Blog Tour: Every Reason We Shouldn’t by Sara Fujimura (Interview + Giveaway!)

Item: Every Reason We Shouldn't
Author: Kaity

Posted May 30, 2020 by Kaity in Book Tours, Giveaways, Interviews / 0 Comments

Happy Saturday and welcome to my stop on the Every Reason We Shouldn’t blog tour!! I am so excited to be a part of this tour, and I’m even more excited for you to discover what Sara would do if she spent the day with Olivia and Jonah! Plus, follow the rest of the tour and enter to win a print copy of Every Reason We Shouldn’t!

Every Reason We Shouldn't by Sara Fujimura
Published on March 3, 2020 by Tor Teen
Genres: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 332
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram

Warning: Contains family expectations, delightful banter, great romantic tension, skating (all kinds!), Korean pastries, and all the feels.
Fifteen-year-old, biracial figure skater Olivia Kennedy’s Olympic dreams have ended. She's bitter, but enjoying life as a regular teenager instead of an athlete... until Jonah Choi starts training at her family's struggling rink. Jonah's driven, talented, going for the Olympics in speed skating, completely annoying… and totally gorgeous. Between teasing Jonah, helping her best friend try out for roller derby, figuring out life as a normal teen and keeping the family business running, Olivia's got her hands full. But will rivalry bring her closer to Jonah, or drive them apart?

If you could trade lives with any YA character for a day, who would it be and why? What about a week? A month, year, or forever?

For a day, I’d love to be Tessa Gray from Cassandra Clare’s INFERNAL DEVICES trilogy. I love historical fiction, fancy clothes, and magic. Even with Jem and Will’s help, I’d probably only make it 24 hours. Tessa’s perilous lifestyle would be too stressful for me to handle. [Aside: #TeamJem4Life!]

For a week, I’d love to be Diana of Themyscira in Leigh Bardugo’s WONDER WOMAN: WARBRINGER. I have been a life-long Wonder Woman fan and would jump at the chance to step into my favorite Amazon’s boots for a week. Yeah, Wonder Woman also has to put up with a bunch of monsters/bad guys coming at her all the time too, but it would be worth it to see Themyscira. [Aside: You can often find me wearing one of my WW-inspired gold cuff bracelets on challenging days. If I’m wearing both of them, I’m going to Phoenix Fan Fusion.]

For a month, I’d love to be Hattie Brooks from Kirby Larson’s HATTIE BIG SKY and try my hand at homesteading in Montana in the early 1900s. Living off the land for a month—much less a year like Hattie does—would be incredibly hard, especially solo. Even though Hattie doesn’t have to fight any unworldly beasts, she’s as much of a hero in my book as Tessa and Diana are. [Aside: I would be way out of my element. I can’t even grow bamboo, and bamboo is technically a weed!]

For a year, I’d love to be Anna Oliphant from Stephanie Perkin’s ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS. I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend a year in Paris? Because I live in Japan for part of the summer each year (except this one…stupid COVID19!), I’ve learned how to adapt to living abroad. Learning French would be hard. I have long forgotten everything I learned in high school, but it would be worth it. [Aside: My biggest regret in life is that I never got to be an exchange student.]

For forever, I wouldn’t want to do it. Part of me would always want to return home. This sounds like part of the plot for OUTLANDER, doesn’t it? [Aside: I’m half Scottish. So, yay, men in kilts!]

What would you do if you spent the day with Olivia and Jonah? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?

My kids are older (19 & 21), but all during high school, we had Girl Scouts, band kids, theatre kids, anime kids, D&D kids, video gamers, and cosplayers coming in and out of our house. I love spending time with teens (which is a good thing since I write YA), so I would have loved if one of my kids had brought Olivia and Jonah over to our house. They might not enjoy my kids’ hobbies/activities, but I’m sure Olivia and Jonah would like participating in my family’s favorite special occasion activity. First, we eat at our favorite Korean BBQ restaurant, and then we go sing karaoke.

If Olivia and Jonah were to hang out with characters from other YA books, who would they be and why?

Insider secret…Olivia does! If you’ve read my first YA book TANABATA WISH, then you know who Skyler is and why she gives Olivia Japanese melon pan. Sky and her little sister Lina Kitagawa only have small cameos in ERWS, but readers tell me it feels like running into an old friend. If I were doing a crossover episode of sorts with another YA author, I’d pick Katie Van Ark’s THE BOY NEXT DOOR. Maddy and Gabe are aspiring Olympic pair figure skaters, so maybe they could teach Olivia and Jonah some more swoony tricks on the ice.

Do you have a favorite quote, scene, or moment from Every Reason We Shouldn’t?

My favorite part of ERWS is Jonah’s 16th Birthday party. There is so much cringe going on as Jonah and Olivia try to be “normal” teenagers and yet fail spectacularly. It’s when the rest of their friends leave, and Olivia and Jonah can be their authentic selves again that the scene becomes figuratively and literally* sweet.

*There is hotteok consumption in this scene. Hotteok is a yeasty Korean pancake. The kind Olivia and Jonah share in that scene is filled with brown sugar and cinnamon. You may need to find yourself some hotteok after reading. #sorrynotsorry

SARA FUJIMURA is an award-winning young adult author and creative writing teacher. She is the American half of her Japanese-American family, and has written about Japanese culture and raising bicultural children for such magazines as Appleseeds, Learning Through History, East West, and Mothering, as well as travel-related articles for To Japan With Love. Her self-published young adult novels include Tanabata Wish and Breathe. She lives in Phoenix with her husband and children.