Book Review: Watch Out Hollywood, More Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child

Today I am back with author Maria Lennon discussing her new book ''Watch Out Hollywood, More Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child'' the follow up to her best selling ''Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child''

In the second book ( link here with title) Charlie tells a ''white lie'' that hurts her friend Marta. Charlie is torn between her own desires and wanting what is best for Marta. Hollywood dreams for Charlie and Olympic dreams for Marta are the center story line in this book.

Jules: Maria, it is so good to have you back. I cannot tell you how honored I was that you remembered our interview from last year and wanted to come back. I loved the first book so I was thrilled to hear there was a follow-up. Charlie is back in all of her tween glory learning some tough life lessons. How has life changed since the last time we spoke? What's new?

Maria: Hi Jules, I’m so happy to be back. You are one of my all-time favorite bloggers. You totally got Charlie and shared my weird fascination with 70’s Olympic Gymnasts, which is pretty random. The big bummer of the year was I broke my wrist on the way to volunteering in my son’s kindergarten class and had surgery so that meant making sandwiches for four kids with one hand. That was a major bummer. Then I met a woman in physical therapy who broke both wrists at the same time and I felt kind of lucky.

Jules: Growing up what were your favorite books? This book reminds me a lot of Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. I see a lot of Harriet in Charlie. She is off beat, has her own style and thought processes different than most girls her age. Harriet was one of my favorite heroines in my youth.  

Maria: Again you nailed it—Harriet the Spy was a huge inspiration. I loved, loved, loved watching her get mad, make mistakes, get it wrong and then discover her own path. I try to do that with Charlie—show how mistakes become opportunities for growth.

Jules: Okay Maria.....seriously....you're killing me with the Romanian gymnast stuff.  I spent from 1984 to 1988 pretending I was Nadia Comenanci or Teadora Ungreano daily with my friend Christena. Then I had a Romanian best friend in high school. My friend Flavia ( who is Romanian) tells me that I am Romanian by osmosis. Where did you get this Romanian story line?

Maria:

It’s just one of those moments in time that is burned in my memory. My father calling me into his room and telling me I had to see this gymnast who was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. So we all gathered to watch the tiny, determined little Nadia on the beam, the floor, the rings doing things that looked impossibly perfect. The only other time that happened was when he said the same thing about a little kid by the name of Michael Jackson.

Jules: Speaking of my friend Christena, she was my partner in crime. I am going to send her this book because it is SO us. Alternative dressing girls who told white lies all the time. We both just wanted to be liked and be cool sometimes to our own detriment. Would you agree white lies are rampant in junior high? Did you ever tell a white lie to be liked? Charlie just wants to be liked but she also wants to do the right thing.

Maria:

See, Jules, here’s the thing: White lies are the fabric of life.  Most adults tell them all the time about everything. Someone says: Do I look fat in this? No, of course you don’t. Was the meal good? Wonderful. And kids pick up on this faster than a sponge picks up bacteria. Seriously. And then we spend a lot of time covering our tracks. This is what Charlie does. She tells a lie she doesn’t think is a big deal, she convinces herself it’s not a big deal and when she learns that it is, well, she goes nuts trying to make it go away.

I’m sure I lied when I was a kid, what kid doesn’t? But I was always horrible at it. Got caught before the lie left my mouth. I’d rather rip the Band-Aid off fast by telling the ugly truth then slowly with the white lie. Plus it’s way to hard to remember the lie.

Jules: I love these books because you heavily feature the Laurel Canyon area where you live. I just think it is awesome to see a young girl growing up in So.Cal in writing. Everyone knows ''someone'' on television and wants to be in the industry growing up. I had a few friends growing up that had headshots and were always going to auditions. Does this come from your own youth or from experiences with your daughters?

Maria: Thank you. What I love about Laurel Canyon is that it is very old school LA—you’ve got the rockers, the hippies, the actors but they’re not the flashy actors like Ton Cruise. People like Joachim Phoenix live up here. Trent Reznor, and James Gandolfini had a house here. He used to walk his dog in his boxer shorts. Most of the people here are into their art and not their fame. Their houses are falling apart like the rest of ours, their kids go to the local public school and they do their best to maintain their privacy and be a part of the community. Until pretty recently flashy cars, fake boobs and lips weren’t to be seen. But things are changing. Developers are coming. I’m a third generation LA girl so I stay clear of Hollywood J But a lot of kids go out on auditions, there are casting calls all the time at the local public school (Happy Canyon) and most of the middle and high schools offer cinematic arts. We have a lot of friends who are actors and my children see how hard it is on the soul to be rejected so consistently. They have no interest in perusing it.

