the “Books” part…


the girl i wanted to be
Simon & Schuster, June 2006
ISBN: 0-7432-8518-2, $12.00

As a lowly freshman named for "The King," Presley Moran walks high school corridors paved with the stuff of family legend. Her cousin Barry, a senior heartthrob and brainy varsity letterman, insists that looking good on paper is the key to success. But Presley's young aunt Betsi, a former homecoming queen, has her own ideas about good looks and how to use them.
    
Can you keep a secret? Betsi asks Presley, who, at age fourteen, is eager for entrée into the adult world of beauty, attraction, and romance. But as Presley is about to discover, some secrets should never be revealed. Will the illicit thrill of being a trusted confidant, privy to the details of muddled entanglements and incompatible desires,
be worth the consequences of guilt by association?  

Propelled by the crash of falling idols, the girl i wanted to be is a timeless and true portrait
of passion, loss, and hard-won wisdom.

 


Grosse Pointe Girl: Tales from A Suburban Adolescence
Simon & Schuster, June 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-5612-3, $12.00

Welcome to Grosse Pointe , Michigan , where social rank is determined
by the age of your money and the dryness of your martini.

The new girl in town, Emma Harris, must prove herself hip to the rigid rules of adolescent conformity. The quest for cool, she discovers, is one long final exam. To pass she must be cruel to be kind (ditching her best friend for the popular crowd), dress to impress (trading her favorite Esprit shirt for three plastic bracelets), and master the art of seduction (puckering up with Mulberry Stain or Peaches 'n' Cream lip gloss).
Life is all about making choices -- the right ones.

Will Emma's social acrobatics put her on the short list for that coveted country club membership? Will the digits of her zip code pass muster? If her parents split up, will the gossip help or hurt her in the rankings? Grosse Pointe Girl serves as an indispensable road map through the dysfunction privilege brings. So put on your Guess? jeans and your jelly shoes and come along for the ride to the adolescent days that time forgot, but you never will.

Available at all major and independnt bookstores including:

Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Borders Books & Music
Powell's
To locate other independent bookstores in your area, please visit Book Sense

 

the “and such” part…


“The Art of Letting Go”
Story by Sarah Grace McCandless; art by Joelle Jones
Sexy Chix: An Anthology of Women Writers and Artists
Dark Horse Comics, January 2006
ISBN: 1-59307-238-4, $12.95

Don't let the title fool you-this isn't your average collection of comics featuring impossibly proportioned vixens in spandex. This time around the sexy chix in question are the writers and artists behind the comics, representing some of the best and brightest talent contributing to the medium of comics and graphic novels today. With stories ranging from mainstream adventures to hilarious comic shorts to heart-wrenching autobiography, Sexy Chix is devoted to the under-recognized contingent of female cartoonists in an overwhelmingly male-oriented industry. It's about time these divinely talented creators get to tell the stories they want to, and the result is an exquisite variety of artistic visions and styles.

Among the sexy chicks are New York Times best-selling author Joyce Carol Oates, Eisner Award-winning illustrator Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother), A Distant Soil writer/artist Colleen Doran, Bitchy Bitch creator Roberta Gregory, DC Comics writer Gail Simone, novelist Sarah Grace McCandless (Grosse Pointe Girl), and many, many more!

Available at bookstores and comic shops:

Locate a comics shop in your area or call 1-888-COMIC-BOOK