{"id":1123,"date":"2013-10-17T06:00:08","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/?p=1123"},"modified":"2013-10-17T06:00:08","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T13:00:08","slug":"ugly-stick-by-joy-givens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2013\/10\/17\/ugly-stick-by-joy-givens\/","title":{"rendered":"Ugly Stick by Joy Givens"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Fifteen-year-old April Somerfield is a shy, self-loathing misfit who would blend in with the wallpaper, if only the wallpaper were a little less attractive. In a family line of gorgeous, successful women, April\u2019s a fluke. At Prescott High School, she\u2019s a walking punch line.<\/p>\n

A school project sends April on the hunt for her mother\u2019s mysteriously missing yearbooks, and upon finding them she uncovers a big secret. It turns out that being \u201chit with an ugly stick\u201d is a surprisingly literal occurrence in April\u2019s family tree\u2014a curse has been passed down from mother to daughter for centuries. But when April sees a chance to finally ditch the family curse, she must decide if becoming beautiful on the outside is worth giving up the person she is meant to be.<\/p>\n

Download Ugly Stick<\/i>\u00a0from Amazon<\/a> and Barnes and Noble<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Excerpt<\/h4>\n
\n

We watched from the living room as Mom\u2019s car rolled out of the driveway. Ani wrestled with her typical curiosity for about four seconds before bursting out, \u201cSo what\u2019s with your mom and yearbooks?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know, right?\u201d I said, throwing up my hands and dropping onto the couch. \u201cThe weirdest part is, when I talked to Grandma, I specifically asked her about Mom\u2019s yearbooks, and she swore Mom has them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d Ani said with a gasp. \u201cYour mom lied? Your mom doesn\u2019t lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know,\u201d I said, \u201cso I\u2019m kind of freaking out right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ani sat down next to me. \u201cHave you ever seen a picture of your mom in high school?\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought, and suddenly it dawned on me. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a picture of her from before I was born,\u201d I said slowly. The picture of Mom holding me at three days old, which sat on the shelf a-bove my dresser, between my baby rattle and my old teddy bear, was the earliest picture of Mom that I had ever laid eyes on.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot even a wedding picture?\u201d Ani exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, their photographer forgot to take off the lens cap\u2026 oh, snap, do you think that was a lie, too?\u201d<\/p>\n

My head was spinning. One little white lie about the whereabouts of Mom\u2019s yearbooks was bad enough, but the thought of her systematically lying to me for most of my life? It made me dizzy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t there be any pictures of her?\u201d Ani mused. \u201cOoh! Could your parents have been spies or something? Or may-be you\u2019re all in the witness protection program, and you don\u2019t even know it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut my dad puts his picture everywhere for work,\u201d I pointed out. \u201cHis name and office phone are on every \u2018for sale\u2019 sign he puts out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you seen any younger pictures of him?\u201d Ani asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d I said, \u201che\u2019s got a few pictures on his desk of him and his dad on fishing trips and stuff from when he was little.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, what is it about your mom, Apes?\u201d Ani questioned. She laughed suddenly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just thinking it\u2019s funny,\u201d she explained, \u201cthat this seems like a mystery your mom might read for work\u2026 only it\u2019s about her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh. Yeah.\u201d I wrinkled my nose. What would one of Mom\u2019s detectives do? Either look for clues or interview witnesses, I sup-posed. Interviewing anyone was out of the question; Mom wouldn\u2019t talk, and neither would Dad or my grandparents, I expected. That left looking for clues.<\/p>\n

I glanced at Ani, who must have been reading my mind. \u201cAttic?\u201d she asked me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll grab flashlights,\u201d I said, jumping up and sprinting to the laundry room. We ran up the stairs, through the office, and into the large closet that hid the stairway to the attic.<\/p>\n

I only went up there twice a year, to help with Christmas decorating and de-decorating. Our attic was unfinished and cob-webby, with exposed beams and puffy pink insulation poking out here and there. Ani shifted her weight uncomfortably. She was petrified of spiders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere should we start?\u201d I asked, eyeing the stacks of cardboard boxes and plastic bins. \u201cWe\u2019ve got an hour, tops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ani and I surveyed the massive hodgepodge doubtfully. \u201cWell, let\u2019s ignore anything marked \u2018Christmas,\u2019\u201d I decided aloud, \u201cand focus on things that look like they haven\u2019t been disturbed in a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

I felt proud of my limited detective skills. I started pawing through a pile of dust-covered boxes in one corner while Ani gin-gerly worked her way across a metal shelf.<\/p>\n

After several minutes of hard labor, I spotted a large, ex-tremely dusty trunk in the corner, behind some of the boxes I had moved. \u201cThat looks like it hasn\u2019t been moved in forever\u2026 do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ani and I approached the trunk, which had a combination lock with four digits slipped through the brass latch on the top. \u201cWhat should I try?\u201d I whispered. For some reason being hushed seemed necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe your mom\u2019s birthday?\u201d Ani suggested. I dialed 1-1-2-6. Nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll try my parents\u2019 anniversary,\u201d I said. I turned the digits to 0-5-3-0. Nothing again.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour birthday? Grandparents\u2019 anniversary?\u201d Ani said. I tried my birthday, both 0-2-0-8 and 2-8-9-8, with no result. \u201cMaybe we need to invert the numbers European-style,\u201d she muttered.<\/p>\n

If we tried that, we would be spinning dials for hours. I turned the digits to 0-8-0-9, Grandma Jo and Grandpa Frank\u2019s anniversary. It produced a satisfying click, and the lock fell open.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe that worked.\u201d I whispered. I lifted the lid with shaky hands.<\/p>\n

What was sitting patiently right on top? None other than an old Nor\u2019easter, upon dozens of books and photo frames.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusted!\u201d Ani breathed.<\/p>\n

I glanced at the year; Mom must have been a junior then. We ignored the rest of the trunk for the moment and flipped through the pages together.<\/p>\n

\u201cK\u2026 M\u2026 P,\u201d I browsed quickly, looking for the page of juniors that contained my mother\u2019s name. I perused the page line by line for \u201cPinckley, Diane,\u201d and found it. She should have been the third picture in the row, after \u201cPilsner, Thomas,\u201d and \u201cPin-kett, Laura.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey made a mistake,\u201d Ani said with a shocked laugh. \u201cThat\u2019s not your mother!\u201d<\/p>\n

She jabbed her finger at the third face, which, other than being a white female, could not possibly have looked less like my mother. Where there should have been a heart-shaped face, a model\u2019s smile, and a perfect nose between big eyes, there were a heavy jaw, braces, and a beaky nose crowned by enormous glass-es. I had to sit down on the grimy floor, because I suddenly felt faint. This girl looked so much like me and nothing like my mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a mistake,\u201d I said weakly. That incredibly unattractive face in the yearbook belonged to my mother, just like I did.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read the rest of\u00a0Ugly Stick<\/em>\u00a0from\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Barnes and Noble<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Find more from Joy on her website<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifteen-year-old April Somerfield is a shy, self-loathing misfit who would blend in with the wallpaper, if only the wallpaper were a little less attractive. In a family line of gorgeous, successful women, April\u2019s a fluke. At Prescott High School, she\u2019s a walking punch line. A school project sends April on the hunt for her mother\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161,162,177,592,595],"tags":[642,716],"class_list":["post-1123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-excerpt","category-excerpts","category-fantasy","category-ya","category-young-adult","tag-fantasy","tag-urban-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}