Interview Marathon Day 1 - Melissa de la Cruz

Alright, Readers …

It’s day one of the Carly Reads Interview Marathon.  In case you haven’t noticed, TBF is 30 DAYS AWAY!!!! This means that I am in TOTAL PANIC mode.  I have sooooo many interviews left to post, soooooo many book reviews to write, and ummmm, yeah, a few books left to read.  Remember how last year, I said that I was going to be more on top of it and I wasn’t going to post three things a day for the month leading up to the festival? Yeah. That didn’t happen. 

So, enough talking – let’s get to interviewing! The lovely Melissa de la Cruz was kind enough to agree to an interview with moi, so here is what we discussed …

Carly Reads: I picked up your novel “Angels on Sunset Boulevard” because I was intrigued by the social networking theme.  What inspired you to take such an extreme approach to social networking?

Melissa de la Cruz: A couple of friends of mine were talking about MySpace (I wrote the book around 2005 or so) and I was intrigued by how they met people through the Internet, not in a chat room, and how they had these very personalized web pages, it was like having your bedroom walls (posters, quotes, etc) on the Internet. I was also fascinated by pyramid schemes, and also something I read about how 60% of American teens think they will be famous. It just seemed so odd to have your popularity online through the number of "friends" you had, and it just sparked my imagination to think of something evil behind it. Social networking was still pretty new about six years ago, so it was fun to think of how it might be used for nefarious schemes. :)  

CR: “Angels on the Sunset Boulevard” is very plot-driven.  I didn’t want to put it down until I had finished it.  When you begin a novel, do you know how it will progress and/or end? Or does it come to you as you write?
MC: I always outline all my novels, so I know all the plot points beforehand. I aim to write page-turners, so thanks for the compliment! But it's all a process, sometimes the story takes off in a different direction, so you need to keep pushing it until you get to the core of the story. Some things are planned, some things are surprises from the writing process. The easiest books to write are the ones where the plot is perfect from the outline, then I'm just fleshing it out. “Angels” was actually a difficult book, I had to keep rewriting it to figure out what the real story, the real plot was. I always know the ends of all my books though. That I know from the beginning. I know all my endings and I try to figure out the best way to get to them, so it builds up to the ending.

CR: Have you always wanted to be a writer? When did you know that you wanted to write for teens?
MC: Oh yes, ever since I could read. Being a writer was a dearly treasured childhood dream that I never gave up on, it was my life's goal. I knew I wanted to write for teens when I read "Gossip Girl.” I thought, "I could do this, I want to do this." I wrote “The Au Pairs” and never looked back.

CR: What are your top five favorite books?

MC: So hard to choose. But here goes. “War and Peace.” “Dune.” “Lord of the Rings.” “Wizard and Glass” (from the “Dark Tower” series). “Harry Potter.”

CR: What author are you most looking forward to meeting and/or seeing at the Sixth Annual Greater Rochester Teen Book Festival?

MC: My dear friends Ally Carter and Elizabeth Scott. I cannot wait to hang out with them, I don't get to see them enough! 

Thanks so much, Melissa. I can’t wait to meet you in person in 30 days! (Yikes!!!)

Heather on "Blue Bloods"

Hey Readers!

Welcome back to Carly Reads for day two of guest reviews by Dr. Laura’s students. 

Today, Heather reviews “Blue Bloods” by Melissa de la Cruz!

My name is Heather and I am a graduate student studying Literacy (5th-12th grade). I am hoping to get the literacy extension in birth through sixth grade so I can be dual certified. This is my second semester here at Naz and I absolutely love it. I love reading in my spare time, and I am a fan of authors like Terry Truman, Joyce Carol Oates, Edgar Alan Poe, and now Melissa De La Cruz.  In my spare time, when I am not reading, I am a Varsity Cheerleading coach and a Graduate Assistant for the Homework Help Program here at Naz. 

Before reading “Blue Bloods,” I could not help but think that this would be another vampire love story.  You know, the vampire novel in which the vampire and human fall in love and try to figure out a way to make things work.  However, “Blue Bloods” is not like your typical vampire series! Melissa De La Cruz does NOT present her readers with the typical human falls in love with vampire love story. Instead, Cruz presents a realistic, mysterious story in which vampires are trying to live “normal” elite lives in Manhattan.

“Blue Bloods” is set in Manhattan and follows the lives of a few teens that attend Duchesne, a prestigious private school.  These teens are different, not just because they are rich, powerful, and among the elite in Manhattan, but because they are vampires.  The "main character" Schuyler Van Alen is a misfit at Duchesne. Schuyler is different, not just because she does not dress like the other girls in the school, but because she is part vampire.  Schuyler does not realize that she is a vampire until she is fifteen when she beings noticing blue veins on her arms, and begins craving raw meat (YUCK!).  There is a scene in the book where readers witness Schuyler eating the raw meat with blood streaming down her face.  At this point I got a little queasy and wanted to tell her to stop! However, I kept reading because I was wrapped into the book and couldn’t wait to see what Schuyler would do next.


Once Schuyler finds out she is a blue blood, she realizes that the death of one of her classmates, who was also a blue blood, was not an accident, especially since vampires are unable to die.  Who or what is the cause of her classmate’s death and other young vampires? Readers spend the book, along with Schuyler trying to uncover this mystery while putting her own life on the line.  Readers read parts of a diary, written from one of the female members of the Mayflower.  The way it is presented, it feels as if we, the “hooked” readers, are reading it while Schuyler is having a flashback or while she is reading the diary herself.  It’s as if readers are uncovering parts of the mystery through this diary, while learning the history of the blue bloods.

I loved this book and I cannot wait to read the other books in the series.  Melissa de la Cruz effortlessly combines the elements of horror and suspense with a splash of love (but then again what is a good story without a little bit of romance?). Cruz’s writing captivates and draws readers in. Once I began reading, I could NOT put it down. I definitely recommend this book to all readers! What are you waiting for?! Go read it. :-)

Thanks for your review, Heather.  Looking forward to seeing you again at TBF 2011!

Heavenly Holiday Read

Hi Bookworms! 

I hope that you’ve all had a great holiday weekend. I’m elated because I got the chance to do nothing but swim and read all weekend long. That means that I have a few new book reviews for you! But I’m going to space them out … you know what they say about too much of a good thing. (At least, I hope you know. Because I always forget, which means that I can’t tell you.) Anyway, today I’ll review “Angels on Sunset Boulevard” by Melissa de la Cruz. 

I know that Melissa de la Cruz is most well-known for her “Blue Bloods” series, which is about vampires. But we all know how I feel about vampires, and even with my recent ventures into the vampire literature world, I thought I’d try something different of de la Cruz’s. 

“Angels on Sunset Boulevard” centers around a facebook-type website called TAP, the wild parties that TAP hosts, and a strange ritual that only a select few TAP members are invited to participate. Nick is a wealthy high schooler from Los Angeles who’s thirteen-year-old stepsister disappeared after attending a party hosted by TAP. Nick enlists Taj, the girlfriend of America’s hottest rock star, who has he himself vanished in the middle of a concert, to help him find out where his sister is and what exactly TAP has to hide. However, Taj knows more about TAP and its secrets than she lets on. 

The book is very plot driven and you won’t want to venture too far away from the story for very long. It hooks you in and keeps you wondering about what it is that TAP and Taj are hiding. I’d peg it as an older YA read, as heavy drug use, drinking, and sexual content are a prevalent theme. 

Any suggestions of what I should read next, bookworms? Let me know!