Phoenix Entertainment and Development

Phoenix Entertainment and Development

Monday, May 18, 2015

Book Tour: F#@! Bomb By Naomi Rabinowitz

 
 



Author Bio:

Naomi Rabinowitz is a writer, musician, jewelry designer and author of the YA novel REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD. She lives in New York City with her husband, Jonathan. Like her F#@! BOMB narrator, Sadie, Naomi is currently training for a long-distance walking event – and will be participating in Avon’s 39.3 mile Walk To End Breast Cancer this October.

Author Links -
Twitter: @NaomiRDesigns




Book Genre: New Adult/Women’s Fiction/LGBT Fiction
Publisher: Amazon
Release Date: March 30. 2015


Book Description:

Fatty. Freak. Friendless. Failure. Sadie Abramowitz is used to being alone. The morbidly obese college freshman literally doesn’t fit in anywhere and was constantly the butt of jokes in high school.

So far, life at Cunningham University isn’t much better. Her roommate only communicates in grunts while Sadie’s “dream job” at the school paper has her interviewing her fellow students with questions that practically invite them to insult her.

Things change when she’s assigned a story on Griffin Greenberg, the freshman track star who was one of Sadie’s high school bullies. At first, she’s reluctant to work with the gorgeous Griffin, but soon discovers that he’s not such a bad guy. Plus, he’s been keeping a secret: he’s gay.

As their friendship grows, Griffin challenges Sadie to do something she never thought possible: train for a marathon. Meanwhile, she supports him as he slowly comes to terms with his sexuality. Together, they help each other survive their first year of college – and also learn how to stand strong on their own.

*This book is a New Adult novel with some mature language and situations. It is recommended for readers 14 and up.
 

Excerpt One


“If you could be any type of animal, what would you be?”

I put on my widest smile and tried to sound enthusiastic. I was in Reporter Mode, a side of my personality which was somewhere between a morning talk show host and news anchor. My pair of subjects stared at me, eyes narrowing. Both girls had faces plastered with makeup and long, flat-ironed hair. Both were tan and slender, and wore matching skinny jeans with pink T-shirts. I figured if anyone would want to have their pictures and quotes featured in our college's award-winning newspaper, it would be cute girls who actually bothered to dress up. Girls, who unlike me, didn’t wear baggy, gray sweats and a stained, white T-shirt.

In my month of acting as Freshman Roving Reporter for The Falcon's bi-weekly polls (Memorable queries included, "Other than eating them, what's your favorite alternate use for mashed potatoes?" and, "Do you think underwear would be improved if it had GPS?") I'd perfected the art of choosing prospective interviewees. I could now tell before even asking a student whether he or she would be willing to give me a response. The loner who sat by a tree listening to his iPod? No. The theater major who liked to dance around the Student Union as her friends looked on? Yep. With these girls, all signs pointed to yes. 

My job was to get 10 quotes and photos by four o' clock that day and I was only up to six. It was already 3 p.m. and I was getting desperate. 

“What's the point of this?" asked the blonde, a smirk playing about her perfectly-lined pink lips. I continued to smile and pushed my dark brown curls out of my eyes as she considered the Deeper Meaning behind my query. Though it was late September, it was unseasonably warm for upstate New York and we happened to be in one of the least shady parts of campus. I'd only been standing for about a minute, but sweat was already beading across my forehead and pooling beneath my arms, making my shirt stick to my body. I envied the way these girls could keep their hair so tame.

"It's just a fun question for The Falcon's Roving Reporter column," I said. I shifted my weight from one foot to another to ease the pressure on my back. "What's really nice is you get your name in the paper along with your picture and quote. It’ll be in print and online. Everyone on campus will see it."

"Okay," she said, with a shrug. "I’ve seen that column. I guess it could be fun." She stuck out a hip as she assumed a sexy photo pose and I snapped her picture with my phone.

"Amber Sanchez, I'm 19 and a sophomore," she announced as I recorded her response. "And I'd be a cat. They're beautiful, mysterious and always land on their feet." She finished with a little clap, clearly proud of herself.

"Great answer!"  I said. “My mom is a fellow cat lover.” Buoyed by this small victory in my quest to complete my column, I turned to her friend. "Do you want to give a quote?"

