Interview with Jessica Cunsolo for She's With Me

She's With Me (She's With Me #1)

by Ava Violet
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Release Date: January 7th, 2020

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Synopsis:

When Amelia Collins moves to a new town to escape her dark past, she just wants to keep her head down and finish her senior year.

Her plans change drastically when she runs- literally- into the school's hottest badass and number one person on the 'don't mess with' list, Aiden Parker.

Amelia needs to find a way to survive senior year while she tries not to fall for the annoyingly handsome Aiden, or his mischievous, cocky player of a best friend, Mason.

With new friends, fun pranks, bitchy queen bees, old rivalries, and a haunting past, Amelia's senior year is destined to be filled with some drama.

Can you briefly describe SHE’S WITH ME and its characters?

She’s With Me is a young adult novel full of romance, suspense, drama, and excitement. It follows Amelia, the fierce female lead, and her experience as the new girl in school. She just wants to keep a low profile, but that plan is ruined on the first day when she crashes into the school’s most notorious senior, Aiden Parker. She’s drawn into a new group of friends as well as all the drama that comes with being on Aiden’s radar, all the while trying to keep her secrets from being revealed, or risk losing it all.

Who would you say is your favourite character from the story and why?

I love all of my characters, even the villains, but I think my favourite character is Noah. He’s the goofy, lovable character who often serves as the comedic relief. Since there’s so many tense moments throughout the story, he plays such an important role. Plus he makes me laugh and is so fun to write!

How did the story occur to you? Did you find inspiration anywhere?

When I started writing I really didn’t have a clear direction. I only had a vague idea of what the major conflict would be and a general sense of how I wanted to portray my main character, Amelia. The only thing I knew for sure, was that I wanted to write a dynamic story that could pull readers out of their everyday lives into a wild and drama filled high school fantasy. As I wrote and my characters began to come to life and their personalities became more layered with dimension, I realized that I was writing a character who inspired me. I was creating Amelia to be more like the girl I wish I was in high school; a girl who was confident and strong and refuses to let people walk all over her, even when the stakes are extremely high. 

There are aspects of the She’s With Me plot that have been pulled from my personal life and the lives of my friends, but it’s definitely more elevated than the real life events. I really wanted to envision a crazy world where these dramatic events and scenarios existed through the eyes of someone as determined, confident and tenacious as Amelia. 

If you could choose one song to describe your book, which one would it be?

This is a hard question, but I think one of my all-time favourite songs can work to describe “She’s With Me”, which is “Sippin’ on Fire” by Florida Georgia Line. Obviously it doesn’t fit perfectly, but if you bend the meaning a bit I think it’s great.

“Why should we go round and round the truth, Like we been doin'? Every time we lie girl we're losing…” 

This describes how Amelia is trying to hide not only her own secrets from everyone, but she’s also trying to convince herself not to fall for Aiden because of those secrets, which ends up hurting her in the long run.

“You act like you don't know what you're missing, Every time you end up back with him, 'Cause it's safe, and you're scared. Of everything you're feeling when, we’re burning the midnight down again,” 

This line relates to how Amelia can sometimes deny how she feels and retreats to what she knows is safe, which is keeping to herself, but of course there’s always this push and pull because she can’t seem to stay away from Aiden. 

If your book was going to be made into a movie, who would play your characters?

It’s hard to pick an actor for Aiden, since I’ve always just pictured him as an imaginary being in my head. But when I started writing “She’s With Me”, I always imagined Holland Roden as Amelia, and more recently Maddison Brown, who I feel would play a great Amelia.

What drink and place do you think will go with your book to have a perfect book date?

I think any cozy, quiet place where you can binge this book undisturbed is an ideal spot, maybe with either a warm tea or a light, yummy milkshake. 

Can you recommend your readers any other books in case they are left hungry for more once they finish SHE’S WITH ME?

One of my all-time favourite books is Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick. I think readers craving more She’s With Me would love this book since they both have high levels of romance, suspense, and excitement.

What would you say is the most difficult part of writing a book?

The hardest part of writing a book for me is just finishing it. I’m a terrible planner. I find the process of outlining and planning difficult because most of the time my ideas come to me in the moment and I don’t always have a clear idea of how it will all be wrapped up in the end. So for me, sitting down and figuring out where the characters and the plot will end up is the hardest part, but once I have that down and push past writers block, it all works out. 

