Insomnia Blog Tour and Giveaway

J. R. Johansson is here on the blog today! (say hi, guys) She's the author of the absolutely fantastic YA horror book INSOMNIA. She's not only got a kickass giveaway for you all but also a special vlog about one of INSOMNIA's side characters, Addie. Be sure to watch it and, if you want, subscribe to her channel!

THE AUTHOR & THE BOOK

J.R. JOHANSSON is a young adult thriller author published with Flux & FSG/Macmillan. Her debut, INSOMNIA is coming June 2013. She has a B.S. degree in public relations and a background in marketing. She credits her abnormal psychology minor with inspiring many of her characters. When she's not writing, she loves reading, playing board games, and sitting in her hot tub. Her dream is that someday she can do all three at the same time. She has two young sons and a wonderful husband. In fact, other than her cat, Cleo, she's nearly drowning in testosterone.

Her eyes saved his life. Her dreams released his darkness.

After four years of sleeplessness, high school junior Parker Chipp can’t take much more. Every night, instead of sleeping, he enters the dreams of the last person he’s made eye contact with. If he doesn’t sleep soon, Parker will die.

Then he meets Mia. Her dreams, calm and beautifully uncomplicated, allow him blissful rest that’s utterly addictive. But what starts out as a chance meeting turns into an obsession; Parker’s furious desire for what he needs pushes him to extremes he never thought he’d go. And when someone begins terrorizing Mia with twisted death threats, Parker’s memory blackouts leave him doubting his own innocence.

Find her here:

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J.R. Johansson on Goodreads

INSOMNIA on Goodreads

Pre-order the book here:

The Book Depository

Indiebound 

Books A Million

Barnes & Noble

Amazon 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

{Debate} The Assassin's Curse

Oceana and Lisbeth share different opinions of the book THE ASSASSIN'S CURSE by Cassandra Rose Clarke. Here, they battle it out over a Skype conversation, with Oceana attacking and Lisbeth defending. Read Oceana's negative review and Lisbeth's positive review before you continue.

Friendships are shattered.

Lies are revealed.

Romance seizes.

Welcome... to the debate.

Oceana: First of all, let's begin with Ananna, Miss Pineapple. HOW THE FUCK DO YOU EVEN STAND HER. How do you like her?

Lisbeth: Well, let's keep in mind that I read this a long time ago. I don't know if I'll still love her as much. But I loved her attitude more than everything. Even though she spent most of her time protecting Naji, at least she wasn't idiotic.

Oceana: What about this water nymph bitch? Didn't you think it was unfair that she had no personality, and her only purpose was to make Miss Pineapple jealous?

Lisbeth: I completely agree with you there. The girl's only purpose was to make Pineapple - I mean Ananna - jealous. That really ticked me off. She's basically that ex-girlfriend in every highschool drama.

Oceana: NAJI. Bitch, I think you're sexist because you hate spineless heroines, but Naji is adorable to you even though he's a damso-in-distress.

Lisbeth: This is where it's sadly going to a very uneventful and boring fight to the death. I was being hopelessly sexist.

Oceana: I TOLD YOU. I TOLD YOU.

Lisbeth: He's uterly spineless (and I'll be murdered by Zuz for saying this). I still think he's adorable in the same way you can say that Daemon is sexy.

Oceana: YEAH, BECAUSE DAEMON ISN'T A BIG BABY. Naji's like SAVEEEE MEEEE, PROTECT ME, HIDE ME FROM THE EVIL

Lisbeth: How do you account for the fact that Daemon is a huuuge asshole? Huh? He's insufferable.

Oceana: I never liked him while he was an asshole. Plus, he changed - and it's the same cocky confidence that YOU LIKE  IN DEAN AND THE OTHER DAMON.

Lisbeth: Damon is an asshole, and so is Daemon. There is no doubt about that. He's despicable at times but he's pitiful in the same way you feel bad and want to hug Loki in Avengers even though he's insane. Dean isn't an asshole. End of story.

Oceana: Yeah, he's a gigantic dick. I never said I liked him while he was being an ass to Katy. And I never said Dean was an asshole - I LOVE HIM - I said he was confident and had... *shudders* SWAG.

Lisbeth: Did you just say... swag?

