Personally: I felt like I connected with Jennie over my book. I didn't expect that to happen with this book. I mean, I expected to connect with people in a sense, over shared experiences maybe, but I expected it to be more of a superficial thing. I felt like I connected with Jennie on a somewhat deeper level. I came to care about her as a person, to want to be a part of her life. That's never really happened with anyone else. I think it was all the weird synchronicities with the book, with our lives, all that stuff.

Professionally: I've never enjoyed working with anyone more than I've enjoyed working with Jennie. I made the unfortunate mistake of buying a book tour last summer and it was a complete waste of time. I was put on a list of blogs that mentioned me, blogs barely anyone read. Every single one of those blogs just dialed me in with a prewritten list of questions and were completely uninterested in me, my book, or anything they even asked. I took a lot of time to fill out questionnaires that were just copied and pasted onto posts that were part of a huge daily batch, buried before they saw the light of day, seen by no one. The tour didn't care, the blogs didn't care. I was a blank they filled in. I was a classified ad, written in tiny print, buried on the back page of the internet.

Jennie, though. Jennie cared enough to glance at my book before she asked a single question or wrote a single word. She wrote out her questions by hand. She asked things she wanted to know. She read what I had to say, engaged with me over what I said. It doesn't take that long to care about something, and Jennie bothered to care. Even if she hadn't vibed with my story the way she had, I know she'd have still reflected on what she wanted to say about it. Writing this book took me five years, and I wrote it around an experience very few people have had. I'm not a number. I'm not a blank that needs filled in and buried under fifty other posts at the exact same moment I'm mentioned. I spent a long, long time crafting my narrative, my cover, my art, every step of the process, so I really appreciate a reviewer that's willing to do the same for me in return. To give her post just a minute to get noticed. To do me the courtesy of not anonymously sending me a prewritten list of questions. To talk to me just a little bit. To care just a little bit.

When Jennie cared enough to comment back to me about something I'd said, I was *stunned*. I was used to being copied and pasted and it was what I'd come to expect. Working with her was quite a shock. Jennie’s raised the bar for me; she’s shown me that I deserve better than what I got from my book tour. I'll never let anyone treat me like a classified ad ever again.