Blogger Interview

Today Zombie Girl is here. Want an interview? Email me, princessashley9@gmail.com

When and why did you start blogging?
I started blogging about a year ago with a crafty/arts blog, but switched my attention to that of book blogging in May. Basically, I was in need of some new reading material, but didn't know what there was. See, I'm one of those people who gets to the bookstore and just stares at the display with a look of glee and mild confusion on their face. If I don't have a game plan going in, I get totally overwhelmed by all the possibilities. My sister introduced me to book blogging, and for that I am eternally grateful. :)

Who is your favorite author and why?
At this very moment... Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games series is the most fantastically amazing thing I've read since Harry Potter (I use HP as a mental baseline for reviewing books). The world is just so complete and the characters are probably the best I've ever read, but my favorite, favorite thing about the series is that you don't passively read it, you live it! I felt like my fate was tied up with Katniss' and I could not put it down! Tied for second place right now are Derek Landy, author of the hugely funny Skulduggery Pleasant series, and Kelley Armstrong, author of one of my fave zombie series The Darkest Powers.

What bloggers inspire you?
Dahlia of Dahlia's Eclectic Mind for helping me out behind the scenes, Orchid of The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia for being so faultlessly generous, Amy from The Park Avenue Princess because she's a sweet heart and helped promote my blog, Allysa Kirk (and the whole Kirk clan) from Teens Read and Write because they always have something nice to say and are frequent commentors, Kristi of The Story Siren because she handles herself and her blog so professionally but is still really nice and willing to promote other bloggers, Sarah of Sarah's {random} Musings because she really reaches out to others through blogging, Taschima Cullen from Bloody Bookaholic because she was the first to call me Zombie Girrrl, Sandy of Pirate Penguin Reads because she keeps me in the loop, and Velvet of vvb32 reads because she hosted Zombie Week and is one of my best blog buddies. This is just the short list; there are a lot of other inspirational bloggers out there.

What book is most like your life?
Great question! I have no idea! Just kidding. My life is most like that of Stephanie Edgely from Skulduggery Pleasant, except I'm not twelve-years-old, I don't live in Ireland, I've never met a talking skeleton, I have no magical talents, I don't wear black, and I don't have a dead rich uncle, but I do have a taken name! Rivers Jubilee. ^-^

As a child what book did you love?
Hop on Pop by the late, great Dr. Suess. I was very much into Dr. Suess when I was little, and I used to hound my parents and older sisters to read it to me. Finally, they got tired of it, and told me to do it myself. Consequently, it's the first book I ever read! Fun fact: Dr. Suess invented the word nerd.

Do you want to write a book? If so what’s it about?
I'd love to write a book! I'm in the primordial stages of writing a series of short stories right now about... (wait for it)... zombies! Surprised? Yeah, I didn't think so.
Anything unique about you or your blog? A few things, actually. On my blog, I frequently use footnotes as a means of keeping my posts on point as I do tend to digress, I rate book with on a scale of 1 to 5 zombies (as opposed to stars or whatnot), and I rate books not only on how much I enjoyed them, but also on their content like movies. As for something unique about myself, my three favorite shows are Glee, It's On With Alexa Chung, and The Golden Girls and my two favorite foods are s'mores and roasted brocoli (just not tegother).

Where should a line be drawn between YA and Adult books?
Sex. Personally, I hate smut in my books, which is why I stick to YA. I've tried some adult books, and they were great as far the story and characters went, but I had to skip over pages at a time because of sex scenes. That's not the only reason why I think that's where the line should be drawn. I think that premarital sex would be much less of a problem if it weren't so prevalent in teen marketed media. It's flaunted on TV and in movies, and splattered across the pages of our books. Authors have a hard road to walk in this respect, because on one hand, they want their books to be real, so they include sex; on the other hand they need to be responsible advocates for the youth so they shouldn't glamorize it. I see it as a circle; some teens have sex, so authors write about it to keep their material relatable, teens read that sex is a normal past-time for their set so they do it (and I'm not tossing every "teen" into this. I know that not everyone is so impressionable that just reading about a "cool" character will make up their mind about what to do in these situations. I'm generalizing for simplity's sake.), so authors write about it to keep their material relatable, and so on. Some authors, though, handle this predicament beautifully by writing about, not just sex, but the consequences. They tell kids that it isn't just an activity. It can change your life in ways that you'd never have expected, and I'm not just talking pregnancy or STDs, I'm not even talking about the social repercussions of it, but the emotional impact it can have on a young person who thought they were ready, or that they were in love, but weren't. And even if they were "ready", it's still a huge step and should never be looked at through the lens of popular culture. It all comes back to that age old argument that if, "It's in their everyday lives it's okay to put it in their books/shows/movies." Authors and media producers need to take responsibility for their products and realize that they are the makers of our culture. Art doesn't always imitate life, often it's the reverse. Books should at least have a content rating similar to movies. That would even help stem the growing issue of book banning, if people were fully aware before they ever cracked the spine what they were in for.