Welcome to the Spring 2019 YA Scavenger Hunt!

This bi-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! On this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize–one lucky winner will receive one book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 120 hours!

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are FOUR contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the BLUE TEAM–but there is also a red team, a gold team, and a purple team, each with a chance to win a whole different set of books!

If you’d like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.

You are currently hunting on TEAM BLUE

Looking for exclusive bonus content? You’ll have to keep searching! Look for three things as you read: 1) a secret number I’ve hidden somewhere in this post. 2) Exclusive content from the author I’m hosting and 3) a BONUS giveaway that you can only enter here.

SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE RULES

Directions: Below, you’ll notice that I’ve hidden my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the blue team, and then add them up (don’t worry, you can use a calculator!).

Entry Form: Once you’ve added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.    

Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian’s permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6TH at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.    

Now on to the fun stuff….              

Today, I’m super excited to be hosting Patty Blount on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt!     

ABOUT PATTY

Patty Blount grew up quiet and invisible in Queens, NY, but found her superpower writing smart and strong characters willing to fight for what’s right. Today, she’s the award-winning author of edgy, emotional contemporary romance. Powered by way too much chocolate, Patty gives a voice to characters society would prefer to ignore…characters facing situations like rape (SOME BOYS, 2014, SOMEONE I USED TO KNOW, 2018), bullying (SEND, 2012), and grief (NOTHING LEFT TO BURN, 2015). She enjoys hearing from her readers so visit her website or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Read…roar!…revel.

ABOUT THE BOOK

From the award-winning author of Some Boys comes an unflinching examination of rape culture that delves into a family torn apart by sexual assault.
It’s been two years since the night that changed Ashley’s life. Two years since she was raped by her brother’s teammate. And a year since she sat in a court and watched as he was given a slap on the wrist sentence. But the years have done nothing to stop the pain.
It’s been two years of hell for Derek. His family is totally messed up and he and his sister are barely speaking. He knows he handled it all wrong. Now at college, he has to come to terms with what happened, and the rape culture that he was inadvertently a part of that destroyed his sister’s life.
When it all comes to a head at Thanksgiving, Derek and Ashley have to decide if their relationship is able to be saved. And if their family can ever be whole again.
SOMEONE I USED TO KNOW is the winner of two Athena Awards for Best YA Contemporary and Best of the Best, 2019.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

In SOMEONE I USED TO KNOW, which took home two Athena Awards this year (Best YA Contemporary and Best of the Best), sexual assault survivor Ashley Lawrence was triggered during art class and has a flashback episode to her rape, two years earlier when she was just fourteen. The following scene was cut because my editors thought it was too much. (I used part of it, though.)  

This is the original scene, in its entirety. 

My last period of the day is art class. 

I sort of hate art.

Sometimes it’s fun, like when we learned about black-out poetry to reveal new meanings, or explored Photoshop, which I love even more since Sebastian started giving me some tips. But most of the time, art annoys me. I can’t draw or paint or sculpt or even take decent photographs, the smells of art materials like paint, glue, or paper make my nose wrinkle, and the dozens of finished projects on display at any given time mock my own lack of artistic ability. Like the cultural masks we made before Halloween. A bunch of them line the shelves on the back wall, judging me with their empty eyes. 

Today, we’re supposed to make collages. That’s not terrible, I suppose. Collages require cutting and pasting skills, talents I actually have. I head to my seat, avoiding all the drops of paint and smears of glue that always seem to stud the floor in this room. Mr. Anton, our art teacher, starts up the projector and aims a remote at the laptop connected to it.

“Okay, let’s examine some examples of pop culture’s influence on graphic and digital art.” He begins scrolling through some magazine ads. “What jumps out at you?”

A murmur rises up across our class, laughs and gasps that quickly change to full-out whistles, hoots, and cheers. 

“Okay, okay, keep it professional. Obviously, you’ve noticed these images are intentionally trying to be provocative. Why?”

“Because sex sells!” A guy shouts from the back of the room where the shelves of masks watch with total disdain. 

