Blog Tour: You Know I’m No Good by Jessie Ann Foley (Interview + Giveaway!)

Happy Saturday and welcome to my stop on the YOU KNOW I’M NO GOOD blog tour! I’m so excited because today I have an interview with Jessie Ann Foley to share with you! This book is truly amazing and I’m so so excited to for you to find out more about it, PLUS enter for a chance to win a print copy!

You Know I'm No Good by Jessie Ann Foley
Published on October 13, 2020 by Quill Tree Books
Genres: YA, Contemporary
Pages: 320
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From Printz Honor winner and William C. Morris Award finalist Jessie Ann Foley comes the story of one girl’s battle to define herself as something other than her reputation.
Mia is officially a Troubled Teen—she gets bad grades, drinks too much, and has probably gone too far with too many guys. But she doesn’t realize how out of control her parents think she is until they send her away to Red Oak Academy, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Minnesota.
While there, Mia starts confronting her painful past, and questions the purpose of Red Oak. After all, if the Red Oak girls were boys, they never would have been treated the way that they are. Amidst the revelations that cause her to question the way that society treats young women, circumstances outside of her control force Mia to discover what happens when she makes herself vulnerable enough to be truly seen by the rest of the world.

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 would trade lives with Caden Bosch, the main character in Neal Shusterman’s Challenger Deep, because reading that book was the closest I’ve ever gotten to truly understanding what it feels like to live with schizophrenia. I think books that build this kind of empathy are so important! 

For a month, I would trade lives with Marva Sheridan in Brandy Colbert’s The Voting Booth, because the presidential election is a month away, and the more people like Marva who are out on the streets getting out the vote, the better! 

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

Well, Mia, like me, is a Chicago girl, so we would spend the day doing Chicago things. We’d start our day with coffee at Weston’s, then take the blue line down to hang out in the Contemporary Wing and the South Garden of the Art Institute. After that, we’d head back up north and have lunch at Marie’s, which has the best pizza in Chicago, where the cranky old servers would be nice to us because they would understand our vibe. We would then proceed east across the city and hang out for a couple hours swimming and people watching at Montrose Beach. After that, we would splurge on an Uber and head to River North for a six-course Peruvian dinner on the rooftop at Tanta, followed by an outdoor music show of some kind. We would make sure to get her home in time for curfew ☺  

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

They would be other fierce girls like herself: Sadie from Courtney Summers’s Sadie, Xiomara from Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X, Nalah from Dealing in Dreams by Lilliam Rivera, and Josie and Delilah from Rayne and Delilah’s Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner.

What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?

At the therapeutic boarding school I visited, students who tried to run away were forced to wear orange prison jumpsuits for two weeks after they got caught.

What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from You Know I’m No Good?

The moment when Mia decides to run away.

Were there alternate endings you considered, or did you always know where the story was headed?

With all my books, I always know how it begins and how it ends. It’s the vast middle that trips me up ☺ 

Jessie Ann Foley’s debut novel, The Carnival at Bray, was a Printz Honor Book, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book, a YALSA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults title, and a William C. Morris Award finalist. Her second novel, Neighborhood Girls, was an ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice and a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults title. Sorry for Your Loss, her third novel, was an Illinois Reads selection. You Know I’m No Good is her fourth novel. Jessie lives with her husband and three daughters in Chicago, where she was born and raised. To learn more about Jessie, visit her online at www.jessieannfoley.com.

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Enter here for a chance to win a print copy of YOU KNOW I’M NO GOOD by Jessie Ann Foley!

(US Only!!!)

Have you read any books by Jessie Ann Foley before? I have Neighborhood Girls on my tbr, but I haven’t read it yet. Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous day!