Contest Winner

Thank you to everyone who entered and shared your beautiful moments with me. I loved reading all of them! I used random.org to pick the winner of the $25 Sephora giftcard and the signed ARC of THE LIFE OF GLASS. And the winner is: Jessica Kennedy! Jessica, I've sent you an e-mail so write back with your address, and I'll get the prize out to you.

Three-Months-and-Counting Contest

THE LIFE OF GLASS will be out on February 9, 2010, exactly three months from tomorrow, so to celebrate I'm having a contest!!!

THE LIFE OF GLASS is a book about sisters, high school, loss, and first love. (You can read the jacket description if you click here.) But, above all, I think it's really a book about beauty, about what it means to feel and be beautiful both inside and out.

In the book, the main character Melissa never saw herself as a beautiful person. She was always the smart one, the funny one, the tomboy. And yet, it seems like everyone around her is beautiful: her mother was once a beauty queen, her older sister is obsessed with competing in beauty pageants, and as she starts high school, her best friend Ryan starts ignoring her after he begins dating the beautiful new girl at school.

Melissa is someone I can relate to a lot, because back in high school, I felt the same way. It seemed like so many girls around me were beautiful and perfect: beautiful straight shiny hair, gorgeous tall figures, perfect clothes. And I was always the short girl with the frizzy hair, who felt the most comfortable in jeans and sweatshirts. (Lucky me, though, I didn't have a mom and a sister who competed in beauty pageants.)

And this is why I love fiction: in the book Melissa eventually does get her moment to shine, to feel beautiful. (And her older sister, Ashley, the beauty queen, gets her moment to finally feel what it's like not to be beautiful.)

So now for the contest: I'll be giving away a signed ARC plus a $25 giftcard to Sephora!

Here's what you can do to enter:

+1 Leave a comment sharing a moment when you felt beautiful

+2 Link to this contest on your blog
+2 add my countdown widget (on the left sidebar) to your blog
+2 add The Life of Glass to your Goodreads list

+5 Tweet about this contest
+ 5 become a new follower of this blog
+5 become a new follower on Twitter (click here)

+10 blog about The Life of Glass and why you want to read it!

Please leave your entries and points in a comment on this post.

Contest Ends November 18th at Midnight. Good luck!