Author Fan Letter Blog Crawl: Dear Courtney Summers

In my heart, I'm really just a fangirl. I like to gush about the things I love and obsess over them, and convert new fans. That's why I'm participating in the Author Fan Letter Blog Crawl for the second year in a row, because it gives me a chance to express my inner fangirl to an author I love. The suggested topic was a new to me author in the last year

Dear Courtney Summers,

The past year has been one of the worst for me on the reading front. For my whole life, I've been an avid reader, the kind of person who always has a book going, who half lives in the real world while also half living in a fictional world. But my life has been in upheaval for over a year and a sad consequence of that has been that I can't fully engage in books like I have been able to in the past.

Your books, however, have been a huge exception to this. I remember casually grabbing Some Girls Are to start reading over a quick dinner before I went back to working on a project, and I could not tear myself away. Even more than being fully engaged, I was feeling everything in the book in a powerful way. I didn't put the book down until I'd finished, woefully behind in all I needed to get done, but refreshed in my reader heart that maybe I could still fall completely into a book and escape the real world for a few hours.

I really appreciate that you take your readers on a journey with main character of your book. I like that you give expression to common experiences, thoughts, and feelings teenage girls might have that are not necessarily "nice" but are completely normal. I like that hope is always fragile and present by the end of the story, but nothing is ever tidily wrapped up in a bow. I like that I can feel so many things while reading your books and that I can trust you to end the story at exactly the right place.

And I love that your books are true page turners, that I can't help but become deeply invested in the stories and in the main character even though the books are short.

Put in the simplest of terms, you absolutely rock, I'll read everything you write, I recommend your books all the time--even when it has nothing to do with the conversation at hand, and I'll continue to do so. The only thing I ask? Please write faster.

Your fan,
Amy