What’s next for you?

I’m going to continue working on stories I love and creating memorable characters and storylines… and hopefully some exciting announcements in the new year!

Jessica is an indecisive university student from a small town near Toronto, Canada. She published her first young adult novel She’s With Me, on Wattpad under the name “AvaViolet” when she was 17 years old. In just over 2 years, her story has amassed over 61 million reads and has reached the number one spot in teen fiction more times than she can count. Her story She’s With Me won the 2016 Wattys “Talk of the Town” award, as well as The 2016 Fiction Awards “Best Teen Fiction.” She also won The 2016 Writer Awards for Novelist of the Year and Wattpad Writer of the Year.

Jessica enjoys hiking, the outdoors, and trying to sneak her way out of inevitable awkward situations. She can often be found daydreaming about scenarios which have a 5% chance of actually happening to her. But she doesn’t mind, since she can transform them into awesome stories which she can vicariously live through.

Change Places With Me Blog Tour: Working in a Vet's Office

Change Places with Me
by Lois Metzger
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Release Date: June 14th 2016

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy

Synopsis:

Rose has changed. She still lives in the same neighborhood with her stepmother and goes to the same high school with the same group of kids, but when she woke up today, something was just a little different than it was before. The dogs who live upstairs are no longer a terror. Her hair and her clothes all feel brand-new. She wants to throw a party—this from a girl who hardly ever spoke to her classmates before. There is no more sadness in her life; she is bursting with happiness.

But something still feels wrong to Rose. Because, until very recently, Rose was an entirely different person—a person who is still there inside her, just beneath the thinnest layer of skin.

by Lois Metzger

When I thought about giving the main character in my book an after-school job, working in a veterinarian’s office was kind of a no-brainer. When the book begins, Rose is in the process of making sweeping changes in her life, one after another. She used to be deathly afraid of dogs. Now, suddenly, she isn’t. She doesn’t question why; she’s only happy that it’s no longer the case. And what better way to prove it, to herself and to everybody else, than by working alongside dogs?

Conveniently, I myself used to work in a vet’s office. It was only a few hours a week and I didn’t get paid, but my cats got free food and medical care. Not to mention how fascinating it was to come across a never-ending variety of dogs and cats—and owners.

I remember Emma, an adorable English bull terrier who ate a ball the size of a grapefruit. The ball was surgically removed. While recuperating, Emma somehow got into the garbage, found the ball, and tried to eat it again. Luckily she was stopped.

Also there was a Chihuahua who was so high-strung his eye tended to pop out, and the vet had to pop it back in again. It wasn’t dangerous for the dog but it was as bizarre as it sounds.

I met a cocker spaniel who, according to her owner, only ate “chicken, broiled, no skin.” The owner made a point of saying she always carried some in her purse. I couldn’t help thinking about how if that purse ever got stolen, the thief’s haul would be chicken, broiled, no skin. I gave this experience—and this thought—to Rose in Change Places with Me.

Rose also learns things I found out behind the scenes—for instance, if there’s a red star on your pet’s record, that means danger, be careful, watch out; this dog might be a biter; this cat could scratch. Full disclosure: my cat, Mischief, has two red stars on her card. She is the sweetest animal at home but a terror at the vet’s. When Mischief was younger, the vet would wrap her in towels to try to restrain her, but Mischief would tear through them like they were Kleenex. BTW, Mischief isn’t even exactly my cat. A friend of a friend asked me to watch her cat for several months while she was in Paris. I took in the cat—and the owner never returned. That was eighteen years ago—and I hope the owner never reads this, because I have no intention of giving Mischief back.

When I worked at the vet’s, there was a Doberman pinscher named Rouge who lived in the office and gave blood when animals needed transfusions. She was very beautiful and very affectionate. Occasionally I was asked to take Rouge for walks, and discovered something extraordinary. When you walk city streets with an enormous dog, people keep their distance, even big tough guys. I’m kind of short, about 5’3”, and usually I’m the one getting out of everybody else’s way. Not so whenever I was with Rouge—and this is something Rose gets to see first-hand in the book when she walks Rouge (same name, same breed). The world makes way for you.

Follow the Change Places With Me by Lois Metzger Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

Lois Metzger was born in Queens and has always written for young adults. She is the author of five novels and two nonfiction books about the Holocaust, and she has edited five anthologies. Her short stories have appeared in collections all over the world. Her writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and The Huffington Post. She lives in New York City with her husband and son.

