veronica1890 wrote:
Hello Lauren Oliver, I just wanted to let you know that you made me feel really special because I've never read an advanced copy before; so thank you.
Also I wanted to ask you how you came up with the characters in your book; were you one of the popular girls in high school? If not was this how people in your school acted? And why seven days?
People in my high school were not as mean, necessarily, as the girls in this book, although there was definitely some cruelty there and to be honest I probably was not privy to the worst of what went on--my friends and I were somewhat inured from it, as we were decently popular. (We were not, however, the mean girls, although I certainly did some things in high school I'm not proud of.) But people taunted one another, and started rumors about one another, and humiliated one another, and labeled people sluts and freaks and fat and ugly. That was just the reality of my experience. My classmates also drank, smoked, bought weed, cut class, and had sex--not all of them, but some certainly did. That was also a reality for me.
The seven days was not necessarily deliberate; that was just the quantity of time it took for me to complete Sam's character arc. I was pleased that it took seven days, however, as that time frame obviously has lots of significance.
