The One Where I Interview Gayle Forman!

It turns out the true test of my authorly devotion is traffic.

If you pose the question, "Will you sit in two hours of traffic for the chance to talk one on one with this author?" and I respond with, "Girl, I'd sit for four hours of traffic for the chance to sit within thirty yards of that author" (totally non-creepily) and then actually do it...well, that's a good sign, is what I'm saying. And for Gayle Forman, author of If I Stay, my beloved Where She Went, Just One Day, Just One Year,  and the brand new I Was Here, I was totally willing to sit on my butt for two hours in punishing Los Angeles traffic.

That Time I Moderated a Sarah J Maas, Robin Benway, and Nina Berry Event + Giveaway!

Sarah J Maas, Nina Berry, MEEEEE!, and Robin Benway. Photo courtesy of Lizzy Mason

On Saturday, September 13th, I checked something major off my life bucket list: moderating an author even. Not just any author event, either, but a signing for one of my favorite authors that just happened to include two other authors whose books I admire enormously. That's right. On Saturday, September 13th (henceforth known as the holiest of days), I had the chance to meet, hang out with, and chat with Sarah J. Maas, New York Times bestselling author of the Trhone of Glass series and bearer of supernaturally beautiful hair; Nina Berry, enviably tall author of Otherkin and the upcoming The Notorious Pagan Jones; and Robin Benway, super cool author of Audrey, Wait!, Also Known As, and Going Rogue.



At least, I think I did. Honestly, if it weren't for the above photo evidence, I might think I hallucinated the whole thing in some sort of wish fulfillment fugue state. But I didn't! And here's the recap to prove it:

Vitro Blog Tour: Jessica Khoury Talks Setting

Welcome to the Vitro blog tour! Jessica Khoury, the talented author of Origin, is back with a death-defying tropical adventure. Follow along over the next two weeks as Jessica takes readers behind the scenes of her latest novel. Today, Jessica's here to talk about the setting of Vitro, which I can tell you (you know, having read and most thoroughly enjoyed it), is one of the shining aspects of the book.

Skin Island Unveiled

Skin Island is the primary setting for Vitro. It was once home to a resort called Halcyon Cove, but when the resort closed, the island came under Corpus control. Some of the old buildings were renovated into state-of-the-art laboratories, and Corpus scientists and employees took up residence in the abandoned villas overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Much of the resort was left untouched, however, and has been overgrown by jungle.

(source)

Skin Island is part of the archipelago known as the Marianas. The closest airport to the island is A.B. Won Pat International Airport on Guam, where the story opens with Sophie having just flown in from the States. Immediately she runs into a roadblock when she is unable to find a pilot willing to fly her to Skin Island, which is wreathed in rumors of disappearances, strange experiments, and hostile guards.

To bring Skin Island to life, I had to learn everything I could about the Marianas. This meant reading up on Guam, the Chamorro people, the flora and fauna of the South Pacific, the weather patterns, the tidal charts, and even the flight regulations for small aircraft in the area. In order to get a feel for the island atmosphere, I spent time in the Caribbean while writing (yes, we writers really suffer for our craft, I know, I know...). It's details like these that make a setting believable, and I hope readers will feel as if they are truly sitting beneath the palm trees, toes buried in the sand and ears filled with the rush and roar of the surf as they read Vitro.

(source)

Gillian again! Thanks for all the awesome info, Jessica. Doesn't that place look amazing? Aren't you all thinking, "I want to go to there?" Well, you might want to rethink that wanderlust after you read the synopsis for Vitro by Jessica Khoury:

When Sophie is summoned by her long-absent mother, a scientist who works in a classified lab, Sophie throws caution to the wind and heads to the South Pacific. She sweet-talks her way onto a tiny supply plane piloted by Jim Julien, who lives on Guam with his alcoholic father. Jim is captivated by Sophie and against his better judgement agrees to take Sophie to the secretive and tropical Skin Island where her mom has been working for so many years.

There Sophie and Jim are met not by her mother but instead by Nicholas, a handsome, brilliant boy who leads them to Lux--a girl who looks exactly like Sophie. Lux is Sophie's genetic twin and was bred using in vitro fertilization. But why? And just what have the scientists created Lux to be capable of?

