#BIR2012 - THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT by Jennifer E. Smith

Welcome to Best I've Read 2012! 

Be sure to check out the Best I've Read Blog to check out today's features: THE RAVEN BOYS by Maggie Stiefvater and PUSHING THE LIMITS by Katie McGarry. 

Monday's feature book is THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT by Jennifer E. Smith. Jennifer was kind enough to let me interview her, but first, here's a little about the book that still has me swooning months after reading it:

***About the Book***

Released: January 2, 2012
Publisher: Poppy/Little, Brown
Find Jennifer Online: BN.Com / Amazon / Website / Twitter / Facebook

From Goodreads: Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. Having missed her flight, she's stuck at JFK airport and late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row.

A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?

Quirks of timing play out in this romantic and cinematic novel about family connections, second chances, and first loves. Set over a twenty-four-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.

You can read my review HERE and Lynn's review (both from Books Complete Me) HERE. 

***Interview with Jennifer E. Smith***

CT: Books like THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT (TSPOLAFS) are the reason why I love contemporary books so much. With TSPOLAFS, this is even more true because sometimes you just can't predict life, and no one learns that more than Hadley. Are you a believer in love at first sight? If you aren't, did this book make you a believer, even for a little while?

JES: I’d like to believe that love at first sight is possible, and I’ve certainly known people who claim that it’s happened to them.  It’s one of those things where it’s hard to say either way, and I think you have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief to tell a story like this one.  But when it comes right down to it, I’m both a romantic and an optimist, so I guess it wasn’t too hard for me to make that leap.  

CT: What is the most interesting conversation that you've ever had on a plane or in the airport with a stranger?

JES: Well, the book was inspired in part by a flight I took from Chicago to Dublin where I was sitting next to an old Irishman.  We talked books and literature pretty much the whole way, and when we arrived, we got separated in the line for customs, since he was Irish and I’m American.  Afterwards, I waited around for him to say goodbye, but never saw him again.  It struck me as kind of amazing that you could sit next to someone for seven hours and never even know their name, and that’s where the idea for this book really began.

CT: Hadley is so caught up in the stress of her father's remarriage that she doesn't quite realize that her assumptions about Oliver may be all wrong. How difficult was it for you to keep both Hadley and your readers in suspense? 

JES: Even though the book is told in third person, it sticks pretty closely with Hadley, which made it easier to explore her thoughts about Oliver without the reader knowing what was happening on his end.  It was definitely fun to try to keep people guessing along with Hadley…

CT: As a writer, I understand that first drafts rarely look like the final draft that they become. Can you share with us one major difference from the first to final draft of TSPOLAFS?

JES: Oliver has this bit throughout the book where he spouts a lot of random facts and statistics, but I actually hadn’t planned on that.  He had a pretty quirky personality throughout, so it wasn’t too far off, but the actual obsession with statistics didn’t come to me until I was nearing the end.  So I guess I can’t say it wasn’t ever part of the first draft, because I ended up going back and threading it through once I came up with it, but it just squeaked in there under the wire.  And I’m very happy it did!

CT: If you could only learn one thing from Hadley's and Oliver's experience, what would it be?

JES: To slow down and give people a chance.  I’ve always been the kind of person to sit down on a plane and immediately open a book or put in my headphones.  But if Hadley had done that, she never would have met Oliver.  So I think the lesson here is definitely just to open yourself up to the possibilities, and to the people around you.

***Giveaway***

Thanks to Little, Brown I am giving away one copy of THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. Enter by using the Rafflecopter below.


a Rafflecopter giveaway