Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Jen Calonita

As a Senior Editor at the former Teen People and a journalist for Entertainment Weekly, Glamour, and Marie Claire, Jen Calonita has interviewed everyone from Vanessa Hudgens to Justin Timberlake.

Her books include There's No Place Like Home and five previous novels in the teen series Secrets of My Hollywood Life.

A few weeks ago I asked her what she was reading.  Her reply:
I just finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett and I think it might be the best book I've read in the last ten years. I'm serious! The story definitely sounded intriguing, but sometimes I feel like the books with the most hype wind up being the most disappointing (maybe because I put so many expectations on them). I held off reading The Help for that reason. My only regret turned out to be not reading the book sooner! I could not put it down and that's saying something when I had my own book revision due and have two small boys to take care of. I loved the unexpected friendship between Abileen, Minny and Miss Skeeter especially since it grew over the course of the book. There were times while I was reading that I was so anxious about these characters that I had grown to love so much that I didn't want to stop reading for fear I would miss something. All three main characters were such strong risk takers and incredible people and I just wished the book would go on forever. I wanted to know what became of them. Kathryn is an incredible writer and I can't wait to see what the movie version is like when it comes out this summer. I think Emma Stone as Miss Skeeter is brilliant!
Visit Jen Calonita's website.

--Marshal Zeringue