With lyrical writing and ever-increasing tension, Jessica Khoury draws out the explosive answers in her much-anticipated followup to Origin.

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

About Jessica Khoury:

 

 Jessica Khoury is 23 years old. She has red hair. She was homeschooled. She's an avid soccer player and was a three-time All-American striker. She is of Syrian and Scottish descent. She went to college in the same tiny Georgia town in which she was born and raised. And she's a prodigiously talented writer with a huge following.

Jessica Khoury lives in Toccoa, GA with her husband, Benjamin. You can visit her online at www.jessicakhoury.com.

Top Ten Debut Authors I Read In 2013

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Since 2013 was the year I read more books than I've ever read in my life, there was no way I could possibly do this topic as it's meant to be done: top ten "new to me" authors of 2013. Why? Because practically every author I read this year was new to me, so we'd be here all day, listening to me blather about all eleventy hundred of my favorite recent authorial discoveries.

Instead, I switched it up to Top Debut Authors of 2013, aka the new kids on the block who most definitely deserve to stay in the neighborhood.

1. Kasie West



The 2013 books: Pivot Point, The Distance Between Us

Her sarcasm speaks to my soul. Her books make me swoon (The Distance Between Us) while they hurt my heart (Pivot Point. That ending!!!!). 2014 is full of Kasie West releases, including the sequel to PP and yet another swoony romance) (Off the Fence, and I'm marking my calendars for both of them. Split Second. I neeeeeds it. I WANTS IT.

2. Amy Tintera



The 2013 book: Reboot

I was not expecting to enjoy Reboot quite as much as I did, but oh boy, I fell for it pretty hard, despite it being the sixty thousandth dystopian I've read in my life. I loved the twist on zombies, Wren is coldly bad-ass, and Callum? Sweet, sincere, warm Callum? Hello, boyfriend. Hello. Rebel, please be in my clutches.

3. Josin McQuein

 

The 2013 books: Arclight, Premeditated

 Premeditated, a revenge-thriller contemporary, was one of my most anticipated books of the entire year, and it didn't disappoint. Considering I've been waiting for this book since, what, 2010, when its query showed up on Query Shark for critique, this is pretty darn impressive. Then there's Arclight, a sci fi/dystopian novel that proves McQuein can write in any and all genres.

4. Emily Murdoch



The 2013 book: If You Find Me

If You Find Me was powerful, moving, and gorgeously written. I was not expecting to love it as much as I did, but rest assured, I will read whatever Murdoch writes next.

5. Cristin Terrill



The 2013 book: All Our Yesterdays

Kudos to Terrill for writing a twisty turn-y, wibbley-wobbley time travel story that didn't break my brain, but certainly broke my heart.

6. Amie Kaufman



The 2013 book: These Broken Stars

THESE BROKEN STARS. THESE BROKEN FEELS. ALL CAPSLOCK. ALL THE EMOTIONS.

7. April Genevieve Tucholke



The 2013 book: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

I could not get over how lyrical and atmospheric the prose in this book was. Combine that with the haunting narrative and sublime cover, and you've got a book I just couldn't bear to put down... even as it was creeping me the heck out. Between the Spark and the Burn, I can haz? Pleez?

8. Mindee Arnett



The 2013 book: The Nightmare Affair

This book was so cute and charming. The love interest was adorable, the MC was plucky, and the supernatural shenanigans going on were all to my liking. I can't wait to read my copy of Arnett's new book, Avalon, and I'm even more excited for TNA's sequel, The Nightmare Dilemma!

9. K.A. Barson



The 2013 book: 45 Pounds (More or Less)

This book is one of those under the radar gems that so many more people should be talking about. It's funny and heartfelt. Ann is a wonderful narrator who made me laugh out loud so many times. This is one of the best books I've ever read about weight issues. By far.

The One Where I Have Lunch with Marie Lu and Celebrate With a Giveaway!

Sometimes, being a book blogger can have serious added benefits. I mean, mostly we stay at home and read a lot and stress a lot and panic about never-ending TBR lists a lot, but sometimes? Sometimes, amazingly awesome things can happen. This past weekend, one of those things happened. I was invited by Penguin Teen to have lunch with the one and only Marie Lu, author of the amazing, brilliant, and heartbreaking Legend trilogy, along with the fabulous Kate from The Midnight Garden. Marie was in town for a signing at Mysterious Galaxy bookstore--the last stop on her Champion tour, I believe-- so Kate and I met her for lunch a couple hours before.

