New piece (by me!) in The Washington Post

My piece on The Top 5 Things Adults Get Wrong About Teens just went live on the Washington Post's website!

I love the photo they chose to illustrate it:

So now -- what else do YOU think adults get wrong (or RIGHT!) about teens?

Choosing...

My first public read from UNFRIENDED is tomorrow night!

Please join me and all these awesome authors for Teen Author Reading Night tomorrow, Oct 1, at 6-7:30 PM, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, corner of 6th Ave and 10th Street.

Here's who'll be there, doing short readings and then answering any/all questions you may have:

Moderator: David Levithan

Lisa Amowitz,Vision
Laurie Crompton, Adrenaline Crush
Timothy Decker, Lies in the Dust
Heather Demetrios, Exquisite Captive
Jaclyn Dolamore, Dark Metropolis
Amelia Kahaney, The Invisible
Gordon Korman, Memory Maze
Rachel Vail, Unfriended

So... now I better figure out which bit to read!

If you've read Unfriended yet -- any suggestions?

Since there are 6 narrators, I know I have to do a piece that has at least 2 POVs... can I manage 3?

Do you have a favorite narrator?

I am so psyched to hear all these other authors read...

How You Know It's Not The End of the Story Yet

Just saw on the news this morning that a huge truck is jamming up the entire FDR drive here in NYC -- they had to shut the whole thing down, which, with the UN in session to boot, is no doubt making a LOT of people really, really cranky this morning.

It brings me back to the U-Haul truck I drove home from college one year. I dropped off my boyfriend at his house, not far from mine, and proceeded home. It had been many hours for me behind the wheel (my then-boyfriend was not a fan of driving a truck and did not want to take a turn; I felt lucky he even rode with me) during which I kept checking my mirrors because I felt way TOO WIDE for my lane.

So as I approached what my family calls the Troll Bridge, right off the Bronx River Parkway -- maybe any readers from Westchester County NY know what I'm talking about? -- I was a little nervous the truck would be TOO WIDE to fit through. But no, we looked just slim enough. So in I went.

BANG.

What the...???

I checked my mirrors. No problem. Only then did it hit me, a few minutes after the top of the tunnel hit the roof of my truck. TOO TALL.

I tried to get out of the cab of the truck to survey the damage but couldn't open my door. Somebody yelled to me to keep going. So I tried. No. Stuck. More horrible sounds but not much movement. Somebody else yelled that I had to throw it into reverse and back it up, out of there. There were cars lining up on both sides of the Troll Bridge, waiting to get through. I felt like Pooh in Rabbit's hole.

Put it in reverse and floor it! The stranger yelled again.

Not wanting to spend the rest of my life in that Troll Bridge, and without a better idea, I did what the unseen stranger suggested.

With a great clattering and screeching -- and probably the truck was making noise too -- I backed out of the Troll Bridge. It was kind of slow and then POP I was out, into the daylight again.

I got out to survey the damage. Everything looked fine except the tires, weirdly, were on a sheet of metal.

THE ROOF.

I had sheered the roof right off the top of the truck and backed up onto it.

Exhausted, humiliated, grateful, I thanked the crew that had very helpfully gotten out of their cars and helped me, including helping me back up off the roof and lug it to the side of the road, and drove the now convertible truck filled with all my sad belongings from a failed rooming situation at college home for a Thanksgiving and family that were waiting for me.

My dad returned the truck for me the next day because I was too humiliated and depleted, and explained to them where they could retrieve the top portion of the truck I had rented.

When an envelope arrived a few weeks later for me from U-Haul, I was scared but not surprised. I was living with new people by then, strangers, and feeling very raw and tender and fragile in the world. And this would be just one more thing, one more blow. I opened the envelope slowly, wondering if the U-Haul people were suing me or just demanding some huge payment I didn't have.

It was a check.

For the full amount of my deposit.

I started to laugh and couldn't stop for a while. My new roommates probably thought I was nuts. I called home -- my parents thought I was kidding. When I swore I wasn't, they cracked up too. A check! They sent you a check? Maybe you could get a part time job wrecking stuff; it pays pretty well!

I have felt ever since that it was a moment of grace and forgiveness, receiving that check. Maybe it was somehow a sign from the universe that in spite of how things seemed to be going, right then, the end of the story wasn't me stuck in a rented truck sans petulant boyfriend, sans escape route, sans roommates, sans friends, sans ROOF, in a TROLL BRIDGE.

The end of the story was yet to come. A check. My money back. A funny coda. A memory of a crowd of people yelling at me to FLOOR IT and then clapping when I emerged, backwards, topless.

And that experience seems to me to be a perfect metaphor for something. But what? Maybe to keep going through the bad part because the funny is just a few beats down the way?

Or maybe the real nugget of wisdom here is: don't drive trucks through Troll Bridges. Or on the FDR drive.

Off they go, as well they should...

