Title: My Crunchy Life
Author: Mia Kerick
Release Date: 26th June 2018
Genre: LGBT, Young Adult
BLURB
John Lennon fought for world peace, but sixteen-year-old
hippie hopeful Kale Oswald’s only made it as far as tie-dying his T-shirts with
organic grape juice. Now he’s ready to cement his new hippie identity by
joining a local human rights organization, but he doesn’t fit in as well as
he’d hoped.
After landing himself in the hospital by washing down a
Ziploc bag of pills with a bottle of Gatorade, Julian Mendez came clean to his
mother: he is a girl stuck in a boy’s body. Puberty blockers have stopped the maturing
of the body he feels has betrayed him. They’re also supposed to give him time
to be sure he wants to make a more permanent decision, but he’s already Julia
in his heart. What he’s not sure he’s ready to face is the post-transition
name-calling and bathroom wars awaiting him at school.
When Kale and Julian come face-to-face at the human rights
organization, attraction, teenage awkwardness, and reluctant empathy collide.
They are forced to examine who they are and who they want to become. But until Kale
can come to terms with his confusion about his own sexuality and Julian can be
honest with Kale, they cannot move forward in friendship, or anything more.
Find My Crunchy Life at Goodreads
Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Harmony Ink
EXCERPT
Julian, 4: 00 p.m.
On my first day back to school after the incident, Sydney
Harper, a junior from the right side of the tracks, cut me off in the hallway
by the gym and got up in my face. “You didn’t really wanna die. My mother said
it was just some kind of pathetic cry for help.” Having made her point, she
spun around on her Ugg-booted nonheel and headed for the girls’ locker room.
Then in precalc, some guy I barely knew poked me hard in
the back with a Sharpie marker, and I was the lucky recipient of another dose
of compassion. “You just crave
attention, don’t you, girly-boy?”
Maybe, on some level, they were both right.
But on that night in October when I decided my best move
in life would be to wash down the last of the Extra Strength Tylenol in our
medicine cabinet with a bottle of Citrus Cooler Gatorade, I knew I couldn’t
lose, however it turned out. The alternative to my clever plan to get some
attention, and maybe even a measure of help, was that I’d fall asleep and never
wake up— which, in my opinion, served just fine as Plan B.
If nobody heard my “cry for help” and I checked out, we’d
probably all be better off. No real harm done… except to Mama. But the freaking
UPS man heard my “pathetic cry,” or more accurately saw my apparently lifeless
torso hanging from the tree house in the side yard, and saved me.
GIVEAWAY: WIN $15 Amazon Gift Card
About the Author
Mia
Kerick is the mother of four exceptional children—a daughter in law school,
another in dance school, a third studying at Mia’s alma mater, Boston College,
and her lone son still in high school.
She writes LGBTQ romance when not editing National Honor Society essays,
offering opinions on college and law school applications, helping to create
dance bios, and reviewing English papers. Her husband of twenty-four years has
been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about
this, as it is a sensitive subject.
Mia
focuses her stories on emotional growth in turbulent relationships. As she has
a great affinity for the tortured hero, there is, at minimum, one in each book.
As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with tales of said tortured heroes
(most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair
bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to
Dreamspinner Press and Harmony Ink Press for providing alternate places to
stash her stories.
Her
books have won a Best YA Lesbian Rainbow Award, a Reader Views’ Book by Book
Publicity Literary Award, the Jack Eadon Award for Best Book in Contemporary
Drama, an Indie Fab Award, and a Royal Dragonfly Award for Cultural Diversity,
among other awards.
Mia
is a Progressive, a little bit too obsessed by politics, and cheers for each
and every victory in the name of human rights. Her only major regret: never
having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life
consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of
Technology.
Visit her website for updates on what is going on in Mia’s world, rants, music, parties, and pictures, and maybe even a little bit of inspiration.
Hi!! Thanks you ever so much for hosting MY CRUNCHY LIFE on your blog today!
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