Wishlist Wednesday #13

Posted by: Allison Helps Cats on: December 17, 2014

• In: Teasers
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Wishlist Wednesday is a book blog hop from Pen to Paper that invites ones to post about one book per week that has been on their wishlist for some time, or just added, and that you can’t wait to get off the wishlist and onto your wonderful shelves.

Over the years, my husband and I have become fans of book sales. Our calendars even have a couple annual ones marked, most notably one by our local library and one by our local retired teachers. If we hear of others, we often at least check them out. As a result, the books we wish to read have greatly increased. I’m especially anxious to read a set which I collected solely through book sales: a trilogy about reformed hellion Cyd Charisse by Rachel Cohn.

According to Cohn’s website, the first book, Gingerbread was originally inspired when she was living in the Bay Area and a friend sent her a card he’d made picturing a girl wearing combat books, with a doll trailing from her hand and a caption that read, “My dolly’s not feeling so good.” Suddenly, there was Cyd Charisse!

Before I proceed further, I should also tell you that there was a real Cyd Charisse, but Cohn’s character is fictional. Here is a video tribute to the real Cyd Charisse, a dancer and an actress.

The second book, Shrimp, was inspired by the many readers who wrote to ask what happened to Cyd Charisse after she returned home to San Francisco from her summer in New York City: Could she get along with her family? Would she get back together with Shrimp? Cohn was curious herself!

The third book, Cupcake, evolved when it became clear to Cohn that Cyd Charisse’s story was far from finished. Cohn figured if she wrote one more book about her, it would be called Cupcake, in tribute to CC’s stepfather’s nickname for her (and maybe her sweet tooth). It would explore Cyd’s first year living on her own in Manhattan. Conveniently, Cohn notes, cupcake shops started popping up all over the city while she was considering writing a last CC installment.

As for author Rachel Cohn, when she was seventeen, she originally planned to be a journalist. However, it turned out she wanted to make up stories about characters in her head instead of report on actual people’s stories. A few years after graduating from college, she moved to San Francisco and got an administrative job at a law firm to support herself while I began to seriously study and write fiction. She wrote three unpublished novels before Gingerbread. Since it, writing has been a full-time career.

PS An interesting side note is that apparently my books have the original book jacket designs.

What’s on your wish list?

Tags: Allison's Book Bag, Cyd Charisse, Rachel Cohn, reviews of books for young people, Wishlist Meme