It started as an idea in my head, some voices, some characters -- the social whirl of middle school, the question of bullying and how that feels, and popularity and why we want it and what we're willing to sacrifice for it... and how each of us has a different interpretation of the scene, even as we experience it together...

And for many, many, many months, it was not quite a thing. Or it was a hideous mess of a thing. A hideous mess I had serious doubts would ever form itself into a readable, coherent manuscript. Notice I said "form itself" because the one thing that WAS gin-clear to me at that point was that I was beyond doubt unable to make it either readable or coherent. I had no clue how to proceed.

So on I slogged. Often hitting dead ends. Kept afloat by encouragement from wise friends and oceans of good milky tea. And a lack of other skills to fall back on.

Until, eventually, this showed up at my door:

And it hit me once again that seeing my book, multiple copies of it all boxed up and done, uneditable anymore, in piles, felt very much like seeing my kids begin to wobble forth on their doughy round feet, when they were little.

And it is so dear and sweet to grab them up and hold them and even smell their new scent... but I'm no rookie, book or kid-wise, so I knew what was just ahead... they will make their way out into the world, soon, so soon. And as the author, or the parent, I will no longer be fully in charge of what happens. Some people will like them. Some won't. They will go out there and affect people in their own unique ways, bearing my love and my continued attention with them always, but still, making their own way among their peers.

And here I will be, knee-shakingly proud to see my book among amazing volumes like these... 

and finding new friends...

just as I am to see each of my kids finding his friends...

and finding his way, a kid among kids...

And here I'll remain, hoping for the best for them all. Taking a deep breath to keep myself from chasing like Polonius after them, offering last minute advice or impossible, too-late edits as they go to find their ways in the world.

Being reminded to take it slow and keep exploring...

Author Rachel Vail talks about her new novel UNFRIENDED

UNFRIENDED!

Unfriended comes out today!

As does the truth: Yeah, I do write standing up. At the wine rack.

Here's the proof. Also some info about the book.

And here's more info about the book, plus how to get your own copy!


Saw it today for the first time on a book store shelf, at Bank Street Books.

That is always an exciting moment.

As was this: my lovely husband toasted the occasion with me:

And now, bedtime.

Goodnight, friends, and thanks for all the love... right back at you all.

The day before

I just took a break from baking

this plum torte for tonight's celebration at my mom's house...

to look for my lost cuppa tea.

It's one of those days when I'm doing so many things, I end up chasing myself around the apartment and losing my tea. When I find it, it is tepid and sad. And my microwave is broken. And though I have finished making 3 of the 4 recipes I'm making, my kitchen is a mess and also that leaves one more thing to make and it's sweet pea risotto which why did I offer to make that and also WORK and my tea is yucky. So: break time.

So I picked up my laptop and saw that the piece on HuffPo I wrote, Top 15 Things Your Middle School Kid Wishes You Knew, just hit 200,000 "likes."

That is so many likes, you guys. Thank you so much. For the validation, of course, but also for making it so clear to me how much we are all in this together. As parents, we hunger to connect with our kids, even when they are being particularly impossible. We want to teach them, guide them, help them -- of course. We're perplexed by them sometimes, and we can't help but worry, even as we root for them to become independent, resilient, happy, productive and generous adults. Not yet. But someday. And as we struggle to connect with them, we sometimes feel SO ALONE.

But here is proof: we are not. We are so in it together, all trying to get it right, this most important thing we will ever do.

Tomorrow UNFRIENDED goes on sale. 

I am beyond excited about that. 

I will write more tomorrow and beyond about this book and why it means so much to me... 

But for now, I am thinking about all of us, parents of young adolescents. If you are interested in getting inside the heads of middle school kids, this may be the book for you as well as for your favorite middle schooler. There's friendship and social politics, multiple and spiraling misunderstandings, cyberbullying, crushes, big sandwiches, playground disasters, stumbling growth toward some tentative and incomplete measures of grace.... 

Here's a link to read more about the book, and to buy it. (That would be a great thing to do, btw.) 

If you do get the book, please let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially if you are reading it with your kid, in some way. Do you have the same favorite character? Different reactions/predictions as things spiral out of control? Were you angry at the same characters as your child was? Do any of the characters remind you and/or your child of any of his/her friends? Were you surprised by any of your own reactions, or your kid's?

Sometimes it is far easier to begin discussing awkward topics like friendship and morality in third person (why did that character do that???) rather than in second person (have you ever done that? -- or, worse for getting any kind of conversation/information flow going: YOU'D BETTER NEVER DO THAT! Though, yeah, that temptation, dead-ender though it is, flares up in all of us...)

Anyway, in addition to being PUB DAY, tomorrow is also Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year. I wish all who celebrate a sweet and joyous celebration -- and wish all of us a year to come filled with laughter, love, celebrations, health, and peace. And not too many homework battles. And that your kid's socks won't be scattered around the house each night like little wayward sock brioches.

Is that just at my house? Oh. Oh well.

Off I go toward sweet pea risotto and a fresh hot cup of tea.

Much love,

Rachel Vail