Considering this is one of the coolest things I've ever been invited to do, it was not without its difficulties. The first question, of course, is how do I behave like a normal human person? That particular ability is dramatically outside of my range of talents. Whenever I meet authors, I tend to stammer. "How you books I like thank you yes" is how it tends to go. There were also some planning... inconsistencies, which I won't get into. Also, the weather. You hardened folks may scoff, but by Southern California standards, Saturday was FREEZING. And there was actual moisture falling from the sky, which usually causes me to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West (Coast). My car battery also died the moment it deposited me safely at the agreed-upon lunch location, which... at least it waited until I got off the 405, right?

So ends the complaining portion of this write-up. Marie Lu is awesome with an extra side of awesomeness. Kate and I were standing all cold and awkward outside the restaurant when Marie comes striding up in what Kate described in her post as "a badass schoolgirl/assassin/supermodel/soldier". Seriously. Her outfit was incredible. She was wearing EPAULETS, for crying out loud!

That's my face. Sharing space with Marie Lu's face. We have shared facespace.

We sat down, ordered food, and got chatting about all kinds of things. We talked about the Legend trilogy a bit, and she told us the inspiration for it came from the Valjean/Javert relationship in Les Miserables! She also admitted she's a serious pantser, which means she didn't know how Champion was going to end until she got to the end of Prodigy. That got us talking about crippling endings to series, and whether or not she was afraid of how fans would react to hers. Apparently the enormous fallout from Allegiant (which released precisely two weeks before Champion) totally terrified her, but it a way, it would take the heat and focus of her (not so cruel but still painful) ending.

Kate and I also asked about her new and upcoming series, The Young Elites. Marie confided that the inspiration for it is far less distinct than the one for Legend, but that it's set in a Renaissance-esque world where magic is new, and that she's billing it as X-Men meets Assassin's Creed, which... well, Kate and I were basically drooling. Also, it went through tons of revisions (she started off with the WRONG MAIN CHARACTER!) and almost never made it past her editor, who was not a fan of it in its earliest incarnation. (Marie: "She actually told me, 'Maybe you're not meant to write fantasy.'")

We also chatted about fun things (what we're reading, the fact that there should TOTALLY be a contemporary romance novel based on The Sound of Music, shipping). Travel, too. Marie had just been in London, and was telling us about all the amazing things she did there despite the COLD. We all commiserated on the fact that we are biologically unable to handle cold. Then we traded travel stories, with Marie telling us about her trip to Tibet, which was very transformative and spiritual, up until she got altitude sickness and vomited on the floor of a holy temple. And then I told the story about the time I got altitude sickness in the Himalayas, and the other time I got food poisoning and vomited in the check-in area of the massive and crowded Bangkok airport.

Vomiting in exotic Asian locales is what all the cool kids are doing these days. You are jealous.

After lunch, Marie headed off to her signing, and I wished her luck and everlasting hand-strength so she didn't hurt herself scribbling on all those books. Kate headed over there, too, while I pondered what to do with the heap of scrap metal formerly known as my car. When Kate returned, we got coffee and talked about all sorts of life- and blog-related things, warming our frozen icicle hands with gigantic cups of coffee. Then Kate and I parted, I called AAA, read a good chunk of Into the Still Blue while hiding from the cold inside my car. Half an hour later, an obliging old Russian man, who told me I looked like his daughter, came to fix my car and dispense some unnecessary but still appreciated wisdom ("Never let your tank get lower than quarter full! Reading is good for your brain!" Thanks, Mikhail).

Saturday was a truly amazing day, and I'm so thankful to have been able to meet an author whose work I love so much (not to mention one of my favorite online blogger buddies). And not only that, but for it to be just the three of us, chatting away about books and life and cool stuff? Pretty darn incredible.

To celebrate, I'm giving away one book of your choice from the trilogy: Legend, Prodigy, or Champion. Open internationally!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Clockwork Princess Giveaway and Authorly Discussion with Cassandra Clare, Lily Collins, and More!

