Blog Tour: Free To Fall | Lauren Miller | Review | Giveaway

Welcome to our stop on the Free To Fall tour for Lauren Miller. This tour is hosted by Book Nerd Tours.

  Free To Fall
Author: Lauren Miller
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Dystopian
Released: May 13, 2014
Review Source: Blog Tour | HarperTeen

What if there was an app that told you what song to listen to, what coffee to order, who to date, even what to do with your life—an app that could ensure your complete and utter happiness? What if you never had to fail or make a wrong choice?

What if you never had to fall?

Fast-forward to a time when Apple and Google have been replaced by Gnosis, a monolith corporation that has developed the most life-changing technology to ever hit the market: Lux, an app that flawlessly optimizes decision making for the best personal results. Just like everyone else, sixteen-year-old Rory Vaughn knows the key to a happy, healthy life is following what Lux recommends. When she’s accepted to the elite boarding school Theden Academy, her future happiness seems all the more assured. But once on campus, something feels wrong beneath the polished surface of her prestigious dream school. Then she meets North, a handsome townie who doesn’t use Lux, and begins to fall for him and his outsider way of life. Soon, Rory is going against Lux’s recommendations, listening instead to the inner voice that everyone has been taught to ignore — a choice that leads her to uncover a truth neither she nor the world ever saw coming.

"Lux, what should I wear today?"
"Lux, should I eat a snack?"
"Lux, should I go back ten steps to retrieve my umbrella?"
Can you picture yourself, right now, using Siri as a guide-to-life? In Free To Fall the technology is so advanced that "Lux" basically controls your every move. Lauren Miller is right on track with this dystopian novel. BRAVO. If any dystopian is believable, it is most definitely this one. Technology seems to be headed in crazy ways and people are more and more engrossed into playing with their cell phones constantly. In the Free To Fall world, your inner voice and intuition have been eliminated. Following your gut means you'll make the wrong choice. Everything needs to be logical, and there is technology to help you make the right choices, Lux.

Aurora, or Rory, trusts Lux for everything. And, I mean everything. She gets accepted into Theden Academy, a prestigious school that is basically a golden ticket to security in her career choice and life. But, something is off and then she meets North. North doesn't use Lux. She begins to fall.

I LOVED Free To Fall. Easy 5 tree rating! I loved Rory's character. She was incredibly fascinating to me. And North, swoon-worthy North, *sighs* yeah, he's pretty dreamy. I enjoyed following their story. There were twists and turns at, what felt like, every page. Books that keep you guessing, and keep you shocked when you can't predict what will happen, are rare to come by. But, Free To Fall is one of those books and a true gem. I kind of, REALLY need to read this book again because I loved it so much. Pick up your copy now because Free To Fall is easily one of the greatest books of 2014!

---

I grew up in Atlanta. I went to college at Yale and law school at Berkeley, then I got married and moved to Southern California to practice law.

I liked it. But after about a year, I got the itch to be doing something more creative. The itch got stronger. I found myself typing out random bits of dialogue on my Blackberry (remember those?) and pitching story ideas to my co-workers. One of those ideas became a script for a TV pilot. When it didn’t sell, I wrote another one and another one. Soon, I was ducking out of work to go to pitch meetings at studios and networks. It felt like I was getting somewhere.

Then I got pregnant. Unexpectedly. This freaked me out. Not because I didn’t want kids (I did), but because I was afraid (ok, convinced) that motherhood would zap my creative potential.

To prove myself wrong, I resolved to write a novel in the first 100 days of my child’s life and blog about it, an experiment I called “embracing the detour” (if you’re looking for an embrace the detour fridge magnet, I’m your girl. If you’re looking for old embrace the detour blog posts, click HERE). At the time, it seemed like a brilliant idea. Looking back, it makes me laugh at the childless version of me.

Then again, she’s the reason the current version of me ended up with a two-book deal at HarperTeen. And my very first script sale (but that’s a whole other story).

Thanks to to Kristyn Keene at ICM and Sarah Landis at HarperTeen, my debut novel, Parallel, hit bookstores on May 14th. My second novel, Free to Fall, will be out next Spring.

