GYDO: Lauren Morrill

Lauren Morrill, Author of Meant to Be (2012)

I see a lot of articles and blog posts concerned with cataloging the best first lines in literature. Those articles always confuse me, because I've gotta be honest, I really don't remember a whole lot of first lines. Oh, I've loved a lot of books, and read even more, but very rarely does a first line have enough of an impact that I'll remember it. In fact, I only remember one.

Stephanie is into hunks.

If you recognize that line, you and I can be besties, because it comes from my very favorite YA novel of all time, the one that first inspired me to write YA: Just As Long As We're Together by Judy Blume.

I think I first read the book in 5th grade, maybe 4th, I don't quite remember, and I was captivated. Until that point, most of the books I had read were about characters whose lives bore little resemblance to mine. They were magical or lived in on the prairie. They flew around in spaceships or went off on adventures. They spent their summers at horse camp or wrote to pen pals or ruled the school with their twin sisters. Even the Babysitters Club, who ran their own business and palled around with a cadre of interestingly dressed buddies, were nothing like me (I tried many a time to start my own Babysitters Club, and it never made it farther than the creation of my very own Kid Kit).

But Stephanie, the protagonist of Just As Long As We're Together, was just like me. Her parents were divorced. She had a younger brother. She wasn't very popular, but she had a couple of good friends. She wanted to be grown up (have a boyfriend, get her very own phone line), but she also really liked being a kid, playing spit and giggling with her friends. And she crushed on boys. Hard. She freaked out about getting her period, she decorated her room, she fought with her friends, and she struggled to find her place.

There was nothing particularly special about Stephanie, and it blew my mind that I could love a book so much that seemed to be about a person whose life so closely mirrored my own. And if that was the case, then maybe I could actually do this writing thing. I wouldn't need to come up with names of spells or mythical creatures. I didn't need rules for some kind of mystical world or to know any science at all (thank god). Instead I could just write about things I cared about. I could write about life as I saw it. As I experienced it.

I've read Just As Long As We're Together probably 10 or 15 times at this point, and that number with definitely climb. I love the book for reasons I don't understand in ways I can't explain. After my mom accidentally donated my well-worn copy while I was in college, I managed to find a copy with the original 80s cover at Powell's while in Portland, and I bought it immediately. It now sits on the special shelf with all my favorite books, alongside my John Green collection and my Jessica Darling series.

And when I finally returned to writing YA (after many failed attempts at riding the chick lit bandwagon), it was Judy Blume and Just As Long As We're Together that served as my inspiration. I hope that teen readers will open my books and see themselves in my characters, and recognize that their thoughts, desires, and friendships are all interesting and special. That they, too, can be the stars of a novel, and if they can't quite find it, that maybe they can write it.

Meant to Be Blurb

Meant to be or not meant to be . . . that is the question.
It's one thing to fall head over heels into a puddle of hazelnut coffee, and quite another to fall for the—gasp—wrong guy. Straight-A junior Julia may be accident prone, but she's queen of following rules and being prepared. That's why she keeps a pencil sharpener in her purse and a pocket Shakespeare in her, well, pocket. And that's also why she's chosen Mark Bixford, her childhood crush, as her MTB ("meant to be")
But this spring break, Julia's rules are about to get defenestrated (SAT word: to be thrown from a window) when she's partnered with her personal nemesis, class-clown Jason, on a school trip to London. After one wild party, Julia starts receiving romantic texts . . . from an unknown number! Jason promises to help discover the identity of her mysterious new suitor if she agrees to break a few rules along the way. And thus begins a wild goose chase through London, leading Julia closer and closer to the biggest surprise of all: true love.
Because sometimes the things you least expect are the most meant to be.

Author Bio

Lauren Elizabeth Morrill grew up in Maryville, TN, where she was a short-term Girl Scout, a (not so) proud member of the Maryville High School marching band, a trouble-making editor of the MHS school newspaper, and the treasurer of the National Honor Society (until she was unceremoniously stripped of her title and kicked out … true story).  In her senior AP English class she gave her speech of valediction about how she would someday be a writer for Rolling Stone (which could still happen …).

Upon her graduation from high school, she high-tailed it out of the south to attend Indiana University, where she became a proud Hoosier and dodger of substantive math and science courses. She was a journalism major, a music major, and a history major, though she ultimately only graduated with the History degree (and a string of ex-boyfriends). She still has no idea what she’ll do with it.

In her lifetime she has worked as a cashier at Target and at a grocery store, as a khaki-folder and greeter at the GAP, a balloon-animal making, face-painting clown, a receptionist at a real estate agency, a (failed) babysitter, a curatorial assistant at the world’s largest children’s museum, and a hostess and busser at an Irish pub. She has also held a myriad of jobs in higher education, from admissions to residence life and back again. She is now proud to call herself an Author. With a capital A.

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