NOTE TO READERS: I make it a point to respond to every message I receive. However, some of your profiles don't allow "non-friends" to reply. So if you write and don't hear back from me, it's only because I'm not permitted to send you messages--please know that I read everything you write me and that I'm grateful for all your kind words! BOOK :
Hey everyone! My name is Daria Snadowsky, and my young adult novel, Anatomy of a Boyfriend , is now on sale! It's about 17-year-old Dominique Baylor's first major relationship and all the highs and lows that come with the territory. (And yes, you get a lesson in male anatomy as well, which is why it's for ages 14 and up.)
Listen to an excerpt .
For more info, check out my personal website as well as Random House's site for the book. I keep a livejournal , but if there's anything really newsworthy, I'll double-post it below or on the MySpace blog. FUN :
Build your own (ex)boyfriend at ANATOMY OF A BOYFRIEND .COM
REVIEWS :
YABOOKSCENTRAL: 5 out of 5 stars. Dominique Baylor is a senior in high school who has never had a boyfriend. She has zero experience with boys, but that’s never really bothered her. Her best friend Amy has enough hookups for the both of them. Dom has always thought it would be strange to kiss a boy that you had no feelings for. In medical and anatomical terms, Dom knows everything there is to know about boys. Yet she’s never had a real relationship with one. For her seventeen years, Dominique has just never met a boy that she was really truly interested in.Then she met Wesley. Wesley Gershwin. Star track runner at her best friend’s high school. It’s not just his good looks that attract Dominique, but his sweet smile and shy demeanor. She falls for him more quickly than she could ever imagine, and soon they are close friends, emailing each other on a daily basis. But Dom wants so much more. After pining after Wesley for weeks, and imagining him as her boyfriend, she finally gets her wish! The two of them are nearly inseparable, talking on the phone for hours each night and Dom is always counting down the minutes until she can see her sweetheart again.Dom has never been somebody’s girlfriend before, and it gives her this amazing feeling of being loved. Wes and Dom are both each other’s first loves, and they share so many firsts together. Dom is confident . . . they will be able to keep a long-distance relationship alive. But the first semester of college is a lot different than she could have expected . . . Daria Snadowsky holds nothing back in Anatomy of a Boyfriend. The book is a play by play of Dominique and Wesley’s relationship. From their first meeting to their parting words. All girls will be able to relate to Dom’s feelings about boys, even if they haven’t suffered a serious heartbreak. I could relate to Dom’s confusion about whether Wesley liked her or not when they were in their “just friends†stage. It is clear to see Judy Blume’s influence on Snadowsky from the loving way that she handles her characters. I’m surprised that this is her first book, because Daria Snadowsky does such an amazing job of portraying Dom, that I felt like her best friend that she confided everything to. --Amber Gibson
TEENREADS.COM:
At the beginning of ANATOMY OF A BOYFRIEND, 17-year-old Dominique Baylor hardly has time for boys. She's engrossed in her studies and college applications, and is polishing up on her GRAY'S ANATOMY (the textbook, not the TV show). Dom wants to be a doctor, and while she's not competing on her school's science quiz team, she's spending time playing the board game Operation with her parents.Dom's best friend is Amy, who goes to a large public school. Dom is a student at the small private school where her mom teaches, allowing her to get free tuition. Amy dates and has more experience with boys. As Dom recounts, "My best friend, Amy, wants to wait until college to 'do it,' but until then she'll do 'everything but' with boys she thinks are cute and have good bodies."At one of Amy's track meets, Dom meets a mystery boy who helps her when she has an accident. Mustering her courage and with Amy's help, Dom finds out that the mystery boy is a track star hottie named Wes and emails him. Instantly, a bond is formed, and Wes, who is quiet, shy and sweet, eventually becomes Dom's boyfriend. As high school seniors they experience many firsts, including spending the night together on prom night. When they both go away to college, however, they have to determine whether or not their relationship can survive . . . Snadowsky's writing is sharp, and Dominique's voice is clever, funny and extremely authentic. While the book discusses sex --- in almost clinical detail --- it is done so through the eyes of a girl who is insecure, curious and deeply in love. Like Judy Blume's groundbreaking novel, FOREVER, which was the first to explore the topic of a girl having sex, ANATOMY OF A BOYFRIEND puts a modern twist on the same type of tale. Curious teen girls might find answers to questions in this book that they were afraid to ask. --Kristi Olson
BOOKLIST: Dominique, a high-school senior in Fort Myers, Florida, is an aspiring doctor whose favorite book is Grey’s Anatomy. Wes, a fellow senior, becomes her first boyfriend, and the two inexperienced teens explore first love, and sex, together. Written in Dom’s authentic voice, Snadowsky’s debut novel is an unusually honest portrayal of a teen girl’s sexual discovery . . . What feels so new here is the unsensationalized explicitness . . . Snadowsky realistically shows all the questions: Does sex mean love? What’s normal in a relationship? Like Forever, this sensitive, candid debut is sure to find a wide audience among curious teens. --Gillian Engberg
KIRKUS: In this sexually explicit exploration of first love in the tradition of Judy Blume--to whom this is dedicated--17-year-old Dominique falls hard for handsome track star Wes, a shy boy who clearly likes her but makes no romantic moves. At last, the ice breaks and the two teens embark on their first awkward sexual experiences. When they separate as they leave for different universities, they're determined to keep their love alive. Suspense ensues as readers wonder if they will succeed. In her debut, Snadowsky describes the sex realistically, without embarrassment or prurience . . . Snadowsky's narrative easily holds the reader's interests with well-drawn, realistic characters, flowing prose, dialogue and emails . . . .PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: first-time novelist Snadowsky confidently marches where few YA writers have dared to tread . . . her witty, first-person narrative and humorous accounts of all-too-familiar situations come off as genuine . . . .
BARNES AND NOBLE TEEN PICK OF THE WEEK (third week of January 2007)
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: [An] honest look[] at how to navigate complicated and confusing times . . . First-time author Snadowsky does a good job of rendering all these emotions while keeping the plot chugging along . . . it's a promising debut . . . it posits thoughtful questions about what happens after you've achieved that teenage dream, the acquisition of a boyfriend, and the dream loses its luster. --Reyhan Harmanci
KLIATT: Appropriately, this book is dedicated to Judy Blume, and it may be the kind of groundbreaking novel that Forever was when first published a generation ago. It tells of first love. Two high school seniors, good students, fall in love; but shyness and sexual inexperience dominate their relationship. They see each other for weeks without even kissing because they both are embarrassed to reveal that at 17 years old they have never kissed anyone . . . Various types of condoms, even a dental dam, are described in detail, as are step-by-step first experiences with "hand jobs" and "blow jobs." . . . Just like in Judy Blume's Forever, the emotional experiences of first love are described as poignantly and as graphically as are the physical experiences, which makes this a novel and not a sex manual. Dom and Wes are obsessed with one another, in every way . . . Snadowsky writes with real compassion for her teenage characters, and this means she cares about her readers. She wants to convey useful information as much as she wants to entertain with a moving story of romance—clearly this is not a story meant to titillate or shock, even though it might have that effect on some readers. --Claire Rosser
