Marisa de los Santos' 5 Things I'd Tell the Teen Me

Our guest today: Marisa de los Santos Why we love her: Very simple: her writing is beautiful!

Her latest: the paperback of Falling Together

The Scoop: It's been six years since Pen Calloway watched Cat and Will, her best friends from college, walk out of her life. Through the birth of her daughter, the death of her father, and the vicissitudes of single motherhood, she has never stopped missing them. When, after years of silence, Cat—the bewitching, charismatic center of their group—urgently requests that the three meet at their college reunion, Pen can't refuse. But instead of a happy reconciliation, what awaits is a collision of past and present that sends Pen and Will on a journey around the world, with Pen's five-year-old daughter and Cat's hostile husband in tow. And as Pen and Will struggle to uncover the truth about Cat, they find more than they bargained for: startling truths about who they were before and who they are now.

Our thoughts: We couldn't put this one down-LOVE it!

Giveaway: FIVE copies! Leave a comment and we'll choose the winners on Sunday October 7th after 6pm PST.

Fun Fact: Marisa has a Ph.D in English and creative writing.

Where you can read more about Marisa: Check her out on Facebook!

CHICK LIT IS NOT DEAD PRESENTS...MARISA DE LOS SANTOS' 5 THINGS I'D TELL THE TEEN ME

1. That thing where you dumb yourself down to be more popular? Forget it.  If it ever worked at all, and high school is just a goofy enough place that it might have, it never works anywhere else.  Ever.  And whether it works or not, every time you keep your burning opinions to yourself or laugh at the cute boy’s really dumb joke or pretend, eyelashes fluttering, that you just don’t get it, a tiny part of your soul goes into hibernation and you’ll have to work way too hard later to wake it up. Don’t get me wrong:  you’re not a genius.  But you are quick, articulate, passionate, full of ideas, some of them good, and you really do know that George Eliot is a woman (a smart one).  The world needs girls like you.  Let your brainy girl flag fly.

2. Enjoy your mother as much as you possibly can. I’m not talking about love.  As a mother myself, I can tell you that even when you are at your most sarcastic, snarliest, eye-rolling worst, she will know that you love her almost more than you can bear.  What I mean is when you’re with her, singing at the top your lungs to records in the basement, talking about a book you’ve both read, dancing, listening to her ringing, ravishing laugh, really be there.  When you are in your twenties, she will be diagnosed with MS and over the years, will lose so much.  The singing voice, the dancing, the ability to stay up with you late into the night.  Drink her up.  Cherish her.

3. Believe this: you are pretty enough.  I’m not just saying that.  Despite the terrible ‘80s hair and the eye shadow, you are lovely.  One day, you’ll have a ten year old daughter who will dance all over the house, so luminous, so at home inside her skin, and you will ache with wanting her to hold onto it, the easy knowledge of her own fabulousness.  So you do it:  stop the dieting; wipe off at least half the makeup; love your legs because they’re strong; lose the dark streaks on the side of your nose that are meant to make it look like Brooke Shields’s. They don’t and your nose is fine.  Trust me.

4. And while we’re on the subject, stop wanting to be blond.  Yes, your friend Allison is beautiful, but your dark hair, brown skin, and black eyes are their own brand of awesome.  Not because of the men who will call you “exotic” (and there will be plenty, most of them creepy), but because they’re yours and they come from someplace.  Right after you stop being a teenager (and I promise it will end), you’ll go to the Philippines where your dad was born, and you’ll fall in love with the place and with his family—your family.  And you’ll realize that to want to be blond is to deny those beautiful people and to want to look like you is to embrace them.  Plus, blond means a lifetime of maintenance, and when it comes to crap like that, you will be forever and hopelessly lazy.

5. Learn how to do stuff.  Seriously.  Wit and a way with words will get you pretty far, but at some point, you’ll need to cook something or fix something or put a coat of paint on something or read an instruction manual and make something run, and the older you get, the harder it will be to learn.  So start now:  program your VCR, fry an egg.  I know you can do it.

Thanks Marisa!  xoxo, L&L

Marisa de los Santos' 5 Loves and a Dud

We have mad love for New York Times bestselling author, Marisa de los Santos. And are still pinching ourselves that she accepted our invitation to share her 5 Loves and a Dud. (And when we saw that french fries was on her list of loves, we knew she was definitely our girl!) Her latest novel, FALLING TOGETHER has been called one of the hottest books for fall and we couldn't agree more. Here's the skinny on FALLING TOGETHER: It’s been six years since Pen Calloway watched her best friends walk out of her life. And through the birth of her daughter, the death of her father, and the vicissitudes of single motherhood, she has never stopped missing them.

Pen, Cat, and Will met on their first day of college and formed what seemed like a magical and lifelong bond, only to see their friendship break apart amid the realities of adulthood. When, after years of silence, Cat—the bewitching, charismatic center of their group—e-mails Pen and Will with an urgent request to meet at their college reunion, they can’t refuse. But instead of a happy reconciliation, what awaits is a collision of past and present that sends Pen and Will, with Pen’s five-year-old daughter and Cat’s hostile husband in tow, on a journey across the world.

As Pen and Will struggle to uncover the truth about Cat, they find more than they bargained for: startling truths about who they were before and who they are now. They must confront the reasons their friendship fell apart and discover how—and if—it can ever fall back together.

Sounds fabulous, right? Want to win a copy? There's 5 to be won! Just leave a comment and be entered. We'll randomly select the winners after 6:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, November 6th.