Jules: I noticed the ending was a bit of a cliffhanger? Can we expect more from Charlie and Marta? 

Maria: Oh yeah and the canyon and Bobby….

Jules: Have you ever thought about writing a book from Marta's point of view? I would be just as interested to see a more human side to Marta.

Maria: Yes! Yes! Yes! I love Marta and in this book I love the way she deals with being manipulated, with being hurt and ditched. I’d like her to go to the Olympics in Beijing and free some political prisoners like I Wei- Wei. She’s so funny and of course has zero tact. Not that Charlie has much tact either.

Jules: I cannot thank you enough for coming back to chat with me and for the lovely inscription in the book.  I can't wait to see what you come up with next. Thanks for speaking with me today, keep me posted on the future adventures of Charlie Cooper.

Maria: Thank you for having me and loving the characters and all that you do for kids and books!

You can buy the book on:

Harper Collins website

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

About Maria Lennon:

Maria T. Lennon is a graduate of the London School of Economics, 

a novelist, and an established screenwriter. She has lived in New York, 

Genova, Paris, and London and currently resides with her family in Los 

Angeles, California. You can visit her online at www.mariatlennon.com

*disclaimer: This isn't a paid review, I just really like Maria and she likes me enough to send me a copy of her book. She didn't ask me to review the book, she just wanted me to have a copy.

Confessions of a So Called Middle Child, Interview with Author Maria T Lennon

  When I was asked to read this book, I jumped at the chance.  I am a classic middle child 

sensitive, often feeling left behind and forgotten in the shuffle of a busy family in upheaval.  My parents divorced when I was in 7^th grade and I struggled through the years of going to jr. high in a very affluent area riding the bus in to school. Now the mother of a daughter the same age, I thought it would be great to read the book and interview Maria T. Lennon the author of the book on Just Jules. She kindly agreed and our chat is below the book description.

 In Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child, Harper Collins’ latest middle grade series to hit the shelves August 27, 2013, turning your back on popularity and facing the mean girls head-on proves to be fun and rewarding. Penned by author and screenwriter Maria T. Lennon, Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child stars hilariously spunky recovering bully and tween hacker Charlie Cooper, who gets expelled from her fancy Malibu Charter School for a laxative prank gone wrong and finds herself “shrinked” for middle child syndrome and getting more than she bargained for at her new school Los Angeles.

Just as Charlie succeeds in fitting in with the cool crowd at her new school, her therapist makes her commit something worthy of social blacklisting: befriending the most unpopular girl in middle school, Marta the Farta. When Charlie learns the terrible truth behind Marta the Farta's bad attitude and loner status, she decides to make a change in her life that sets her on the road to reformation.

Maria Lennon has created a fresh and fun story that brings "Mean Girls" to the tween level, peppered with snarky comments, major attitude, and advice to spare from Charlie Cooper, whose virtues, flaws and fears promise to hit home among young girls, braving middle school in the 21st century and all the pressures that come with it: popularity, bullying, social media, the list goes on.

Jules: Welcome Maria, so glad to have you on Just Jules to talk about your new book.  I am a blogger who doesn’t consider herself a writer turned blogger but a blogger turned writer.  How did you get your start in writing? Was it something you always loved or something you’ve learned to love?

Maria: Hi Jules, thank you so much for having me.

To tell you the truth, I hated writing when I was a kid. I had horrible dyslexia and used to rip the paper into shreds with my pencil. I found it frustrating beyond belief. I HATED organizing my thoughts. Kids called me a “retard” routinely. It was bad. But then things turned around when my mother took me to a special dyslexia tutor and I learned how to overcome a lot of the obstacles. And then, writing became my salvation. It took me to the best schools in the world and I got into them because I could write.

Jules:  Tell us a little about your childhood and family life growing up? Where did you grow up? I write about my life and childhood, so I want to know about yours.

When I was 13 my family moved from LA to a ranch north of Santa Barbara. My siblings (one older sister and two brothers) and I wanted to run away the moment we saw it. It felt like hell to us. All that nature! Los Olivos had a population of 425 people. The street had a butcher, a liquor shop and a gas station. There wasn’t a mall (what torture!)  or a movie theater for sixty miles AND on top of that people were slaughtering their pets. I became a vegetarian immediately and begged to go to boarding school. Lucky for me, my parents said yes. So off I went to Switzerland at fifteen and then I went to England did my A levels and went to London School of Economics where I planned to study human rights law and join the United Nations.

Jules: Where did you come up with the main character Charlie? Is she from your own past or based on anyone you know in your life?

