Things seem to be going well in Landry Albright’s world—she’s getting invited to be on local talk shows to talk about her modeling career, her best friends have her back, and her boyfriend Vladi has becoming someone she can truly count on…and then everything changes.
Suddenly it seems like most of the girls in school are into hanging out at a new teen dance club, while Landry just wants to spend her weekends playing video games and baking cup-cakes at sleepovers. Then, Yasmin McCarty, the most popular girl in school, starts to come between Landry’s friendship with her best friend Ashanti. Things take a turn when Yasmin tells Vladi that Landry is interested in another boy. Can Landry get her relationships with Ashanti and Vladi back or will she be left out and left behind?
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Krysten Lindsay Hager is the author of the Landry’s True Colors Series, a clean reads young adult series and the new Star Series. Krysten writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, middle school and high school, frenemies, modeling, crushes, values, and self-image in True Colors, Best Friends…Forever? And Landry in Like, as well as in, Next Door to a Star (Star Series). Her sequel to Next Door to a Star will be out March 22 2016.
Krysten is a book addict who has never met a bookstore she didn’t like. She’s worked as a journalist and writes YA, MG, humor essays, and adult fiction. She is originally from Michigan and has lived in Portugal, South Dakota, and currently resides in southwestern Ohio where you can find her reading and writing when she’s not catching up on her favorite shows. She received her master’s degree from the University of Michigan-Flint.
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Facts about Landry in Like
The scene where Landry and Peyton are too intimidated to go into the restroom at the teen dance club happened to me, but when I was older and in college. My friend and I were at a club in downtown Flint called The Metro. She opened the bathroom door and all these older girls gave us the once over. She shut the door and we scurried back to our table.
I have a lot of bookish readers, so the bookstore scene where Landry goes wild checking out the new classic covers and all the books and accessories was in honor of them.
I wrote the scene where Landry’s backstage at the modeling shoot getting maced with hair spray and stabbed with hair pins because I really hated going through that for modeling photo shoots. I did get maced in the face before and was freaking out I would go blind from hairspray. I still hate hairspray and the smell of it due to that.
The Skylar Halston computer games the girls are obsessed with are like the Nancy Drew games I used to play—who am I kidding? I still play them. I imagine Skylar as being as sort of a CIA agent type who solves mysteries. Landry and her friends have grown up with this series and are still obsessed with it like I was with book series like: Sweet Valley High, Nancy Drew, etc.
The sleepy puppy pants are based on my sister’s sleepy sheep pants that had little cartoon sheep in sleep caps drinking tea. I called them her “sheepy” pants. She wore them in her college dorm and everyone stared at her and she was so embarrassed she never wore them again…which is how I inherited them. Landry’s embarrassment over them is based on my sister’s.
Landry’s grandma is slightly based on my own. My grandma and I had the same mannerisms and it wasn’t until someone pointed it out that I realized how much alike we were right down to the way we stand. Landry’s middle name is Lilyanne, which is a mix of my grandmother’s and mother’s names.
People always ask if I ever ran into a Yasmin McCarty type in my life. Yup, there were a few times when I was in high school where I had mean girls who would talk about me and cause trouble for me with guys. I knew how uncomfortable Landry felt when having to be around Yasmin in school when writing those scenes.
I wrote about Landry going on talk shows because I did some shows last year. The line where Ashanti tells her to take a cough drop just in case Landry throws up from nerves, came from a friend who joked about Landry’s nervous stomach getting the better of her in book one and she told me to take cough drops. I did and posted a pic of the cough drops on Instagram.
Landry’s hair gets messed up right before she goes on live TV and the same thing happened to me. We both rounded a corner and hit wind tunnel-like winds. It was not cute.
I’ve had people say you can hear my mom and me talking in the scenes where Landry and her mom have conversations. I think there’s also a lot of influence from professors I’ve had in the Mrs. Albright character. You can also hear my dad in the Mr. Albright scenes.
I cried when I wrote the scene where Landry’s grandma makes Ashanti’s grandmother’s macaroni and cheese. When Ashanti cries—oh that got me every single time I read it during the editing process.
Top 10 Favorite Things by Krysten Lindsay Hager
1) My Kindle: I love being able to take over a hundred books with me at once. If I’m being honest, the best part about having a Kindle is that if you check out a library book with it, you don’t have to worry about the same things as you would if you borrowed a physical book—such as if the person who read it before you liked to read while sitting on the toilet.
2) Journals: I can never have enough cute notebooks and journals to write it. Sometimes I decide to devote a journal to one thing, then I rationalize that nothing else but that story can be written in it, therefore I must go buy another new one.
3) American Dad: This show has gotten me through so much. I watch it to escape the bad times and to laugh when I need time off. I catch several episodes of it during the week on Cartoon Network and on TBS. Roger the Alien is my spirit animal. I quote the show more than anything else.
4) Pepsi. It is my headache reliever, my comforter, my soother. I drink the real sugar kind and freak out when the store doesn’t have any in stock.
5) Detroit Lions football: yes, they break my heart every single season and yes, I should have learned from the fact my father and grandfather before him also suffered watching season after thankless season. I have to take some responsibility because it’s me who keeps going back. When I was sad watching the first game that was played after my dad passed my mom said, “Well, we have to imagine heaven is better than a Lions game and if it’s not then we’ve all been seriously oversold.”
6) Pacifica soy candles in Lotus Garden: I’m not sure how many I’ve gone through of these, but this is my favorite scent. I also like pairing it with Sandalwood. I imagine the Sandalwood candle is what Ronaldo would smell like…not that I’ve thought about that sort of thing.
7) Terra Sweet Potato Chips: I can’t have regular potato chips, but I can eat sweet potatoes, so finding these was like finding the holy grail of snacking.
8) Nail polish: In Landry in Like,I say that Ashanti is on the never ending quest to find the perfect opaque lavender nail polish. This is my own personal mission in life. I came close once years ago and then they discontinued that shade. One day…one day…
9) My phone: I’m always on my phone checking Instagram, my messages, playing music, and even reading if I’m traveling. But I hate voicemail. Don’t leave me voicemails. Also, don’t read me addresses or spell things to me over the phone. I can’t stand that. I think that comes from having to do that so much in my journalist days. Just text me, email me the info, or hire a sky writer, but don’t say, “Do you have a pen nearby? Can you write this down?”
10) Diana’s Bananas: I am addicted to these frozen chocolate dipped bananas on a stick. I call them choccie bananas and I cannot live without them.
