Blog Tour: Epic Fail Guest Post & Giveaway

We're the next stop in The Teen Scene's Epic Fail Blog Tour. We're excited to have a guest post from author Claire LaZebnik. First here's a little bit about Epic Fail & you can also read our review here.

Will Elise’s love life be an epic win or an epic fail?

At Coral Tree Prep in Los Angeles, who your parents are can make or break you. Case in point:

As the son of Hollywood royalty, Derek Edwards is pretty much prince of the school—not that he deigns to acknowledge many of his loyal subjects.

As the daughter of the new principal, Elise Benton isn’t exactly on everyone’s must-sit-next-to-at-lunch list.

When Elise’s beautiful sister catches the eye of the prince’s best friend, Elise gets to spend a lot of time with Derek, making her the envy of every girl on campus. Except she refuses to fall for any of his rare smiles and instead warms up to his enemy, the surprisingly charming social outcast Webster Grant. But in this hilarious tale of fitting in and flirting, not all snubs are undeserved, not all celebrity brats are bratty, and pride and prejudice can get in the way of true love for only so long.

Guest post on what kind of things we’d find if you were to have a garage sale of items from your teenage years. You can assign values to them as well. Minimum of 7 items. Max of 15.

1) A pair of granny-style wire rim glasses, with very thick Coke-bottle lenses. As thick as that pair might have been, my eyes got even worse over time and my future glasses even thicker. Thank god for contacts or I would simply have stopped leaving the house before I even got to high school. $1.00

2) A cute brown teddy bear, well-worn, missing its nose, mouth, and a lot of its stuffing and wearing a home-sewn dress. Should probably have been sold or given away years earlier but I just couldn’t do it. $200.00 (I don’t really want to sell her—yes, her, Susie-Bear—not even now.)

3) A round brush and an enormous and heavy blowdryer (they were all enormous and heavy back then). Laboriously used for carefully curling hair under on the sides and the back and for feathering it in the front. An impossible hairstyle to nail, but we all tried back then. $2.00

4) A box of books, including (among many others) Charlotte Bronte’s JANE EYRE, Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Baroness Orczy’s THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE WIND, and Elizabeth George Speare’s THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND, all very well worn. 10 cents each, the entire box for $1.00. Did I mention how well worn these books are? Pages are falling out. They’ve been read and reread way too often--some might say obsessively.

5) Another box filled with vinyl record albums, including many musical scores (e.g. THE FANTASTICKS, MAN OF LA MANCHA, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF) and some pop/rock music (e.g. The Beatles; Carole King; Dan Fogelberg; Stevie Wonder). Most have scratches. 50 cents each, the entire box for $5.00.

6) A collection of antique inkwells and pens, plus a half-empty bottle of ink. (I desperately wanted to live in England in the 19th century. Although, given my eyesight--see item #1, above--I would probably have been considered blind back then and kept in the attic). Some of these are moderately valuable: priced as marked.

7) A linoleum cutting set, with linoleum blocks, cutting tools, roller, and ink. An art form I had a brief flirtation with back in my teens. My mother was generous and eager for me to find some hobby, so she got me all the equipment I needed. The only thing I lacked was some artistic talent. The entire set: $10.00.

8) A sofa bed upholstered in off-white tweed. Worn-out, since I slept in it every night for all of high school, having replaced my twin bed with it in an attempt to transform my boring little girl bedroom into a grown-up “library.” Pretentious, moi? Only $50 but you have to find a way to transport it.

9) A Smith-Corona electric typewriter with self-correcting pop-in ribbon cartridges (one in black ink; one white-out). Once the darling of my eye; now made obsolete by the proliferation of home computers. $15. Treat it well. I loved it once.

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Thank you to the Teen Scene for providing the guest post, and questions and to Claire for the fun answers. Be sure to follow the rest of the Epic Fail Blog Tour.

As part of the blog tour we're giving away 1 copy of Epic Fail and one stress ball. To ENTER:

- Please fill out the form below

- US residents only

- You must be 13 yrs & older to enter

- 1 entry per person/ per email

* This giveaway will end on August 5th, 2011