BLOG TOUR --- Mayfly by Jeff Sweat [Review + Giveaway]

Title: Mayfly
Author(s): Jeff Sweat
Edition: Hardcover, eBook; 320 pages
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Publication Date: May 8, 2018
Source: Rockstar Book Tours
Buy: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Book Depository - iBooks

Tour Schedule

Week One:

5/1/2018- What A Nerd Girl Says- Review

5/2/2018- RhythmicBooktrovert               - Review

5/3/2018- The Cover Contessa- Interview

5/4/2018- To Be Read- Review

Week Two:

5/7/2018- Twirling Book Princess- Excerpt

5/8/2018- Bri's Book Nook- Review

5/9/2018- K.L. Knovitzke – Author- Excerpt

5/10/2018- A Dream Within A Dream- Review

5/11/2018- Confessions of a YA Reader- Excerpt

Week Three:

5/14/2018- Daily Waffle - Excerpt

5/15/2018- F A N N A- Review

5/16/2018-Book-Keeping- Review

5/17/2018-Two Points of Interest- Review

5/18/2018- The Underground- Interview

Week Four:

5/21/2018- Buried Under Books- Review

5/22/2018- YA Books Central- Interview

5/23/2018- Sincerely Karen Jo- Review

5/24/2018- Wishful Endings- Interview

5/25/2018- Jena Brown Writes- Review

Week Five:

5/28/2018- Eli to the nth- Review

5/29/2018- Sweet Southern Home- Guest Post

5/30/2018- Simply Daniel Radcliffe- Review
5/31/2018- Books A-Brewin'- Excerpt

The Summary

Jemma has spent her life scavenging tools and supplies for her tribe in the their small enclave outside what used to be a big city. Now she’s a teen, and old enough to become a Mama. Making babies is how her people survive—in Jemma’s world, life ends at age seventeen.

Survival has eclipsed love ever since the Parents died of a mysterious plague. But Jemma’s connection to a boy named Apple is stronger than her duty as a Mama. Forced to leave, Jemma and Apple are joined in exile by a mysterious boy who claims to know what is causing them to die. The world is crumbling around them, and their time is running out. Is this truly the End?

(Goodreads)

My Review

Mayfly by Jeff Sweat is a stand-out debut.  A look at a what-if world, where the familiar becomes alien and teens are literally fighting against time itself to survive, this is one book you will regret not picking up.

Mayfly takes Los Angles and turns it into Ell Aye, a world dominated by teens because all the "Parents" have died. No one lives past 17, and this has created a fleeting and fast-paced society where every minute counts, "kids" become "adults" well before 18, and procreation is the most necessary of jobs.  Our main character, Jemma, lives in Holywood, a peaceful community underneath the remains of the Hollywood sign.  She has been tapped to become a Mama, but that isn't what Jemma wants.  So she, along with three other characters: Apple, the boy she loves; Lady, her best friend; and Pico, an Exile from the community of Malibu, set off on a trek to find out why the Parents died and how the teens could survive past 17.

The world-building is amazing in Mayfly.  Ell Aye is both familiar and foreign, with the oral tradition of this new world shifting the meaning and use of everything left behind by the Parents.  Within Ell Aye there are several "tribes" that are all distinctly different and rule over different parts of what we know as the Greater Los Angeles area.  They aren't all peaceful either.  This is a harsh world even if Holywood is peaceful.  There is danger from The Biters, a cannibalistic tribe that rules from Palos Verdes and preys on the other people in Ell Aye, and there is danger from The Last Lifers, teens on the brink of death (all 16-17) who went crazy when faced with the end; now they roam in mobs, killing anybody they find.  All of this is plotted within the first few chapters of the book, and then Jeff does an excellent job adding layers upon layers, reveling what exactly happened to the Parents, and how the societies developed.

