Regan Flay has been talking about you.
Regan Flay is on the cusp of achieving her control-freak mother's "plan" for high school success―cheerleading, student council, the Honor Society—until her life gets turned horribly, horribly upside down. Every bitchy text. Every bitchy email. Every lie, manipulation, and insult she's ever said have been printed out and taped to all the lockers in school.
Now Regan has gone from popular princess to total pariah.
The only person who even speaks to her is her former best friend's hot but socially miscreant brother, Nolan Letner. Nolan thinks he knows what Regan's going through, but whatnobody knows is that Regan isn't really Little Miss Perfect. In fact, she's barely holding it together under her mom's pressure. But the consequences of Regan's fall from grace are only just beginning. Once the chain reaction starts, no one will remain untouched...
Especially Regan Flay.
1) In the book, Regan’s—the main character’s—mother is a United States Senator. In real life my uncle is a United States Congressman. I grew up attending political functions, press releases, and campaign events. While my Uncle is nothing like Regan’s mom, I was able to use my own personal experience with politics to develop her character.
2) Regan suffers from anxiety and debilitating panic attacks. So do I. Each panic attack Regan suffers is a detailed description of my own, which is why writing those scenes was so difficult for me.
3) My biological dad took off when I was a toddler. My stepdad was verbally and emotionally abusive. Because of this I had a hard time writing “good” dads because I had no idea how they behaved. It wasn’t until I got married and had a child of my own that I was able to see my husband interact with our daughter, showing me for the first time in my life what a “good” dad looks like. Life Unaware was my first attempt at writing a “good” dad.
4) In the book Regan has an ex-racehorse. That horse is a tribute to my own ex-racehorse Dancer O’ Day that I owned for several years until my stepdad got rid of him while I was at work. I came home just in time to see the horse trailer pulling away. One of my life goals is to find out where he went and if his last years were happy.
5) I drew on my own experiences with bullying when I wrote Life Unaware. When I was a freshman, my family moved and I had to start a new school mid semester. Some cheerleader got mad because she thought her boyfriend was flirting with me. I can’t remember, but I think he’d only asked me for a pencil. Still, that was all it took to start nearly two years of torture.
2) Regan suffers from anxiety and debilitating panic attacks. So do I. Each panic attack Regan suffers is a detailed description of my own, which is why writing those scenes was so difficult for me.
3) My biological dad took off when I was a toddler. My stepdad was verbally and emotionally abusive. Because of this I had a hard time writing “good” dads because I had no idea how they behaved. It wasn’t until I got married and had a child of my own that I was able to see my husband interact with our daughter, showing me for the first time in my life what a “good” dad looks like. Life Unaware was my first attempt at writing a “good” dad.
4) In the book Regan has an ex-racehorse. That horse is a tribute to my own ex-racehorse Dancer O’ Day that I owned for several years until my stepdad got rid of him while I was at work. I came home just in time to see the horse trailer pulling away. One of my life goals is to find out where he went and if his last years were happy.
5) I drew on my own experiences with bullying when I wrote Life Unaware. When I was a freshman, my family moved and I had to start a new school mid semester. Some cheerleader got mad because she thought her boyfriend was flirting with me. I can’t remember, but I think he’d only asked me for a pencil. Still, that was all it took to start nearly two years of torture.
Follow the Life Unaware blog tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner below.
Cole Gibsen first realized she different when, in high school, she was still reading comic books while the other girls were reading fashion magazines.
It was her love of superheroes that first inspired her to pick up a pen. Her favorite things to write about are ordinary girls who find themselves in extraordinary situations.
