Gwendolyn Heasley

Imogen has had it. She is 15, starting high school, and she would love to have a normal family life. Instead, every moment of her existence is photographed and chronicled by her mother, a famous mommy blogger.

Instead of living a normal private life, Imogen is Baby and she has been on display since before she was born. But she has her best friend, whose mother also is a well-known blogger, and they have an English class in which student blogs are assigned. It's time, Imogen decides, to get show more her life back.

Gwen Heasley's Don't Call Me Baby starts off as a humorous, breezy story in which daughters square off against moms. She's got the online persona down. She's got the reader right there with their daughters.

And then the author does something even better. She goes for higher stakes than the two teens getting their moms to pay attention to them.

Heasley also weaves into her story how a big blogging commitment affects a family, how a blog can be a hungry monster that must be continually fed and a brand consistently maintained if a blogger is to create an online presence. She shows both sides of what it means as young people come of age in a digital age during which their baby pictures and other embarrassing moments of their lives are stored forever on some server. show less

I don't normally read YA books, but when I received a pitch for Gwendolyn Heasley's Don't Call Me Baby, a novel about a teen whose mom writes a mommy blog, I was intrigued. Though I am a book blogger and my sons are now grown, my curiosity was peaked.

Imogene's mom Meg started writing a blog about being a mom when she became pregnant with Imogene over fifteen years ago. The blog, Mommylicious, has become pretty popular, and Meg is inundated with companies sending her products- food, clothing, show more housewares, even sending the family on paid vacations- in exchange for reviews on their products on the blog.

On one of the first pages, we read one of Mommylicious' posts, complete with links to previous posts that read 'click here'. As a blogger, that made me laugh a little with recognition. The book begins with Imogene's first day of 8th grade as she dreads her mother taking the annual 'before' picture of Imogene in bed before she rises and the 'after' picture of her dressed and ready for school.

As a child, Imogene sort of enjoyed the freebies and people recognizing her at the mall. But now that she is fifteen, she finds her mother's blog too intrusive. I mean, how many teenager girls want their experience with their first periods as the subject of a blog post?

Imogene's best friend Sage has the same problem. Her mom writes a blog about leading a vegan lifestyle, so Sage is forced to eat vegan, which she is no longer wishes to do. Both girls are tired of the teasing at school, and when their English teacher assigns the class a year-long project of writing a personal blog, the girls see a chance to put the shoe on the other foot and write about their mothers.

The moms are not happy with this. Their blogs are their livelihood, and though they don't make a lot of money from them (they are not quite the Pioneer Woman), they see the girls' blogs as a threat to them. Imogene posts embarrassing photos of her mother and Sage writes about her forays at the mall, eating her way through the food court junk food.

Imogene's grandmother, Hope a former LPGA golfer, and Imogene's father don't have any influence over Meg, so Imogene and Meg seem to be at loggerheads. (I loved Hope!)

Although this book is aimed at teens, I think there is a lot here for parents. My sons were too young for me to post photos and updates of their daily life on Facebook, but it does give me pause to wonder if they were growing up today, would I invade their privacy that way?

It's different posting baby pictures, but when kids are old enough to have friends and their own life, how much information is too much to share? In these days of invasive social media, this book gives you something to ponder.

The characters are interesting, although I have to say I found Meg a little clueless and single-minded. How could she not see that she was embarrassing her daughter? Even when we found out why she started the blog, I still found her actions heavy-handed. Imogene was more understanding than I would have been.

I think teen girls will identify with Imogene, with her desire to be her own person and not have her mother always talking about her, in her business, albeit in her case it's on social media.

The lesson in the novel is that communication is key. Parents and children have to be able to talk to each other about what is important to them, and listen and be listened to. I know it gave me something to think about. show less

Here on Pretty Deadly Reviews, I like to think I feature darker books. Books that are slightly off the beaten path, with darker themes, or a touch of madness, or an intangible surreality. I don't very often review YA contemporary, because I don't very often read it or like it. I'm sure we all have genres we don't gravitate towards -- reading is so subjective and often very personal, so it makes sense. But every once in a while, we come across a book that takes us by surprise and flips our show more notions on their heads.

A LONG WAY FROM YOU is that book. I initially accepted this book for review consideration because I was in the middle of an adult book binge and wanted something light and fluffy and fun for the start of summer. A LONG WAY FROM YOU was was perfect. It did delve into deeper themes, like growing up too fast, alcoholism, missing parents, and identity, but at the same time, the protagonist, Kitsy Kidd, was so upbeat and peppy that it was hard not to smile, even through the rougher patches in the story.


Kitsy Kidd is your quintessential Southern Belle character. She is blond and blue eyed, she is a cheerleader, she dates the quarter back. She is popular and peppy and cheerful. But she is also trying to balance all those typical teenager things with the fact that her father upped and left her family years ago, and her mother is a useless alcoholic. Kitsy is basically mom to her younger brother, Kiki (who is ADORBZ), and she is also responsible for the housework, and the sole breadwinner for the family. These struggles make Kitsy a more layered character than she initially seemed. Couple these things with the struggling artist inside our Kitsy and she is one complicated, likable character. My very favorite part about her is her confidence: during her stay in New York (and her broken home in Texas) she has to overcome a few obstacles, and some of them seem insurmountable. But she knows her strengths and her confidence never falters. She is a great, great role model for younger teens and preteen audiences.


