Bookanista Feature: Angie Smibert's MEMENTO NORA

I'm gonna switch it up now for the Bookanista post today: today, I'm not only featuring a fantabulous book (MEMENTO NORA), but this post is also a part of a book tour! With prizes involved! :D

First, lemme tell you a little bit about the book and why you should rush out and buy it as soon as it hits shelves (April 1st). MEMENTO NORA is the debut by Angie Smibert, a fellow Leaguer. Check out the official book webpage here.

First, there's the cover. Lookit. It's pretty darn stunning--and, I think, fits the tone of the book very well. There are subtle details in it that I loved even more while reading the book (such as the font for Angie's name--very fitting for what Nora becomes a part of).

But of course, the inside is the important thing. I thought a LOT about what I could say about MEMENTO NORA that would explain why I read it obsessively in two nights, and this is the best I could do:

Of all the dystopian worlds in print, 

this is the one that I think is most likely
 to happen in our society.  

Which should both intrigue you and terrify you. Look, I adore HUNGER GAMES, but I'm not sure if we ever would really get to that point in our world. Things would have to change drastically before America becomes Panem. A lot of apocalyptical dystopians require...the apocalypse--some huge event that will happen in the future to make everything different.

But MEMENTO NORA is the kind of book that I think could happen, in our world...very, very soon. We don't need President Snow, we don't need the moon to get knocked closer to Earth, we don't need A-bombs to wipe out the population. We just need our world to get just a little more of everything it already is, and MEMENTO NORA could actually happen.

Memento Nora Blog Tour

In Nora's world, one pill will erase negative memories, and Nora must decide whether she wants to keep all her memories, including the bad ones, and what price she's willing to pay for it.

Angie's gathered together a group of writers to share their memories--and if you comment on each stop of the blog tour, you'll get points for a drawing of the awesome prize on the right. Details for the contest are here.

Which means...I have to tell you about my most spit-your-Coke-out-through-your-nose-laughing-at-me memory.

Be warned: it involves underwear.

In college, I was working as a RA, and one of the events that I coordinated in the dorm was a trip to the local ice skating rink. First, let me tell all you Yankees out there with your hockey and your frozen ponds and your ability to drive in the snow: people in the South do NOT tend to know how to ice skate. We don't have naturally frozen ponds, we don't have our own skates, and we are terrified of ice.

So perhaps an ice-skating event was not the best choice for me.

But I did it--and I got fifteen or twenty people to follow me to rink. We're all just slip-sliding on the ice, holding onto the side like six year olds at the roller rink for the first time. Anyone who picked up any speed would crash into the wall or purposefully fall in order to stop. We were...bad. Bad. But for the most part, we were having fun.

Except this one girl.

She was a sweetheart, and very shy, and the only reason she was even AT the event was because I'd talked her into it. And she. Was. Terrified. I had skated around the rink maybe five times before she'd worked up the courage to stand in skates. Five more times before she'd actually taken the three steps to the ice from the bench.

I skate up to her.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"I'm scared of falling," she says in a very tiny voice.


"Don't be scared!" I say cheerfully. "None of us are good; we're all going to fall! Just get out here and have fun!"

She shook her head; she was sure that if she fell, she would become the laughingstock of the whole rink. Nothing I said could convince her otherwise. She grabbed the side of the rink and teetered onto the ice, but she look petrified and miserable the whole time.

So I decided to take action. I purposefully staged myself to skate in front of her--and fell. On purpose. I'm talking flailing limbs, crashing into the ice, just a full-out, total wipe out. A huge, everyone-look-at-me, crash.

Which actually kinda hurt.

But everyone saw me fall--including the scared girl--and she saw that nothing bad really happened. I smiled and made a joke of it and got up and kept skating, and everything was fine. She ventured away from the wall, and soon she was having a good time and laughing along with everyone else.

There was a lot of laughter, actually.

And soon I noticed that the laughter followed me all around the rink.

Surely my fall wasn't that funny? I kept skating, wondering at what people were laughing at. And pointing at. And then I realized.

They were laughing at my butt.

Because when I had wiped out so totally on the ice...my pants had ripped. My butt--covered in embarrassingly bright blue underpants--was hanging out of my pants for everyone on the rink to see. This was not a minor tear in the fabric. The entire seam was open and everything was showing.

No good deed goes unpunished (or unclothed) indeed....

Hope you all enjoyed laughing at my expense! Be sure to comment to this blog post for a chance to win a MEMENTO NORA prize pack, and go to Angie's site and comment for a second entry! Each week, a new blogger will have a new memory to share, and you will have another chance to comment and rack up more entries! Next week, Bettina Restrepo, author of ILLEGAL will share her memory on Angie's blog.


For more Bookanista Posts, go here:

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• Shannon Messenger features WHERE SHE WENT plus an ARC Giveaway!  
• Carolina Valdez Miller is loco for LIKE MANDARIN 
• Beth Revis is remembering MEMENTO NORA  
• Jessi Kirby is sweet on XVI 
• Shana Silver is pumped for BUMPED  
• Carrie Harris gets hexed by HEX HALL 
• Rosemary Clement-Moore is enraptured by WARPED 
• Katie Anderson covets the cover of Myra McEntire's HOURGLASS 
• Corrine Jackson is dazzled by I AM NUMBER FOUR 
• Stasia Ward Kehoe leaps for LEVERAGE