CHICK LIT IS NOT DEAD PRESENTS...MARISA DE LOS SANTOS' 5 LOVES AND A DUD

1. FRENCH FRIES

There’s something almost mystically beautiful about a food that, apart from the way it tastes, has not a single redeeming quality.  They are so pure in their badness, like those irresistible boys in high school who were dumb and unfunny and entirely self-absorbed but just so stinkin’ gorgeous.   In order to eat fries, you have to check every bit of wisdom you have ever acquired at the door.  Having said that, I won’t just eat any fry.  I don’t need organic blue potatoes, a French chef, and sea salt (although I never say no to that!), but I do need crispness and just the right amount of greasiness (I’m pretty sure that they serve flabby fries in hell), and then I leave my self-respect in shreds in the dust and just go for it.

2. BALLET

As a kid, I abandoned ballet early on for gymnastics, a monumentally bad decision since I am tallish, have zero upper body strength, and way too much fear, but as an adult, I am a ballet addict.  I take adult classes as often as I can, usually three times a week, and every time, I leave class a better, happier person than when I got there.  When I tell people I do ballet, usually they say something like, “Wow, I bet that’s a great workout.”  And I suppose it is, but for me (for once!), the way it makes my body look is not the point.  I love the discipline, mental and physical, the way you start every single class with tendus and plies, the most fundamental movements.  I love the sense that I am participating in the beautiful, even when I am not beautiful (which is often).  And I love (for once!) not having any goal beyond joy and getting better at a hard thing.  I will not be tested.  I will not be taking the world stage by storm.  I will never audition for anything.  Which is just the way I like it.

3. ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

And when I say Anne of Green Gables, I’m talking about the whole series, people.  Eight books, but especially the first five.  Intellectually, I know they might be sugary and old-fashioned and overwritten and mostly plotless, but the truth is that I don’t experience them this way, ever.  I love them.  I love how almost everyone in them (except Josie Pye) is trying so hard to be good.  I love the endless nature descriptions and how Anne and her friends can go on long rambles through fields and woods and never get bitten by one mosquito.  I love the rampant optimism and romance.  I open one book and, boom, I am right there, inside of my childhood.  When I think of my favorite childhood place, I don’t think of any of the houses I lived in; I think of Anne’s east gable room with the flowering cherry tree outside the window.  A chronic bad sleeper, I read these books before I turn out the light.  I am almost never not reading one of them.  I read them to pieces, literally.  Do I know that this is weird?  Yes.  Do I care?  Nope.

4. DETECTIVE FICTION

Give me a well-written, character-driven mystery and I am happy as a clam.  Kate Atkinson, Tana French, Alexander McCall Smith, Dorothy Sayers, Jacqueline Winspear, Raymond Chandler, Alan Bradley, Cornelia Read, Agatha Christie.  I try hard not to be envious of other writers, and mostly I succeed, but I am dead jealous of mystery writers.  I want to learn to plot like that, to end every chapter with a cliffhanger.  I want to write people into dark, dark places and to ruthlessly examine the ugly side of humanity.  I want to create detectives that are complicated, vulnerable, and wicked smart.  So far, no dice, but I am not giving up hope!

5. DRIVING MY KIDS AROUND

I don’t just mean the actual driving, although I do love that.  There is a certain kind of closeness and a certain kind of conversation that only happens in minivans (and I do have one) on the way to swim practice or ballet class.  But I mean the whole shebang.  It’s one of the chief complaints of the modern parent:  the time-suck of their kids’ sports and activities schedules.  But mostly, I don’t buy it.  Mostly, I think we all secretly love to not only drive there but to be there.  My kids swim year-round, and, yes, indoor pool facilities (or natatoria, cool word) are kind of miserable:  hot, humid, loud.  But I am never miserable in them.  I look forward to swim meets, to getting up and getting the kids up while it’s still dark outside, driving through the cool dawn with the sun coming up and my travel mug of coffee in the cup holder and the kids eating breakfast in the back.  We listen to inspiring kid music:  Katie Perry’s “Firework”, The Black-Eyed Peas’s “I Gotta Feeling” and we get inspired.  Then, my husband and I sit (or time or officiate) with the other swim parents and watch our children spend their hearts on the thing they love.  I could be writing books.  I could be doing a lot of things.  But here’s what I know:  it is the great privilege of my life to be there, and at the end of my life, I’ll be glad I was.

DUD

REALITY T.V.

I know that as soon as I say “I hate reality shows,” my fun factor takes a nosedive, but oh my gosh, I detest them.  Actually, in saying that, I’m breaking my rule about not panning anything that I don’t finish because I can’t get through more than seven minutes of any reality show, but, rule be damned, I loathe them.  They bring out my inner cranky grandma (“That girl has no business wearing that skirt!”), my inner snob (“I have been studiously avoiding these people my entire life; why would I want to watch them now?”), and my inner high-horse-sitter (“Making fun of the mentally ill is just cruel.”).  Those housewives with their terrible lips!  The abusive dance moms!  Those wretchedly unhappy hoarders!  Those rich, famous, insufferable no-talent families!  And what about the writers?  What about the actors?  They’re talented!  They have gifts they’ve spent years and energy cultivating!  Employ them!  Give your time to something that’s worth it!  (See?  High horse!).

Thanks, Marisa!

xoxo,

Liz & Lisa

To find out more about the lovely and talented Marisa de los Santos, follow her on Facebook!