Way back on March 21, Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Princess Bus Tour, in which Cassie Clare spirited across the country, spreading joy and causing mayhem far and wide in honor of the release of Clockwork Princess, the final book in The Infernal Devices trilogy, came to Los Angeles. Guess which lucky girl got to go? This girl!

 

It was quite the epic day. Not because I had to wake up early to trek all the way across town (those of you who have ever been to LA know that all the way across town means many, many miles in which you must traverse freeways and battle orcs and scale Mount Doom and it is basically a Herculean task that should not be attempted by those with weak spirits). No, it was epic because I got to meet THREE of my favorite authors and a movie star or two. Just an average day in the life of Gillian. No, not really, but I certainly could get used to doing thrilling bookish things like this. Minus the traffic.

Not only was Cassandra Clare in attendance, but so were two of my FAVORITE AUTHORS, Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson, co-authors of the of The Bane Chronicles, whose first installment was just released! And because that's not awesome enough, Lily Collins, star of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones movie, and the director of said movie, Harald Zart, were also there, answering questions! Another fun Gillian fact: I went to high school with Lily. I was two grades below her. ISN'T MY LIFE EXCITING?

To say that the Barnes and Noble at the Grove was packed would be the understatement of my life. I had no idea what I was getting into. They started selling wristbands, basically the tickets for the event, at nine am, when the store opened. I got there at eight and the line was already a block long. By the time nine rolled around, the line was quite literally six times as long. No. Seriously. The wristbands were lettered A through K, I believe, with A's getting front row seats and K's forced to watch the proceedings for Outer Mongolia. Though I'm a Barnes and Noble member, all the A's were sold out, but I got a B and was super excited for that, since that meant I'd be near the famous people and practically within worshipful stroking distance. Then I bought a mountain of books to get signed and went home.

Fast forward to six thirty PM, and I am waging a valiant war against the frightful LA traffic, and the traffic is WINNING. I've lived in this city all my life, and I've never seen it like that. I blame it on Miss Clare, of course. Everybody west of the 405 was going to see her. Eventually I made it, but just barely. The audience was divided into three sections: those on the third floor, where the authorly discussion took place (I was here! Yay!), those on the second floor, and the poor buggers outside. I have no clue what the set up down there was like, whether they had TV screens and watched the discussion, or what. I was too focused on my own good fortune. Yes, I thought, I'll be able to watch the discussion panel directly! I can ask the hard-hitting questions like who would win in a shirtless sarcastic brood-off, Jace or Will? Can Magnus be naked for the entirety of The Bane Chronicles? Will Simon Lewis ever come to life and make me his bride?



Because of said crazy crowds, I was sadly in a place where I couldn't actually SEE the panel. In fact, hardly anyone but the A's and the pushy B's could, due to the strange funnel-like shape of the room, and since the microphones were... less than stellar, I'm afraid, most of what I heard were the people around me going, "WHAT? WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY?" But still, I was in the presence of greatness, and I bullied myself as close to the front as possible (I have pointy elbows). I did get to shriek at the guests of honor as they walked past me. I took a few grainy cell phone shots of the back of Cassandra Clare's head. Then my phone promptly died because of course. And I did get to hear a lot of great quotes from the discussion, which covered all sorts of Cassandra Clare related things, though most of the questions were about the movie, since we were lucky enough to have two of the people who actually helped make it.

Courtesy of the awesome Youtubers Booktobigscreen and Jasmine Albitos (make sure to check out her site!), below is almost the entire Q&A session for your viewing pleasure, thereby rending my hastily and inaccurately scrawled on-site transcript obsolete! Thank the book gods, because deciphering that wouldn't have been fun. I swear I wrote this thing in runes. Be aware that you are actually seeing and hearing even more than I did, and I was physically there.

Yes, I'm somewhere in that room, far to the left, trying desperately and in vain to see through solid wall and the backs of people's heads. I particularly liked when somebody directly next to me yelled "WE CAN'T HEAR YOU" and Lily started laughing and apologizing. Bear in mind that the crowd up on the top floor was at least a hundred or so strong, and they extended away from the panel area about thirty or so yards, and there were multiple bookshelves in people's ways. So I was pretty fortunate to be as close as I was and not squashed up against a biography of Napoleon.

