Melanie Sumner. (2015). How to Write a Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Melanie Sumner. 2015. How to Write a Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Melanie Sumner, How to Write a Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2015.

Melanie Sumner. How to Write a Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2015.

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31. • value: Mothers and daughters
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creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Sumner, Melanie
   • bioText: Melanie Sumner, a recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, is the author of The Ghost of Milagro Creek, The School of Beauty and Charm, and Polite Society. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and Seventeen. Previous awards include the New Mexico Book Award, the Maria Thomas Fiction Award for Peace Corps volunteers, and the regional pick for Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. Melanie graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her MFA from Boston University. Currently, she lives in Georgia and teaches at Kennesaw State University.
   • name: Melanie Sumner

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2015-08-04T00:00:00-04:00

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title

How to Write a Novel

fullDescription

Aristotle "Aris" Thibodeau is 12.5 years old and destined for greatness. Ever since her father’s death, however, she’s been stuck in the small town of Kanuga, Georgia, where she has to manage her mother Diane’s floundering love life and dubious commitment to her job as an English professor. Not to mention co-parenting a little brother who hogs all the therapy money.  
Luckily, Aris has a plan. Following the advice laid out in Write a Novel in Thirty Days! she sets out to pen a bestseller using her charmingly dysfunctional family as material. If the Mom-character, Diane, would ditch online dating and accept that the perfect man is clearly the handyman/nanny-character, Penn MacGuffin, Aris would have the essential romance for her plot (and a father in her real life). But when a random accident uncovers a dark part of Thibodeau family history, Aris is forced to confront the fact that sometimes in life—as in great literature—things might not work out exactly as planned.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
   • content: "[A] tour de force. . . . Sumner brings a knowing, tongue-in-cheek sparkle to discussions of writing workshop chestnuts . . . never losing sight of the humanity of her characters or the unpredictable nature of reality."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Will Blythe, editor of Why I Write and author of To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever
   • content: "If someone were going to make a novel out of your no doubt complicated life, you'd definitely want your narrator to be Aristotle Thibodeau, the precociously wise (though never annoyingly so) tell-it-all behind Melanie Sumner's hilarious and warm-hearted novel."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Kirkus Reviews
   • content: "Sweet, clever, and fun."
4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     April 1, 2015
     How a kid can help her broke, widowed, overwhelmed mom: write a novel! Aristotle "Aris" Thibodeau carefully follows the advice in Write A Novel In Thirty Days!, a book she receives as a gift for her 12.5th birthday from her mother, whom she calls Diane. She divides her autobiographical narrative neatly into sections: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Denouement. She limits herself to one use of hyperbole, avoids superfluous characters, and tries her best to heed the warning that "two flashbacks in one chapter might kill sales." In her writing studio, which is the space under her bed, she has posted the recommended motivational sticky notes to remind herself why she took on this project: to avoid therapy, to attract a man for Diane, and to make money. She truly becomes a writer on Page 140, when the English teacher she's shared her work in progress with says "I like your novel." Instant, total bliss! Then the teacher asks, "When is your protagonist going to face a situation she can't handle, the outcome of which will change her life?" Darkness descends: "She hated it!" Sumner (The Ghost of Milagro Creek, 2010, etc.) obviously knows what she's talking about, and of course the complications the teacher calls for are just around the corner. Including exercises from Write A Novel In Thirty Days!, excerpts from Diane's purloined journals, text messages with Aris' so-called long-distance boyfriend, and student essays from Diane's classes at Kanuga Christian College, this book may appeal to younger readers as much or more than gnarled sophisticates. The central adult characters, Diane and her friend Penn, the family's nanny, handyman, and "PMI"-positive male influence-both belong to AA and have been through the wringer, but through Aris' eyes, they are inevitably somewhat idealized. Sweet, clever, and fun.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     May 15, 2015
     

     Aristotle (Aris) Thibodeaux is nearly 13 years old and is an old soul. She looks after her scattered and needy mother, Diane, and helps coparent her eight-year-old emotionally fragile brother Max. Her father was killed when Aris was a child, and the family still grieves the loss. Aris decides to use the book How To Write a Novel in 30 Days! to pen a best seller and support her family. She follows the instructions; readers follow her progress. As Diane barely holds onto her job teaching English at a Christian college, Aris grades papers for her. When Diane's friend Penn hangs around the house and fixes things, Aris tries desperately to get him to fall in love with Diane so he can move from being her PMI (positive male influence) to her dad. All this while balancing her studies at school and obsessively texting her ex-boyfriend who moved away, and Aris has her hands full trying to complete her novel in the time allotted. VERDICT In the vein of Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project, Sumner's (The Ghost of Milagro Creek) quirky story about an unconventional family is charming and precocious, like Aris herself.--Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC

     Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity

80

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Aristotle "Aris" Thibodeau is 12.5 years old and destined for greatness. Ever since her father’s death, however, she’s been stuck in the small town of Kanuga, Georgia, where she has to manage her mother Diane’s floundering love life and dubious commitment to her job as an English professor. Not to mention co-parenting a little brother who hogs all the therapy money.  
Luckily, Aris has a plan. Following the advice laid out in Write a Novel in Thirty Days! she sets out to pen a bestseller using her charmingly dysfunctional family as material. If the Mom-character, Diane, would ditch online dating and accept that the perfect man is clearly the handyman/nanny-character, Penn MacGuffin, Aris would have the essential romance for her plot (and a father in her real life). But when a random accident uncovers a dark part of Thibodeau family history, Aris is forced to confront the fact that sometimes in life—as in great...

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