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I have loved everything I’ve read from Stephanie Fournet, and DRIVE did not disa[...]
I’m thrilled to have Adi as a guest on A Book and a Latte today! Check out my Q & A with him below, and be sure to pick up a copy of his latest novel, NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES!
Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid
Publication Date: August 4, 2015
Publisher: HarlequinTEEN
Never date your best friend
Always be original
Sometimes rules are meant to be broken
Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be cliché high school kids—the ones who sit at the same lunch table every day, dissecting the drama from homeroom and plotting their campaigns for prom king and queen. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they’d never, ever do in high school.
Some of the rules have been easy to follow, like #5, never die your hair a color of the rainbow, or #7, never hook up with a teacher. But Dave has a secret: he’s broken rule #8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. It’s either that or break rule #10, never date your best friend. Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember.
Julia is beautiful, wild and impetuous. So when she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. He even dyes his hair an unfortunate shade of green. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover that by skipping the clichés, they’ve actually been missing out on high school. And maybe even on love.
Q & A with Adi Alsaid
What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve looked up in the name of research – or what do you think the government has flagged you for?
For Never Always Sometimes I researched prom king and queen YouTube campaigns. These are almost always awful, and I always felt weird looking at the videos. I wouldn’t ever look them up in public, where I usually write, waiting instead for the privacy of home, and even then hiding the screen from roommates. For a certain scene, I also had to look up math terms in order to turn them into sex puns. Which definitely looked strange in my search history, but I have no regrets about the scene it lead to.
What was your favorite book when you were a child/teen?
Like any respectable book lover, I’d have a hard time picking an absolute favorite, but if I narrowed it down to senior year of high school, I would probably settle for Timbuktu by Paul Auster. It’s a short, lovely read about loneliness, companionship, and death, and it left enough of an impact on me that a quotation from its pages made it onto a character in Never Always Sometimes, Gretchen, in the form of a tattoo.
What’s your favorite quote?
Again, I’d be hard-pressed to find an absolute favorite. I even have a Word document full of quotes I’ve been collecting since high school, almost a hundred pages long now. But because it’s relevant to the above answer, I’ll go with: “That’s all I’ve ever dreamed of, Mr. Bones. To make the world a better place. To bring some beauty to the drab humdrum corners of the soul. You can do it with a toaster, you can do it with a poem, you can do it by reaching out your hand to a stranger. It doesn’t matter what form it takes. To leave the world a little better than you found it. That’s the best a man can ever do.”-from Timbuktu by Paul Auster.
I love that quote! Do you have a hidden talent?
It sounds a little silly, but I’m really good at ordering food at restaurants. It doesn’t happen every time, but it’s not rare for people I’m having lunch or dinner with to look forlornly down at their plate after they taste from my dish.
Do you have any hobbies? Writing doesn’t count!
Yup! Aside from writing, I also coach basketball, and play at least once a week when not traveling. I’ve been a life long lover of the game, and coaching allows me to stay close to it. I’m also a huge movie buff. And, followers of my social media are probably aware of my love of food, mostly in eating it but also cooking it. I specialize in sauces, and am considering bringing my own hot sauces to future author events, including the Never Always Sometimes book tour.
Are you a social butterfly or a wallflower?
I’m one of those strange creatures that’s both. I love being around people and among them, but don’t always feel like I have to be in the midst of social interactions to draw joy from them. Perhaps not surprisingly, I like being an observer. I like having time to myself to think my thoughts and be at ease watching. But I’m also a curious person, and I draw energy and joy from speaking these thoughts too, from conversation with friends or strangers alike. I even like being on my own among other people, and have been known to take books to bars and walk several laps through airports wearing noise-canceling headphones while people watching.
What book do you love that doesn’t get a lot of hype?
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender was one of my absolute favorites from 2014, but very few people seemed to take note, except for maybe a well-deserved award. I know Margot Wood of the Epic Reads team also talked about loving it somewhere online (which should be reason enough for everyone to go pick it up), but I didn’t hear many others giving this strange and beautiful book the attention I want it to receive. Wonderfully written, heart-wrenching, heart-warming, unique, it’s the kind of book that turns people into book people. I can’t wait for more from author Leslye Walton.
Well, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender just moved up on my TBR… Do you have any writing quirks?
I’m going to take this question to mean stylistic writing quirks, rather than the bizarre things I physically do while writing (such as shaking my fist at the heavens, trying to make my curses intelligible over the sound of my weeping).
Something my editors often yell at me for (in the kindly, marginal way of editorial screaming) is my proneness to make perspective fluid. Even if I do write from different characters’ POVs, as I have in both Let’s Get Lost and Never Always Sometimes, and even if I do write in third person, I sometimes have trouble keeping it in a limited third person. I like to swing into other characters’ viewpoints, even if for a chapter or a section I’m supposed to be sticking with just one. I’ll one day write a novel where fluid change in perspectives works well with the story, but I haven’t found that story yet.
About Adi Alsaid
Adi Alsaid was born and raised in Mexico City, then studied at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While in class, he mostly read fiction and continuously failed to fill out crossword puzzles, so it’s no surprise that after graduating, he did not go into business world but rather packed up his apartment into his car and escaped to the California coastline to become a writer. He’s now back in his hometown, where he writes, coaches high school and elementary basketball, and has perfected the art of making every dish he eats or cooks as spicy as possible. In addition to Mexico, he’s lived in Tel Aviv, Las Vegas, and Monterey, California. A tingly feeling in his feet tells him more places will eventually be added to the list.
Connect with the Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Many thanks to Adi for stopping by and answering my questions, and WunderkindPR for the opportunity!
