Win-It Wednesday: Living Dead Girl and Do-Gooder Impulses

Did you guys read everyone's who-I-met stories? I loved them! Thanks for sharing all of those. New people make life less boring. The winner of the signed copy of Specials is... The Bookworm! Send me your address, BW. This week, I'm giving away a copy of Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott. I finished this book in a few hours; I really couldn't turn away from it. While I've really enjoyed all of Elizabeth Scott's books that I've read, this one is very different from her other works. It's dark and harrowing and relentless in its emotional pitch--it totally would have scared me if I'd read it at a younger age (and I still slept with the lights on one night after I read it, but I'm a freak like that). In an ALAN interview, Elizabeth Scott put into words why this book feels like so much more than a voyeuristic portrayal of abuse: "I think it's easy to get outraged over a child's abduction, but it's also equally easy for us to see something--someone--that makes us uncomfortable, a moment or an expression that give us pause, and to do nothing. And that moment where we see and turn away is, I think, the heart of Living Dead Girl. Alice's story isn't just about what she endures with Ray. It's what she endures at the hands of the world. How it doesn't see her." This book will knock you on your butt. It's an important one. So, on the note of not seeing things happening in the world, I'm going to post this vlog I made for Devyn Burton's Book Transfusion project (I have no idea why it freezes with my eyes closed--dumb!). Watch it, and then tell me, What's your good deed this week? It can be a donation to The Book Transfusion (contact Devyn here), some extra time spent with your grandmother, a smile for a stranger who looks down--anything! But tell me how you're spreading the love this week, and how you're really seeing the world. I'll choose a winner next Wednesday, and I'll throw in some lip gloss from TESS, too, just to lighten the spirit of the package. Lip gloss is key. PS-It's Banned Book Week and Maureen Johnson says this better than I could, so check her out!