run for his life. I mean, who is he to teach the beautiful Parker anything?

But she rocks his world by making the first move. A big one, smack on the lips. She says she wanted to cut the tension, to get the first kiss over with so they could relax. Which makes him realize, in astonishment, that she’s nervous, too.

Wow.

So he decides that yeah, he could go through with this. Crazy as it seems, he’ll be her kissing coach, and help her get she wants. And then maybe, just maybe, it’ll lead to what he wants, too: her respect. And maybe more...

Okay, I’ll stop now. I have a tendency to go on and on about these characters--like book length on and on!

Thanks to Reader Girl for this chance to blab about my boy, Tristan, and if anyone has any questions, be sure to leave them in the comments.

The ABC's of Kissing Boys Review!

Parker’s life is going great. She’s in with the popular crowd and is about to get pushed up to varsity soccer in her junior year. But when the list of new varsity members goes up, and Parker isn’t on it, she’s crushed. Determined to come up with a way to get back on the team, she cooks up a plan with her older brother, Clayton, and his friend Luke Anderson, the boy who every girl at Parker’s high school still has the hotts for even though he’s already graduated.
The plan is a kiss, between Parker and Luke, at the Sports Fair’s varsity soccer team kissing booth. There is a contest to see who can raise the most money to get a parking spot for the coach. Parker’s positive that Varsity Coach Hartley will have to give her a spot on the team if she’s the one to help them raise the most money by kissing Luke, but she’s also painfully aware of the fact that she has little to no experience in that area.
She needs a teacher, someone who knows tons about kissing, as well as how to tie cherry stems into a knot with his tongue.
Enter Tristan, her neighbor from across the street, and son of her father’s arch enemy. He seems like the perfect teacher, only being his student comes with some consequences. When Parker's friends from school find out she’s been hanging out with a freshman, they plan all sorts of evil pranks to embarrass her and make her life miserable. And then there’s the problem that when her parents find out about her meeting with Tristan, she’s accused of fraternizing with the enemy.
As the Sports Fair and her goodbye with Tristan nears, Parker can feel her attachment to Tristan growing stronger and making her wonder if saying goodbye to Tristan is really what she wants, even if being with him will only make her life more difficult.
But sometimes you have to follow your heart, and ignore what other people say for what makes you truly happy. Times when after everything you’ve been through, you come out of it and realize it’s time to pucker up.

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This book was too adorable! I loved it so much! I'm a sucker for the happily ever after ending, and I liked that Parker seemed to come away from all of her experiences with a better attitude towards her life, and everything she wanted. The ABC's of Kissing boys was a great light happy read that I'd definitely recommend! :)

4 stars!

Interview with Tina Ferraro!

What inspired you to write The ABC's of Kissing Boys?

I almost always start a book with a title, and since my books are mostly fake “self-help” titles, an A-B-C idea struck me, followed by the idea of kissing. The hard part was to somehow connect it to soccer and friends bring promoted to Varsity without her, which was an idea that had been circulating in my head for sometime...


Having a kissing technique for every letter of the alphabet much have been hard! Did you really know them all from experience?

Oh, it was all research! And since the idea struck me just before Valentine’s Day, the bookstores were filled with books on love, so it was really fun and easy to research. I also scoured websites, and talked to friends and family. For instance, my niece, who was just starting college, is the one who told me about the Starburst wrappers! Then I chatted the idea up with more friends, and soon, I was writing...

In The ABC's of Kissing Boys, Parker deals a lot with friendship troubles. She starts realizing her friends are not friendly after a while, and then there's all these problems caused by social hierarchy at her school. Did you have to deal with a lot of those same problems when you were her age?

I had a pretty tight circle of friends in high school, and I was not only any sports teams. But, like most girls, I witnessed and was the recipient of a bit of Mean Girl action. That helped me to not only feel for Parker, but made the Mean Girl “voices” easier to write. I think all writers bring a degree of personal experience to their characters, but often it’s not something they can directly point to, as much as just overall compassion or a feeling.

As an adult looking back, some of those teen problems might have seemed like silly kiddy problems, which some it is, but I felt like you really treated those situations with respect, and didn't try to downplay their importance. You know to a majority of your audience, that stuff is going seem important and even if you were trying to kind of subtly explain that these things aren't the end of the world, you still don't want to come across as preachy, or as if you think they shouldn't really care, you know? Any thoughts on that?

Thank you! Well, I am the mother of three kids in this age range, so not only do I remember those feelings and the sense of life-threatening urgency about things, but I see it with my own kids. And I respect it.

But I think the key in writing YA fiction that readers are going to relate to, is zeroing in on the issues that teens DO think are critical, and leaving the others behind. That said, my editor and I did six full revisions on Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress, because I'd gone TOO far in making the
main character feel everything, and wee needed to make the story easier to follow!


What made you decide to write YA Fiction?

Believe it or not, there was never a decision. I started writing YA short stories when I was about 12...and just never stopped! I love the drama and the promise of the coming-of-age years, and have just never moved away.


What were your favorite books as a teenager/ Now? (Do you read YA fiction?)

As a teenager, I read widely, but I remember really loving Christy by Catherine Marshall and Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell, which were both already classics.

As far as current books, I’ll name two I recently read that I thought “had it all”: Looking for Alaska by John Green and Blood Brothers by S. A. Hazarin.


Do you prefer classics, or modern books?


I do prefer modern books...I love to see what’s coming out each week!


Do you listen to music when you write?


Not usually. The only time I do is when I’m nervous about a big scene, and then I’ll often play heavy bass music LOUD to sort of scramble my thoughts and distract me. But once I have something on the page, I’ll turn off the music for a quiet edit.


Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?


To remember that it’s “okay” to be bad, that sometimes the good stuff evolves out of sucky first drafts!


And on an end note, what project are you working on now?


Right now, I am waiting for my editor to give me first revisions on my summer ’10 release, When Bad Flings Happen to Good Girls, and playing with some new ideas for other books.

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Thanks so much to Tina for doing the interview! My review of the ABC's of Kissing Boys will be up tomorrow, and don't forget to enter the contest for a signed copy of one of Tina's books! You can see the contest requirements on the last post.

Also today is the last day to enter to win a copy of Poseur!

xoxoxo