Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

by Jennifer Weiner

Commercial Fiction
Atria Books
www.JenniferWeiner.com

5 Signed Copies will be given away on Friday, July 17, 2009




**FBF FIRST LOOK! This book releases THIS week on July 14! Enter to win one of the first released copies...signed by the author!

About the Book

Some bonds can never be broken...

Addie Downs and Valerie Adler will be best friends forever. That's what Addie believes after Valerie moves across the street when they're both nine years old. But in the wake of betrayal during their teenage years, Val is swept into the popular crowd, while mousy, sullen Addie becomes her school's scapegoat.

Flash-forward fifteen years. Valerie Adler has found a measure of fame and fortune working as the weathergirl at the local TV station. Addie Downs lives alone in her parents' house in their small hometown of Pleasant Ridge, Illinois, caring for a troubled brother and trying to meet Prince Charming on the Internet. She's just returned from Bad Date #6 when she opens her door to find her long-gone best friend standing there, a terrified look on her face and blood on the sleeve of her coat. "Something horrible has happened," Val tells Addie, "and you're the only one who can help."

Best Friends Forever is a grand, hilarious, edge-of-your-seat adventure; a story about betrayal and loyalty, family history and small-town secrets. It's about living through tragedy, finding love where you least expect it, and the ties that keep best friends together.

Interview with the Author!

1) BEST FRIENDS FOREVER is now your 7th book! Wow! Thinking back to the way beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

Don’t look at Amazon rankings. Don’t look at Amazon, ever. Be kind and generous, and if you can’t be kind and generous, be quiet. Other than that, just keep your head down, try to shut out the noise (of critics, or readers, or your eighteen-month-old), and write as well as you can, every day.

2) Is this book inspired by a real friendship?

Like many women, I’ve had the friendship that ended abruptly, the friend who got away, the friend I still think about as having been the person who got me completely, or who made me laugh really hard; the friend I lost over the boy we both liked…but even though I’ve had all of those experiences, the relationship between Addie and Val isn’t based on anything specific in my life. It’s more like the distillation of a bunch of different experiences. Honestly, though, I never had a friend I was that tight with when I was young. I was a very odd, bookish girl who didn’t do well with other children until...well, until junior year of high school, if I’m being totally honest. I think that writing about Addie and Val, who were there for each other from the first day they met, was a weird kind of wish fulfillment in reverse.

3) No matter how many books you write, I’m sure each one has its own challenges. How was this book more challenging to write than your others? How was it easier?

Well, this one has a boy! A boy main character! And they said I couldn’t do it!

Honestly, though, writing Jordan was a challenge…especially since, once I’d finished a first draft and a round of revisions, I came across a book called something like HOW NOT TO WRITE YOUR NOVEL that warned writers of introducing male characters in scenes in which they masturbate. Of course, at that point, Jordan’s first scene involved some, um, home entertainment. So I had to add a new first scene where he’s all heroic and stuff.

In terms of “easier,” I don’t know that writing, plotting, revising, refining, editing, listening to feedback, sulking about feedback, revising and rewriting some more ever gets easy. But at least at this point I’ve got enough books under my belt to know that the dark nights of the soul – the ones where you think, “Oh, instead of having X happen, I should have Y happen,” or you think that the book is terrible beyond any possibility of rescue – happen with every book, and that when you wake up in the morning, things look better.

4) This books opens with a “bang,” as they say, when Addie opens her front door to find her long-lost childhood best friend standing there with terror on her face and blood on her coat. What’s the most surprising thing you’ve ever found behind your front door?

Um. Flaming bag of dog poop? Seriously, I would have to say that it was my sister’s boyfriend. My sister was living with me at the time, and we went out the door early one morning to walk and the dog and he more or less sprang out of the hedges. He’d driven all night to see her, fallen asleep in his car, and gotten up early to hide outside the door with a bouquet, only when he jumped out we both screamed and the dog tried to run away. Eventually, though, it was all very romantic. For her.

5) Everyone loved In Her Shoes, the movie (and the book!). Are any more of your books going to be turned into films?

As is frequently the case in Hollywood, most of my books have been optioned, which means that someone, at some given moment, sees the material as a potential book or film. So far, nothing’s been made...but I always keep my fingers crossed, and cash the checks quickly. I actually have high hopes for BFF – I think it’s got great, juicy parts for the two female leads, who each have moments of comedy and moments of darkness, and I love Jordan Novick, and would love to see what an actor would do with him.

6) It seems with your books, readers can’t devour them fast enough. So I have to ask…what’s next? Are you already working on book 8?

I am, indeed, in the early stages of book 8. A few details: it’s about three women at different stages of their lives who come together in the wake of romantic or marital crises and discover things they never knew about themselves. Also, I’m toying with a scene where a man, after much careful engineering and persuasion, arranges a threesome. Only both women have the same name. Confusion, hilarity ensues.

Did you miss our last interview with Jennifer Weiner, check it out here!

About the Author:

Jennifer Weiner is the author of six novels: Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, which was made into a major motion picture, Little Earthquakes, Goodnight Nobody, Certain Girls, and Best Friends Forever, as well as the short story collection, The Guy Not Taken. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Philadelphia with her family. Check out her website at: www.JenniferWeiner.com

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