A LONG WAY FROM YOU is very much a character driven story. Throughout her stay in NYC, Kitsy meets a colorful cast of characters: Ford, her flamboyant art school classmate; Iona, another classmate who has a rougher edge than amicable Ford; Annika, another small-town girl running away from the confines of her past; Tad, aka Art Boy, who shows tremendous interest in Kitsy's art, but still treats her like a kid. These characters really breathe life into the old story of struggling artist in the city. And each one is completely fleshed out and entirely their own person. I loved each one of them, and a book about any side-character in this story would be a rich experience in itself.


I read this book at the perfect time: coming home from the city myself after a trip to BEA. I could feel Kitsy's anxiety at navigating through a foreign city. New York sometimes feels like an entirely different planet, and you can really see that through Kitsy's eyes, as she gets lost in the NY transit system, or stumbles through awkward conversations with "Yankees." I could tell the author really knew the city; it showed through Kitsy's missteps more than through her successes. I loved the trips through the subway, the visits to MoMA. The Empire State Building and the park.


A LONG WAY FROM YOU was a very uplifting story. The ending was a little cutesy, and sometimes the names of the characters got in my way (Kitsy? Kiki? Hands, her boyfriend?) But aside from those little, teeny, tiny things, I really adored this book. It is a companion novel to WHERE I BELONG, but I felt that I didn't need to read the other one to understand this one. For a light, fun, but still deep summer read, I definitely recommend A LONG WAY FROM YOU by Gwendolyn Heasly. She really changed my mind about YA contemporary, and from now on I think I'll keep a more open mind. show less

Here on Pretty Deadly Reviews, I like to think I feature darker books. Books that are slightly off the beaten path, with darker themes, or a touch of madness, or an intangible surreality. I don't very often review YA contemporary, because I don't very often read it or like it. I'm sure we all have genres we don't gravitate towards -- reading is so subjective and often very personal, so it makes sense. But every once in a while, we come across a book that takes us by surprise and flips our show more notions on their heads.

A LONG WAY FROM YOU is that book. I initially accepted this book for review consideration because I was in the middle of an adult book binge and wanted something light and fluffy and fun for the start of summer. A LONG WAY FROM YOU was was perfect. It did delve into deeper themes, like growing up too fast, alcoholism, missing parents, and identity, but at the same time, the protagonist, Kitsy Kidd, was so upbeat and peppy that it was hard not to smile, even through the rougher patches in the story.


Kitsy Kidd is your quintessential Southern Belle character. She is blond and blue eyed, she is a cheerleader, she dates the quarter back. She is popular and peppy and cheerful. But she is also trying to balance all those typical teenager things with the fact that her father upped and left her family years ago, and her mother is a useless alcoholic. Kitsy is basically mom to her younger brother, Kiki (who is ADORBZ), and she is also responsible for the housework, and the sole breadwinner for the family. These struggles make Kitsy a more layered character than she initially seemed. Couple these things with the struggling artist inside our Kitsy and she is one complicated, likable character. My very favorite part about her is her confidence: during her stay in New York (and her broken home in Texas) she has to overcome a few obstacles, and some of them seem insurmountable. But she knows her strengths and her confidence never falters. She is a great, great role model for younger teens and preteen audiences.


A LONG WAY FROM YOU is very much a character driven story. Throughout her stay in NYC, Kitsy meets a colorful cast of characters: Ford, her flamboyant art school classmate; Iona, another classmate who has a rougher edge than amicable Ford; Annika, another small-town girl running away from the confines of her past; Tad, aka Art Boy, who shows tremendous interest in Kitsy's art, but still treats her like a kid. These characters really breathe life into the old story of struggling artist in the city. And each one is completely fleshed out and entirely their own person. I loved each one of them, and a book about any side-character in this story would be a rich experience in itself.


I read this book at the perfect time: coming home from the city myself after a trip to BEA. I could feel Kitsy's anxiety at navigating through a foreign city. New York sometimes feels like an entirely different planet, and you can really see that through Kitsy's eyes, as she gets lost in the NY transit system, or stumbles through awkward conversations with "Yankees." I could tell the author really knew the city; it showed through Kitsy's missteps more than through her successes. I loved the trips through the subway, the visits to MoMA. The Empire State Building and the park.


A LONG WAY FROM YOU was a very uplifting story. The ending was a little cutesy, and sometimes the names of the characters got in my way (Kitsy? Kiki? Hands, her boyfriend?) But aside from those little, teeny, tiny things, I really adored this book. It is a companion novel to WHERE I BELONG, but I felt that I didn't need to read the other one to understand this one. For a light, fun, but still deep summer read, I definitely recommend A LONG WAY FROM YOU by Gwendolyn Heasly. She really changed my mind about YA contemporary, and from now on I think I'll keep a more open mind. show less