Calling all writers in need of some manuscript advice! BookPeople in Austin, TX is offering signed pre-orders of Kissing in America, and everyone who pre-orders will be entered into a raffle to win a free half-hour manuscript consultation for yourself or a friend, for up to 20 pages of fiction or nonfiction. I can’t wait to read the work of the winner! You can pre-order a copy and enter the contest here. I love BookPeople–I actually wrote parts of Kissing in America in their cafe, in little Japanese notebooks I purchased in their store:
In review news, I’m thrilled that Kissing in America has its third starred review, from Publishers Weekly:
★”In this indelible coming-of-age story, Rabb seamlessly weaves together multiple narratives: families coping with death, immigrants determined to make it in America, the power of education to transform lives, reality TV offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, first love, first heartbreak, and the conflicted, ardent passion of a mother/daughter relationship. After Eva’s father dies in a plane crash, she lives with an awareness that ‘the very worst thing you imagine, your biggest fear, does happen,’ a fear she mitigates by avidly reading romance fiction. Eva’s mother, a women’s studies professor, disparages the books, but for 16-year-old Eva, ‘those feelings felt as real and true as any other feelings I’d ever felt. As real and true as grief.’ A cross-country bus trip expands Eva’s world as she and her best friend Annie encounter people who ‘never met a Jewish person before’ and discover that ‘real-life cowboys were better than fictional ones.’ Sprinkled with the poetry Eva reads and writes, this story makes for a hilarious, thought-provoking, wrenching, and joyful quest.”