Mom With A Kindle: [Promo & Giveaway] Defy The Stars by Stephanie Parent

Defy the Stars
By Stephanie Parent
Release Date: 07/30/12
e-book
325 pages

Summary from Goodreads:
Julia Cape: A dedicated classical piano student just trying to get through her last semester of high school while waiting to hear from music conservatories.

Reed MacAllister: A slacker more likely to be found by the stoners’ tree than in class.

Julia and Reed might have graduated high school without ever speaking to each other…until, during a class discussion of Romeo and Juliet, Julia scoffs at the play’s theme of love at first sight, and Reed responds by arguing that feelings don’t always have to make sense. Julia tries to shake off Reed’s comment and forget about this boy who hangs with the stoner crowd—and who happens to have breathtaking blue eyes—but fate seems to bring the two together again and again. After they share an impulsive, passionate kiss, neither one can deny the chemistry between them. Yet as Julia gets closer to Reed, she also finds herself drawn into his dark world of drugs and violence. Then a horrific tragedy forces Julia’s and Reed’s families even farther apart…and Julia must decide whether she’s willing to give up everything for love.

Defy the Stars is written in an edgy free-verse style that will appeal to fans of Ellen Hopkins and Lisa Schroeder; however, the writing is accessible enough to speak to non-verse fans as well. The novel’s combination of steamy romance and raw emotion will appeal to fans of Gayle Forman, Simone Elkeles, Jennifer Echols, and Tammara Webber. With a story, language and form that both pay homage to and subvert Shakespeare’s play, Defy the Stars is much more than just another Romeo and Juliet story.

I’m awake. I’m safe. Yes, I’m in front of a

piano, but my limbs won’t suddenly freeze. Two

days have passed since the nightmare…

So why can’t I get it out of my head? I’ve been

avoiding the piano, but now, at my lesson,

Ms. Hart waiting, expectant, I can’t stall

any longer. And of course she wants me to

play the third movement, Presto agitato. But

how can I play at all when—forget the night-

mares—all this real shit has been marching

through my head nonstop, an invisible army

of worries and doubts: Reed. Cary. Jail.

Drugs. Debts. Music. My parents. Chicago.

The Peabody. How can I just leave with Reed?

How can I stay here, let him go? Oh what oh what

in the world am I going to do? “Julia?” Ms.

Hart prompts. “Just dive into it. Remember, it

doesn’t have to be perfect.” So I take a deep

breath, and I do. My right hands climb the

rising arpeggios, each one cut off in a thunderclap

of chords, till they transform into an endless

stream of G sharps, high and low, each one saying,

hear me hear me hear me— Stop.

But only for a

moment, before the arpeggios start once more.

Then comes the second theme, its

syncopated beat seducing the ear,

saying, Hey, here’s a different way to

look at things and throwing

everything off balance. There’s a brief

shift to a major key, giddy,

freeing…

And then

the relentless series of chords that demands:

Stop waffling, willowing. Choose your path and

move forward. Now. Then it’s back to the

opening theme, the arpeggios racing from my

fingers even faster than I started,

and I’m

flubbing notes now but I can’t stop, can’t

slow down, have to keep going. The notes go

on, the two themes melding, mutating, a

frenzy building till it lands on one low,

foreboding chord…

But just for a

second, till its

back to the beginning, through both themes,

to the lightning-quick chromatic scales up and

down and up and down the keys, the drawn-

out trills, the arpeggios in both hands going

down

down,

no way back up now,

and then that final chord, abrupt,

chopped off.

It’s done.

Done…and I’m guzzling air,

chest heaving, lungs going in out in out in

time with the echoes of music still

lingering in the air. “That’s it!” Ms. Hart

says, one hand on my shoulder. “That’s what

I’ve been trying to get you to do all semester.”

I twist around to look at her, sure she’s

kidding, but her smile is wide and genuine.

“But I started way too fast, and just got faster,”

I say. “I think I got at least one note wrong

in every single measure.” “Doesn’t matter,”

she answers. “The technique will come.

What’s important is that you let the music take

control rather than trying to contain it. You

were willing to go somewhere dark and

unsettling…” I know Ms. Hart’s speaking

metaphorically, but still I shiver just a little,

though I don’t think she catches it. “…taking

risks is what will take you to the next level as

a musician.” I nod, but I’m not thinking about

music anymore. I’m thinking about the push-pull

I felt while I was playing, the notes tugging me

in one direction, then the other, and how now that

I’ve played through it, that sense of being torn

in two is gone. Gone, because I’ve made my

decision. My choice is dark, and more than a

little unsettling, but I know what I have to do.

Stephanie Parent is a YA author repped by Brenda Bowen of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. She is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing program at USC and attended the Baltimore School for the Arts as a piano major.
To find out more about Stephanie visit her BLOG. Or you can follow her on Goodreads and Twitter.

Click HERE for tour schedule to visit the other AWESOME blogs on this tour!!