The Sound of Letting Go: Review, Author Interview, and Giveaway

Title: The Sound of Letting Go
Author: Stasia Ward Kehoe
Published: February 6, 2014
Source: ARC from the author for blog tour (catch-up on the tour here!)

A review copy was provided. All thoughts are my own and I have not been persuaded in any way.

Summary & Cover

For sixteen years, Daisy has been good. A good daughter, helping out with her autistic younger brother uncomplainingly. A good friend, even when her best friend makes her feel like a third wheel. When her parents announce they’re sending her brother to an institution—without consulting her—Daisy’s furious, and decides the best way to be a good sister is to start being bad. She quits jazz band and orchestra, slacks in school, and falls for bad-boy Dave.

But one person won’t let Daisy forget who she used to be: Irish exchange student and brilliant musician Cal. Does she want the bad boy or the prodigy? Should she side with her parents or protect her brother? How can she know when to hold on and when—and how—to let go?

Purchase The Sound of Letting Go

  

Author Interview

HOW LIFE GOES WHEN A BOOK PUBS

My novel, THE SOUND OF LETTING GO, has been on shelves for a dozen days. In that time, I have traveled to Seattle, Portland and Houston to talk about the book. I have ordered take-out dinners (Chinese--twice; Thai; Indian) and taken my kids for meals at Fatburger and MOD Pizza (naughty but...YUM!). The dirty laundry sits in the hall--a towering reminder of my housekeeping incompetence. And, I'm working on a new manuscript because inspiration always strikes at the lousiest of times.

Am I complaining? Gosh, no! My family loves take-out food and we're not too particular about housekeeping. Plus, I've published my second book. So, yeah.

However, I did want to mention these things because people often say to me, "You do so many things. How do you manage?" And the answer is: I don't. It's not pretty. The life of a writer-mom is about choices. And forgiving yourself. And knowing when to laugh. Even if nobody around you really gets the funny.

And, oh, that's right...the BOOK. THE SOUND OF LETTING GO is a contemporary YA about growing up, and family, and small town gossip, and best friends, and the difference between loving someone and having them love you back. I worked hard to write it and I hope that it finds the readers for whom it will make a difference.

Another thing I did instead of housework this month was custom-decorate a pair of Keds to give away--along with a signed copy of the book and lots of fun swag. So, enter below to win some stuff or drop me a tweet @swkehoe and we can chat about, you know, dust ;)

Find Stasia around the Internet

Review

This book was, in one word, AMAZING! I still haven't read too many books in verse, so I don't know if they're all as great and flow as flawlessly as The Sound of Letting Go. I'm going to say it's all in Stasia's story-telling. I also loved her debut novel, Audition.

The story follows Daisy. She has always been a good daughter, student, trumpet player, and sister. Her parents, after a few years of an uncontrollable autistic son, decide to put him in an establishment to help him and his special needs. Daisy, after all of the years of hurrying home and being a caregiver, feels as if they are just abandoning her brother.

The Sound of Letting Go is a great story told how our young MC struggles with the changes in her family, a budding romance, and keeping secrets from her best friend. Daisy struggles and decides to let everything "good" about her go and does non-Daisy-like things: not showing up to jazz band, not helping her mom, staying out late, and make-out sessions HBO thought-filled moments with Dave.

Along the way, an exchange student from jazz band, Cal, reminds Daisy about her love of music -- of what it's always meant to her.

My favorite excerpt from this book is on Page 329 in the ARC, which is subject to change...but I hope it's not! 

"I run to the basement like a programmed robot, 

and it's not until my second time through "Hallelujah"

that I realize I could have played the song upstairs.

The song about the imperfection of love, 

the way it can hurt you, break you, terrify you,

the way it can fall apart; and yet,

the title is a hymn, a word of praise."

I felt this part clearly defined Daisy and her whole story. Knowing the song "Hallelujah," I honestly broke down in tears at this point.

The closure and ending of The Sound of Letting Go was fantastic. The characters, their trials and tribulations, friendships, and emotions were so well-written by Kehoe. I felt for them. I felt as if I was sitting at the dinner table with them at the end.

Also, if you don't know what "Hallelujah" is, let me point you right below. Go ahead and cry and feel every single emotion with me. (This is posted on VEVO, so you may need to click to watch and listen to it on YouTube.) This is THE version for me. Every. single. time. Tears.

Rating

When I closed the book, I gave it a hug. The ARC will have a permanent position on my bookcase and I have a beautiful hardback heading my way. This is one that I will recommend as often as possible.