 “Okay. Sex sells. Why?” Mr. Anton prompts. When no one replies, he advances his slide show. “That’s what we’re going to investigate today. Each table will spend the next twenty minutes researching provocative advertising. I’ve got piles of magazines for you to examine. Go through them and tear out the ads that speak to you. We’re looking for the psychology here so if you have tablets or phones, feel free to Google all you want, but find me more than what’s on Wikipedia.” 

Ooo. That’s fun. Usually, we can’t even take out our phones during school. 

There are four of us at my table. Me plus Ken, Craig, and Peter. Ken hasn’t talked to me since freshman year. His brother is the same age as Derek, so when football got cancelled, his family took it personally and naturally blamed me instead of Vic. I don’t know Craig at all. This is the only class I’ve ever had with him. Peter’s okay. I’ve known him almost since kindergarten. He lives down the street from us, but we’re not tight or anything. 

Mr. Anton drops a stack of publications on our table and the boys lunge for them. Past issues of Seventeen, Vogue, Cosmo…a Bloomingdale’s catalog that’s several years old, a Sports Illustrated, Car and Driver. I grab the catalog and start flipping through it while the boys huddle around the Sports Illustrated and Car and Driver issues and essentially ignore me. 

That’s okay. I’m used to it. 

While I turn pages, bits and pieces of the conversations taking place around me drift in and out of my ears. 

“…Totally do her. She’s so hot.” 

“…What car? I only see the girl in the bikini.” 

“Great tits.”

“Legs.”

“Ass.”

“Mouth.”

It happens slowly, the dread pooling in my belly. Conversation fades to the background, the words become white noise, leaving behind the grunts, sounds of appreciation and hums of sexual interest that start to morph and blend into memories that lap at the dams and levees I keep erecting. Ashley, you’re so hot. You have the best tits in the entire freshman class. I love to touch them. You like it, don’t you? You like when I touch you.

Oh God. I can smell the sour beer on his breath and the locker room soap on his skin. I scan the room, telling myself I’m wrong, that he’s not here and that I’m safe but it’s no good. 

“Whoa!” Craig shouts, tearing a page from his magazine. “Look at this one!” 

The sound of that page tearing feels like sandpaper against my eardrums and I clap my hands to my ears, shaking myself out of the past, blinking rapidly, stunned to discover my chest actually hurts from the memory of Vic’s hands on me. Ken, Peter, and Craig have a pile of sheets torn from their magazines…images of girls in bikinis, mini-skirts, close-ups of pouty lips or curvy butts, each with captions suggesting all manner of innuendo and insult. The tightness in my chest that’s become so familiar spikes abruptly, making me gasp. I rub at it, but I can’t reach it because it’s too deep. It’s changed me, changed me into something that’s more pain than person. I force my attention back to my catalog and stop suddenly at a holiday ad that says Hey! Why not spike your best friend’s eggnog?

I stare hard at the image. The girl on the left blurs but the guy on the right snaps into sharp relief, his eyes shifting to meet mine, lips curling into the same lazy smile that Vic wore when he…when he…Oh God. The lump that lives in my throat pulses in time with my heart rate and all the bad stuff…the memories, the pain, the betrayal, the black shame — it all swirls together like sewage, swelling and rising and overflowing every one of the blocks I put up. It sweeps away everything that used to be me until it’s all that’s left. The classroom spins at the edges. My limbs are numb, dead. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I’m drowning. 

“Ashley. Ashley! Go get the nurse, Peter. Now.” 

I blink and suddenly Mr. Anton’s face is in front of me, not Vic’s. The whole class watches me, staring with smirks or mouths open in horror. I’m on my feet, which is odd because I don’t remember deciding to stand up. The floor around me is littered with the magazines and torn pages and everything else that was on our table. I look down and find a few pages clutched in my fist. Mr. Anton’s holding me gently by my shoulders, and I’m grateful for it…a lifeline. 

“Come on, Ashley. Come with me.” He guides me to his desk, hands me a bottle of water that I accept with a hand that shakes. I sip, relieved to feel cool water flow past the scream that’s been stuck in my throat for two years. 

“I’m sorry, Ashley. I didn’t realize…” Mr. Anton says. 

