ASPEN by Rebekah Crane- GIVEAWAY & INTERVIEW & REVIEW

Author: Rebekah Crane
Publisher: In This Together Media
Publishing Date: June 5th 2014
Blurb Description: One quiet night in Boulder, Colorado, Aspen Yellow-Sunrise Taylor made a mistake.

In the next instant, her life changed forever.

Aspen doesn't want to remember the devastating car accident that killed Katelyn Ryan, a sleek-haired popular soccer player. But forgetting is hard-- because Katelyn may have died -- but she didn't leave. Her ghost is following Aspen around, and heading into senior year, it's kind of a problem. Especially when Katelyn's gorgeous former boyfriend Ben appears to be the only person at school with a clue as to how Aspen feels. 

Popularity, college, Homecoming Court, hot guys - none of these things ever mattered to Aspen. She's been busy trying to rein in her giant mass of blonde curls, keep her stoner mother Ninny away from Toaster, her mom's awful bongo drumming boyfriend, and prevent her best friends Kim and Cass from killing - or kissing - one another. But with Ben sitting next to her in Physics looking all too gorgeous, Katelyn's spirit dogging her steps, and her obsessive snow-globe collecting therapist begging her to remember all the things she wants to forget, Aspen is thrust into a vivid, challenging world she can't control … and doesn't want to.

A darkly funny, emotionally gripping story of opening up, letting go, and moving on, ASPEN is about the best-worst accident of your life ... and what comes next

**GIVEAWAY**

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**INTERVIEW**

1. 5 things (pssst...) nobody knows about you:

Five things?! I’m not sure I’m that secretive. Ok… let me see…

1) I’ve been to a nude beach in France.

2) I forget to wear deodorant all the time (which isn’t really a secret when it’s happening).  

3) I sat next to Patricia Field (the costume designer for Sex and the City) at a dinner for a Broadway premier and had no idea who she was. I was like, “what’s up with the crazy dressed woman who everyone wants to talk to?”

4) I have terrible depth perception so I run into walls and doorframes all the time. 

5) My second daughter, Hazel, was named by the waitress at our favorite breakfast place in Chicago.

2. The cheesiest line you've ever heard/ read:

Actually, I’d say the cheesiest lines I’ve ever read were the ones I wrote! Matt Three-Last-Names in PLAYING NICE is pretty damn cheesy. When he sings Led Zeppelin to Marty… MAJOR CHEESE FACTOR.

3. The weirdest and sweetest thing that's ever happened to you: 

The weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me is that I’m a published author. I never thought that would happen!

The sweetest thing that’s ever happened to me is my husband, Kyle. 

4. This or that:

Good boys or bad boys: Good boys for sure

Dictionaries or Encyclopedias: Encyclopedias

Chinese or Italian: Italian

Drums or guitars: Guitars… they get me every time. 

And now, onto your masterpiece: 

5. How ever did you come up with Aspen- the name and the story?

I was talking to my husband on a car ride about the concept for the book and it just came to me. I live in Colorado and aspens are all around. They’re actually my favorite tree.

The story came about because I wanted to write a piece about a girl struggling with PTSD. I hadn’t seen much of it in YA and I thought it needed to be explored. The key was making it funny. The book had to have a comedic factor, which is not an easy thing to do when tackling a tough subject.

6. Your favorite Aspen dialogue:

THIS IS SO HARD! I love all the dialogue in the book. But if I had to choose, I would pick the second scene with Aspen and Ben in physics. I played with that scene over and over until the dialogue hit just right. When I wrote the scene and it ended with:

Ben cocks his head to the side. "Don't take this the wrong way, but this is the weirdest conversation I've ever had.”

I lean in and whisper, "Don't take this the wrong way, but you look weird in that shirt."  

I knew I had something special with the two of them. It was just so Aspen. And the Beta Particle scene. I love the Beta Particle scene!

7. If Aspen was turned into a movie, what would be your: 

--A. Dream cast 

Ok, don’t hate me for this, but I don’t have a dream cast (except for one person) and I’ll tell you why… because I haven’t seen any teen-aged actors who fit the characters. BUT in a dream world with a dream cast, I would beg, on my hands and knees, for Jennifer Lawrence to play Ninny. She’s so damn perfect for the part. She funny and inappropriate and would probably play an amazing stoner. I know it’s kind of weird to think of someone who plays a teenager in the Hunger Games playing the mom of a teenager in ASPEN, but Ninny is young. She had Aspen when she was 16, which puts her at 33 in the book. Jennifer Lawrence could totally do it.

--B. Theme song:

I have so many! I have a sweet/sad theme song and a pump up theme song and a Grateful Dead theme song. Can I list them all? Ok, I’m totally going to:

--Sweet/sad theme song: “Cold is the Night” by the Oh Hellos

--Pump up theme song: “Feel Again” by One Republic

--Grateful Dead theme song: “Scarlet Begonias”

8. What would your own, personalized Aspen Grove be filled with? What would the main characters have in theirs, other than Aspen, of course!?

My family has this thing with taking photos that look like album covers. That’s what would be in my aspen grove—all the album cover photos we’ve taken.

Kim’s aspen grove would be filled with magazine cut outs of all kinds of different looking people. She’d assign names to all of them.

Cass’s would be filled with artwork like Aspen’s but not sketches. He’s more of an abstract artist with lots of colors.

Ninny would never be organized enough to have an aspen grove. Aspen would end up making one for Ninny.

Ben would only have one thing in his aspen grove: a family picture.

9. Signing out, a message to your Ardent Readers:

Thank you from one end of the infinite universe to the other. Thank you for taking this journey of story telling with me. 

**MY REVIEW**

"Sometimes, what we feel can't be described because it would take every word, every sound, every emotion ever created to do it."
And That is how I felt, well feel, about Aspen. Stunned, and held captive from the first word till the very last. When it was over, I had to pull my head up from the pages and the world I found myself so completely immersed in, and wonder for a bit  as to  where I was, because that is how addicting it got!

Have you heard about Aspen groves? Well, let me tell you a bit about them. Each Aspen tree connects to the rest, forming a large, interlinking system, completely entwined with one another, so like our lives with others. So like Aspen's and all the people around her. And this is her story.

So here, I'm going to do is give you a list of reasons as to why Aspen has my five starred review:

1. Aspen Yellow Sunrise Taylor:

Yes, that is our protagonists (full) name. Weird, the first time you read it, and then it becomes a string of words you keep saying together in your head until you end up wishing it was yours. But, that's not all she is. Aspen is, well, Aspen. She's a survivor, experiencing an extreme case of PTSD with an Affinity to tie dyes, who sketches brilliantly, and is addicted to her worn out dictionary. She is fun, strange, sarcastic, different and most importantly, different. You. Will. Love. Her.

2. Un-clichéd, strong characters (Finally!!):

Aspen has a bunch of characters that will leave you thinking, silently smiling and wondering which one you are most like! Her best friends, Kim with her name changing complex and Cass with his green hair, the entire high school, that for once, doesn't shun aspen for surviving the accident without Katelyn, but the one that took me totally by shock was Aspens mother- even though she did drugs she had a high on life manner but not high on drugs, which it Totally new and fresh in the book world!

3. Amazing, definite to make you smile prose:

 4. An Amazing, Simple, Mesmerizing Cover:

     I don't have much more to say, except looking at the cover, you will see that it's pretty much everything I've described in the line above!

MY VERDICT: 

You Simply CANNOT miss this!!