Giveaway: Ballads of Suburbia by Stephanie Kuehnert

Title: Ballads of Suburbia

Author: Stephanie Kuehnert

Description: Kara hasn't been back to Oak Park since the end of junior year, when a heroin overdose nearly killed her and sirens heralded her exit. Four years later, she returns to face the music. Her life changed forever back in high school: her family disintegrated, she ran around with a whole new crowd of friends, she partied a little too hard, and she fell in love with gorgeous bad-boy Adrian, who left her to die that day in Scoville Park....

Amid the music, the booze, the drugs, and the drama, her friends filled a notebook with heartbreakingly honest confessions of the moments that defined and shattered their young lives. Now, finally, Kara is ready to write her own.

~~~

This is an amazing novel that I highly recommend! Read my review of it here.

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Giveaway Item(s): A signed copy of Ballads of Suburbia

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Author Interview: Stephanie Kuehnert

Known for her emotional and raw stories, Stephanie Kuehnert, author of I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone and Ballads of Suburbia, have stopped by for a quick interview!

She is extremely talented and I definitely recommend that you pick up one of her books to read! If you would like, feel free to visit her site to learn more about her at: http://www.stephaniekuehnert.com/.

Music plays a huge role in your life and you incorporate it into all of your novels. Do you have any bands or singers that had a huge impact on you at any point in your life?

I have quite a few. Kurt Cobain/Nirvana being the first. I discovered his music when I was a misfit 12 year old and it gave me a voice. It inspired me to write, to find my own voice because if Kurt could be heard by the masses maybe someday so could I. Courtney Love/Hole was really empowering to me as a teenage girl. Rancid and Social Distortion were also huge for me as a teenager. I strayed away from punk for awhile and the band that brought me back was The Distillers so they had a huge influence. Currently Civet, Rise Against, and Gaslight Anthem are having the biggest influence on me and my writing.

Is there a chance where one of your future novels will not include music?

I suppose anything is possible, but right now every idea I have involves music in some way. I can't imagine life without music, so I guess I have a hard time imagining fictional stories without it.

Have you thought about possibly expanding your writing genre from contemporary realism to lets say, paranormal?

Yes, in fact I'm working on something right now that has paranormal elements, more of an urban fantasy feel, based in mythology. I've always loved mythology so it's fun to explore that. However, I will always write contemporary realistic fiction too. I'd like to do both. Paranormal is a new challenge, but I love contemporary realistic. I probably read 50/50 between contemporary and genre fiction so why not write that way too!

Do you have any authors that you were influenced by?

Tons. My earliest influence was Laura Ingalls Wilder. I also love John Steinbeck, Irvine Welsh, Joe Meno, and my biggest YA influence is probably Francesca Lia Block (see why I need to write with some magical element!)

What is the most difficult aspect in writing for you? And the easiest?

That's hard because it varies from book to book. Usually the hardest part is nailing down the first draft, hammering out the structure and the plot. Outlining. I hate outlining but I need to do it. Revising is usually easier for me. I get into a good groove. The groundwork is laid and I'm ready to flesh things out. But sometimes, like with Ballads, revising is hard too.

Do you have any novels you are working on at the moment or will be releasing soon? If so, can you please give us a brief summary about them?

I'm working on a couple things. They are both in such early stages that I don't want to jinx them or really feel comfortable saying much because who knows what direction they'll take. I have one book under consideration by my editor now that is about a girl whose bartender/alcoholic mom dragged her around the country for most of her life and at 17, the girl finally puts her foot down and says she wants to stay where they are. It's about them trying to figure out how to make a functional life for themselves and the other quirky characters in the book and trying to grow up because the mom is emotionally still a teenager herself.

The second is the mythology-based story that I mentioned above. Keeping that tightly under wraps for now.

Lastly, give us an interesting fact about yourself that not many know of!

These questions are always hard for me because I feel like I'm an over-sharer and tell everyone everything about myself. Hmm okay, well I talk about my tattoos quite a bit, but not my piercings. I have 10 holes in my left ear and 3 in my right, adding up to my lucky 13 (my wedding date was also 10/3 to add up to my lucky 13). I've always wanted to get a lip ring or maybe an eyebrow ring, but haven't. Is 30 too old for a lip ring?

Ballads of Suburbia by Stephanie Kuehnert

Title: Ballads of Suburbia
Author: Stephanie Kuehnert
Age Group: Older Teens
