Unplugged by Donna Freitas: Guest Post and Giveaway!

ABOUT UNPLUGGED:

The first book in a provocative new series from acclaimed author Donna Freitas—Feed for a new generation.

Humanity is split into the App World and the Real World—an extravagant virtual world for the wealthy and a dying physical world for the poor. Years ago, Skylar Cruz’s family sent her to the App World for a chance at a better life.

Now Skye is a nobody, a virtual sixteen-year-old girl without any glamorous effects or expensive downloads to make her stand out in the App World. Yet none of that matters to Skye. All she wants is a chance to unplug and see her mother and sister again.

But when the borders between worlds suddenly close, Skye loses that chance. Desperate to reach her family, Skye risks everything to get back to the physical world. Once she arrives, however, she discovers a much larger, darker reality than the one she remembers.

In the tradition of M. T. Anderson’s Feed and Scott Westerfeld’sUglies, Unplugged kicks off a thrilling and timely sci-fi series for teens from an award-winning writer.

LINKS: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository

ABOUT DONNA FREITAS:

Donna Freitas is the author of both fiction and nonfiction, and she lectures at universities across the United States on her work about college students, most recently at Colby, Pepperdine, Harvard, and Yale. Over the years, she has written for national newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post, and she’s currently a non-resident research associate at the Center for Religion and Society at Notre Dame. Donna has been a professor at Boston University in the Department of Religion and also at Hofstra University in their Honors College.

In 2008, Donna published Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America’s College Campuses with Oxford University Press, based on her national study about sex on campus. Her latest book is called The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost (Oxford, October 2016), and it is based on her research for a new study about social media and how it is effecting the ways we construct identity and sense of self, how we make meaning in the world, and navigate our relationships during college. In 2014 and 2015, Freitas conducted approximately 200 in-person interviews with college students at thirteen different colleges and universities, and collected nearly1000 online surveys about these subjects. 

Donna is also the author of six novels for children and young adults, including The Survival Kit (FSG, 2011), named an ALA Best Books for Young Adults and the winner of the Bookstar Award in Switzerland, and This Gorgeous Game (FSG, 2010), also named an ALA Best Books for Young Adults, a winner of the CCBC Choice Award, and a Chicago Public Library Best of the Best winner. Her novel, The Possibilities of Sainthood (FSG, 2008), received five starred reviews and many accolades, including: an Indie Next Kids' List Great Read, Society of School Librarians International Book Award Honor Book, VOYA Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers, and the Texas Lone Star Reading List. Donna has also published two middle grade companion novels with Scholastic, Gold Medal Summer (about a gymnast) and Gold Medal Winter (about an ice skater), which just won a CCBC Choice Award. In June, Unplugged the first novel in her sci-fi trilogy about two competing worlds, one real, one virtual, will be out in June from HarperTeen. She lives in Brooklyn.

LINKS: Website | Twitter | Facebook

Tour Schedule:

Tour Schedule:

6/20: That Artsy Reader Girl - Review

6/21: One Night Book Stand - Top 10

6/22: Downright Dystopian - Review

6/23: Live to Read - Guest Post

6/24: Pretty Deadly Reviews - Review

Week 2:

6/27: The Irish Banana Review - Q&A

6/28: The Book Bratz - Review

6/29: Brittany's Book Rambles - Guest Post

6/30: Such A Novel Idea - Playlist

7/1: The Petite Book Blogger - Review

1) Ten reasons why readers should grab the book (who better to sell the book than the author?)

#1 Because in the world of my new trilogy, apps can be downloaded to the brain and body! Imagine if that were really possible? It was fun to imagine it for the book. You can change your looks, your personality, your abilities (feel like flying today?), there are kissing apps where you can try out kissing boys, then girls, then boys again, to see what you prefer. All for a price, of course. And the downloads only last a short while.

#2 Technology—what is real, the appeal of the virtual—is on all of our minds, and Unplugged plays around with all the wonderful of technology, but also all the sinister, too.

#3 My protagonist, Skylar Cruz, has an interesting history, a crazy family, and the deep desire to see what it’s like to be real—in a real body, in a real world—for the first time in years. She’s grown up in what is called the App World, where people and kids plug in, some when they are still babies, so they can grow up virtually, and hopefully, live eternally in this virtual sphere. She doesn’t even know the color of her own skin until she wakes up in the Real World for the first time.

#4 Rain Holt, who is a very sexy love interest.

#5 A reminder of all that is sensuous and exciting about being real. And doing things like eating strawberries and swimming in the ocean.

#7 If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to live virtually, all of the time.

#8 Lacy Mills. She’s so fun to hate.

#9. Action. There is lots of action.

#10. Kit. He’s on the agenda for the sequel to Unplugged, which is called The Body Market. He’s a bounty hunter. With tattoos. And he will definitely give Rain a run for his money with Skylar.

Giveaway:

3 Finished Copies of UNPLUGGED (US Only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This product or book may have been distributed for review, this in no way affects my opinions or reviews. COPYRIGHT © 2014 LIVE TO READ