It's time for the last awesome Guest Blogger of the month! Megan @ THE BOOK BABE! Thanks so much for joining me! Let's meet her shall we?

WHO IS MEGAN?

Megan is the teenage darling behind the book babe. She frolicks in bookstores and gives books longing gazes. She loves all things contemporary and will read them to great amounts. She's been blogging for nearly a year and loves everything about it. She even hosts her own blog tours! She has a horrible sense of humor, loves Fruity Pebbles and would eat it any time of the day. Not to mention her inhuman obsession with Heath Ledger and geeky fangirling of Star Wars, let alone the fact that she has to be MADE to watch superhero movies! She's so much fun and would love to say hi if you visit her! Check her out here:



GUYS. I HAVE COME FROM ANOTHER PLANET. No, not really! I just came over from where I blog, because the lovely Inky invited me to participate in the The Best of 2012! I'm honored, and I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE. I'm so excited! Yay! Anywho, I've had the freaking-awesome fortune to "quickie" interview several authors, and tell you about my fave 2012 contemps! (And maybe some other genres. Maybe. Excuse my geekiness.) So, without further ado, I give you the feature! :)

MY LIFE NEXT DOOR

Heavenly. Just heavenly. I loved all the character interaction, and the big sloppy family that the Garrett's had. Good times, swoon-worthy romance. What more could a girl ask for?

Quickie with Huntley Fitzpatrick:

You write contemporary--pretty dang well, I might add. Do you read it? If so, give us an idea about your favorite YA contemp!
Oh yes, I read YA contemp....all the time. I am a complete fangirl of Sarah Dessen and  Deb Caletti and Jennifer Echols. I also snatch up every new author I hear about. I love Stephanie Perkins, Nina LaCour and Gayle Foreman. And John Green John Green John Green (I think I head out of fan and into just awestruck with him). I try not to read my fellow writers when I am writing myself because I a) am a mimic and don't want to imitate and b) get intimidated. So my reward for meeting a deadline is always to read and read and read.

Do you consider yourself overly romantic, or do you consider yourself a pessimist?
Hmm. I have tried and failed at being a pessimist. In my head, the happy ending is always just postponed, not impossible.

And so we can end on a fun question, M&M's or Skittles?
Twizzlers. My children mock my habit of turning to chewy candy when I'm stressed out. That said, I'm not a chocolate person. So, skittles.

Amelia Anne Is Dead And Gone

A lot darker than what we usually see in YA contemporary, but one of my favorites. I loved all the word building, and the character's trust issues. Awesomazing.

Quickie questions with Kat Rosenfield:

You wrote a very dark contemporary--what influenced you? Why did you write about Amelia Anne being dead and gone?
Amelia Anne being dead and gone just made her that much more interesting to me. I love a happy ending as much as the next girl, but the stories I've always gravitated to — and the ones I find myself wanting to write — are the dark ones, where everyone has awful secrets and everything falls apart.

Ooh, the tractor. We have a story about that where I'm from to--an old quarry flooded, and every bit of heavy equipment is buried at the bottom of it. Surprising how things like that just get accepted all the time. Why didn't you ever investigate? Is it better not to know--to keep that piece of your childhood intact?
I will always choose to believe in the tractor. The straightforward acceptance of this totally out-there idea is part of the fun, I think; it's like it exists because we all think it does. And the story is still out there, too — I was at my old high school talking about the book, and when I brought up the tractor, a few kids told me they'd jumped from the same bridge and heard the same story.

Fun question! Do you Facebook, or do you Tweet? 
I'm on both! I think there's a lot of pressure out there for authors to be present in All The Places online. But I like Twitter better... mostly because everyone on it is funnier than me.

CATCHING JORDAN

I love all of the sports references the great character relationships, and just the overall rockin-awesome concept. 'Nuff said, I think.

Quickie questions with Miranda Kenneally:

Were you friends with any football players in high school, or did you just want the world to know that not all football players are meathead jocks?
I mostly hung around guys from the soccer team, but I had some friends on the football team. My guy friends were all girl crazy and had lots of feelings they had to deal with. Some of them were way dramatic. :) That being said, they definitely looked at some things differently than girls do, so I wanted to show that "Inside the guys' locker room" view in CATCHING JORDAN.

Is romance in books easy to write, or hard? It seems like a lot of authors don't give time for real feelings to develop, so is it easier to just say they love each other than to make the reader really believe it? By the way, success! I really believed it. :)
For me, romance is pretty easy to write. You have to make sure you know exactly what each character wants and what is standing in the way of the two characters being together. Then, if the love is true, they will work past those barriers to be with each other. Often times it takes a lot of scenes and character development to get them in the right place for true love to happen!

Fun question! If you could change anything--anything in the world--what would you change? And be honest! We want to know.
I would send all the close minded people to live on the moon! (is that evil of me?)  If that is too evil, I would make Mexican food very low in calories and fat.

THE DUFF

Oh, the DUFF. I loveth it's premise, I loveth it's characters, and I just loveth it. Especially Bianca and Wesley's chemistry. :)

Quickie questions with Kody Keplinger:

You're a very young author--how does it feel knowing that your books are some of the most-read contemporaries on the market?
Oh, I don't know if I'd say it's one of the "most-read" contemporaries. That's probably overstating it. But honestly? I think, even if they were, I'd feel the same as I do now - knowing that teens - whether it's one or two or fifty or a thousand - are reading my books means so much to me. Especially if reading them makes them smile. That's why I write - to entertain other people, to make them laugh or cry or think. If I accomplish that with just one person, I've accomplished my goal.

I generally find myself identifying really well with Bianca--do you see yourself as cynical and mean like Bianca is, or was she a unique personality for you to write?
I tell people that Bianca "is my dark side." I relate to her on my bad days, I think. But usually, I'm a lot more positive than Bianca. I'm generally an upbeat, social, friendly person, unlike B.  But, to be honest, most of my characters are very, very different from me. I feel like it'd be weird to write a character too similar to me. I like writing narrators who challenge me to think in a way I don't usually think, if that makes sense.

Fun question! If you could do anything--anything at all, what would you do?
Time travel! I'm kind of a history buff, and I'd love to be able to experience life in different eras. I want to go chill with Jane Austen, but then return to a world where women have rights. I'd love to see New York in the '20s.  There are so many moments in history I'd love to experience first hand. So time travel would be my dream.

KILL ME SOFTLY

Non-Contemp Spotlight:
Fairy-tales, fairy-tales, oh yeah--fairy-tales! I can't live without them, and a good retelling is worth it's weight in gold!

Sarah Cross could not be reached. :(

ANTICIPATING 2013 READS

Thanks so much darling for stopping by! It was awesome to have you! Make sure to check out the GIVEAWAY OF EPIC PROPORTIONS! You'll find that some of Megan's favorites have been added too the list! WOOT! Have a great weekend everybody! Only two days left till 2013!! xoxo,