Many thanks to Lindsey Leavitt for stopping by to share this guest post as part of a tour for her fabulous new book, Sean Griswold’s Head. Make sure to check out other stops on the tour here.

Were you a reader as a teenager? If so, what were some of the books you enjoyed then? What is one book you have read recently that you wish had been available when you were a teen and why?

I loved to read, but read mostly on weekend and over the summer because school/sports/activities/work kept me pretty busy. I started out in junior high with a lot of Christopher Pike/Lois Duncan/R L Stine. Basically, if the title looked like it was written in blood, I was over that. I was happy to see Lois Duncan’s books were being re-released in paperback, so another generation of kids can lose sleep worrying about drifting spirit body snatchers.

In high school, I actually ENJOYED reading my English homework (save it be Charles Dickens, although I can still recite the first paragraph of Tale of Two Cities). I would even take my textbooks home and read all the excerpts and short stories there. Some books that really stuck with me were EAST OF EDEN and Vonnegut (he used swear words and we got to read his books for homework. Unreal).

The young adult genre as we know it was just starting to blossom when I graduated high school, and I’m so jealous of teens now that they have so much amazing literature at their disposal. So one book? Can’t pick. But I love love books that really dip into grey areas or tell The Other Side of The Story. FLASH BURNOUT by LK Madigan blew me away because it’s so honest and the perspective so fresh. Also, I didn’t date until the last two years of high school, so I would have liked some Sarah Dessen and similar contemporary romance. Fictional boyfriends would have been nice company until I was ready to brave Boy World.

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