White Lines by Jennifer Banash Trailer Premiere!

WHITE LINES was released April 4th.  You may recall my review - I said that it was "was an intense read.  It'll suck you into the 1980's New York club scene and make you feel like you're living it even if, like me, you weren't born until it was over.  I kept my fingers crossed that somehow, someway there would be a happy ending.  Somehow, someway.  And the ending of WHITE LINES was a relief, a release of all the tension of the novel, healing.  Cat had a tough past, lives a rough present, but she's still got a future.  And a future is the essence of Young Adult."

The author, Jennifer Banash, generously shared a little about how WHITE LINES came about.  After all, it is a noticeable departure from her earlier YA novels!

White Lines was a story I wanted to tell for a long, long time. Partially based on my own adolescence as a club kid in Manhattan, I worked on a draft of this novel in what felt like secrecy. At the time of its conception, I was finishing up a three-book series called The Elite that detailed the lives of a group of rich kids on NYC's Upper East Side, and a girl from a small town who infiltrates their circle. Although that world was one that I knew something about, it wasn't the story I wanted to tell anymore. I was restless, the way all writers are when there's a story trapped inside us, yearning to get out. So I worked on White LInes late at night, in the early mornings before I would get up to go to my day job as a high school English teacher, on weekends when the sun shone brightly outside my window. Slowly, over the course of three years, Cat's own story emerged from the seeds of my misguided youth, caught fire, and took over, the intensity of her world burning my hands as I tore the pages from the printer one by one. I didn't know if the book would sell, if it would ever make it out into the world to see the light of day. All I knew was that I was writing something that felt true to me, that felt right. And that, for once, was enough.

Without any further ado, here's the trailer! You might want to come up with something to say about it, because I have two signed hardcovers to giveaway!



To win, just comment below letting me know why you want to read WHITE LINES or what you liked best about the trailer. Make sure to leave an email address so I can contact you if you're the winner. US and Canada only; must be older than 13 to win. Contest ends in two weeks.

Review: White Lines

By Jennifer Banash
Available now from Putnam Juvenile (Penguin)
Review copy
Read my reviews of THE ELITE, IN TOO DEEP, and SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE
Read my interview with Jennifer and her guest blogs

I haven't read a novel this fierce since Stephanie Kuehnert burst onto the scene with I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE.  WHITE LINES will be a revelation to anyone familiar with Jennifer Banash from The Elite series.  The rich kids remain, but all soap opera antics are banished.  WHITE LINES is raw, a real bleeding wound of a story.

Cat lives by herself on the Lower East Side even though she's only seventeen years old.  She could no longer live with her abusive mother - the State agrees - but her father lives with a younger woman who doesn't like her.  So he pays for her to have an apartment.  Few teenagers, given free reign of their lives, would make the best decisions.  Especially not in 1980s New York.  Especially not when working the door to a club to make a little extra money.  Especially not when the drug dealers are willing to offer a rock of cocaine to get in.  Especially not when the music and the dancing and the personalities and the drugs are so much better than being alone in an apartment, remembering.

There are people who care about Cat.  There's her friend Sara, who first convinced her to get a fake ID and go to a club and didn't follow her deeper.  There's Giovanni, fabulous and Puerto Rican, who dresses Cat like a doll and forgets his own problems with her.  There's Julian, the new kid in school, someone she could see herself with if she can stop herself from giving him the cold shoulder.  There's Alexa, the coolest girl in school, who sees something in Cat - although it might just be a way to get herself closer to the top.  But they're all flawed people and some of them are druggies too.  Her interactions with them show what a beautiful person Cat is.  She has trouble reaching out, real panic, but she doesn't give into that internal voice every time.  She struggles against it and makes connections, risking the pain.

Drug addiction isn't pretty.  Some people are functional addicts.  Cat manages to hold down a job and manages to go to school enough not to get kicked out (even if it is a school for "special" kids).  She's sort of in the best case scenario, but there are dangers lurking around the edges of her life.  I was so afraid of the turns WHITE LINES could take, of the awful things that could happen to Cat.  WHITE LINES is gritty in the best way.  It doesn't heap humiliation or degradation upon its heroine to show the evils of her way of life.  Her life is risky, and sometimes unpleasant, but not gratuitously so.

And, well, drug addiction tends to bring out the worst in people and it would be a shame to lose the best parts of Cat.  There's so much potential in Cat.  She's got a big voice, one that absorbs you in her life.  She can be witty and clever when she's functional.

"Oh my God," I drawl, staring at Giovanni's face in the mirror.  I begin to smile in spite of my annoyance.  "I'm only seventeen!  How old could I possibly look?" - ARC, 36

WHITE LINES was an intense read.  It'll suck you into the 1980's New York club scene and make you feel like you're living it even if, like me, you weren't born until it was over.  I kept my fingers crossed that somehow, someway there would be a happy ending.  Somehow, someway.  And the ending of WHITE LINES was a relief, a release of all the tension of the novel, healing.  Cat had a tough past, lives a rough present, but she's still got a future.  And a future is the essence of Young Adult.