# of Pages: 344
My Rating: 5/5

Life in the suburbs is not always as nice as you see it on TV, with a happy family and a perfect house.

Kara is a young woman with a painful past. When she looks back at her teen years, she will remember the hardships she endured. She struggled with drugs, cutting, and relationship problems, family, friends, and love alike.

During the time when Kara's friends were trying to cope with their own problems, they wrote down their bitter and moving stories of truth into a notebook. After four years, Kara will now tell you her ballad.

The perfect word to describe Ballads of Suburbia: raw. Never have I read a novel so brutally honest. I felt that Kara is a real person and I was reading her autobiography. This young adult novel is definitely one of the best of 2009.

Kara basically grew up with not a lot of friends throughout elementary school. Therefore in high school, she yearned to belong. With her family slowly falling apart, she became more desperate to be loved. It was not long before she started taking drugs a lot more than she first started out. She encountered Adrian, a bad boy who she could not stop thinking about. Along the way, their relationship went for an extremely bumpy ride. With that, Kara started running into trouble left and right as she attempted to help herself and the people around her.

Reading about Kara's life touched me quite a bit. I felt her every emotion off the page. It was like I was there with her as an invisible ghost, watching everything being unravelled. I disapproved of the things she did, like drugs and cutting. But with the way her life was spiralling out of control, I could understand why she did such. It made me want to reach out and help her.

Between the chapters, you will also get the short stories of Kara's friends' lives. They will tell you what had happened for them to be the person they are today. Each and every one of them is intense, making you pity the characters.

Although Ballads of Suburbia is not a happy-ending story, it will keep you enthralled from start to finish with Kuehnert's precise and detailed writing. Everyone should read this and learn.

Review copy provided by Stephanie Kuehnert.

Trailer Tuesday: Ballads of Suburbia by Stephanie Kuehnert

Title: Ballads of Suburbia
Author: Stephanie Kuehnert
Description: There are so many ballads. Achy breaky country songs. Mournful pop songs. Then there’s the rare punk ballad, the ballad of suburbia: louder, faster, angrier . . . till it drowns out the silence.

Kara hasn’t been back to Oak Park since the end of junior year, when a heroin overdose nearly killed her and sirens heralded her exit. Four years later, she returns to face the music. Her life changed forever back in high school: her family disintegrated, she ran around with a whole new crowd of friends, she partied a little too hard, and she fell in love with gorgeous bad boy Adrian, who left her to die that day in Scoville Park. . . .

Amidst the music, the booze, the drugs, and the drama, her friends filled a notebook with heartbreakingly honest confessions of the moments that defined and shattered their young lives. Now, finally, Kara is ready to write her own.

Is it bad if I tell you I have not yet read I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone? When I first started blogging, I saw Stephanie's debut novel quite a bit on the web but never got around to it. So now I think I'm the only one that have not yet read it. The summaries of both her books sound quite intriguing. The novels deal with teen girls living through personal hardships and trying to find their identity. Ballads of Suburbia will be released on July 21, 2009 by MTV Books.

Stephanie is hosting a contest to bring more attention to her new novel and I am going to attempt to convince you lovely readers to pass on the message. For example, why not post some banners or the trailer you see now of Ballads of Suburbia on your blog? You can click here to join her street team so you can get in with the exclusive stuff! Maybe you're more of a social networking person? Then friend her through Myspace, become her fan on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter!

But wait! What do you get if you do all (or any) this? Well, I'll let Stephanie list off the prizes:

The Grand Prize winner aka the person who has the most contest entries (though they must be a street team member, so go here to join) will win a signed Advanced Review Copy of Ballads of Suburbia, a signed copy of I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, a copy of the Ballads of Suburbia Soundtrack, and a gift certificate to Amazon.com.

Two Runners-Up will received signed ARCs of Ballads and the Ballads soundtrack

Lastly, I will draw 5 names at random and those people will receive BALLADS swag packs including bookmarks and signed cover flats. I will give you enough swag so you have some to keep and some to pass out around town.

Also, please note I also run a monthly contest for Street Team Members only, so sign up for the street team to become eligible.

Wow! Now don't you just wanna go out and start spreading news about Ballads of Suburbia? Click here to get the full details! Contest ends May 21, 2009 so hurry up and join! And tell me here if you did any the above!