My Favorite Young Adult Authors to Follow on Twitter

hosted by Broke and Bookish

I’m going to approach this week’s Top Ten Tuesday from a different angle. It’s nearly impossible for me to list all the amazing authors I discovered this year, as this was a massive reading year for me. If forced, I’d probably end up repeating all the authors I put on my other Top Ten Tuesday lists, because I’m really bad at remembering everything I like.

So this week, I’m going to list ten of my favorite authors that I discovered on Twitter this year. Basically, here are ten awesome writer-ly people that it is a joy to follow. Authors who take the time to interact with their fans with humor and wisdom and the occasional Twitpic.

9. Leigh Bardugo @lbardugo

Anybody who frequents my blog knows I’m fanatically obsessed with rather fond of SHADOW AND BONE. But I’m also rather fond of its creator, who I got to the pleasure to meet once and who is always willing to interact with her fans, whether it’s on Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest. She answers a lot of fan questions and reblogs their fanart, especially when they are pretty, pretty pictures of the pretty, pretty Darkling.

PRETTY.

8. Beth Revis @bethrevis

Revis is not only an amazing writer, but she has an awesome Twitter presence. She hosts ridiculous giveaways (I’m still bitter about not winning that one with the fifty signed books), chats funny with other authors, and tweets about her latest Tumblr posts, which prove that she has mad geek cred (there’s a wonderful amount of Doctor Who love).

7. Tahereh Mafi @taherehmafi

Mafi may not tweet as often as some of the others on this list, but whenever she does, it’s safe to say I will usually be cackling. Somehow the majority of Mafi’s Twitter feed has become her quoting her mother, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Obviously, I have never met Mafi’s mother, but she is probably one of my favorite people ever now, purely because of her daughter’s hilarious tweets.

6. Neil Gaiman @neilhimself

Um, duh. It’s Neil Gaiman. While the man doesn’t chat with his followers that often (understandable when you have 1.8 million of them), getting to peek into the mind of Neil Himself is always a delight.

5. John Green @realjohngreen

There is much brilliance occurring in the twitter feed of the real John Green. He’s another one with over a million fans, and is always available to promote general nerdiness, literacy, and awesomeness.

4. Marissa Meyer @marissa_meyer

If you absolutely forced me to choose my top ten favorite reads of 2012, I can pretty much guarantee you Cinder would make the list. So I just love following its talented author on Twitter because she’s always giving us chances to win ARCs of Scarlet, blog about her influences, and reassure us rabid, drooling impatient fans that Scarlet will eventually come out.

 

3. 2. and 1. Sarah Rees Brennan @sarahreesbrenna, Maureen Johnson @maureenjohnson, and Cassandra Clare @cassieclare

I decided to list this holy triumvirate as… well… a triumvirate because I don’t dare separate these writing buddies. They are witty, hilarious, and self-depricating. I feel like I know them, in a totally non-creepy fashion, because of how active they are on Twitter. Sarah answers just about every fan question that comes at her, reblogs our fanart, and cackles like a supervillain at our readerly pain (not to mention give us little reader snippets of future projects that CLAW your HEART out). Cassandra Clare always takes time to talk to her fans and give them insight into her many amazing books. And Maureen loves nothing more than to hold hilarious and random twitter conversations with her followers anything and everything under the sun. They retweet funny things their readers tweet them, and of course they tweet to EACH OTHER, since they are all great friends (with SECRET ANNOUNCEMENTS and things). Even if you haven't read their books, which you should, they're always good for a laugh.

Of course, this is hardly a definitive list. I follow so many brilliant authors on Twitter that there really was an element of choosing a random ten. Like, once C.J. Redwine, author of Defiance, live-tweeted watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I got to follow along and tweet with her like we were watching it together. There’s an amazing transparency to Twitter, where you get to “meet” all your favorite authors without being creepy about it.

NOTE: Please do not get creepy about it. The amazing thing about Twitter is that most of us, generally, follow the rules of common decency. The reason most of these authors are able to converse so freely with their fans is that most of you guys are standup literary citizens. I hope this can go on forever and ever.

So which authors do you love to follow on Twitter? Are there any that I should be punished soundly for forgetting? Any new recommendations? Sound off! Also please do share links to your own (on topic) Top Ten Tuesday posts so we can all check them out.

