Under Rose Tainted Skies Blog Tour: Louise Gornall on Mental Illness in YA

Louise Gornall is stopping by the blog today with a mini-interview as part of the blog tour for her incredible #OwnVoices debut novel Under Rose Tainted Skies. She's here to talk about mental illness in YA and #OwnVoices. On to the interview!

At the heart Under Rose Tainted Skies is Norah, a character who has has agoraphobia and OCD. With an increase in children and teenagers suffering from mental illness, how important is it to have mental illness represented in YA?

It’s vital. Mental illness can be so cruel and isolating. Every teen needs to see themselves represented. They need to know they’re not alone, that they’re not some strange anomaly. And fiction is such a great way to reach those who haven't figured out how to talk about it yet, or haven't quite figured out what’s going on inside their head. For those that don't suffer with their mental health, books like Am I Normal Yet? [by Holly Bourne] or It’s Kind of a Funny Story [by Ned Vizzini], provide great insight into how a mental health mind works.

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Seeing Double - Covers that Look Remarkably Alike

Many of these kinds of posts have been done before. We all know about the similarites between Luna and Fate, Paper Towns and No Place to Fall, and Evermore and North of Beautiful. The same stock photo is used twice for four of these books, but I want to talk about books that look similar - not because of the same stock photo - that have been published more recently.

Working in a bookshop, this is just something you can't help but notice when you're shelving, accidentally confusing a book for another, but I was reminded of these books and inspired to write this post by Cait at Paper Fury, who mentioned in her June wrap up post that Girl Out of Water by Nat Luurtsema looked pretty similar to the old cover for Flirty Dancing by Jenny McLaughlin.

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Retellings Reading Challenge 2016: Link to Your June & July Reviews

Welcome to the Retellings Reading Challenge 2016 July link-up! I'm sorry it's late, and I'm so sorry there wasn't a link-up last month! Life got a little busy, and I completely forgot, I'm so sorry! Thank you to Sue for reminding me!

So, finally, here is the link-up. As I forgot to post a link-up last month, please post the links to your reviews from June as well as July in the link-up below. But before you do...

• You must sign up for the challenge before you post links to your reviews. Links from people who haven't signed up will be deleted. Sign up for the challenge here.
• Make sure your links go directly to your reviews, not to your blog/Goodreads page/youtube channel. Those of the latter will be deleted.
• To count, books must be read in May. Only books read at the very end of April will count for May if posted at the very beginning of the month. Otherwise they won't count.
• When you link to your reviews, in the "Name" field, please include the title of the book, the author, and your blog name. For example: Wicked by Gregory Maguire @ Once Upon a Bookcase.

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A Novel Cover Up: Rachel Vale on the Paperback Cover of A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston

A Novel Cover Up is a semi-regular feature that looks at how covers are designed. Thanks to Macmillan Children's Books, I have been fortunate enough to have a guest post from their Art Director Rachel Vale about how she designed the paperback cover for A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston. All images in this post are used with permission. They can be clicked to be enlarge.

A Thousand Nights paperback – for those of you who don’t know the story – is a magical tale of love and survival in a captivating retelling of Arabian Nights. It’s incredibly evocative, mysterious and magical.

For the hardback edition it was all about capturing the opulence and magic of story in a wonderfully desirable package. For the paperback edition we wanted to keep the opulence but introduce a filmic quality that was more photographic/photorealistic – highlighting the epic Arabian landscape and our protagonist, Scheherazade. So, epic landscape + female reference + pretty.

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And I Darken by Kiersten White "Follow the Feminists" Blog Tour - Feminist Icon: Laura Bates

And I Darken by Kiersten White sounds absolutely incredible; a gender-bending retelling of the story of Vlad the Impaler - Vlad Dracul, who inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula - that was sparked by White thinking, "What if Vlad was a girl?" Oh my god, I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to read this book! It sounds incredible! But on to the point of this post...

Lada Dracul is a new feminist heroine for us to get behind, and with that in mind, Corgi Children's Books have come up with a fantastic idea for a blog tour, where we share our feminist icons. Today, I'm going to talk to you about my feminist icon, Laura Bates.

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Review: Under Rose Tainted Skies by Louise Gornall

Under Rose Tainted Skies by Louise Gornall (proof) - Agoraphobia confines Norah to the house she shares with her mother.

For her, the outside is sky glimpsed through glass, or a gauntlet to run between home and car. But a chance encounter on the doorstep changes everything: Luke, her new neighbour. Norah is determined to be the girl she thinks Luke deserves: a ‘normal’ girl, her skies unfiltered by the lens of mental illness. Instead, her love and bravery opens a window to unexpected truths …

An important and uplifting debut from a British author, which tackles mental health issues such as agoraphobia and OCD. From Goodreads.

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Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann Blog Tour: An Excerpt

Today it's my stop of the Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann blog tour. Valley of the Dolls turns 50 this year, and has got a brand spanking new look! To celebrate, I'll be sharing an extract with you - keep scrolling!

Before Jackie Collins, Candace Bushnell and Lena Dunham, Jacqueline Susann held the world rapt with her tales of the private passions of Hollywood starlets, high-powered industrialists and the jet-set.

Valley of the Dolls took the world by storm when it was first published, fifty years ago. Never had a book been so frank about sex, drugs and show business. It is often cited as the bestselling novel of all time.

Dolls - red or black; capsules or tablets; washed down with vodka or swallowed straight. For Anne, Neely and Jennifer, it doesn't matter, as long as the pill bottle is within easy reach. These three beautiful women become best friends when they are young and in New York, struggling to make their names in the entertainment industry. Only when they reach the peak of their careers do they find there's nowhere left to go but down - to the Valley of the Dolls. From Goodreads.

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