Oceana: *cringes*

Lisbeth: Wow, ok... time for me to interrogate you. Did you truly not find the writing at times very vivid? I'm not saying the writing is fantastic and the best I've ever seen. It's not but I have to say that if you disregard the accent, the writing is very immersive.

Oceana: Yes. Yes I did. It could have been a lot better, and it's DEFINITELY better than a lot of self-pub written out there, but I found it... Average.

Lisbeth: One of my favorite things about THE ASSASSIN'S CURSE was the assassin and blood magic concept. Was this idea completely horrible to you like the rest of the plot?

Oceana: No! I loved the idea of the plot! It sounded amazing. But it was so disappointing.

Lisbeth: Yeah, yeah. I get it. You hate-y.

Oceana: *scowls*

Lisbeth: *scowls back*

Oceana: What about the romance? Please, explain THAT.

Lisbeth: Darling, you know I love you but I don't think you got the point of the romance.

Oceana: The blurb LIED TO ME.

Lisbeth: The whole point of the romance was the lack of romance. It was slow and hardly there but you could tell it was there. And what, pray tell did the blurb say?

Oceana: "... And the growing romantic tension between them." LIKE I SAID BEFORE. I HAVE MORE SEXUAL TENSION WITH MY FISH.

Lisbeth: I understand that you find it impossible to read a book without any romance, but they are there. As I said, the blurb is bad - very bad.

Oceana: Dude, I can read a book without romance. But it LIED. Don't you dare fucking claim there's romance when he can't tear his eyes off that nymph.

Lisbeth: Wait - didn't you tell me how you find it hard to read a romance free book? How it felt like something was missing? There's romance even though it's hardly there. That's what sequels are for.

Oceana: Ummm. I never said that...

Lisbeth: Would you like me to go and look through our DMs to find it?

Oceana: Oh yeah? Find it.

Lisbeth: How far can you search? In Twitter direct messages.

Oceana: Haha, I can't. I clear my history. Improvise, I guess.

Lisbeth: "I seriously can't read books without romance. It's physically painful." October 5th.

Oceana: That's the best you can come up with? That doesn't sound like me at all. *huffs*

Lisbeth: FINE. I'll do better. *grumbles* Bitch.

Oceana: LOVE YOU TOO.

Lisbeth: "Me no read books wit out kissy kissy." That's what you said.

Oceana: I was not aware that I was a ghetto baby...

Lisbeth: I'm improvising.

Oceana: Ghetto caveman baby, pardon me.

Lisbeth: "I shall not read a single book without sexy times". Direct quote guys.

Oceana: NOPE.

Lisbeth: PICKY BITCH

Oceana: Closer with the sexy-times part, though.

Lisbeth: "I totally can't read a book without sexy times."

Oceana: NO. How about, "I miss my freaking sexy times. I need some TENSIONNNNNNN."

Lisbeth: "Books without sexytimes are soooo boring. DEAN DAMON"

Oceana: I didn't even know Dean in October, dumbass.

Lisbeth: Oh ok... "I lurv sexy times in my books like say DELENA mmmmm hot"

Oceana: NO NO NO NO NOPE.

Lisbeth: I'm trying my best here! How about, "Delena. It's hot and tensiony. Romances should be like that."

Oceana: ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT

Lisbeth: WHY NOT IT'S TOTALLY YOU

Oceana: ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS is so not hot and steamy and it's one of my favorites. I DON'T EVEN SOUND LIKE THAT

Lisbeth: I THINK I KNOW WHAT YOU SOUND LIKE

Oceana: Forget this. You can't pretend to be me, bitch.

Lisbeth: DAMN YOU.

Oceana: I guess we're done here. See you later, guys. *ducks* STOP THROWING PLATES BABE

{Random} Lisbeth's Interview with Author Libby Heily

Here, I, Lisbeth Avery, interview author Libby Heily. I hope you enjoy the interview!

Lisbeth Avery: Hello guys, I have Libby Heily here with me. Say hi to the readers!

Libby: Why hello there!

Lisbeth Avery: What prompted you to write a novel?

Libby: ‪I've been writing since I was a little kid.  The moment I could make letters, I was writing.  I got serious about writing fiction in college while studying acting.  I started off with plays, then moved to screenplays.  Writing a novel was always my goal, but I was incredibly intimidated.  I had to work up to it.  After writing a good amount of short stories and getting a few published, I figured it was time to attack my white whale, the novel.

