mood: vacation coma
pandora/ipod: "clint eastwood" by the gorillazI love when I get to pimp a friend's book. It's one of the major highlights of BEING an author. Elise and I (a) both live in Los Angeles and (b) have toured together as part of the Stages on Pages tour. So when I say that both Elise and POPULAZZI are awesome, I know of what I speak.
PRAISE FOR POPULAZZI
"In her first solo novel, Allen offers a smart mix of hilarity and tragedy in this Macbeth–meets–Mean Girls tale.” -- Publisher's Weekly
"The story unflinchingly depicts the dark and dangerous side of high-school popularity, making it a captivating read."—Kirkus Reviews
Named a "Great Summer Beach Read" by Shape Magazine
One of Justine Magazine's "Chick Lit Picks"
Named one of the "Top Hits of the Summer" by Girl's Life Magazine
WHAT WOULD YOU DO if you had the chance to erase your past and reinvent yourself as the person you’ve always wanted to be? Would you grab it? Would you stick with it, no matter what the consequences?
Cara Leonard always wished she could be one of those girls: confident, self-possessed, and never at a loss for the perfect thing to say. One of the Populazzi.
It always seemed impossible… but now could be her chance.
When Cara moves to a new school just before junior year, her best friend urges her to seize the opportunity and change her life… with the help of The Ladder. Its rungs are relationships, and if Cara transforms herself into the perfect girlfriend for guys higher and higher on the Popularity Tower, she can reach the ultimate goal: Supreme Populazzi, the most popular girl in school.
The Ladder seems like a lighthearted social experiment — a straight climb up — but it quickly becomes gnarled and twisted. And when everything goes wrong, only the most audacious act Cara can think of has a chance of setting things even a little bit right.
After starting her career in television, ELISE ALLEN has emerged as a vibrant new voice in teen fiction. She is the co-author of Hilary Duff's New York Times Bestseller Elixir, as well as its sequels, Devoted and True. She received an Emmy nomination for her work on the PBS show Dinosaur Train, and fulfilled a lifelong dream when she wrote for the Muppets. She lives in Los Angeles, where she indulges her inexplicable desire to run marathons. Visit her at www.eliseallen.com, or on Twitter @EliseLAllen.
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GM: What are your favorite and least favorite parts of the writing "process"?
EA: Favorite: Rewriting. That’s trimming a hedge into a funky-looking topiary, and that’s just fun.
Least Favorite: First drafts. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a hedge to grow big enough that you can turn it into a topiary? It’s a pain in the butt! You have to plant it, water it, make sure it has the right amount of sun, get it all big and fluffy enough so there’s room to shape and play with it… it’s agonizing! First drafts drive me to drink. Actually, I might be better off if they drove me to drink; the alcohol might get me out of my own way. They usually drive me to eat, which helps nothing but the coffers at Trader Joe’s.
GM: What was the main inspiration for this book?
EA: Edith Wharton’s Custom of the Country. Her version of the very stratified society of turn-of-the-last-century Manhattan reminded me a lot of the very stratified society of high school. Populazzi is a very different kind of book than Custom of the Country, which is a biting satire with a very unlikable protagonist, but that was the initial inspiration.
GM: Who would you cast if your book was made into a movie?
EA: I love this game! And it gives me a chance to say that Populazzi has been optioned for a film, so fingers crossed we’ll be playing this game in real life.
For Cara, my lead character, I’d cast Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland. She’s great with comedy, emotionally honest, and very likable. And while she’s the beautiful, confident daughter in Modern Family, I believe she’d do a great job as the far less secure Cara, and get to show off a more vulnerable side.
Cara’s best friend Claudia is a whole pile of quirky, obsessed with all things Shakespearean and dramatic. For her I’m very intrigued by Ashley Rickards, from MTV’s Awkward. I think she could totally nail the role.
Archer, the guy for whom Cara falls hard, has to be charming, quirky, quick-witted and completely at ease ... except when he's trying to express his feelings for Cara, at which point he gets all tangled up in himself. My dream would be Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire. I get all melty just imagining him in the role; he’d have Cara and the rest of the world completely in love with him.
Nate Wetherill is the dark, brooding, guitar-playing DangerZone who makes Cara's blood race. There is no question in my mind that this should be Darren Criss from Glee. Nate is a complete 180 from Blaine, but I know Criss could pull it off, and I think he'd have a blast with it. Plus there’s the fact that between Glee and A Very Potter Musical, I have a mild obsession with Darren Criss, and working with him professionally would give me a legitimate reason to gush to him about his awesomeness.
Then there’s Trista, the Supreme Populazzi who has the whole school in the palm of her hand. My dream pick? Emma Watson! I love her! She’s gorgeous, self-possessed, and a terrific actress, plus sexy, devious Trista is a complete departure from Hermione Granger, so she’d get the chance to play way off type.
GM: If you could ask one person, living or dead, a single question that they'd HAVE to answer, who and what would be it?
EA: I’d ask my great-grandmother (no longer alive, but I knew her; she lived until I was around ten) what it was like to run away from her home in Poland as a teen and strike out on her own. I know she came from a very religious household, didn’t feel like she fit in, and left; then met my great-grandfather in Paris, quickly got married and pregnant, then moved to the United States, but I only know the outline of the story; I’d love to hear the first-person details.
FAST FIVE:
Pie or Cake? Pie.
Coffee or Tea? Coffee… unless it’s Azteca Fire tea from Teavana. Tastes kinda like hot chocolate.
Mac or PC? MAC!!!!
Guilty Pleasure? Reality TV. Specifically The Glee Project and Survivor.
Can't live without? Quest bars. I go through fads in my eating, and Quest Bars are the latest. I fool myself that they’re good for me because the chocolate brownie ones taste… well… like chocolate brownies.
GM: And one last word from Elise!
To thank everyone for their support with the paperback launch, I'm doing a giveaway on my blog where commenters can win a pack of five books -- Populazzi plus books from the four authors who blurbed it (including the marvelous Girlfriend Eileen Cook!). Here's a link to that: http://eliseallen.com/2012/bookscoop/populazzi-paperback-prize-a-palooza/
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