---

Giveaway is open in US only. | Must be 13+ to Enter

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Trailer Thursday: Free to Fall by Lauren Miller

Free to Fall

Author: Lauren Miller

Expected Publication: May 13th 2014

Publisher: HarperTeen

What if there was an app that told you what song to listen to, what coffee to order, who to date, even what to do with your life—an app that could ensure your complete and utter happiness? What if you never had to fail or make a wrong choice?

What if you never had to fall?

Fast-forward to a time when Apple and Google have been replaced by Gnosis, a monolith corporation that has developed the most life-changing technology to ever hit the market: Lux, an app that flawlessly optimizes decision making for the best personal results. Just like everyone else, sixteen-year-old Rory Vaughn knows the key to a happy, healthy life is following what Lux recommends. When she’s accepted to the elite boarding school Theden Academy, her future happiness seems all the more assured. But once on campus, something feels wrong beneath the polished surface of her prestigious dream school. Then she meets North, a handsome townie who doesn’t use Lux, and begins to fall for him and his outsider way of life. Soon, Rory is going against Lux’s recommendations, listening instead to the inner voice that everyone has been taught to ignore — a choice that leads her to uncover a truth neither she nor the world ever saw coming.

Book Review: Parallel by Lauren Miller

Parallel
Author: Lauren Miller
Reading Level: YA
Genre: Science Fiction/Time Travel
Released: May 14th 2013
Review Source: HarperTeen
Available: Amazon

Summary: (from goodreads) Abby Barnes had a plan. The Plan. She'd go to Northwestern, major in journalism, and land a job at a national newspaper, all before she turned twenty-two. But one tiny choice—taking a drama class her senior year of high school—changed all that. Now, on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Abby is stuck on a Hollywood movie set, miles from where she wants to be, wishing she could rewind her life. The next morning, she's in a dorm room at Yale, with no memory of how she got there. Overnight, it's as if her past has been rewritten.

With the help of Caitlin, her science-savvy BFF, Abby discovers that this new reality is the result of a cosmic collision of parallel universes that has Abby living an alternate version of her life. And not only that: Abby's life changes every time her parallel self makes a new choice. Meanwhile, her parallel is living out Abby's senior year of high school and falling for someone Abby's never even met.

As she struggles to navigate her ever-shifting existence, forced to live out the consequences of a path she didn't choose, Abby must let go of the Plan and learn to focus on the present, without losing sight of who she is, the boy who might just be her soul mate, and the destiny that's finally within reach.

Parallel is one of those books that I was anxiously awaiting to read. Unfortunately, it fell a tad bit short for me. The fact that I might have hyped it up in my head a little more than necessary might have to do with why I don't love it as much. Parallel is gonna fall under my "I didn't completely love it, yet I had to finish it because the story held my attention well enough to see what happens in the end" category.

Abby Barnes has always had her whole life planned since she can remember. Perfectly set class schedule, try to get an excellent score on the SAT, get into Northwestern graduate with a degree in journalism and to tie up the perfect plan get a job at a major newspaper. That changes the first day of her senior year. Her class schedule has to be changed last minute when a certain teacher decides to cancel his class. Now Abby is faced with a choice of either taking drama methods or principles of astronomy. Of course she takes the semi-easy class, gets cast as the lead in the upcoming school play, and there happens to be a prominent casting director in the audience (nothing out of the ordinary since it is a magnet school). That same casting director calls her and asks her to audition for a big-budget film and she gets the part. Abby's so called plan goes out the door and there's really nothing she can do. She goes to sleep the day before her 18th birthday in her swanky LA hotel room, but wakes up in a dorm room in Yale! How you may ask did she end up there? Well the night that she went to sleep there was an earthquake, but really it was a collision of Parallels. It just so happens that we switch POVs to a 16 year old Abby the day before her 17th birthday (Very important to keep track of the dates) same thing happens where her teacher cancels her class, but in this parallel Drama isn't an option.

The plot was a lot more complex than I originally thought and I think that's what threw me off. The explanation for the Parallel worlds is both intriguing yet confusing. It might have gone a bit more in-depth than I think was necessary. That being said I did enjoy the way Miller weaved both parallels together. I liked the way that I didn't feel lost when I was reading Abby "Here" and "There", it flowed effortlessly. On another note, I made no connection what so ever to either of the love interest. They weren't developed at all. The one thing I truly enjoy about Parallel was that it made you think about the small stuff. How a simple lie or the smallest decision could have such a big impact & alter the course of so many things.