Happy Monday everyone! Today’s post kicks off a very special series of posts here on Pop! Goes The Reader as I’ll be sharing at least six cover reveals over the course of the next two weeks (You can see the complete schedule here)! I’m incredibly honoured to have had an opportunity to work with so many creative, hardworking, inspiring women over the last few days in preparation for this and I couldn’t be more excited to share all of these beautiful book covers with you over the next couple of weeks. So, without further ado, let’s get started!
Today on Pop! Goes The Reader I’m absolutely thrilled to welcome my dear friend, Rebecca Barrow, to the blog to share a little about her upcoming sophomore release, This Is What It Feels Like. Coming to a bookstore and library near you November 2nd 2018 from HarperTeen, This Is What It Feels Like has been described as “tender story of friendship, music, and ferocious love” that follows the lives of best friends Dia, Jules, and Hanna as they “make peace with the girls they once were, and the girls they are finally letting themselves be”. The cover of This Is What It Feels Like was designed by Michelle Taormina with accompanying photography by Pete Thompson/Gallery Stock. Please read on to learn more about This Is What It Feels Like, including an exclusive cover reveal, a special note from the author about the novel’s origins and inspiration and a chance to win a signed, advance reader copy of the novel from Rebecca Barrow!
About Rebecca Barrow
Rebecca Barrow writes stories about girls and all the wonders they can be. A lipstick obsessive with the ability to quote the entirety of Mean Girls, she lives in England, where it rains a considerable amount more than in the fictional worlds of her characters. She collects tattoos, cats, and more books than she could ever possibly read.
This Is What It Feels Like is a story about three girls with a lot of history. In fact, the story of what went down in their past could be a book in its own right — but I wanted to write about what comes after. What happens after the tragedies and the broken hearts and the severing of connections? When years have passed, and you’ve grown up, and wounds have shiny-healed scars. What happens to those girls then?
Dia and Jules and Hanna are so very close to my heart. Their book is a story of loss and addiction and fear, but also love and happiness and joy. I often say I write stories about messy girls, but I say it with love. And these three are perhaps the messiest so far, trying to prove themselves to the world and to each other.
When it came to cover design time, I actually got to choose between a few different (all brilliant and beautiful) directions. But there wasn’t really a choice: one of them instantly stood out to me. It’s as if they went inside the book and plucked this photo out of that made-up universe; in my head, I can see everything that’s happening out of shot, the rest of the girls’ world.
Anyone who knows me knows how important representation is to me. I want to write the stories I looked for when I was younger, in the hopes that anyone out there with that same longing now might be able to find what I struggled to. And I’m beyond grateful to my publisher and design team for giving me covers that match my girls so perfectly. Remember what I said about joy? That’s what this cover gives me, endlessly.
Title This Is What It Feels Like
Author Rebecca Barrow
Pages 304 Pages
Intended Target Audience Young Adult
Genre Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
To Be Published November 2nd 2018 by HarperTeen
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon.com
It doesn’t matter what the prize for the Sun City Originals contest is this year.
Who cares that’s it’s fifteen grand? Who cares about a gig opening for one of the greatest bands to ever play this town?
Not Dia, that’s for sure. Because Dia knows that without a band, she hasn’t got a shot at winning Sun City. Because ever since Hanna’s drinking took over her life, Dia and Jules haven’t been in it. And ever since Hanna left — well, there hasn’t been a band.
It used to be the three of them, Dia, Jules, and Hanna, messing around and making music and planning for the future. But that was then, and this is now — and now means a baby, a failed relationship, a stint in rehab, all kinds of off beats that have interrupted the rhythm of their friendship. No contest can change that. Right?
But like the lyrics of a song you used to play on repeat, there’s no forgetting a best friend. And for Dia, Jules, and Hanna, this impossible challenge — to ignore the past, in order to jumpstart the future — will only become possible if they finally make peace with the girls they once were, and the girls they are finally letting themselves be.
Rebecca Barrow’s tender story of friendship, music, and ferocious love asks — what will you fight for, if not yourself?
As an extra, exciting bonus, Rebecca has been kind enough to offer one lucky reader the opportunity to win an advance reader copy of This Is What It Feels Like! This contest is open internationally and the prize will be distributed once ARCs become available. Please fill out the Rafflecopter form below to enter!
