#UnlockTheBoy: Bonus Content for THE BOY MOST LIKELY TO

Today I'm excited to share a fun way to tide all you Huntley Fitzpatrick lovers over until the release of The Boy Most Likely To on August 18th! A deleted scene and bonus preview chapter will be available for devouring if the #UnlockTheBoy hashtag is shared enough, so I hope you guys will read through the details below and help me get the word out so we can get our hands on all the extra goodies! Who loves bonus content? THIS GIRL!

Huntley Fitzpatrick, critically acclaimed author of My Life Next Door and What I Thought Was True, heats up the summer months with The Boy Most Likely To, a sizzling tale of first love and second chances. This companion novel, set in the same world as My Life Next Door, tells the story of fan favorite Tim Mason and his tumultuous relationship with both Alice Garrett and his own rocky past. From July 28th - August 17th, readers can help unlock extra content from The Boy Most Likely To ahead of its release on August 18th! Plus, enter to win 1 of 5 signed copies of What I Thought Was True!

THE EXTRA CONTENT: 

• an exclusive DELETED SCENE from The Boy Most Likely To
• a BONUS PREVIEW CHAPTER from The Boy Most Likely To

TWO WAYS TO UNLOCK THE EXTRAS:

• Share the Huntley Fitzpatrick sampler (featuring 4 chapters from BMLT and MLND, and 3 from WITWT) on social media with the hashtag #UnlockTheBoy: bit.ly/HuntleyFitzpatrickSampler
• Share this blog post on social media with the hashtag #UnlockTheBoy

The deleted scene and bonus chapter will be revealed once the hashtag reaches enough shares, so post as many times as you want!

THE BOY MOST LIKELY TO

Tim Mason was The Boy Most Likely To find the liquor cabinet blindfolded, need a liver transplant, and drive his car into a house

Alice Garrett was The Girl Most Likely To . . . well, not date her little brother’s baggage-burdened best friend, for starters.

For Tim, it wouldn’t be smart to fall for Alice. For Alice, nothing could be scarier than falling for Tim. But Tim has never been known for making the smart choice, and Alice is starting to wonder if the “smart” choice is always the right one. When these two crash into each other, they crash hard.

Then the unexpected consequences of Tim’s wild days come back to shock him. He finds himself in a situation that isn’t all it appears to be, that he never could have predicted . . . but maybe should have.

And Alice is caught in the middle.

Told in Tim’s and Alice’s distinctive, disarming, entirely compelling voices, this novel is for readers of The Spectacular Now, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and Paper Towns.

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N 

• • • • • • • • • • • 

THE GIVEAWAY

• FIVE (5) winners will be randomly selected on 8/18 (release day!) from among those using the #UnlockTheBoy hashtag across social media to win a SIGNED copy of What I Thought Was True
• US and Canada only
• Submit your name, email, and social media handles via this google form so that the team can contact you if you win (you only need to submit them once): http://goo.gl/forms/waBvPg1HNs
• Each time you use the hashtag counts as another entry -- the more you post, the more times you're entered to win!

Author Interview: Huntley Fitzpatrick + My Life Next Door

I'm really pleased today to be a part of the promotional tour for Huntley Fitzpatrick's contemporary young adult novel My Life Next Door. Thanks to Teen Book Scene, I was able to ask Huntley a few questions about Samantha, Jase, and the entire amazing cast of characters, so I hope you enjoy! This book caught be my surprise in the best possible way (you can read my full review here), and is certainly going to be one I buy a copy of for the keeper shelf so I can read it again and again.

What might Samantha say was the one thing she most admired about the Garrett family from simply observing them? Would she say that one thing changed once she got to know the family as individuals?  

How everything looked easy and was perfect in a more real way than her family defined it. She would say it did change, that every family has its faults and its struggles and its crazy moments that you can’t see from a distance. But those are generally the best and most real of all. 

If you were seventeen again and could have any celebrity or book character climb through your window and fall madly in love with you, who would it be? 

When I was seventeen, having someone climb in through my window and fall for me was a big fantasy of mine. It would have been Pierce Brosnan. I had a picture of him on my wall back then and just thought he was perfect. If I were seventeen now, it would probably be Augustus Waters from John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. However brief, it would be worth it. I would still open the window for Pierce, though.

Is there one personality trait of Samantha’s (or Jase’s) you wish you possessed, or one you’re most proud of?  

Samantha tries hard to show up for the people she cares about and struggles to do the right thing—I hope I do that. 

What’s the strangest or most inconvenient place you’ve been when an idea for a story has popped into your head? 

I am always ONLY in inconvenient places when I have ideas. On a bike ride, in a shower, at a teacher conference, on a playground with no scrap of paper available for miles. I leave myself a lot of messages on the phone and use my lipstick and store receipts for purposes for which they were not intended.