Twists around each corner, heightened tension on each page, Jeff Sweat never lets you rest for long within the story.  You are rooting for these teens to survive, raging against all their obstacles, and gasping at the truth they find.  A strong start to a series, you won't want to leave Ell Aye once you visit.  Mayfly by Jeff Sweat is out in bookstores nationwide; do yourself a favor and pick up a copy!

Final Rating

About the Author

Jeff Sweat has made a living from words his entire career, starting out as an award-winning tech journalist for InformationWeek magazine and moving into marketing.

He led the content marketing team for Yahoo and pioneered its use of social media. He directed PR for two of the top advertising agencies in the country, Deutsch LA and 72andSunny. He now runs his own Los Angeles–based PR and marketing agency, Mister Sweat.

He grew up in Idaho as the middle of eight children—seven boys and one girl—and attended Columbia University in New York. Jeff lives in a big blue house in Los Angeles with his wife Sunny and their three kids, two cats, and a racing greyhound.


He loves to travel and writes everywhere he goes, even when there's not a desk. He likes karaoke, motorcycles and carpentry. He was once shot in the head with a nail gun, which was not a big of a deal as it sounds. But it still hurt like crazy.

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon Author Page | Goodreads 

Giveaway

1 winner will receive MAYFLY prize pack which includes buttons, custom art and maps, and a t-shirt, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This is the Story of You by Beth Kephart [Review + Interview + Giveaway]

Title: This is the Story of You
Author(s): Beth Kephart
Edition: HC, 264 pages
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Publication Date: April 12, 2016
Source: Chronicle Books - Part of Blog Tour
Buy: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Book Depository

Tour Schedule

5/31/2016 - Actin' Up with Books

6/1/2016 - Cracking the Cover

6/2/2016 - Stuck In YA Books

6/3/2016 - Eli to the nth (ME!!!!)

6/4/2016 - Middle Grade Mafioso

6/5/2016 - Read Now Sleep Later

6/6/2016 - The Reading Date

6/7/2016 - Emilie's Book World

The Summary

On Haven, a six-mile long, half-mile-wide stretch of barrier island, Mira Banul and her Year-Rounder friends have proudly risen to every challenge. But when a superstorm defies all predictions and devastates the island, when it strands Mira’s mother and brother on the mainland and upends all logic, nothing will ever be as it was. A stranger appears in the wreck of Mira’s home. A friend obsessed with vanishing is gone. As the mysteries deepen, Mira must find the strength to carry on—to somehow hold her memories in place while learning to trust a radically reinvented future.

Gripping and poetic, This Is the Story of You is about the beauty of nature and the power of family, about finding hope in the wake of tragedy and recovery in the face of overwhelming loss.

(Goodreads)

My Opinion

This is the Story of You is one of those stories that stick with you after you finish the last page.  The story of Mira and her small island community going through a storm as horrible as Hurricane Sandy, in which this story pulls inspiration from, is pulse-racing.  And it is not the moments within the storm, weathering the wind and rain and floods, it is the aftermath that is truly devastating.

A story of strength, rebuilding, friendship, and family, Beth Kephart manages to express the experience that Mira goes through in precise and lyrical language.  A feast for the eyes, the prose contained in these pages make the story that much more impactful, and manage to add an entire layer to the events of the book.  Each aspect of this book, the plot, the characterization, the setting, are all elevated by Beth's prose.  It is striking, and paints a picture of exactly what Mira sees and does, but also what she feels.  The emotional tone of this book is what makes it so personal while reading.

Beautifully written, and veritable emotional punch, This is the Story of You by Beth Kephart needs to be on everyone's reading list this summer.

Final Rating

Interview with Beth Kephart

First of all, I want to thank you Beth for taking the time to answer my questions.  I really appreciate it.  

Eli, thank YOU so much. Thank you for agreeing to share your virtual home with me.

I’m going to start with book/writing specific questions, then I’ll have some fun ones!

First question, why is one reason readers should pick up This is the Story of You?

This is a mystery set at the Jersey Shore in the wake of a storm like Storm Sandy. It is urgent, an environmental thriller.

