Happy Release Day to Me! (and some others!)

• Why is Shay the real hero of the Uglies series?
• Who was the better boyfriend for Tally: David or Zane?
• How can we prevent prettyheaded behavior in our own world?

In Extras, the last book in Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series, Aya tells us that when Tally Youngblood made the mind-rain fall, it cured all the pretties and changed the world forever. But Tally and her friends did more than change their world; they changed ours too.

Mind-Rain continues what Tally started, with startling, funny and insightful essays on the world, characters and ideas of the Uglies series, plus the short story that inspired Westerfeld to write the books in the first place.

Think you know everything about Tally’s world? After Mind-Rain, you’ll never look at the Uglies series the same way again.

Order Now:

Indiebound
Borders.com
Barnes & Noble
Amazon

Scott has this to say about my contribution to the collection (entitled: “Team Shay”):

In this second of two essays about our misunderstood anti-heroine [Diana’s note: Robin Wasserman wrote the other one], we peer deeper into Shay’s relationship with tally. Diana Peterfreund vividly demonstrates how the two girls’ inexorable bond is the engine that makes the whole series go. This point reminds me of another question I often ask groups of Uglies fans: “Can you imagine these books without Shay?” Of course you can’t, because, without her, the whole series woudl be a haiku:

Later that summer,
After Peris got pretty
Tally did too. The End.

And that shows you how powerful a little unrequited love can be. An, um, how hard it is to write a good haiku.

Tell me you don’t want to read about that! It’s an essay about unrequited love,people! And girlfights.

Speaking of unusual romantic pairings in our favorite YA novels, one of the things i love best about my pal Sarah Rees Brennan is her uncanny ability to find two of the most unlikely characters in your book to form into an imagined romantic couple, often to hilarious effect. And her book is ALSO out today!

So I’m also going to be picking up my copy of The Demon’s Lexicon, by the fantabulous, castle-shilling, whiskey-drinking, unicorn-loving, pearl-clutching, story-spinning, strong-tea-drinking, bacon-sandwich-making, parody-writing Sarah Rees Brennan.

The first time I met Sarah, I was stumbling out of a trans-Atlantic red eye flight. She was perky. I bore a striking resemblance to an individual living in The Forest of Hands and Teeth. She kept making jokes I didn’t understand. There was much mockery made of moats and it all went over my head. Eventually I got some caffeine. And some sleep. And I learned that there are few things in life more enjoyable than drinking Irish coffee and listening to Sarah mock something you love beyond all reason. She is a reverent mocker, that one.