#16 Things Things I thought Were True- INTERVIEW!

Welcome Janet Gurtler on to A Thousand Words A Million Books, for a post blog tour interview on her latest book, #16Things I Thought Were True! We're SO pleased to have you here, Janet. Now, without further ado, Here is her interview:

**Interview**

1. I believe that road trips, at any point in one’s life, is just something essential to experience- Could you tell us a little about your latest book, 16 Things I Thought Were True, for all those out there that haven’t yet had the pleasure?

Sure! Here is a tidy little summary! A Twitter-obsessed teen takes a road-trip and finds real friends who help her understand what is and is not true about family, friendship and love.  

2. Could you sum up your three main protagonists- Morgan, Adam and Amy- in a couple of words each? Which one of them was your personal favourite to imagine and which one can you relate to the most?

Morgan- scared, lonely, searching

Adam- focused, driven, empathetic

Amy- kooky, honest, unfiltered, kind

I loved all the characters, but Amy really stole my heart. I most relate to Morgan I think.  When I was a teen I was kind of searching for who I was and didn’t always know who my real friends were.

3. Was writing 16 things any different from writing your other books? How so?

Every book really is different to write. Some flow out really easily. This one was fairly easy to write. I could relate to Morgan and what she was going through and I knew what her journey was. I kind of struggled for a while about where the book was going to end up, but about half way through I had an epiphany and for me it really pulled the story together and made it make sense.

4. If you had to pick, what would be the best scene in 16 things- one that you would just love to live in?

I loved the scene on the ferry when Amy and a little boy are whale watching.  I have watched whales and I think it’s one of the most beautiful and peaceful things in the world. I’d love to go and do that again.

5. Tell us a little about what inspired you to write 16 things, your writing schedule (some time of day, or just how and where you go about it) and what made you start writing itself!?

16 Things kind of came to me as a What If. There’s so much social media now which is completely different from the world I grew up in. Teens especially have to learn how to deal with all of it. Figure out who they really are versus who they are in their online presence. So I thought, what if a girl was on a video that went viral online. How would she handle that? I wanted to show the irony that she hid out online, which was the place where she was overexposed.

My writing schedule is that I write during the day, when my son is at school and poolside while he is swimming. (he swims every day except Sunday as a competitive swimmer)

Writing is something I’ve always loved to do.  I wrote my first book when my son was a baby, and after that one, I kept going.

6.What and who were your favourite books and authors back in the day? What are you currently reading?

I loved Judy Blume. My day was a while ago ha ha. As a teen I also loved books like Go Ask Alice and books by S. E. Hinton.  Funny enough, my son is reading the Outsiders for school, and that is what I am reading now. It’s really interesting to me how popular that book remains and the way it is written. It’s brilliant, but different in many ways from today’s YA.

7.Any tales brewing in the back of your head we should look forward to?

I have a book coming out in 2015 called The Truth About Us.  When Jess is forced to work at a soup 

kitchen for the summer, she discover that sometimes the person who shouldn’t fit in your world is the one who makes you feel like you belong.  I also have a mermaid MG series coming out in 2015 that I’m currently writing. It’s so different from my realistic YA stories, but a lot of fun to write!

8.A small message to all of your fans and wannabe writers, please?

I have a really hard time using the word fans. Fans are for people like Jennifer Lawrence or Christina Aguilera.

I love that I have readers, and that’s what I call people who like my books. Readers for the win!!!

My message for wannabe writers and readers is this…always be who you are.  Be true to yourself. Amy is a great example to me of a person who okay with who she is, even if she doesn’t “fit the mold.” Same thing for writers. Figure out what you love to write.  And write that.  Read a lot. Write a lot.  And be true to yourself!

**My Review**

An Apple a day keeps the doctor away# things I thought were true.

Meet Morgan McLean, the 18 year old girl with a perfectly normal life- well except with a father who abandoned her before she was even born (who her mother refuses to talk about), a best friend who posted a video of her dancing in her underwear on the internet, that went viral, an almost 5000 followers on twitter for her posts on #things I thought were true, and a mother who just wound up in the hospital, for a heart condition!

And for her, life just couldn’t get any more humiliating. Until, her mother gives her the contact details of her father, Bob White, a last- minute- something when she thinks she is going to die from the surgery; a little piece of information that Morgan has waited all her life for!

Road trips are cliché# things I thought were true.

Now, Morgan just has to go meet the man who left her all those years ago, despite how he might hurt her even now. There is just one problem- he lives all the way in Canada. So, with her Nerdy (but cute) boss from the amusement park she works in, Adam, and the world’s biggest chatterbox, tell it like it is girl, Amy, she sets of on a journey that changes that course of her life as she knows it!

But, should some secrets stay buried# things I thought were true.

I really liked 16 Things I Thought Were True! It was a quick read on friendship, love, family, secrets, life and choices! I thought it would be a bit typical, but it was not. This is one of the few books I’ve read that shines some light to the advantages of social networking. It had a lot of elements, that I felt could have been explained a little better; some of the emotional scenes given more importance too but a good book all in all!- READ it!