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FFBC: Welcome to the club, Change Places with Me by Lois Metzger

Change Places with Me
by Lois Metzger
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Release Date: June 14th 2016

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy

Synopsis:

Rose has changed. She still lives in the same neighborhood with her stepmother and goes to the same high school with the same group of kids, but when she woke up today, something was just a little different than it was before. The dogs who live upstairs are no longer a terror. Her hair and her clothes all feel brand-new. She wants to throw a party—this from a girl who hardly ever spoke to her classmates before. There is no more sadness in her life; she is bursting with happiness.

But something still feels wrong to Rose. Because, until very recently, Rose was an entirely different person—a person who is still there inside her, just beneath the thinnest layer of skin.

Favorite Book?

William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. The book is told from four different points of view, and my favorite part is the third section, narrated by Jason Compson, who might be the angriest, snarkiest, most bitter person in literature. He starts off on a rant and it only builds from there. You really get inside his head and even though you can’t stand him (he is NOT likeable), it’s actually a lot of fun.

Favorite TV show?

Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Everything about it is simply perfect—the acting (the main characters, of course, but also the minor ones), the writing (especially scripts by Steven Moffat and/or Mark Gatiss), the “look” of it, the imagination behind it. Actually, when I first heard about the show, I thought I’d hate it. A modern re-telling of Sherlock Holmes, with Sherlock texting and Watson blogging? It sounded just plain wrong. Then I saw it, and fell in love.

Favorite movie?

It’s an old romantic comedy from 1941 called The Lady Eve, written and directed by Preston Sturges and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. Barbara Stanwyck is a con artist out to take wealthy Henry Fonda for everything he’s got, until she falls for him and wants to marry him instead. But he finds out who she really is, dumps her, and she takes her revenge… though in this case revenge is not so sweet. The script is witty and playful and hilariously funny, though there’s some genuine heartache at its center, and it’s ultimately very moving, because it touches on something deep—how we view the people we love, what we want to see, what we don’t.

Favorite song?

My favorite song is called “Isn’t It Romantic?” and the music is by Richard Rodgers and the lyrics by Lorenz Hart. The song made its first appearance in a 1932 movie called Love Me Tonight, and beautifully demonstrates what will happen in the film. First, a poor tailor sings the beginning of the song in his shop; his customer likes the tune and exits the shop, singing it—“Isn’t it romantic—a very catchy strain! Isn’t it romantic, oh, I forgot my cane!” A taxi driver overhears him singing, and sings it to his next passenger—“Isn’t it romantic, to drive around the town?” to which his passenger, a composer, replies, “Isn’t it romantic, I think I’ll take that down.” The composer then gets on a train with soldiers, who overhear him writing lyrics to the melody. When the soldiers exit the train, they sing it while marching in the countryside—it sounds like a cry to battle but it’s all about love, not war. A violinist overhears the soldiers, and plays the melody for his family of gypsies. In the distance, there’s a castle, and the music drifts and reaches a princess in that castle; she sings the final lines that include “Isn’t it romantic, music in the night, a dream that can be heard.” Eventually, the tailor and the princess fall in love, linked by the song before they even meet. On YouTube you can see the movie clip, and it’s lovely.

Favorite Food?

Coffee ice cream. Honorable mention: Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food Frozen Yogurt.

Name 3 fictional places you would move to in a heartbeat.

I would move to any other planet with a nice space station, preferably Mars, Venus or Saturn.

Who is your perfect fictional boyfriend?

I always had a crush on Ralph in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. I know that’s kind of weird (or very weird). I admired Ralph for keeping his humanity while all the other boys were losing theirs. (Maybe it didn’t hurt that Ralph in the 1963 movie version was very cute.)

Favorite Quote?

This comes from another romantic comedy by Preston Sturges, called Unfaithfully Yours. A man strongly suspects his wife is having an affair; when he finds out she isn’t, and that she has never wavered in her love for him, he gazes soulfully into her eyes and says, “A thousand poets dreamed a thousand years, and you were born, my love.” 

What do you find yourself “Fangirling” over?

Sherlock. I’ve introduced the show to several friends and I just love seeing their reactions to it. When I really like something, I tend to go back to it over and over, reading the same books, watching the same movies and TV shows (I must’ve seen the Doctor Who episode “Blink” a dozen times). I don’t really understand the “one and done” types.