Giveaway

ENTER TO WIN…a signed first edition of THE SOUND OF LETTING GO, one of four different TsoLG Swag Packs, or a pair of author-designed custom Keds sneakers (size 8)

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Authors Are Rockstars: Author Guest Post

I am so very excited to be a part of the Authors Are Rockstars Tour hosted by Fiktshun and Two Chicks on Books. These ladies are also rockstars to me! I am so thankful for the opportunity to do this tour and getting to feature...

That's RIGHT! I pulled out the sparklies!

So creative! So beautiful! So smart! 

So, what makes Stasia Ward Kehoe a ROCKSTAR to me?

She is creator and a supporter of the Arts. Hooray for all forms of ART!

Dance is one of the most expressive forms of art, in my opinion. And when you can add music to a dance, it can cause so many emotions in a person. I would honestly love to see some of Stasia's choreography.

It is said that when someone wants to write a book, you should write about what you know. Stasia has definitely done that with AUDITION. She has created a verse novel (my first!) that flows perfectly! She graced us with a beautiful debut about a young girl trying to figure out what her dreams, aspirations, and her own voice were.

Stasia is also PRO-LIBRARIES!!!! Check out this YouTube video here. She has some wonderful tips for published authors to help educators and libraries.

If you have not read AUDITION, I say run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore! Be ready for more of Stasia's work! I'm sure it will be a-m-a-z-i-n-g!

The topic for Stasia was "Writing AFTER the debut novel"

Here's what she had to say about it:

Before my debut novel, AUDITION, pubbed last year, people told me to “enjoy this time” because it was the “honeymoon period.” I laughed.  I’d been in agony since the book deal had been done. Revisions, edits, prepping for the blog tour, worrying about the “big day”…  How could this be a honeymoon?

Now I know that it was.  Not just because of the reality that publication proved my book to NOT be the NYT-best-selling, soon-to-be-a-movie runaway hit of which my mother was certain. (Don’t get me wrong, got some nice reviews and lots of readers seem to like it, but that’s not the same as earning out your advance, you know?)

The real reason that BEFORE-PUBLICATION feels like a honeymoon is because WRITING gets so much harder after you have reviews, sales figures, and a public identity as a certain type of writer in a certain type of genre.  Suddenly, you see yourself in phrases like “mid-list,” “contemporary-fiction” and “verse-novelist.” You’re in a tight little box surrounded by questions of whether the next book should be similar to the first, whether you should change your style in response to criticism, and whether your publisher will even print another book by you since on the first roll of the dice you didn’t exactly hit snake-eyes.

Writing has probably taken a back seat to promoting the book for a few months and when you get back to your desk, you discover that you don’t seem to be writing for YOURSELF, telling the stories that are in your heart, and focusing on your craft and your characters. As you try to resist the desire to repeatedly check your Bookscan stats and Goodreads ratings, your writing becomes strategic.  It’s not much fun anymore.  If you’re me, you probably even write a couple of hundred strategy-laden, heart-lackingly craptastic pages (cuz, um, those are words).

Don’t get me wrong.  Nobody succeeds in this business (despite the occasional weird braggy story you hear) without spending A LOT of time in front of a keyboard.  Write, revise, REWRITE, RE-REVISE, submit to your agent, RE-RE-REVISE…  This is not always a party.  But, in addition to being a job and a craft, writing is also a bit of an art.  And the rest cannot succeed without the artist in you being set free from the cages of strategy, criticism and Amazon rankings.

So, after some time (for me, sadly, months and not weeks), you take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself the BIG QUESTION: “Now that I’ve checked ‘publish a novel’ off my bucket list, do I really want to do this anymore?”  Another way to consider this: “If you were guaranteed that no one would ever publish your work again, would you still keep writing—and why?”

I was lucky enough to have a moment of clarity.  To remember that I’d been writing poetry and stories since eighth grade and gone unpublished for decades.  I wasn’t going to let a little thing like PUBLISHING A NOVEL destroy the essential writer-part of me.  I got back to my keyboard.  And I’m writing.  The next novel is still a bit of a work-in-progress but I know what I’m doing now.  Or, at least, I understand why I’m sitting here.

Stasia Ward Kehoe is the author of AUDITION (Viking) and a contributor to the upcoming anthology DEAR TEEN ME: AUTHORS WRITE LETTERS TO THEIR TEEN SELVES (Zest Books, October 2012).  She lives with her husband and four sons in Western Washington where she continues to write and choreographs the occasional musical.  Visit her online at www.swardkehoe.blogspot.com or @swkehoe on Twitter.

I want to thank Stasia for giving us such a great interview to read. It has been an honor to host you on my little spot on the web!

Also, a huge thank you to Rachel, Jaime, and Patricia for putting this tour together! Rock on!