Lisbeth Avery: Your book, Tough Girl, is very different from what I've read before - in a good way. What do you think inspired this idea?

‪Libby: I always knew I wanted to write a story about a young girl and her dream world. Alice in Wonderland was a huge influence on me.  That was the basic idea and I held onto it for years trying to figure out what I wanted that dream world to be like.

‪The story morphed in time to include a second story I was interested in writing, the one of Tough Girl.  That dream world worked well for Reggie and the challenges she was facing. I used a lot of things I had seen during my childhood, many in Dale City where the book is placed.

That's the long version, short version is that I held onto the idea of a young girl escaping into dream world and added and subtracted elements until they all came together to make Tough Girl.

Lisbeth Avery: Wow, thanks for the very in-depth answer! I thought I sensed a bit of Farscape in it as well but that may have been just me as I had been watching Farscape before reading.

Libby:  ‪Oh, you know it.  I got into science fiction after getting married.  It was actually in my vows to watch and read more sci fi.  Farscape and Battlestar Galactica were big influences.

Lisbeth Avery: As an amateur writer myself, I've always found it hard to have multiple POVs in a single story. Did you ever have trouble keeping the two POVs apart in your story?

‪Libby: Not really.  They were pretty unique.  The hardest part I had with POV was deciding how to tell Reggie's part of the story.  The advice I was given was 3rd closed which made sense.  It would have put the reader right in Reggie's head without being 1st person

‪‪But, the problem was that Reggie is working hard to distance herself from her life and making her POV immediate would have undercut that (in my opinion).  In the end I opted for more distance using 3rd person.

Lisbeth Avery: Have you found it hard to be a self published author? I know many reviewers are a bit biased against self pubbed.

Libby:  ‪Great question.

In some ways yes.  It is more difficult to get reviews and I don't have the credibility of being signed to a publisher. However, the freedom is kind of worth it.  I had the ability to do Tough Girl in the exact way I wanted to and I've had ultimate control over the story and the presentation. Since it's difficult to make money writing, I'm happy to have freedom.  I will probably search for a traditional publisher for my next novel, but I was pretty psyched to go at it alone for my first.

Lisbeth Avery: What are some of your favourite books? Did they also influence your writing?
Libby: Gosh, talking about long answers!

Favorite plays: 
A Dream Play, Iceman Cometh, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Zoo Story, The Goat or Who is Sylvia.

Books: 
Anything by Virginia Woolf or Muriel Spark (in love with the Driver's Seat), the entire Thursday Next series, Absurdistan, Nothing's Fair in 5th Grade, Candide, On the Road, the Discworld series, The Color Purple, ect.

I owe a debt to so many writers and I just keep hoping to one day be as good as them.

Lisbeth Avery: What are a few of your favourite writing (and/or reading) moments?

Libby:   ‪Writing moment for Tough Girl:  Ultimately, it took me 4 drafts to write Tough Girl (as well as tons of editing).  The plot was intricate and it was difficult to tell how much to involve the dream world in her life and how all the characters affected her.  Half way through draft two, I quit.  I didn't quit delicately, but with a vengeance.  I had erased an entire character, changed the flow of the story, but could not get it to work.  It was the middle of the afternoon and I went to bed crying.  I sobbed myself to sleep.  I then woke up a few hours later and started working again.  I started a new draft two weeks later.

Reading moment: The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark.  I read it because a book group I joined on Goodreads picked it.  I don't think I would have found it otherwise.

I recommend this book to everyone.  It's quick, about 125 pages, and it pulls you along at a screaming pace through this insane lady's day.  And then you get to the end, and you have no idea how you got there or why, but it makes sense.  I've read 3 other books by her since then and am going to reread the Driver's Seat in January, for my birthday.  I don't know the last time I was so incredibly blown away by a story.  It wasn't really because of the twists, there can be good twists in bad stories, but it was the overall excellence of the book.

Lisbeth Avery: ‪Thanks for the interview Libby! Is there anything you'd like to add?

Libby:  ‪No, I'm good, but thank you!

Lisbeth is a American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.