The brunette glared at me and for a second I wondered if I'd misjudged her willingness to be put on display. But after a nudge from Amber, she said "Fine, I'll do it," and let out a deep, tortured sigh. She shook her head as her green eyes roamed up my body, taking in my worn beige sneakers and rumpled ensemble. I waited, my phone poised to record her. 

"I'm Chloe Williams, also 19 and a sophomore. And if I could be any animal," she said, pausing to look me right in the face. "I'd be anything but a fat whale!"

Boom!  The words hit me like a punch and I had to remind myself that we were no longer in high school. I was flooded with bad memories as a montage of past insults echoed in my head; "Fat whale" was just one of many in a long list that included nicknames like "Shamu," "Fatzilla" and even "Igpay Verde" (That's Green Pig in combined Pig Latin and real Latin).

Amber gave me an apologetic look, but high-fived Chloe as they strode away from me, snickering the whole time. I just stood in place like a statue. A huge statue, mind you. When you're 18 years old and morbidly obese, you get used to hearing insults—or as used to them as one can get, anyway. For me, being called a fat whale was just business as usual.

 
Review:
This book was an eye opening read that described the journey of Sadie's life and her struggles with weight loss, which is something I think many people can relate to. Her mother had her thoughts on eating healthy which tried to sabotage Sadie's weight loss attempts. But it was something Sadie needed to overcome. This story also showed her friend Griffin, a guy struggling with his "coming out". Griffin himself was a unique character who helped make the story very interesting.
I thought the book was really well written and had a realistic feel to both the characters and their situations.



Guest Post:
 
WALKING OFF WRITER’S BLOCK
 
Most authors I know have experienced the dreaded “writer’s block” – that frustrating period when you just can’t think of what words to put on the page.  For me, it’s especially annoying when I have a clear story idea in my head and can actually envision the final product… and just can’t think of the proper way to express my idea.
This wasn’t the case for me when it came to writing my novel F#@! BOMB, at least at first. Because the story is based somewhat on my personal life, the words flowed freely and I quickly banged out drafts of the opening chapters.  I put together an outline for each major event that would take place in the tale and thought I had a good foundation for my manuscript.
Wrong! As I was nearing the middle of my novel – the part where my heroine goes through some tough times -- I just couldn’t think of the right things to say. I’d stare at the page… clean the house, practice my flute… stare at the page some more… and could not come up with one word. Finally, I put aside the book and decided to take a hiatus from writing.
It was during this time that I began a serious exercise program. Like my story’s narrator, Sadie, I’d been extremely overweight for years and was grossly out of shape. It was ironic that as I wrote about Sadie’s marathon training, I’d gotten to a point where – and this is no exaggeration – I could barely walk a block without having to stop.  My health was declining and I suspect this was part of the reason why I couldn’t concentrate on my writing.
Toward the end of 2013, my good friend Scott (my real-life Griffin) confronted me and made me promise to walk “just 20 minutes a day.” I agreed to try, mainly to shut him up, but found that I enjoyed walking. Within a few months, I was conquering several miles a day and had lost a significant amount of weight. I was also ready to resume work on my novel.
Because F#@! BOMB is somewhat autobiographical, I signed up for a memoir-writing class, figuring that the discussions and critiques could help, even if my story were fiction. I was right. Simply being in a situation where I got to read others’ work and was forced to meet deadlines lit a creative fire.
Meanwhile, I continued to walk and used that time to mentally construct my novel. Many say engaging in exercise is a great way to clear your head, but for me, the movement helped me focus.
Getting in shape gave me the confidence to finish my work. It had been difficult to write about a character who was improving her life while mine was falling apart, but Sadie and I were now on the same page (pun intended).  I needed to work on my personal story before I could complete my fictional one.

 
Schedule

May 3 - Introduction at VBT Café Blog
May 5 - Guest Blog at Infinite House of Books
May 5 - Spotlight at 3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, &, Sissy, Too! 
May 7 - Review at Readsalot 
May 11 - Interview & Review at Head in the Clouds, Heart in the Books 
May 13 - Spotlight at My Life, Loves and Passions
May 15 - Spotlight at The Voluptuous Book Diva 
May 18 - Review & Guest Blogging at The Writers Revolution
May 20 - Review at Ella Malone 
May 22 - Spotlight at Jody's Book Reviews
May 26 - Guest Blog at Lori's Reading Corner
May 26 - Review at reneereads
May 28 - Review at Babbling About Books, & More!





Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)