What’s the very last word you wrote for My Life Next Door and what one word best describes what you were feeling when you wrote it?  

What a great question. The very last word I wrote was the scene at the Garretts where Tim sends Samantha over to talk to her mother and find out what she said to Mrs. Garrett. I’d written the conclusion earlier, but then realized I’d left Tim in the house while all these dramatic things were going on without saying what he was doing. So I figured out he must be outside, smoking. He needed his own last words, so the last words I typed were “Go find out. I’ll man the fort here.” I felt elated and relieved to be finished with the book, but also this sense of incompletion…like…I wonder what happens to Tim now.

Thanks so much for stopping by Huntley! More information on Huntley and My Life Next Door can be found here:

Website
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter
Amazon buy link

MY LIFE NEXT DOOR (from Goodreads)

“One thing my mother never knew, and would disapprove of most of all, was that I watched the Garretts. All the time.”

The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not. Loud, numerous, messy, affectionate. And every day from her balcony perch, seventeen-year-old Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them . . . until one summer evening, Jase Garrett climbs her terrace and changes everything. As the two fall fiercely in love, Jase's family makes Samantha one of their own. Then in an instant, the bottom drops out of her world and she is suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?

Review: My Life Next Door

MY LIFE NEXT DOOR

Huntley Fitzpatrick
Contemporary Young Adult
395 pages
Dial Books for Young Readers
Available June 14th
Received through Teen Book Scene for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)

“One thing my mother never knew, and would disapprove of most of all, was that I watched the Garretts. All the time.”

The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not. Loud, numerous, messy, affectionate. And every day from her balcony perch, seventeen-year-old Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them . . . until one summer evening, Jase Garrett climbs her terrace and changes everything. As the two fall fiercely in love, Jase's family makes Samantha one of their own. Then in an instant, the bottom drops out of her world and she is suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?

MY THOUGHTS

The pages of My Life Next Door contain more than simple black and white words, juxtaposing the chaotic warmth of a loving environment with the cool detachment hidden by a mask of perfection–two families worlds apart but yet separated by mere feet and a sturdy fence. Both the Garretts and the Reeds could be called the “ideal” family depending on one’s definition of ideal, and it’s fascinating to learn how the view of both from the outside is nothing if not skewed, reflecting none of the joy, pain, love, loss, strength, weakness or truth lingering within. The Garrett family lives in a home—pieces of them infused in the very wood and mortar holding it together–whereas Samantha and her sister and mother reside simply in a house–four walls and a roof all perfectly decorated and absolutely beautiful to those looking superficially—and we as readers are granted the glorious opportunity to follow Samantha as her world and her life are completely redefined.

Sam is quite literally an observer of life rather than someone who actually lives it each day, watching the Garrett family for years as they argue, play, support, and tease one another before returning to her fairly empty existence. Her gradual integration into the Garrett household is beautiful to watch, almost as though we can see the love they radiate flush her cheeks and pebble her skin, continuing to seep into her until she glows with a new confidence and knowledge that she is important and cared for now and always. There are times when she reverts back to her role as observer, watching the madness around her and allowing it control her rather than taking control of it with both hands, but she soon quickly realizes what she’s done and stands up in defense of a new love for Jase and the entire Garrett family as well as a new love for herself.

The romance with Jase is as perfect as any reader and lover of romance could wish it, gradually building and steadily growing without a cliché or common plot device to mar its beauty. Not a single preemptive declaration of love is uttered, no all-consuming attraction exists between them, and no third party enters into their relationship once it’s established; instead we get a sweet and awkward foray into emotional attachment and physical intimacy that has us giggling with glee and sighing in utter satisfaction. While the relationship between Jase and Sam is prominent, the relationships formed with all the secondary characters are exquisitely executed as well, the boisterous members of the Garrett household splitting our hearts into multiple pieces, each family member retaining ownership long after we’ve set the book down (though George’s piece might be the largest).

At times the reading of this tale can be a bit slow, the day to day lives and troubles of the Garrett family not necessarily causing us to flip the pages with record speed, however, there is a tension prevalent that refuses to dissipate, a simple knowing that tragedy is on its way that has us secretly wishing the quiet, simple moments could be drawn out to the fullest extent to allow them all happiness before the darkness rolls in. As hard as we wish we’re unable to keep that darkness at bay, and when it hits, our pain is acute and our anger powerful as the portraits of two very different families are torn to shreds and left in fragments of warm and cool colors that bleed together at our feet. Luckily for us, our beloved characters are stronger than we might have given them credit for in the beginning, and we’re left with the hope that those fragments will slowly find their way back to the whole.

Rating: 4.5/5