Here follows the accounts of 2003-version MSN chats between Tommy and Carter, set in the middle of “Crushing It” as they navigate their long-distance relationship.
Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
The Mystery of the Dancing Lights is set in 2015. If Elizabeth Coderre had an Instagram account, she might post something like this:
The Mystery of the Dancing Lights by Éric Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
The Mystery of the Dancing Lights by Éric Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
Crushing It is a queer YA cosy romance with low stakes. There are several other books that have a similar style, in one way or another, to my book. Here is the image I made with all the covers of the style comparisons.
After an epic grounding for some bad decisions with even worse friends, Tommy is lucky to even go to the Door Tech March Break camp. There, he crosses paths with Carter Batudev, and chemistry isn’t just for the classroom. With love and a renewed interest in STEM, Tommy returns home to Parry Sound, where, to the relief of his parents, he makes better friends, and joins the STEM club.
When the club goes to the province-wide competition in Toronto, he’s reunited with Carter, whose team is also competing. Thus ensues a wild long weekend full of romance, hijinks, STEM, and singing.
Includes a novelette from Carter’s POV at the dinner theatre show Knights of Everdome.
The first book in the Lucky in Love series.
Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
Crushing It has some pretty great music in it, so I made a spotify playlist of all the songs, in the order they appear within the book.
Do you think you can figure out what happens during each song?
*Artist is fictional
Read about my thoughts on music in this book here!
Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
Crushing It was sent out for reviews in May, and I’ve received some in return. Here’s one from best-selling author Jamieson Wolf:
Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
Here follows the accounts of 2003-version MSN chats between Tommy and Carter, set in the middle of “Crushing It” as they navigate their long-distance relationship.
Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
I didn’t know this book was a book right away. But more on that later. Right now, I want to talk about the music in the book.
Because wow, was that a surprise!
After I had finished writing the March Break half of the book in April 2021, I edited in early June. I was looking up how to write lyrics from a song in fiction so that I could write the lyrics I had chosen properly in the text.
That’s when I discovered that if you use an artist’s lyrics, you have to pay licencing fees. Yikes! (Although, yeah, that makes COMPLETE sense!)
Cue panic. We had lyrics in Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers and we had already submitted it to our publisher. (Don’t worry, we took them all out before it went to print.) Music wasn’t a big deal in that book.
But music was a huge deal in this book. Tommy sings a song to Carter to tell him that he likes him. I had agonized over which song to pick, and I wasn’t happy with it. Taking out the lyrics made it feel even more impersonal.
Éric suggested I write my own song.
I laughed at him.
Less than a week later, a snippet of a song popped into my head as I was falling asleep. I was no longer falling asleep. I tapped out syllables as I worked through the verse and then the chorus appeared fully formed in my head. By the time less than 15 minutes had passed, the full song had been figured out. I hoped it would stick around until morning.
Surprisingly, it did, and I wrote it down with very little changes.
I did not get any constructive criticism on it because it’s supposed to sound rough, as Tommy wrote it in about half an hour. I figured a 36yo writing a song as she fell asleep was about equivalent to a 14yo writing their first song.
So I put my song in the book and put it away.
Then Éric suggested I write the music for it.
I laughed at him.
Are you seeing a trend here?
His suggestion stuck in my brain. I had the tune I wanted in mind… Why couldn’t I write it down, other than the fact that I didn’t know how to play guitar?
So I asked to borrow my dad’s guitar and sat down with a learning app. It was actually kinda fun, but I was struggling with the size of the guitar. Two weeks later, I bought my own guitar.
But I still couldn’t figure out how to write the chords for my song.
I asked author Bruce Gordon for help. In case you didn’t know, he plays guitar and is very good at it. And apparently, he enjoys writing chords for lyrics.
I sent him a recording of myself singing the tune I’d come up with, and asked for extremely basic chord progressions.
Not only did he figure them out for me, but he had several video calls to teach me how to play it properly.
I owe him a lot.
Thus, the song was born!
You can hear my song “Get to Know You” in the Spotify playlist for Crushing It.
Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
Crushing It was sent out for reviews in May, and I’ve received some in return. Here’s one:
Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2018 film Love, Simon.
A modern take on a letter writing romance with some very heavy themes. I get how important and intense coming out can be, but this movie seemed to have trouble deciding if it was a tragic coming out movie, teen angst movie, or romance.
Score: 0.5
Pretentious wealthy teen suburban hipsters. The characters are mostly likeable but extremely judgemental. Lots of emphasis on how people look and equating that to their moral characters. Not a fan of the nerd bashing or fatphobia.
That being said; the parents were great, the vice principal super cringe, and the friendships touching.
Score: 0.5
When emotions are high and characters actually talk to each other, the dialogue is spot on. The coming out to his parents is heart wrenching to watch as a parent. I also loved the speech Simon gives to his blackmailer.
The rest of the time, the dialogue feels like all other YA intellectually pretentious films. (Someone should take dialogue from this, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and anything John Green; and make an internet quiz to guess who said it.)
Score: 0.5
The cinematography is dated and looks like bad knock off of John Hughes. The use of text and email is clunky and awkward. The camera work is simultaneously too slow and too jerky.
The music is not good enough for a film with a main character who’s a music snob, but isn’t bad.
Score: 0.5
The amount of angst in this movie was palpable and the amount of cringe was painful. The letters were fun and I liked the pacing of the movie. Coming out isn’t easy and I feel like this film puts all the blame for that on the main character and not enough on society.
Score: 0.5
A coming of age pseudo-romance populated by pretentious teens making bad choices. The movie does a great job of showing the emotional difficulties of coming out, but makes it feel like it’s mostly the gay man’s fault for complicating it.
Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5
