Blog Tour Interview: Julie Anne Peters

Describe yourself in five words or less.

Shy sun-loving vegetarian animal lover


What are some things that you like to do?

Laugh (a lot), go to the theater (preferably musical theater), sing along with CDs in my car, read mysteries, thrillers, and edgy YA fiction, try out new restaurants, support charities that help children and animals, daydream, and people watch.


You're able to change one event that happened in your life. What event would you change and why?

I ratted on a friend once. I’ll never forget it, and I wish I could go back in time to make it right.


What is the first thing that pops in your head when you think of Alyssa?

Secure in her sexuality.


Is there anything the readers may not know about you after reading the book that you'd like them to know?

I think this book is making a full circle back to the first lesbian love story I wrote, Keeping You a Secret. However, I’ve tried to update the social and political climate a bit by making Alyssa an out lesbian—at least to herself and at school. With every new book I try to push myself artistically, and with She Loves You, She Loves You Not… I wanted not only to tell a story within a story, but to use second person point of view. It was fun, and a challenge.

Seventeen-year-old Alyssa thought she knew who she was. She had her family, her best friends, and most importantly, she had Sarah. Sarah, her girlfriend, with whom she dreamed with about the day they could move far away and live out and proud and accepted for themselves, instead of having to hide their relationship.

Alyssa never thought she would have to make that move by herself, but disowned by her father and cut off from everyone she loves, she is forced to move hundreds of miles away to live with Carly, a mother she barely knows, in a town where everyone immediately dismisses her as 'Carly's girl.' Struggling to forget her past and come to terms with her future, will Alyssa be able to build a new life for herself and believe in love again? Or will she be forced to relive the mistakes that have cost her everything and everyone she cared about?

This compelling novel about coming out, finding love, and discovering your place in the world will speak to anyone who has known the joy and pain of first love and the struggle to start over again.

Julie Anne Peters was born in Jamestown, New York. When she was five, her family moved to the Denver suburbs in Colorado. Her parents divorced when she was in high school. She has three siblings: a brother, John, and two younger sisters, Jeanne and Susan.

Her books for young adults include Define "Normal" (2000), Keeping You a Secret (2003), Luna (2004), Far from Xanadu (2005), Between Mom and Jo (2006), grl2grl (2007), Rage: A Love Story (2009), By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead (2010), and She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not... (2011). Her young adult fiction frequently deals with LGBT issues.

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