Friday, October 19, 2007

Don't forget to Vote!

Just in case you have been under a rock this week, here's the link to vote for Teen's Top Ten Young Adult books. Our Buzz Girl, Simone Elkeles's debut novel, How to Ruin A Summer Vacation, is one of the choices. Hop on over, vote, then come back and read my post for a chance to win a copy of Revenge of the Homecoming Queen. http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/teenreading/teenstopten/teenstopten.cfm





In keeping with the How to Ruin A Summer Vacation theme, I'd love to hear how you or someone else, ruined your summer vacation. Of course I'll need the Cliffs notes version, so practice those query letter skills.



For example, here is the Cliffs notes version of the worst summer vacation I ever had.



Where: Cancun, Mexico

What: Montezuma's Revenge & white shorts

How: ice cubes

Why: fifteen-year-old girl so despondent that she can't reach her first love by phone, and just found out that postcards take a month to reach mainland, drowns her sorrows in Coca-Cola. Our lovesick heroine thinks she is brilliant for drinking pop/soda out of cans eliminating any chance that she can contract that horrible illness she keeps hearing so much about. Very unfortunately for her brilliant white shorts, she forgets that the ice cubes she has been chomping on the whole trip are indeed made out of water. It was bad, people, and the shorts didn't make it out of Mexico.



Okay, so if I haven't totally grossed you out, share your vacation horror story with me and the funniest/or sickest, depending on my mood, will win a copy of Revenge of the Homecoming Queen! And don't forget to VOTE!



xo,

Steph

http://www.stephaniehale.com/

Revenge of the Homecoming Queen, OUT NOW!

6 comments:

Simone Elkeles said...

Summer overnight camp (acting camp)

Me with no friends, because I was so homesick. I went with my friends Reyna and Mindy, but I cried the entire time. The owner of the camp said, 'If you don't shape up, we're going to ship you out' and I thought she meant she was going to force me into a cardboard box and ship me home UPS. It made me cry more.

Because I didn't want to swim, they made me rake the sand at the beach instead. I was in fifth grade.

~Simone

Anonymous said...

From LA to Mexico

So Mom, Dad, and I are at the airport desk awating our flight tickets for Mexico, when the lady at the desk says "Sorry. Because you didn't show up 120 minutes before the flight was to take off, we assumed you were a no show, and we sold your seat." WHAT!

So then to get to Mexico, we have totake a car to the bus stop, than take a 4 hour bus trip, THEN take a cart driven by a horse to the to airport. and THEN take a first class flight to our destination, Cabo San Lucas.

That was one of the most painful days of my life..

TinaFerraro said...

I am going to piggyback on Simone's camp experience. I was also in 5th grade, and benched with the non-swimmers. But I was actually a top racing swimmer, but "failed" the backstroke test by doing the competitive stroke as opposed to at-rest backstroke. When I got to the first NonSwimmer's class, I really showed off (!) and then everyone got mad at me. I lasted 4 days there.

stephhale said...

These stories are great!

Here is an email I got,

I wasn't sure where to send my story so I figured I would e-mail it.

One summer while camping along the beach in Maryland with folks and sisters I went to lay out on the beach. My sisters came with me, and as they played in the ocean I must have fallen asleep. Well my one of my sisters was pretty mad as me because the week before she ticked me off so I ratted her out for sneaking out. She saw me sleeping and knew that I would burn really easy so she left me sleep, but not before drawing some male genitalia on my stomach with sun tan lotion. When I woke up an hour and a half later I was sunburned beyond recognition. As I was getting up I noticed some cute guys starring at me, so ever the flirt I waved and gave my cutest smile. They kind of rolled their eyes, and walked down the beach. As I walked back to our camp site I kept getting weird looks the whole way back. When I finally got back my mom chuckled and told me I may want to take a shower to cool my burn. I got to the shower house and took a nice cool shower, and got out and slipped on a clean bikini, and low and behold there it was. A huge rendition of male bits on my stomach. I was horrified. I definitely got my sister back for that one, but not after asking my mom to buy me a one piece swim suit.

If anything I hope this gives you a chuckle.
Kristin Leet

Me said...

Omigod, the story you got by email is hilarious, Steph. It sounds like something you would write! This is a tough request. I can't think of any ruined summer vacations--maybe because my family never really took summer vacations. But here's a school's-just-out summer horror story.

Third grade was over. We were free for the summer. And I had an invite to a pool party at the "cool girl's" house. (Okay, so she invited everybody, because she was that kind of cool girl.) The day before the party my mom took me to get my hair cut. I asked for a Dorothy Hamil--you know, the cute bob that kinda flips under. Well, the hairstylist (and I use that term very loosely) started cutting on my left side. Mom was sitting on my right. So neither of us knew until it was too late that the woman was completely butchering my hair. As soon as I saw what happened I broke into tears. It was awful--chunky, choppy, and short. I was going to look like a boy for the coolest party of the year.

I could still cry just thinking about it.

stephhale said...

Those stories were hilarious! I just can't decide between Annemarie & Kristin though, so I'll have to give both of them a book! :)