The character of Charlie is based on my middle child. She is now almost thirteen and is still very much a middle child. Many of the experiences in the book with girls came from spending so much time on school yards and in classes. I became very attuned to the tone of voice girls get when they’re shutting someone out. And the look on the face of the girl who has just been shut out gets me every time.

Jules:  Everyone knows that I am a southern California native born and bred. I love that you set your story in Laurel Canyon, my readers may not know this about me, growing up I would go to work with my Dad on the weekends. He often worked in the Hollywood Hills; I have a fond fixation with old Hollywood homes and neighborhoods. The Laurel Canyon area and Los Feliz areas are two places I could wander forever.

Maria: YAY!!! Me too. My grandmother lived in Los Feliz. My Mom grew up there.  I love Los Feliz.

The fact you set the story in the legendary, controversial Houdini home is my favorite part of the book! What is your favorite place to go and be in the Southern California area? Tell us your favorite historical place as well?

My favorite place IS where I live. I, like you, could wander Laurel Canyon endlessly. I am a runner (though sadly don’t resemble one) and I spend hours just jogging slowly through the smallest dead-end drives, trying to figure out how to get to the old canyon houses that seem to hang on to cliffs with no roads.  I stop to talk to the older residents and they always tell me what it was like in the old days. I love old people. The other day I went through the old Tom Mix cabin, on the opposite side of the street from the Houdini Mansion and took tons of photographs of the caves. This incredible property is featured in book 2 and book 3 of the series and is a place of so much history and Laurel Canyon mystery.

Jules: We’ve all had a Marta in our life, someone who is shunned by her classmates for being weird and different. Something I have lived and re-lived this year with Elizabeth my daughter is that 13-year-old girls are mean and often eat their own.   Were you more a Marta or a Charlie? For me, I was more like Charlie’s older sister Pen in this case. I’ve always just loved people even people others deem not cool or outcasts. I really appreciate this part of the story, that you show the back story of this young girl and show another young girl to look beyond appearances!

Maria: What great insight! I think we’d get along, you and I. I was—and am—more like Pen too. But I had mean girls on my tail. When I was a kid there was a girl named Bunny who used to wait for me in the locker room and attack me with her long, sharpened toe nails- I kid you not. I lived in fear of her and hid most afternoons until my mom would finally pick me up.

The thing is—Charlie is scared, far more scared than Pen. So she comes out swinging. That’s her defense mechanism. Confident people don’t need to swing. Marta doesn’t swing and ironically she has far more confidence than Charlie does.

And yes, I’m sorry for your daughter. Girls can be so mean. It breaks my heart. It’s one of the main reasons I wrote this book and one of the main things I talk about when I go to schools.

Julie:  Okay, I think that we just made friends! I love that we love the same places and have the same thoughts about being different and marching to your own drum.

Jules: The thing that had me laughing was the Romanian character! Romanian’s have long been a part of my life from my love of Nadia Comaneci to having many Romanian friends. Such a random thing to add to the story but perfect for my blog!  Where did this come from?

Maria:I love that you love that. I suppose it dates us—Nadia Comaneci was just the epitome of cool wasn’t she? I chose her because Charlie likes cool and unusual people. I wanted Marta to be an outcast, to feel like she’s on the fringe because that’s the way Charlie feels inside. Wait until you read book 2- Marta’s aunt comes into town and her take on American culture will have you laughing.

Jules: Anything else you would like to share?  I really appreciated that you showed a human side of a 13 year old girl. One that wasn’t neat and pretty, Charlie is a girl with deep seated issues who turns her life around. As a former Charlie, I really appreciated that you didn’t paint her as having a cookie cutter life and also showed Marta’s tough life as well.

Maria: I love you! You see the whole point. Some people who want cookie cutter kids look at Charlie and Marta and say, “Wow, Charlie is so mean.” Or “she’s a brat, shallow, superficial….” And that IS the point, 13 year-old girls aren’t always so sweet or kind. Nor should they be, right? It’s all part of the journey. And kids need to read about someone who is NOT necessarily a role model, but someone who is struggling through it just like they are.

I thank you for the opportunity to have such an intelligent conversation about these girls. I hope your daughter liked the book.

Julie: Thank you so much Maria, I adore you and I am so glad we had this chat. Thanks for sharing with me about 

your book. You have to come back and chat with me some more when book two and three come out! I think that we could talk forever.

I am giving away a copy of Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child. Leave me a comment on this post to be entered in the giveaway. This would make a great stocking stuffer for any of the young girls in your life!

Visit Maria’s website :https://www.confessionsofasocalledmiddlechild.com

Like Her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Maria-T-Lennon

Follow her on Twitter: @Maria_T_Lennon