How Becca Discovered A New Fave Author...

By Becca... 

Today, I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me this weekend. On Sunday, my mom and I finally decided it was time to do some book purging. When I say 'finally', I mean...We've already had this box of books prepared for a year. We just haven't taken them to Half Price Books yet. Hey, it's hard to give away your kids! Even if it's for money! And other kids.

This is not going in the direction I was planning it to. Feds, if you're reading this, the kids I'm referring to are my books. I swear. It's torture to sell them!

So we went to the book briber (because they bribe you to sell your old books so you can get new old books) and got a whole whopping $16.50 for two full boxes of books, which was kind of a bummer. But alas, it was Mommy/Daughter Bookish Day, and we still had aisles and aisles of used books to peruse and buy at our peril! Or you know, for our reading obsession. Peril just sounds cooler.

All was well. We had already chosen a few new books to add to our collection, and I was super stoked at the good deals we were going to get on books that were practically like brand new......until we came upon this little bugger!

Honestly, looking back I'm not sure why I even grabbed it to look at because the title/cover just don't sound like something I would read. It looks like a B Movie Cover for a Lifetime movie or something. Not that there's anything wrong with that! They just aren't usually my thing. Anyways, I read the synopsis and a few words instantly grabbed my attention. Enough for me to impulse buy it.

Five months ago, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Val was as shocked as everyone else-- but, despite her own serious injury, she's implicated in the crime because of that list. The list she and Nick made of people they hated. The list Nick used to pick off his targets.

That was all I read before putting it in our pile, and moving along to the next shelf. For fun, here's the second paragraph:

Now, after a summer of seclusion, Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year. Haunted by the memory of the boyfriend she loves and navigating rocky relationships with her family, her former friends, and the girl whose life she saved, Val must come to grips with the tragedy that took place, and her role in it, in order to make amends and move on with her life.

Mom and I rang up our purchases and spent about double the money that we sold our books for, and then decided that we should also hit up the local Barnes & Noble since it's literally just a couple of store fronts down the street. I didn't realize it at the time but I had actually picked up another Jennifer Brown book while we were at B&N, Torn Away. I never read who the author was. I just saw that it was about tornadoes, and that instantly grabbed my attention. Because I live in tornado alley. I can relate.

I realized I'd bought two books from the same author when we returned home, and I was adding our new purchases to my never ending goodreads shelves. Hmm. Totally weird. But hopefully she's a good author, I remember thinking. Luckily for me, her goodreads reviews for both books (and pretty much all of her others, for that matter) were 4 stars or more, which definitely piqued my interest, oh, about a billion times more. And the fact that these books have completely flown under my radar since at least 2009 (when Hate List was published).

Immediately after finishing Revenge and the Wild, which was (to put it nicely) a complicated read, I decided to reward myself and indulge in a book that we bought over the weekend. With recent loves such as Violent Ends and This is Where it Ends, I knew exactly which book to pick. I picked Hate List by Jennifer Brown. Little did I know, going into this book, that I was going to come out on the other side with googly eyes for this author's writing.

This is me reading Hate List right now. Not even kidding.

I'm trying as hard as possible to read this book as slowly as I can manage. It has been extremely difficult, and I don't think that I'll be able to hold off much longer since I have barely over 100 pages left. AND IT'S SO SO SO SO GOOD, GUYS. LIKE I CAN'T EVEN WITH MY EMOTIONS. THEY ARE ALL OVER THE DANG PLACE. IT'S LIKE AN EMOTIONAL TORNADO UP IN BECCA'S BRAIN!!

GIMME ALL THE COFFEE!!!!!! I NEED TO READ READ READ!

Regardless, it's pretty unusual for me to boast about a book or author this much before I finish reading their book. Jennifer Brown just gets it. She gets humans, and most importantly, their feelings and emotions. She doesn't hold back on her characters either. She puts them through hell in such a beautiful way. It's like...

Does this make sense? No? Oh well.

I feel so deeply about Val, the main character of Hate List. Like I want to hate her, but I also have so much compassion and sympathy for the poor girl and I want her to prevail! It's not very often that unlikable characters make me like them, and that proves, to me at least, that Jennifer Brown knows exactly what she's doing. She has a real gift at writing. She's so talented, in fact, that since Sunday..... I've also bought two more of her books, Thousand Words and Shade Me (her most recent). I'm probably going to be asking for her others for my birthday next week, because they are like Pokemon to me now. Gotta catch em all! I'm not funny. I know.

Whoops. Don't care. BECAUSE I HAVE A NEW FAVE AUTHOR AND I AM DETERMINED TO BINGE READ ALL HER BOOKS NOW! MWAHAHAHA! I'm laughing all evil, and yet my wallet is crying. She has a bunch of books already published!!

More like B.B.F.F. Broke Bookish Friend Forever.

When was the last time you discovered a new favorite author? How did it happen? Tell me your story! Have you read any Jennifer Brown books? What did you think? 

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