If you could meet one author, dead or alive, who would it be?

Henry James, who wrote the short novel Washington Square. I’d like to talk to him about how he created three amazing, multi-layered characters (a wealthy, overbearing doctor, his shy, awkward daughter, and the daughter’s fortune-hunter boyfriend), when in fact none of them is very admirable and, in the case of the father and the boyfriend, not sympathetic in the least. I live near Washington Square in New York City and often pass by the real house where in a fictional universe it all took place. 

Something to say to our Book Addicts?

As Book Addicts, you know full well—there’s nothing better than stories, and by reading lots of books and talking about books, you help spread stories around. Thank you for that.

Could you tell our Book Addicts a little bit about Change Places with Me?

I set out to write a fun book about things that aren’t fun—grief, loneliness, heartache, loss—a fast, twisty read that keeps you a little unsettled until you finally know what’s really going on.

What can you tell us about Rose?

Rose is happy, bursting with happiness, so happy she doesn’t want to think about it or wonder why this happiness seemed to come upon her suddenly. Questioning it, understanding it, is the last thing on her mind. She just wants to cling to it.

How did you come up with the story? Did you find inspiration in any other story/movie/show and how has this affected your writing?

I find inspiration nearly everywhere, from books, movies, TV shows, articles, nonfiction—and dreams. I had a nightmare about a burning building; that was one spark that lit the fire of this book. There’s a Philip K. Dick novel called Time Out of Joint that starts in the middle and works its way back to the beginning, and I admired that structure. I read an article about memory manipulation in New Scientist, a magazine, about researchers experimenting with erasing or softening traumatic memories. The book Rebecca and also its movie version have a nameless narrator—that stuck with me and found its way into Change Places with Me.

Tell us your favorite quote from Change Places with Me.

A teacher tells Rose that she’s full of herself, and Rose tells him, “Not true! I’m modest!” and he tells her, “Don’t sound so proud of it.” I just think it’s funny, that she’s bragging about how modest she is—kind of defeats the purpose.

Is there a specific scene that you had the most fun to write?

I like the scene that takes place in a vet’s office, where Rose has an after-school job. A woman comes in with her cocker spaniel, Candy, and demands to be seen right away: “Candy hates to wait.” The woman is kind of nosy about things that are not her business, and she tells a pretty awful story about two dogs that hated each other. Rose has to think fast on her feet and figure out how to handle this woman politely while the woman is being so irritating.

If you had to pick one song to be the Theme Song for Change Places with Me – Which one would you pick? 

David Bowie’s 1971 classic, “Changes.” In the beginning of the book, Rose wants to make sweeping changes in her life. As she sits in a salon having her hair cut and dyed, she hears the catchy, hypnotic song for the first time—“Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes… Strange fascination, fascinating me… pretty soon now you’re gonna get older.” She downloads the song right away and can’t get enough of it.

Imagine that we get to see your book on the big screen (how awesome would that be?). Who would you pick to play your characters?

I need a time machine for this one, since a younger Carey Mulligan would be fantastic as Rose—she has a wide-open face with a lot of expression. Her eyes, especially, can have that faraway look even in close-up, and she can look sad even when smiling hugely. There’s a lot of complicated stuff going on in Rose and Carey Mulligan has the range for it.

WMagazine

Are there any recommendations you could give your readers to be in the “perfect mood” to read Change Places with Me (specific music, snacks…)? 

To set the scene, so to speak, I might listen to music that’s a little eerie, that gives you the feeling that something is off. The trailer for Change Places with Me has a soundtrack, Kevin MacLeod’s “Myst on the Moor,” and it really captures the mood of the book.

What’s next for you? 

I’m working on a novel about a girl who lives with her mother and, to help pay the rent, a man moves into the spare room in their apartment. The man begins to have way too much influence over the people in the girl’s life, and she starts to lose everything she loves. It’s called The Spare Room. At least, that’s the title for now.

Thank you so much for everything, Lois!

Thank you. Great questions!

Follow the Change Places With Me by Lois Metzger Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

Lois Metzger was born in Queens and has always written for young adults. She is the author of five novels and two nonfiction books about the Holocaust, and she has edited five anthologies. Her short stories have appeared in collections all over the world. Her writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and The Huffington Post. She lives in New York City with her husband and son.

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