Author Interview: Lindsay Faith Rech

Joining me today, on her book birthday no less, is Lindsay Faith Rech, author of It Started With a Dare. This is a humorous book about one girl's mission to reinvent herself, and everything that ensues as a result.


If you knew CG before she moved, and saw everything that happened, what would your reaction be?

I would be shocked. Alona, Sammie, and Grace are exactly the kind of girls that the old CG would have made fun of (despite the fact that on in the inside, she desperately longed to be accepted by them). CG was always a take-no-crap tomboy type, so to see her sucking up to Alona and tagging along on stereotypically "girly" excursions like expensive shopping sprees would be a complete 180. As for the trouble she gets herself into, CG was always the type of person who cruised along under the radar without calling much attention to her behavior, so to watch her be crowned THE rebel of her new school---to see her running around with older men, seducing teachers, and making outrageous claims about her level of sexual experience and past alcohol abuse---would be pretty jaw-dropping (to say the least!).

If you were to mix a paranormal creature/being into this story, what meshing would you go for?

Hmmm....that is an interesting question. I think I would go with the ghost of one of CG's dearly departed relatives---like maybe her wise, old Aunt Eleanor who would appear intermittently throughout the novel to hold a mirror up to CG's behavior, serving as the voice of reason when CG really needs to hear one and as her conscience when she could use a morality check. Of course the downside to this paranormal twist would be dear, old Aunt Ellie sucking most of the fun out of CG's story by guiding her down the straight and narrow path. Who wants to read about someone who's always doing the right thing? :-)

Since Truth or Dare is at the center of much of CG's own problems, what is one truth or dare you wish you'd never taken?

Oh my God, Kari, I haven't thought about this in years, but your question has triggered a very embarrassing memory. Back in eleventh grade, I had a HUGE crush on this guy who used to hang out at our local mall. (I was an aspiring mallrat too, so I didn't see anything wrong with this.) I was riding on the "down" escalator with my two best friends one night when I saw him standing with some of his friends directly below me on the first floor. We had recently had an awkward encounter (too convoluted to explain in one paragraph) and I desperately wanted to avoid him. My friends jokingly dared me to run back upstairs---against the natural, downward flow of the escalator---and so I attempted it, using every uncoordinated reflex in my clumsy-on-a-good-day body to flee the scene before he saw me. In the background, I could hear my two friends yelling, "No, Lindsay, stop!", but I couldn't stop, and before I knew it, I had crashed my shin against one of the rising escalator steps, which sent me flying the rest of the way until I landed on my butt and slid about ten extra feet to a nearby shoe store. People were literally stepping over me like roadkill. Some were laughing, some looked annoyed. The object of my affection saw the whole thing. Definitely not my best self-esteem day.

If you could pair CG with any character from any book, who would you pick for her?

I think it would be really cool to see how CG would interact with Holden Caulfield, the undisputed poster boy for teen angst-driven rebellion. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE was one of the most influential books I've ever read, and I'm sure the character of Holden Caulfield has subconsciously inspired the narrative of more than one of my heroines. It would be interesting to see how he and CG challenge, infuriate, and excite one another as they engage in all kinds of bad behavior.

What is one YA book out in the last two years that you wish you'd had as a teen?

Unfortunately, I haven't read enough YA in the last two years to sufficiently answer this question. IT STARTED WITH A DARE's release comes just 18 months after the birth of my first child. Between my full-time "day job," raising (and cuddling with) my daughter, and trying to squeeze in time for writing whenever I can, I have proven to be a complete failure in keeping up with the latest releases in my genre. But getting back into my TBR pile is definitely on the "to do" list!

What is one of the craziest dreams you've ever had and remember?

This might be a little graphic for some readers, but I recently had a dream that my husband's best friend and his wife were undergoing in vitro fertilization, and they wanted us to be present to witness the event (kind of like the best man and maid of honor at a wedding). The procedure wasn't working, so their doctor, who happened to be CNN newsman Anderson Cooper, convinced me to donate MY sperm to their efforts. In my dream, nobody questioned why I, in fact, had sperm to donate; it was more a question of whether I was willing to fork over DNA for a child that I would have no legal rights to. I ended up consenting, but getting injured during the procedure, and spent the rest of my dream trying to find the head of the hospital so I could report Dr. Anderson Cooper and hopefully have his medical license burned. Weighing heavily on my mind the entire time was what my mother would think (not of the fact that her daughter just donated her sperm to help an infertile couple, but of her daughter actively lobbying for the downfall of her favorite television newscaster). Hmmm... I wonder what a dream interpreter would make of that one.

What kind of cake/confection would you describe yourself as?

I think my college roommate would be disappointed if I didn't say linzer tart. A few people have adopted this nickname for me over the years, but she is the only one who has used it consistenly for more than a decade, though it was shortened to "Tart" a long time ago. It's definitely not the most flattering nickname, but it did make answering this question rather easy! :-)

Thanks so much, Lindsay, for those fantastic answers, and congrats on the release! Now the rest of you should go out and buy this great book! It's a fun read!