An Authorly Chat on Fantasy, Gender, and YA

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to attend a small but amazing talk on Gender in YA Fantasy and all sorts of other bookish YA things (not its official title). It was hosted by Sarah Mesle, a Humanities professor at UCLA. The panel consisted of Leigh Bardugo, author of Shadow and Bone; Cecil Castelluci, author of First Day on Earth, The Year of the Beasts, and others; Javi Grillo-Marxuach, television screenwriter and producer of such things as Lost and The Middleman; and Amber Benson, otherwise known as Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and author of the Calliope Reaper-Jones books, among others.

Like a total teacher’s pet, I arrived early, sat alone in the very front row, and whipped out my notebook, pen poised in anticipation. I looked very cool and blogger-esque. It was an amazing talk covering all sorts of literary topics, with a lot of insightful questions and dissenting views (it was awkward but fun when the authors disagreed with each other, like my bookshelf was squabbling with itself). Not only were these authors brilliant, but they were hilarious. I did my best to transcribe some of their key points, but since my brain is a wonky sieve on the best of days and my notes from that night look like this:

Yeah. Just TRY to read that.

I may accidentally leave out some of their choicest bon mots. But I’ll do my best. First off, each of the authors shared a little bit about their current and upcoming projects. Amber Benson read an EXCLUSIVE snippet of the story she’s working on about an abused boy’s love of escaping into horror movies. Cecil Castelluci read us graphic novel pages from her alternating prose and graphic novel book The Year of the Beasts, and two pages from First Day on Earth about a boy who thinks he’s been abducted by aliens and joins an abduction support group. Javi Grillo-Marxuach showed a clip from the pilot of The Middleman that had us all cackling. Leigh Bardugo, who happened to be wearing kickass boots, read a scene from Shadow and Bone and between Alina and Genya and displayed some amazing fan art by Irene Koh.

Shadow and Bone author Leigh Bardugo

After that, Sarah Mesle asked the panel some questions. A lot of the chat focused on the idea of fantasy and YA literature in general as an escape, with Castelluci noting that her two books, The Year of the Beasts and First Day on Earth, have a strong contemporary part to them. Mal, the main character from First Day on Earth, is looking for “a way to hitch a ride off of Earth because Earth sucks.”

Amber Benson: My character is looking to escape into horror movies.

Sarah Mesle: Into darkness. 

Javi Grillo-Marxuach: Crisis is preferable than the brutality of ordinary life.

The authors then went on to discuss why genre and YA tap into this mentality more than literary fiction.

JGM: Literary fiction is like– you can’t escape, all ends badly–

Leigh Bardugo: Ennui!

Grillo-Marxuach employed a metaphor using Skyfall, the latest James Bond movie, which was directed by Sam Mendes, of American Beauty fame. “I loathe American Beauty with a hot flaming passion,” he said. “It stinks of pretension and bullshit. But when Sam Mendes does a genre movie, he blossoms into an amazing director.” He argued that the “added tool of world-building” provides metaphors and a framework in which to explore ideas.

The conversation turned to the huge rash of dystopians and how they are uniformly dark, and how these themes are just the themes of everyday teen life intensified.

LB: The crisis is made real…They all consist of love under crushing regimes, under duress-

JGM: AKA parents.

Castelluci commented on the heavy amounts of darkness present in YA genre fiction. “When there’s an extreme amount of darkness, you can see that pinpoint of light.”

Grillo-Marxuach discussed how genre fiction depicts the realities of teen life by arguing that decision to leave the state and go to college, “those things are blown up … Emotions are pitched at a high level.” He compared the choice to leave for college to leaving the farm to become a Jedi Knight, thereby earning all the geek credit from the geek audience. “I like the respite of being able to see things blown up into big metaphors and great ideas as opposed to the mundane quality of everyday life.”

“Decisions you make as a teenager are very die,” Castelluci said. “You’re at a crossroads, and you actually can make bad choices that affect your life. Your worry isn’t illegitimate. You have a right to be freaked out.”

Benson spoke about the aspirational quality to YA, citing Bella Swan as an example. “The way Bella appears, readers put their selves in her place, everybody wants her even though she’s klutzy. People want to be her…With fallible characters, people get annoyed. They want (female protagonists) to be perfect. But if they’re too perfect, then they’re Mary Sues.”