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young adult book reviews & more

Win a signed copy of How to Buy a Love of Reading

CONTEST CLOSED

To Carley Wells, words are the enemy. Her tutor’s innumerable SAT flashcards. Her personal trainer’s “fifty-seven pounds overweight” assessment. And the endless reading assignments from her English teacher, Mr. Nagel. When Nagel reports to her parents that she has answered “What is your favorite book” with “Never met one I liked,” they decide to fix what he calls her “intellectual impoverishment.” They will commission a book to be written just for her—one she’ll have to love—that will impress her teacher and the whole town of Fox Glen with their family’s devotion to the arts. They will be patrons— the Medicis of Long Island. They will buy their daughter The Love Of Reading.

Impossible though it is for Carley to imagine loving books, she is in love with a young bibliophile who cares about them more than anything. Anything, that is, but a good bottle of scotch. Hunter Cay, Carley’s best friend and Fox Glen’s resident golden boy, is becoming a stranger to her lately as he drowns himself in F. Scott Fitzgerald, booze, and Vicodin.

When the Wellses move writer Bree McEnroy—author of a failed meta-novel about Odysseus’ failed journey home through the Internet—into their mansion to write Carley’s book, Carley’s sole interest in the project is to distract Hunter from drinking and give them something to share. But as Hunter’s behavior becomes erratic and dangerous, she finds herself increasingly drawn into the fictional world Bree has created, and begins to understand for the first time the power of stories—those we read, those we want to believe in, and most of all, those we tell ourselves about ourselves. Stories powerful enough to destroy a person.

Or save her.

Well, I'm sure none of us book lovers need to worry about buying a love of books (we get it for free!) but I guess it'd be cool to read a book about it, right?

Anyhow, I'm going to be giving away a signed copy of How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson to a random commenter on this post. Please leave your name/alias and a valid email address (solely so I can contact the winner). Comments without one or both of these will be not be entered.

Since this contest is sponsered by the lovely people at Dutton, entries are limited to US residents only. Contest ends 5/31/09 at 9 p.m. PST.

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Let the munching begin.