YA New York

Happy release day! Lauren Mechling’s new book, Dream Girl, is out today, and so we continue with part deux of the Lauren extravaganza.

Before I post part two of my interview with Lauren, though, I have to tell you all about her wonderful book.

Our heroine, Claire Voyante (Get it? Claire? Voyante?), has been having weird visions for a good long time. But just after she turns fifteen, her fabulous grandmother gives her a cameo necklace that changes everything. She starts to have strange dreams in black and white, and she’s not quite sure what to do with them. Meanwhile, she’s started attending a dreary but renowned NYC public school, and she’s having trouble making friends until she meets heiress Becca Shuttleworth and gets embroiled in the Shuttleworth family secrets.

Dream Girl is like Nancy Drew — with which I was obsessed for a good three years, until I turned ten and was told by my school librarian that Nancy Drew was not good reading for a girl my age (!?!) — but better. Lauren, who co-wrote The Rise and Fall of a 10th Grade Social Climber and two other Social Climber books, really shows her chops here. She’s witty, sarcastic in a good way, and her teen heroine couldn’t be more lovable. Besides which, YA has for some reason been suffering from a dearth of mystery books lately, so it’s great that Lauren has come along to fill that void.

Lauren expressed some concerns in part one of our interview about whether readers would be turned off by the lack of “sexytime antics.” Au contraire! There may not be any actual full-frontal, rated R, S-E-X, but there is plenty of sexual tension. And I for one am very, very psyched to see what happens in Claire’s love life in future books.

I’m a hundred percent serious when I say I’ve been waiting for months to review this book and give it all the gold stars I have. (Twenty-seven, to be precise.) Dream Girl is not to be missed. I read the book again for the third time last night, and it’s every bit as good as I remembered it.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled interview.

Question Eleven

Me: You’ve probably noticed that journalists are dropping like flies, and that even before the great journalism deluge, those of us who called ourselves reporters and editors were, you know, starving. From what I’ve learned over the last few months, it turns out most authors are also starving. So … what in the world possessed you to be a writer?
Lauren: Hmm . . . good, tough question. I don’t really have a eureka moment story — it’s not like I wanted to be a rare dog breeder and then one day I read The Fountainhead and knew my true calling. It’s more like I’ve always been writing in some form or other and I never discovered I was good enough at anything else to abandon the one thing I love. Writing is tough, true, and it’s not a path that leads to piles of Christian Louboutin shoes, but I never tire of it.

Question Twelve

Lauren: Do you REALLY read a whole book every day? I once heard you say something along those lines.
Me: Yes, usually. Sometimes, when I’m super-busy or really sick, I only read about five books a week. But seven is my norm. Yes, it’s freaky. But just think of all the moments you could be reading: In the bath, while brushing your teeth, while eating, on the subway, etc. As a side effect, I hardly ever watch television any more (though when 30 Rock starts back up, I’ll definitely be doing my best to keep up with that). Oh. And some books, the really really long ones, might take me two days.

Question Thirteen

Me: Who are some of your current favorite teen writers? Got any recommendations for us?
Lauren: Do I ever. I think the Kiki Strike books [by Kirsten Miller] are tremendous. I am obsessed with the Susan Juby oeuvre (her upcoming detective book Getting the Girl is soooo good) and I am also coming down from a Norma Klein kick. Norma Klein, whose books are out of print, was this YA writer who chronicled the lives of kids of mostly divorced, culturally enlightened, sexually liberated parents living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I love her world — I picture everyone wearing those horrible brown and orange tones that were popular in the late 70s and fooling around in a dark corner of the Museum of Natural History. Her fictional world is the kind of place I imagine Anastasia Krupnik and Harriet the Spy and Sport went when they turned into teenagers.

Question Fourteen

Lauren: Here’s a dinner party game I’m hopeless at: Can you come up with your six word bio?
Me: I have a feeling I’d be hopeless at this dinner party game, too. Let’s see. “I’m a starving but hopeful writer.” How does that work?

Question Fifteen

Me: What’s next for you, novel-wise? Will we get more Claire Voyante after Dream Girl, and is there a plan yet for how many books long the series will be?
Lauren: Dear starving but hopeful, I like the answer you came up with. May you be stuffed-to-the-gills and jaded when we next play Twenty Questions!

As for your question, there’s another Claire Voyante book in the pipeline. It’s called Dream Life and it’s to do with a fabulous secret society (objects in mirror are less socialite-y than they appear), a not-so-fabulous secret society (where they have a fake library with painted-on books), an unwanted houseguest, and a cute boy who’s better connected than Ivanka Trump. I’m working on revisions as we e-speak.

Question Sixteen

Lauren: What’s the embarrassing thing you regularly eat by your lonesome? It has to be something that no sane human would ever serve in a restaurant.
Me: Oh my God. You’re really trying to torture me, aren’t you, asking questions like these? Okay, here’s the thing I eat when I’m sick: Peanut butter rice soup. Basically, you take leftover rice (the kind used in making sushi, which is short-grained and what Koreans eat on a daily basis) and you cover it with water and let it boil. Add two tablespoons of peanut butter, and simmer until you get a weird brown porridge. It’s like chicken soup for the crazy half-Korean girl.

Question Seventeen

Me: Fine, Ms. Lauren. What embarrassing food do YOU eat on your lonesome?
Lauren: Oh, I was hoping you’d ask! I like instant couscous, boiling hot water, worsterschire sauce, a pat of butter, and a sprinkle of salt.

Question Eighteen

Lauren: Who designed the skyline on YA New York? My mom thinks it’s very elegant and I totally agree.
Me: First of all, that’s totally gross. But only because I think couscous is gross, which is mostly because I grew up on weird foods of the 1950s, transplanted to the 1980s. But to answer your question, the illustration was done by my boyfriend, Adam Parrish, who is a media artist. (For hire!) But it was based on a photograph taken by someone called AngMoKio, posted to Wikimedia Commons. You can find all this info on my about page.

Question Nineteen

Me: What’s your favorite part of writing novels for teens?
Lauren: I’m tempted to say something all cozy and heartwarming, about how being a teen is tough business and I’m prepared to so anything I can to help make the ride less bumpy. But that wouldn’t be the entire truth, and besides we are now 5,000 words into this interview, meaning the only person reading this is my aforementioned mother (hi, mom!). The selfish reason I like writing for teenagers is similar to why my friend K likes to hang out on nudist beaches in remote parts of Mexico: because anything goes, nobody’s really judging you, and it’s a whole lot more fun than trying not to offend anyone in the so-called Real World.

Oh, now I’m sad that I’ve answered my last question. This saying goodbye stuff is never much fun. Okay, my final inquiry for you is:

Question Twenty

Lauren: I know you’ve written teen fiction. Have you ever been to a nudist beach and if so, what was more liberating?
Me: Alas. I’ve never been to a nudist beach, and I don’t think I’d find it liberating if I did go. More like terrifying. I dunno, I’ve never been one to let it all hang loose, at least not so far as flesh is concerned. But I do find writing for teens to be very liberating.

On that note, my friends, that wraps up our two-day, two-part Lauren Mechling extravaganza. But hopefully it won’t be too long before we hear more from the fabulous Ms. Lauren.

Now, get your butts out to your local bookstore and buy yourself a copy of Dream Girl!

Or, buy Dream Girl from Amazon.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under Interviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.