Astonished, I stare at him. For God’s sake, half the state of Ohio knows me as the Bellford High School Rape Victim and he didn’t realize that paging through magazines and catalogs of sexualized content would make me flip out? Well, neither did I! They’re a bunch of stupid, harmless photos. They shouldn’t be able to hurt me. 

But they do. 

They don’t simply hurt me, they freaking torture me, hammering home a point made over and over again since the first day Vic assaulted me, the same point Derek made in his court testimony. 

It’s just a game, it’s just an advertisement, it’s just a joke, it’s just guy talk, it’s just boys being boys.

Just.

Just!

JUST!

Oh my God, it’s never gonna change. The excuses will never stop. 

Fear, pain, profound embarrassment…it all morphs into these sky-high levels of rage that send my adrenalin surging again. I pitch the water bottle at the wall, snatch up the ads that taunt me from the rest of the tables and shred them into confetti. Sounds scratch and claw at my ringing ears and it takes me a minute to realize they’re my own screams. 

“You’re so stupid, so monumentally, epically stupid!” I keep shouting until my throat burns, pacing around the classroom like a caged animal. “Look at these!” I dive to the floor, grab a handful of pages. “They’re telling you it’s okay to rape, and you,” I sneer at my classmates. “You can’t even see it. All you see are…are body parts. Girls aren’t even people! We’re just breasts and butts and mouths and…and holes!” 

“Ashley, it’s okay —”

“It is not okay, Mr. Anton! It will never be okay again.” I swipe a hand under my nose. Tears and…and snot drip down my face. “Everybody in here…they’re laughing!” I stalk to another group of boys, near the window this time. “They’re oo-ing and ah-ing over pictures of…of truck bed decals of tied-up women, of beer that promises you won’t hear the word no, of…of belts wrapped around a woman’s throat and cologne that promises you won’t get friend-zoned!” I hold up each image and then ball it up, one after the other, itching for a lighter so I can set every last one of them on fire. “Of orders that tell them to spike their best friend’s eggnog!” I race back to my catalog and hurl it at the shelves where the masks sit, sending some of them crashing to the floor. Every face in the classroom is pinned on me, but no one takes off their blindfold and sees what’s right in front of them. 

They can’t. 

“Oh my God, you’re all…so brainwashed. These ads.” I snag more pages from the floor, wave them at a table near the center of the room. “They’re telling you to your face you’re such losers, you’ll only ever get a girl if you buy their products, believe their bullshit… and you do! You believe every word! How can you not see how pathetic, how epically insulting that is? What is WRONG with you?” 

I fling all the pages in the air and stand there, chest heaving and muscles vibrating, but nobody moves. I rake hands that tremble through my hair and stare down at the mess on the floor around my feet, my sobs tearing through the total silence in our classroom like a rusty saw. 

“This is why.” Oh my God, it’s all so clear to me now. “This is why Victor Patton is out early.” I kick at the piles. “Because people who laugh at this kind of shit grow up to become the…the judges, the lawmakers, the jurors who look at somebody like him, look at what he did, and say, boys will be boys.” I spread out my arms, let them fall. 

Slowly, I sink to my knees, surrounded by incontrovertible proof that there’s no such thing as justice. 

“Ashley.”

I lift my head, find Mrs. Hudson, the librarian, standing in the door with Peter and the school nurse. Slowly, Mrs. Hudson approaches with her arms open. When she reaches me, I collapse against her, sobbing, praying that this time, the pain finally kills me.

You can buy the book HERE.   Find out more about Patty by visiting her Website, Facebook, or Twitter.  

And don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of books by me and many more! Just check out all these books on team BLUE!

 To enter, you need to know that I’ve seen YOU’VE GOT MAIL approximately…

923

times. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the blue team and you’ll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!

Thank you so much for visiting my website! While you’re here don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter bonus contest I am running exclusively during the YA Scavenger Hunt.

One lucky winner will receive a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble!  Good luck everyone!

Enter the rafflecopter below for a chance to win:

GIVEAWAY: Barnes & Noble Gift Card

CONTINUE THE HUNT

To continue the hunt, check out the next author A.M. Rose!