Which character do you think is the most important to this story?

I love all my characters, of course; we writers do. But Mira, a teenager who has been left alone in her house when the storm hits, tells this story. We see it all—the fear, the loneliness, the search for her friends, the worry about her brother—through her eyes.

Set in the North Atlantic, the similarities to Hurricane Sandy are there; was there specific inspiration behind the premise of the book?

Yes. I am deeply committed to our Earth, deeply concerned about rising seas, and when storms hit I cannot look away—all of this inspired THIS IS THE STORY OF YOU. Plus, I grew up going to the Jersey Shore and gosh, I love the sea. Finally, a key character in the book has Hunter syndrome, and I have met and been inspired by others with this condition.

When writing, do you always have a specific plan in place for the direction of the book or do you let it come out naturally?  

I begin with voice—with the sound on the page. In this case, I began with the color blue. I vaguely know where I am headed. But I don’t want to know too much. I write to find out what will happen.

Most books are broken into 3 parts, but the typical bell graph format of events doesn’t seem to be in play in this book; instead it seems to be formatted as a wave, with a high crest right at the beginning and then the book flowing out following the curl.  I may be reading to much into this, but was that a conscience decision to structure the events of the book in this way?

I love your thinking about the book this way. I never have one single plot or emotional line, in any of my books. Many things are at play. In this case, the big storm hits about one-third of the way through. But there is also a mystery in the works—a girl who shows up, a stranger. There’s a thief that has been at work. There are missing characters. So while the storm strikes early-ish on, many unknowns must be encountered and resolved. Many after waves, if you will. Ultimately, this book is about family and how we define family. Mira learns the biggest lessons right at the end.

Most of your books deal with big emotions and, often, traumatic events; what about these things attract you to write about them?

I’m interested in the real things that have and can happened. The Berlin Wall and the legacy of graffiti artists (GOING OVER). Teenage pregnancy and the Spanish Civil War (SMALL DAMAGES). A flood in Florence and neuroscience (ONE THING STOLEN). And, in the case of this book, rising seas and genetic conditions. I may write about these things as fictions. But because the situations are grounded in truth, I write these fictions with the urgency of truth. I teach and also write memoir. I write my novels with the same degree of memoiristic passion.

Thank you so much for those insightful answer!

Okay, now it’s rapid-fire time!

1      Fall, Spring, Summer, or Winter?

2    

Fall! Leaf colors. Chimney smoke. A blanket under which I read.

Hardcover, paperback, or e-book?

Hardback for my shelves, paperback for my travel, e-book for night.

Bookmark or dog-ear?

I write all over the books I love best. I dog ear. I apologize.

Sunrise or sunset?

Both?

Long-hand or type-written?

Long-hand. You better believe it. I have a standing desk now. I’m not going to show up and type here until I’m good and ready.

Beginning, middle, or end?

Beginning at the beginning. Middle when I get there. End when I’m exhausted by all that happened in the beginning and the middle.

Thank you again, Beth!  I so enjoyed the book and I know my readers will too!

About the Author

Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of nineteen books, including Going Over, Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, and Small Damages. A National Book Award finalist, Kephart is also a winner of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fiction grant, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Leeway grant, a Pew Fellowships in the Arts grant, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize. Kephart teaches workshops at many institutions, to all ages and creative nonfiction workshops at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a popular keynote speaker and frequent contributor to the Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and many national journals. 

Website | Goodreads | Twitter

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Terms and Conditions

Open only to US/CA residents!
No entries outside of US or CA! 
Must be 13 years old to enter. 
ONE winner will win a finished hardcover copy of This is the Story of You.
Winner must have a mailing address within the US/CA.
Prize will be mailed out by publisher (Chronicle Books)
Eli to the nth claims no responsibility for lost prizes.
Winner will be contacted by email. 
Winner has 48 hours to respond with mailing address.
Mailing address will be forwarded to publisher (Chronicle Books)

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