Blog Tour: The Sharp Time - Mary O'Connell - Into the Past

Mary O'Connell is here today with an Into the Past post courtesy of the Teen Book Scene blog tour for her new release, The Sharp Time. Thank you for being here today, Mary! You can follow along with the tour here, or by clicking through the banner. Enjoy!

I’ve always loved books—like you, I’m guessing!—so it’s a treat to take the time to remember the books that were special to me.

Age 5: Are You My Mother? My own mother read this book to me, a long, long time ago, in a room with red shag carpeting and curtains with interlocking black and white squares and triangles. Yes, it was the seventies.

Age 11: Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. I still remember sitting in my pink bedroom and closing this book, thinking: My God, there’s a writer who understands what the world is like. The genius of Judy Blume cannot be overstated.

Age 16: Catcher in the Rye—The 16-year-old me can’t believe how brilliant Holden Caulfield is! I read this book on a snow day, and still remember the feeling of looking out at the winter world and feeling so understood.

Age 20: The World According to Garp. I read this novel in my freshman dorm room—probably in lieu of doing my biology homework--and loved it so dearly. But I would come to love John Irving’s later book, A Prayer for Owen Meany, even more.

Thank you! It has been great to remember my favorite books, and the rooms where I read them…

Thank you for supplying us with this fantastic book list from your past, Mary, and thank you for being here today! 

Mary O'Connell can be found on her website, and on twitter. 

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Sandinista Jones is a high school senior with a punk rock name and a broken heart. The death of her single mother has left Sandinista alone in the world, subject to the random vulnerability of everyday life. When the school system lets her down, her grief and instability intensify, and she ponders a violent act of revenge.

Still, in the midst of her crisis, she gets a job at The Pale Circus, a funky vintage clothing shop, and finds friendship and camaraderie with her coworker, a boy struggling with his own secrets.

Even as Sandinista sees the failures of those with power and authority, she's offered the chance to survive through the redemptive power of friendship. Now she must choose between faith and forgiveness or violence and vengeance.

Synopsis taken from goodreads.