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Thursday, October 20, 2016

I'm Not Your Pixie Manic Dream Girl Blog Tour: Excerpt + Giveaway

Hey guys, today I'm lucky enough to share with you an excerpt from I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl by Gretchen McNeil plus a great giveaway below! I hope you guys enjoy it ^__^


I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl by Gretchen McNeil
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Pub Date: October 18, 2016
Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository 
From acclaimed author Gretchen McNeil comes her first realistic contemporary romance—perfect for fans of Kody Keplinger’s The Duff and Morgan Matson’s Since You've Been Gone.

Beatrice Maria Estrella Giovannini has life all figured out. She's starting senior year at the top of her class, she’s a shoo-in for a scholarship to M.I.T., and she’s got a new boyfriend she’s crazy about. The only problem: All through high school Bea and her best friends Spencer and Gabe have been the targets of horrific bullying.

So Bea uses her math skills to come up with The Formula, a 100% mathematically guaranteed path to social happiness in high school. Now Gabe is on his way to becoming Student Body President, and Spencer is finally getting his art noticed. But when her boyfriend Jesse dumps her for Toile, the quirky new girl at school, Bea realizes it's time to use The Formula for herself. She'll be reinvented as the eccentric and lovable Trixie—a quintessential manic pixie dream girl—in order to win Jesse back and beat new-girl Toile at her own game.

Unfortunately, being a manic pixie dream girl isn't all it's cracked up to be, and “Trixie” is causing unexpected consequences for her friends. As The Formula begins to break down, can Bea find a way to reclaim her true identity and fix everything she's messed up? Or will the casualties of her manic pixie experiment go far deeper than she could possibly imagine.

“ We should probably get going. Don’t want to be late on the first day, right?”

“ Don’t we?” Gabe slouched back against the sofa, all thoughts of Jesse and me forgotten. “ I mean, I’m not exactly in a hurry to get my ass kicked.”

Spencer snorted. “ If you could just remember to not mouth off in front of the football team or get their beloved coach fired, you’d be golden. Now me, on the other hand . . .” He drew his thumb across his throat and lolled his head to the side, tongue hanging out of his mouth. “ I’m a dead man.”

“ Maybe it’ll be different this year,” Jesse said. “ I mean, you’re seniors now. Won’t those guys have freshmen to pick on?”

Jesse had only been at Fullerton Hills a semester, but that had been long enough to know exactly where Gabe, Spencer, and I fell in the social hierarchy at school—i.e., the bottom—so I really had to appreciate his optimism.

Gabe propped his feet up on the coffee table. “ Dude, even the freshmen pick on us.”

" Maybe if you toned it down a little bit?” Jesse suggested. “ Blended in?”

I winced. As much as I would love for us to fit in, the last thing I’d want would be for my friends to change who they were.

“ How exactly should I blend in?”  Spencer asked, his eyes cold. “ Do you think if I pretended I were actually gay they’d stop calling me a fag in the halls?” He nodded at Gabe. “ No offense.”

“ None taken,” Gabe said. “ But, you know, if you were really a flaming queer, they’d probably leave you alone. They wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that stereotypical homosexual bullshit for fear it might rub off on them.” He pursed his lips and drew his hand up to his chin, posing like a cover model. “ Thad, your cheekbones are fabulous. Has anyone ever told you that? I just want to run my tongue up and down them.” Then he roared like a tiger.

Spencer laughed. “ I’d pay to see the look on Thad’s face.”

“ Right before his fist connected with your nose,” Gabe said, then turned to me. “ And I don’t know what Bea could do to shake her nickname.”

“ If she’d just agree to do their algebra homework,” Spencer said, naming the one thing I absolutely refused to do, “ she’d probably be able to hang out with Cassilyn and her crew whenever she wanted.”

Jesse grabbed my hand. “ Maybe that could be your thing? You could be a math tutor.”

I jutted out my chin. “ I’d rather cut off my arm than help those half-wits figure out the value of x. It’s insulting to the memories of Diophantus and Brahmagupta.”

Jesse blinked. “ Huh?”

Gabe waved him off. “ Math stuff. Don’t ask or you’ll get a lecture.”

I took a deep breath. “ Jesse’s right.” Sort of. Though I disagreed with his suggestion that we tone down our personalities, my boyfriend did have a point. “ We’re seniors now. Definitely not the freaks and weirdos we were freshman year. This is our school, and our last year at it, and we’re not going to let a bunch of roided-up assholes take that away from us. We have to act like we’re not afraid of them.”

“ Exactly,” Jesse said. “ Just act like you’re cool and everything will be fine.”

I smiled at him. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I was willing to give it a try.


Excerpted from I'M NOT YOUR MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL © Copyright 2016 by Gretchen McNeil. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.


Gretchen McNeil is an opera singer, a writer, and a clown. She is also the author of Get Even as well as Ten, which was a 2013 YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, a Romantic Times Top Pick, and an ALA Booklist Top Ten Horror Fiction for Youth and was nominated for Best Young Adult Contemporary Novel of 2012 by Romantic Times. Gretchen blogs with the Enchanted Inkpot and is a founding member of the vlog group the YARebels.
Connect with Gretchen: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Youtube | Instagram


To enter the giveaway you guys only need to answer this question: Who is your favorite “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” character from a movie or book — why?

Use the Rafflecopter below to provide proof of your entries! <3

a Rafflecopter giveaway

22 comments:

  1. Ugh, I loved this book so much! It was actually this book that helped me realize all the MPDG tropes in media. I'd say my favorite Manic Pixie is Zoey Dechannel in 500 Days of Summer. And to an extent, her character in New Girl. Oh man, Zoey just can't catch a break.

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    1. I'm so happy that you love this book! Being a manic pixie sounds awesome xD

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. Well I loved The Duff, so you've got me curious about this book. Thanks so much for sharing the excerpt :)

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    Replies
    1. I have never read The Duff but I heard good things. Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. This sounds awesome!

    For me, the quintessential MPDG is Alaska Young, from Looking for Alaska. Not only does she spend her entire book-life BEING the MPDG, she's acknowledged to be entirely that by the end of the book. The "real" Alaska is a complete unknown entity.

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  4. I'd go with Zooey Deschanuel in Failure to Launch, she was so good! And of course on New Girl, like they said above. :-)

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  5. I love the cover! I think a lot of young people will pick it up to read based on the cover and title alone. :)

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    Replies
    1. The title really jumps out at you, doesn't it? Thanks for stopping by!

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  6. This premise sounds a bit similar(not completely though) to This is my Brain on Boys by Sarah Strohmeyer. And I loved MPDG Addie Emerson in that story! I've added this to my tbr and can't wait to read it. I can definitely relate to the characters. My husband was bullied in high school by the football team(and grew up to be a successful musician) and I was the quiet girl no one noticed until they wanted to copy off of my work(not that I obliged because I agree with Bea on that one!) Congrats to Gretchen on the release! I can't wait to read it! :)

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    Replies
    1. Oh I've never heard of that one! I'm sorry to hear that your husband was bullied in high school, I can definitely relate. But look at both of you now! I'm so happy for you both <3

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  7. I kind of hate MPDG characters *sweats nervously*. I feel they set an unrealistic standard! But I did enjoy Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind!

    Thanks for the giveaway! I'm desperate to read this!

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    Replies
    1. I'm not familiar with these type of characters, at least not to my knowledge. Thank you for stopping by!

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  8. My favorite is Alaska from Looking for Alaska because she is clearly very smart (note the piles of books) but is seen spending her time on destructive behaviors instead.

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  9. Lovely blog tour post Brittany :D Looks like such a cute book. I adore the cover :) Maybe not for me, but still pretty ;p Thank you for sharing about it. <3

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