Stealing Parker Blog Tour: Guest Post w/ Miranda Kenneally / Giveaway

I'm thrilled to be the next stop in the Stealing Parker blog tour. Today's stop includes a guest post from author Miranda Kenneally, as well as my review and a giveaway! Welcome Miranda to Mundie Moms! Thank you for stopping by today.

Curveball Dodging:  Miranda explores the importance of recognizing your own self-worth instead of placing value on other’s opinions.

This is a topic that’s super important to me.

When I was seventeen years old, I decided to apply for colleges outside of Tennessee. I wanted to try new things and see the world. I’d felt like that since I had gone to France when I was fourteen.

I applied to American University in Washington, D.C., and I was ecstatic when I got in. In high school, I had a 3.9 GPA and I made mostly As. Sure, I partied some and didn’t take school all that seriously, but I had drive and I knew I wanted to attend a great school so I would have great opportunities later in life.

After I received my acceptance letter to American University, the school guidance counselor called me into her office. She suggested that I go to the community college in the next town over, because I would probably fail in Washington, D.C. She thought I wouldn’t make it at a big school.

I went home, brokenhearted that she didn’t believe in me. But then I realized it didn’t matter what the stupid guidance counselor said. I wanted to go to D.C., so I was going there. End of story. 

In my book STEALING PARKER, Parker places way too much emphasis on what other people think. She lets the prejudices of others determine her behavior. People think Parker’s a lesbian just like her mother, so Parker decides to show them she’s not. She quits the softball team, loses 30 pounds, and makes out with lots of guys. Instead of people thinking, “Oh, Parker’s not a lesbian like her mom,” they think, “Oh, Parker’s kind of slutty.”

You can’t do something you don’t want to do in hopes of making people think a certain way about you, because nobody thinks the same way.

During the book, Parker learns what she thinks about herself is what’s important. She realizes that until she does what she wants to do, she’s never going to be happy and people aren’t going to know who the “real” Parker is.

Who is the real you? Have you ever let someone else decide your path?

By: Miranda Kenneally

Published by: SourceBooks

Released on: October 1st, 2012

Source: ARC from publisher to review

3 stars: It's A Good Read

Purchase from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Read an excerpt

Red-hot author Miranda Kenneally hits one out of the park in this return to Catching Jordan's Hundred Oaks High.

After her family's scandal rocks their conservative small town, 17-year-old Parker Shelton goes overboard trying to prove that she won't turn out like her mother: a lesbian. The all-star third-baseman quits the softball team, drops 20 pounds and starts making out with guys--a lot. But hitting on the hot new assistant baseball coach might be taking it a step too far...especially when he starts flirting back -quoted from Goodreads

What football is to Catching Jordan, baseball is to Stealing Jordan. One of the things I really enjoy about Miranda's books is the way she mixes together sports, with first crushes, those "fabulous" teen high school years, and the message she conveys in her books. It's that perfect blend of sports, and realistic teen romances all in one. I swear if I had these in high school I would have loved them. The other things I like are the rich character relationships, the strong female voices, and the family dynamics that are the back bone for these two books. The romances and trying to figure out which character is going to win over the protagonist's heart is a wonderful added bonus as well.

For Parker everything turns upside down when her mom leaves her family behind to go off with her girlfriend. Not only is this shocking, and a punch to the gut for Parker, it's ruined everything for her. Growing up in the town Parker does, everyone knows everyone else's business. What happens at church, bleeds over into the school and gets around town. Now that her family's be ostracized, it's changed the way friends look at and how people treat her. Her own family has been disconnected with each other. Nothing is the normal she thought she once had, and the only way Parker knows how to cope with all this is to become a totally different person. Which she does. She gives up softball, the sport she connected over with her mom and excelled at, she also losses weight and makes it her mission to go a little boy crazy to prove she isn't gay like her mom. 

It's during this process of acting out that I sympathized with Parker. I understood her wanting to distance herself from anything that brought back memories of the happier times, and of her doing anything that made it hard to think of the pain and hurt her feels now. Though I didn't always agree with her decisions, I understood why Parker made them, well some of them. In the process of Parker learning to cope with her new "normal" and trying to move on from the hurt and the why of everything that's happened, she surprisingly sets her self up for some things to happen. I admired that Parker owns up to her choices. She accepts responsibly for she does, she learns from her mistakes and ttries to fix the problems she caused because of it. It takes a big person to do that, and I felt that part of her growing up and becoming a stronger character was due to her owning up to what she had down, realizing the effect it had on her, and those around her, feeling bad about it, and really truly wanting to fix it. 

She has some great support from her best friend, whom I totally adored, and I loved what Miranda did with the relationship between Parker and her mom. Just like life, not everything is going to go back to the way it was, and for Parker, I liked that she was able to accept that, and become the best she could be, not what others thought of her and wanted her to be. I think that message right there is a powerful one to convey to your readers. I thought Miranda did a fabulous job with way she does just that. She created a relatable character with Parker, presented a realistic storyline, and in bringing the two of those together, she wrote a book that fans of her writing will totally enjoy. This is a fabulous companion to Catching Jordan, and much like it's predecessor I think fans will laugh, swoon a few times and find something relatable about it's main character. There is some mild sexual context in this book.

The Giveaway:

Thank you to Sourcebooks I have one copy of Stealing Parker to giveaway! To enter, please fill out the form below. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway