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• Everything I Thought I Knew - 2020 Candlewick, Somerville, MA

• Shannon Takaoka website - https://shannontakaokawrites.com/

  Shannon Takaoka is a young adult fiction author who wrote her first book at age 12, when she blatantly ripped off C.S. Lewis with an epic fantasy inspired by THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. (Well, maybe it wasn’t that epic — do 10 pages count?) Madeline L’Engle, Charlotte Brontë, Neil Gaiman and a host of other authors inspired her lifelong love of reading, and she’s especially into all things gothic, weird and nerdy. If a story involves time travel, strange science-y stuff or alternate realities, she’s in.

  Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Shannon now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two children and one very needy dog, who is probably leaning on her right now as she’s pecking away on her keyboard. Her debut novel, EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW, about a 17-year-old girl questioning everything about who she is and who she wants to be following a heart transplant, is out now from Candlewick Press. She promises that it’s a little weird — but in a good way.

• The Boswellians - http://theboswellians.blogspot.com/2020/10/jenny-has-five-questions-for-shannon.html

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2020
  Jenny Has Five Questions for Shannon Takaoka

  From Jenny: I’ll read books from any section of the bookstore, but I’m drawn to two genres in particular, and they are wildly different. Anything from the YA fiction shelf and what I call medical science sleuthing nonfiction are my absolute favorites. When Daniel gave me a five-hundred page book on the elegance of the human immune system, I read it like a fast-paced thriller (ed note: An Elegant Defense, by Matt Richtel.) A book about the race to find new antibiotics to take on superbugs? Fascinating. And please send all YA books my way that feature a complexity of emotions, swoony kisses, and cleverly written, laugh-out-loud banter. Add in self discovery or non-stop bickering/simmering passion, and I will be totally hooked.

  Everything I Thought I Knew is a mash-up of my two favorite genres, and I’m thrilled to welcome author Shannon Takaoka to the Boswellians Blog today to chat with me about writing, self-discovery, and so much more.

  JENNY CHOU: Hi Shannon, and congratulations on the publication of your debut novel. I’m so glad you’re here to tell blog readers about Everything I Thought I Knew. Your main character, Chloe, collapses during cross-country practice during her senior year of high school, which leads to a heart transplant. Recovering from something like that would be challenging enough, but she’s got a lot more going on. Can you fill us in on what she’s experiencing?

  SHANNON TAKAOKA: Thank you, and I’d love to fill you in. When we first encounter Chloe about six months post-transplant, she’s doing okay physically, but at the same time, she’s not feeling exactly like she thinks she should. She’s finding it difficult to settle back into her usual routines and relationships (especially now that she’s stuck in summer school to make up for the time she missed when she was recovering)

  and ambivalent about academics and college planning – both things she used to care a lot about before. She’s also experiencing unsettling nightmares, and, most troubling of all, strange gaps in her memory, where she keeps getting flashes of places, events and even people she’s sure she must know but that she can’t quite remember. But she doesn’t tell her doctor or parents about any of this because she doesn't want any more hospital appointments – especially when she’d rather forget about her heart transplant and focus instead on her newfound obsession: surfing.

  JC: You write with such care and empathy for Chloe and the difficulties she’s facing. What inspired you to tell her story? Do you have a medical background, or are you like me, a book-loving English major with a sort of weird but endless fascination with physiology?

  ST: I’m definitely more like you. I have no formal medical background, but I’m for sure interested in all things science-related, from some of the strange multiverse theories that have been spawned by quantum mechanics – even if I don’t really understand the math involved! – to medicine, biology, environmental science and more. When I was in high school, Anatomy & Physiology was one of my favorite classes (outside of English Lit, of course). Learning about all the bodily systems that keep us alive was both fascinating and a little terrifying to me at the same time. It’s so wild to envision everything that’s going on under our skin to keep us moving and breathing and talking and thinking, but it’s also a reminder of how mortal we all are, because while our bodies are incredibly complex and amazing, there are so many ways that they are vulnerable too. Anyway, we went on some cool field trips for that class, and one was to a research hospital to view an open heart surgery. I think it was a triple bypass. I still have a vivid memory of it.

  Organ transplants especially have always fascinated me. The fact that humans have figured out how to transplant a heart or a kidney or a lung, successfully, from one person to another is such an extraordinary achievement, and the history and science behind it all is so interesting. (If you like medical science non-fiction, I highly recommend When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon by Joshua D. Mezrich and The Man Who Touched His Own Heart: True Tales of Science, Surgery, and Mystery by Rob Dunn.) But I’ve also thought a lot about the emotional side of transplants: What does it feel like to know that a part of you – a part essential to keeping you alive – once belonged to someone else? I read and listened to a number of stories about transplant recipients and was struck by how some of them reported feeling deep connections to their donors – to the point of picking up some of their likes, dislikes, and habits. So all of this, in different ways, inspired the book.

  JC: What do you hope readers, and especially teens, take away from Everything I Thought I Knew?

  ST: Well, first, I hope they just enjoy it as a story. And while I love imagining what readers might take away from it, I’m guessing that it depends on the individual. When I was writing it, one of the ideas I was trying to explore was the question a lot of people – and especially teens – ask themselves: “Who am I, really?” And I think that it’s okay to not always be sure. You don’t have to have everything figured out at age 17. Personally, I feel like the question of who we are is one we ask and answer again and again throughout our lives. We are always learning and hopefully evolving, and being shaped by our experiences.

  I also wanted to look at what it really means to live. While there’s nothing wrong with having goals and plans, I think we can also get so wrapped up in what comes next that we sometimes lose sight of the fact that life is lived in the present. In Chloe’s case, she’s faced with this question in a rather extreme way – she almost dies and then her new life is a constant reminder of not just her “second chance,” but also of someone else’s loss. So how does she choose to live her life after coming so close to losing it, and with the knowledge that her existence will always be connected to her donor?

  And finally, I think there’s something I was trying to get at about the tension between attempting to control our destiny and accepting the reality of fate and chance. No matter how much we learn and discover about life and death, there will always be things we don’t understand. For a scientific mind like Chloe’s, this can be frustrating, but I also think there’s something beautiful in recognizing that the universe is too vast, magical and mysterious to be fully explained.

  JC: Where do you do your best writing? In a hip coffee shop, six feet away from other writers? The kitchen table? Anywhere you can find a few precious moments of quiet? And do you plan everything out in advance with a neat outline or do you wake up every morning eager to tell yourself the story to see what happens next?

  ST: It depends on my mood. Sometimes, I want some energy around me, with people and conversations buzzing in the background, and coffee shops are great for that. I really missed my local indie – Book Passage in Corte Madera, California – during all the weeks of shelter in place. I wrote a lot of Everything I Thought I Knew in their café. Other times, when I really need quiet and focus, I go to a library. There are several great libraries near where I live. The closest to me is in a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and it’s got this retro-futuristic vibe that I like. (In fact, scenes from the 90s sci-fi movie Gattaca were filmed there!) There’s another library I love a few towns over from me that’s nestled in a grove of redwoods. It’s my favorite place to go when it’s raining. Redwood groves look especially beautiful when the weather is damp and everything gets all mossy and green.

  In terms of pantsing vs. plotting, I’m more of a pantser – at least I was for this book. I find outlining challenging because I need to write for a bit to discover who my characters are and what the story is all about. I’m trying to get a little better at plotting with my next WIP, however. For me, that means having few key moments to aim for so that I can keep the momentum going and avoid writing myself into too many corners!

  JC: Wouldn’t I just love to ask you all about your brilliant plot twist and a gasp-out-loud ending! But the Boswellians do not believe in spoilers. So I’ll just say that I found Chloe’s journey of self-discovery impossible to put down until I turned the last page, and instead of chatting about how you rocked that ending, let’s imagine you get to be an Indie bookseller for a day! What new or upcoming titles would you recommend to readers?

  ST: I’m glad we are on the same page about spoilers! And I would LOVE to provide some recommendations! I have LOTS. Are you ready? There are so many great books out this year, but I’ll keep this list to YA:

  The Lucky Ones by Liz Lawson, Three Things I Know Are True by Betty Culley (Also one of Jenny’s favorites!) and Accidental by Alex Richards are three books about the aftermath of gun violence that are all fantastic – beautifully written, heartbreaking, but also hopeful as well. I loved The Edge of Anything by Nora Shalaway Carpenter. It deals with mental illness and an unexpected friendship between a volleyball player and budding photographer. A lovely, lovely book. I also just finished This is My America by Kim Johnson and it’s a powerful, important story about racial injustice set in a town with long running secrets. Coming up in November, Jennifer Moffett’s Those Who Prey is a thoroughly engrossing and unsettling story of a college freshman who gets caught up in a cult. I could keep going – that’s what happens when you get to connect with a lot of amazing writers during your debut year! – so I’m just going to list others that I read this year and recommend (while noting that I also have a TBR that’s quite long, so there are many 2020 releases I still have to read!):

  · Together We Caught Fire, Eva Gibson
  · Private Lessons, Cynthia Salaysay
  · The Perfect Escape, Suzanne Park
  · If You Only Knew, Prerna Pickett
  · True or False, A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News, Cindy Otis
  · The Sound of Stars, Alechia Dow
  · Jane Anonymous, Laurie Faria Stolarz
  · These Violent Delights, Chloe Gong
  · The Best Laid Plans, Cameron Lund
  · Diamond City, Francesca Flores
  · Glitch Kingdom, Sheena Boekweg
  · The Gravity of Us, Phil Stamper

  Thank you so much Jenny for giving me the opportunity to chat with you about my book!

  JC: Thank you, Shannon, for joining me on the Boswellians Blog! For all of her latest publishing news, follow Shannon on Instagram @shannontakaokawrites and Twitter @shannontakaoka.
  Posted by chrisoftheinterwebs at 9:13 AM

• The Spinning Pen - https://thespinningpen.com/2020/11/20/author-interview-shannon-takaoka/

  Author Interview: Shannon Takaoka
  NOVEMBER 20, 2020 ~THE SPINNING PEN
  SP: Hi Shannon! Thanks for joining us! Before we get into book stuff, we’d LOVE to know a bit about you and your writing journey!

  I’m originally from Pittsburgh, PA but now live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my husband and kids. I’ve worked as a business writer for a long time, but am definitely a dreamy creative person at heart, so I always had this idea that I’d try to write a book “someday.” And I did spend a couple of years kind of trying it but not really committing – I’d start something and put it away when I got stuck and then I’d do that again and I guess at some point I realized that if I didn’t commit to finishing and seeing it through it was never going to happen. So, when I had the idea for this book, I just tried to turn off the self-doubt as much as I possibly could and I kept going, while simultaneously learning all I could about craft and the writing business. I was introduced to my agent, Nicki Richesin, through a mutual friend. Nicki has a great editorial eye and this made all the difference for me in prepping the book for submission. And I couldn’t be happier about the book landing at Candlewick Press – it’s been a great experience working with the entire team there and especially working with my editor, Kaylan Adair. After going through the debut experience, I will say that persistence and patience are key – taking a book from concept to publication is a loooong process. It was two years between when I sold my book and when it came out and that’s not counting drafting, prepping for submission, waiting while on sub. It’s good to have more than one project to think about because there’s a lot of waiting involved.

  SP: EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW just came out October 2020 by Candlewick. Please add on Goodreads and check out this amazing debut! Here’s the blurb:

  Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Six months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, the “new Chloe” takes heedless risks, like skipping her anti-rejection meds while running wild with the class party girl and nearly crashing a motorcycle she’s not even licensed to ride. Even more unsettling: her recurring nightmares of dying and the strange, vivid memories she doesn’t recognize as her own.

  The only place Chloe feels at home is in the ocean, where she’s learning to surf the Pacific’s wild waves and slowly falling for her instructor, Kai. But as her strange symptoms continue, she becomes more and more convinced that something is wrong with her new heart—or even worse, her mind. As Chloe searches for answers, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew about life, death, love and the true nature of reality.

  SP: Can you tell us about your debut novel, EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW? How long did it take you to write it and how did this story come about? What inspired you to write about a heart transplant? Also must say I love contemporaries that play with reality and physics, it’s a brilliant concept!

  If we discount all the times I nearly gave up and put it in a drawer for months at a time, I think in actual writing time it took a few years. I’d never written a full-length novel before, so I was definitely learning as I went along, which involved a lot of wrong turns (and sometimes dead ends). In terms of inspiration, the concept evolved a lot as I wrote it, but the initial idea came from a story I had heard about organ recipients feeling as if they’ve picked up new preferences or interests after their transplants that they feel are connected to their donor. Perhaps craving a specific food or being drawn to similar music. Whether this is really possible or not, I thought it was an interesting idea to explore — especially with a character who is at a phase in their own life where they are still trying to figure out who they are. So that was the initial spark, but as I wrote, I began to introduce some more speculative or fantastical elements into the story, some of which were inspired by multi-verse theories that come out of quantum physics.

  SP: What did you think when you saw the cover? The details are so intricate and subtle like the wave in the heart with the surfer. It’s truly beautiful.

  I loved the cover immediately. My publisher presented me with three options and I knew right away the heart was the one—it’s dreamy, ethereal, a little bit cosmic and perfectly captures the essence of the book. From the gorgeous, nebula-like colors, to the main image of the heart, to the dissolving font, and especially that tiny surfer riding the wave of the pulmonary artery, it all just works together so beautifully. Candlewick’s designer, Matt Roeser, is amazing. (You can see some of his other work at www.mattmakesbooks.com)

  SP: How does it feel to be a debut author in 2020? What has been the biggest challenge?

  2020 has been quite a year for sure and when it comes to being impacted by everything that’s been going on, I’m not any different than everybody else in the world, I guess. We’ve all had challenges, whether kids attending school from home, job situations that have changed dramatically, cancelled events, brushes with COVID or maybe all of the above. But in terms of debuting specifically, I think what has been hardest is figuring out ways to stay focused and promote the book in these weird circumstances. Originally, I was supposed to go to BookCon in New York City in May, and I was hoping to do some launch events live when the book came out in October. (And early in the year, I still thought that was going to be a possibility – what a sweet summer child I was!) Most book festivals and bookstore events have either been cancelled or moved online. So, we’ve all had to pivot – debut authors and established authors too. I like meeting people in person and am sad that’s not possible right now. I also feel a bit awkward online – especially on live video – so it’s been a learning curve for me, but I’m making the best of it. One thing about online events is you can connect with people you wouldn’t have had the chance to in person, so that’s cool. But like everyone else, I’m really missing in person interaction. And I’m missing libraries and coffee shops, where I usually do most of my writing! In the grand scheme though, these are small things, and my heart is with everyone who has had bigger struggles this year. Keeping my fingers crossed for better days ahead.

  SP: And lastly, do you have a favorite quotes from your book? What does it mean to you?

  Hmmm… maybe this one is my favorite, because I think it gets at something about how it’s impossible to understand everything about the universe and our place in it:

  I think about how I’ve spent so much time this summer on the surface of the water without really knowing much about what’s underneath. An entire world beneath me, one that is almost as foreign as another planet. Sea lions weaving their way through kelp forests. Fish darting in and out of coral reefs. What must it be like to live down in the deep, in the spaces where the light hardly reaches, where weird, alien-like sea creatures glow like carnival rides in the dark? If I miss so much of my own planet, perhaps my understanding of the universe is much smaller than I thought.

  Is Shannon a…

  Plotter/pantster?

  Pantser (mostly)

  Last book you read?

  I just read a gothic classic that I can’t believe I’ve never read before, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. If a story has a spooky old mansion in it, I’m so in. I’m planning on watching the new movie version soon.

  Current dream vacation spot?

  Well, I had to cancel a trip to Paris this past April, so Paris.

  Something always in your fridge?

  Half and half (for coffee)

  Would you rather be a professional: Marine Biologist? Spy? Opera Singer? Brain Surgeon? OR?

  I like science, so Marine Biologist, I think. (Brain surgeon sounds fascinating too, though I might be too stressed I’d mess up someone’s brain.)

  Favorite childhood book?

  A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

  SP: Thanks so much for sharing with us, Shannon! We are so excited for the world to read Everything I Thought I Knew!

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/shannontakaoka
  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shannontakaokawrites/
  Website: https://shannontakaokawrites.com/
  Buy links:

  There are signed copies available through Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA and Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN (while they last!)

  https://www.bookpassage.com/ThoughtIKnew
  https://www.parnassusbooks.net/book/9781536207767
  Also available via:

  IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781536207767
  Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/everything-i-thought-i-knew-shannon-takaoka/1136270155?ean=9781536207767
  Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Everything-I-Thought-Knew/dp/1536207764
  Share this:

• Nerdy Book Club - https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/when-reality-isnt-enough-by-shannon-takaoka/

  WHEN REALITY ISN’T ENOUGH BY SHANNON TAKAOKA
  POSTED BY CBETHM ON OCTOBER 12, 2020 IN AUTHOR POSTS | LEAVE A COMMENT

  Ever since I was young, I’ve always been drawn to stories that are a bit off kilter and weird. Stories that depart, in some way, from the “real world.” Give me all the kids raised in graveyards, the mysterious doppelgängers, the characters who slip in and out of time. I don’t know why this is, exactly. Maybe it’s because my grandmother told me ghost stories when I was little, stories that she insisted had actually happened to her. Back in Czechoslovakia, when she was a girl, she claimed that one time she saw a headless spirit in the woods. She heard “limbo babies” crying in the night to be baptized. The tattered black cat that used to show up on her family’s doorstep? Cursed. And although her stories scared me a little, I also wanted them to be true. The childhood she described sounded fantastical and strange, like something out of a dark fairytale. I wanted my childhood to be fantastical too, full of secret passages and treasure maps and magical rings. A closet that only held clothes, instead of one that was a portal to another world? Boring. And what good was an abandoned house if it couldn’t be haunted?

  But most of the time, the reality of my childhood consisted of a series of predictable routines. School. Homework. Weekend dinners at my grandma’s, where, ghost stories or no, she rarely deviated from her usual dish: roast beef, mashed potatoes and slightly overcooked green beans. And then there was church, which I had to attend every Sunday no matter what. The script of the Catholic mass changed little from week to week, and in the midst of all the standing, sitting and kneeling, my eyes and mind would wander to the stained glass, where the colorful scenes in them depicted miracles and martyred saints. My favorite, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the window that featured St. George, mainly because of the vivid green dragon he was in the process of slaying, all fire and scales and teeth. So when I wanted an escape from boring old reality, I chose books that would take me as far from reality as I could get. To Narnia and Middle Earth. Across space and time with Mrs. Which, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Who. I could leave the real world behind for a bit and imagine myself as a hobbit able to outsmart trolls and giant spiders or a girl rescuing her beloved father from another dimension.

  By my middle school years, however, it felt like I had decided that dragons and portals and magical kingdoms were, perhaps, “not cool” for my age. (I know, I know, they are 100 percent cool for any age, but middle school can mess with your head.) I’d determined it was time for me to leave the fantastical behind and read about real people, doing real things. Like impossibly beautiful identical twins and their many, many romantic entanglements. I ate up the Sweet Valley High series like candy, but realize now that I liked it precisely because the Wakefield twins and their bonkers storylines – Comas! Murder mysteries! Mistaken identities! – were just as much a departure from the “real world” as any high fantasy. I was painfully shy in middle and high school. Painfully. I didn’t get invited to many parties. My Saturday nights were usually spent at home, in my room, my lazy cat Muffin curled at the foot of my bed, book in my lap, wondering what I was missing. There were times when I wished with all my heart that I could slip into another version of myself, the “bad-twin” version, who was way more interesting and confident than the girl who always got good grades, went to church every Sunday and never broke the rules.

  But with fiction, you can break whatever rules you want. You can ask countless “What ifs.” What if you could travel back and forth in time? What if you could see the future? What if monsters were real? What if another version of yourself existed in a reality that was almost like yours… almost, but not quite? What if… what if… what if… It’s fun to imagine all the possibilities. Though I think there’s more to it than that. My theory is that in breaking out of what’s “real,” we are trying to get a better handle on why reality is the way it is. Why are we here? What’s our purpose? What’s this life of ours all about anyway? Stories help us understand ourselves. And if I can’t literally slip into a cooler version of myself in an alternate reality, for example, or live forever, or change the past, then I better get going on making the most of the me that hangs out in this plane of existence.

  Eventually, I graduated from Sweet Valley High and found my way to Edgar Allen Poe, to Shakespeare and Dickens and Charlotte Brontë. And later, to Margaret Atwood’s and Emily St. John Mandel’s dystopias. To Shirley Jackson’s, Neil Gaiman’s and Toni Morrison’s ghosts. Every book I’ve read has, in some way, big or small, made me think about the world we live in or think about who I want to be or how I want to spend this life of mine. Those not-quite realities have shaped how I view my own.

  And one of the things I always wanted to do in this reality is write my version of “What if.” Finally, after a lot of trial and error, I did.

  I promise that it’s a little weird. But in a good way.

  Shannon Takaoka is a young adult fiction author who loves books (of course) and all things nerdy. (Time travel? Weird science-y stuff? Alternate realities? Yes, please.) She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family, where she also works as a business writer and editor. Her debut novel, Everything I Thought I Knew, about a 17-year-old girl questioning everything about who she is and who she wants to be following a heart transplant, releases 10/13/2020 from Candlewick Press and in 2021 from Walker UK. Find her online at www.shannontakaokawrites.com, @shannontakaoka (Twitter) and @shannontakaokawrites (Instagram).

• YA and Kids! Books Central - https://www.yabookscentral.com/blog/author-chat-with-shannon-takaoka-everything-i-thought-i-knew-plus-giveaway-us-only

  Author Chat with Shannon Takaoka (Everything I Thought I Knew) Plus Giveaway! ~ (US Only)
  News & Updates Giveaways Featured Giveaways Beth Edwards, Blog Manager Thursday, 15 October 2020 520 Hits 6 Comments
  4085710_20201015-164550_1
  Today we're excited to chat with Shannon Takaoka author of

  Everything I Thought I Knew.

  Read on for more about Shannon and her book, plus a giveaway!

  Meet Shannon Takaoka!

  Shannon Takaoka has worked as a writer, editor, and public relations consultant in the technology and life sciences field. She is a lover of all things nerdy—from time travel to weird science and dragons. Everything I Thought I Knew is her first novel. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children.

  Website * Twitter * Instagram

  Meet Everything I Though I Knew!

  A teenage girl wonders if she’s inherited more than just a heart from her donor in this compulsively readable debut.

  Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste.

  Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves—which is strange, because she wasn’t interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn’t hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.)

  And that’s not all that’s strange. There’s also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel and memories of people and places she doesn’t recognize.

  Is there something wrong with her head now, too, or is there another explanation for what she’s experiencing?

  As she searches for answers, and as her attraction to Kai intensifies, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew—about life, death, love, identity, and the true nature of reality.

  Amazon * B & N * Indiebound

  ~ Author Chat ~

  Please answer between 8-10 questions.

  What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
  I’ve always been interested in all things science-related, from anatomy, biology and physiology to all of the intriguing theories that come out of quantum physics. (Even if, in the case of quantum mechanics, I don’t really understand the math involved!) On the medical side, organ transplants have always fascinated me. The fact that humans have figured out how to transplant a heart or a kidney or a lung, successfully, from one person to another is such an extraordinary achievement, and the history behind it all is riveting. At one point – I can’t even remember the original source – I heard or read a story about organ transplant recipients who had reported that they’d picked up new preferences, habits and interests after their surgeries, and in some cases had come to believe that they’d “inherited” these memories or behaviors, almost at a cellular level, from their donors. Now, there’s no hard evidence of this being possible in a scientific sense, but the idea of it stuck with me. And in fiction at least, I’m really drawn to stories that speculate around “What if” concepts like this. So this was the jumping off point. I started by exploring a character, Chloe, and her feelings of connection to her heart donor, but as I continued writing, I let the story lead me to additional ideas related to connection and interconnection, life, death and identity, especially in relation to our links to each other and our place in the universe.

  Who is your favorite character in the book?
  Oh, that’s like asking me to name my favorite child! I can’t play favorites! I love them all in their own ways, Chloe for her curiosity, Jane for her ability to always be herself and Kai for his quiet sense of humor and kindness.

  Which came first, the title or the novel?
  The novel. The title, which came later in the process, is from a line in the book that didn’t even exist until I was multiple revisions into it. With my current work in progress, I’m not even going to worry about a title until the book is done. I think it’s easier to come up with a good title once you can take a step back and look at the entire arc of the story, which changes a lot during the revision process (or at least it does for me).

  Do you have a favorite writing snack?
  Yes – popcorn! I’ve got popcorn in front of me right now probably.

  Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you've learned as a writer from then to now?
  Everything I Thought I Knew is the first novel I’ve ever written (well, the first one I ever finished) so the entire process of writing it was one of trial and error. I learned a lot! One of the most important lessons for me is to not get stuck on the small stuff, at least not initially. My inner editor is a huge pain in the butt. I know now not to spend a lot of time in early drafts worrying about whether a line is worded just right or if a scene needs to flow better. That stuff is important, eventually, but when you are just trying to get the story down on the page, over-thinking everything is not helpful. I think there were more than a few instances where I wasted hours polishing scenes or chapters that ended up being cut. So, my new motto is: just keep moving and wait to fix what isn’t quite working in revision.

  And, this one is more of a personal preference, but I also learned that there’s no rule that says you have to write in a linear fashion. This helped me so much when I got stuck. Whenever I got to a point where I felt like I was just fighting with the words and had no idea what was going to come next, I did one of two things: I would either take a break and come back the next day, or I would just start writing a different scene I had an idea about, no matter where it might come in the chronology of the story. So, sometimes I would work on an idea I had for the end, then switch back to some scenes that needed to happen in the middle or whatever. And finally, at some point, I started to think about how all these scenes would “fit.” It was like building a puzzle. I might still be at my desk trying to figure out those middle chapters if I hadn’t decided to just write out of order. So I guess the main lesson from this experience is that there’s no “right” way to write a book – you need to figure out what makes the most sense for you.

  What do you like most about the cover of the book?
  EVERYTHING. I couldn’t be happier about how the cover came out—it’s dreamy, ethereal, a little bit cosmic and perfectly captures the essence of the book. From the gorgeous, nebula-like colors, to the main image of the heart, to the dissolving font, and especially the tiny surfer riding the wave of the left pulmonary artery, it all just works together so beautifully. Candlewick’s designer, Matt Roeser, absolutely nailed it. (You can see some of his other work at www.mattmakesbooks.com – all of his covers are awesome.)

  What’s on your TBR pile?
  I’m often a mood reader, so since it’s fall, I definitely have a few dark and spooky reads in my TBR pile. The one I’m planning to finally get to from my shelves is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I really liked The Goldfinch so am looking forward to reading more of her work. Those Who Prey, by debut author Jennifer Moffett, is coming out on November 10 – it’s a YA thriller about a girl who gets caught up in a religious cult. I read a very early version of this one so I’m super-excited to revisit it now that it’s final. It’s got mind-games, a mystery centered around an isolated villa in Italy, and some seriously scary scenes involving snakes. And I’m also planning on picking up Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I’ve heard great things about this one and I’m always down for anything that leans “gothic” and is set in a creepy old mansion.

  What’s a book you’ve recently read and loved?
  I’m in a group for YA and Middle Grade writers with books debuting in 2020 and there are so many awesome books that have come out recently that I honestly wouldn’t feel right singling out only a few. This has been a tough year to debut, that’s for sure, so I want to spread the word about as many 2020 releases as I can: https://roaring20sdebut.com/our-books/

  What’s up next for you?
  I’m currently working on another YA novel, but I’m superstitious about sharing too much about a book until I’m pretty far along in the process. I can say that thematically, it’s going to explore memory, as well as how our internal life shapes our external reality. Trying to draft a novel in 2020 has been challenging to say the least, but I think I’ve finally got something that’s starting to take shape. Hoping I can ring in the New Year with a finished book.

  Are there any film adaptations, tv shows, audiobooks, or other adaptations in the works for this book?
  Everything I Thought I Knew will be available as an eBook and on audio. No film or TV adaptations to announce yet, but if any film people are reading this, CALL MY AGENT! J

  Which was the most difficult or emotional scene to narrate?
  There is a scene near the end of the book that I don’t want to spoil but, broadly speaking, it’s a conversation between my main character Chloe and another character who has a connection to her heart. It was probably the scene that I rewrote the most.

  Which character gave you the most trouble when writing your latest book?
  I think “friend-of-the-protagonist” characters are always challenging. Authors spend a lot of time thinking about their main characters—trying to capture their voice and deepest desires, which obviously makes sense. But we also want our side characters to feel authentic and real. Sometimes that can be tricky, especially with a first-person POV story where you spend so much time in one character’s head. I had to think a lot about how to bring out character in situations where, because of the POV I was using, I wasn’t in the person’s thoughts in the same way that I was with my main character.

  Which part of the writing process do you enjoy more: Drafting or Revising?
  Revising, revising, revising! First drafts are tough for me. (See discussion above about my pain in the butt inner editor.) I’m a slow drafter and don’t write detailed outlines. I usually start with a general idea about where I want to go and need to just start writing in order to figure the rest out, so my first drafts usually end up being my “outline.” I wish I could be faster about it, but that’s just not how my brain works. I’m much happier once I have something to shape and mold.

  What would you say is your superpower?
  With writing, I think I have a good ear for dialogue and an eye for details. I love it when I read a book and notice a little detail about what a character wears or what’s in their room that really gives me insight into who they are, so I try to do this with my writing. In life in general, I think my superpower is curiosity. I love learning about all kinds of things, traveling, meeting people. And that, in turn, feeds my creativity.

  Is there an organization or cause that is close to your heart?
  Right now, in October 2020, all my cause-related efforts are 100 percent focused on getting out the vote. I’ve done letter writing for Vote Forward https://votefwd.org/ outreach for Vote Save America https://votesaveamerica.com/, I’m signing up to be a poll worker and am donating to as many campaigns and issues as I can. This is such an important election, so I encourage everyone to vote. (And for those not yet eligible, you only have to be sixteen to volunteer to be a poll worker!)

  Shannon Takaoka is a young adult fiction author who loves books (of course) and all things nerdy. (Time travel? Weird science-y stuff? Alternate realities? Yes, please.) She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family, where she also works as a business writer and editor. Her debut novel, Everything I Thought I Knew, about a 17-year-old girl questioning everything about who she is and who she wants to be following a heart transplant, releases 10/13/2020 from Candlewick Press and in 2021 from Walker UK. Find her online at www.shannontakaokawrites.com, @shannontakaoka (Twitter) and @shannontakaokawrites (Instagram).

  Everything I Thought I Knew

  By: Shannon Takaoka

  Publisher: Candlewick Press

  Release Date: October 13th, 2020

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  Shannon Takaoka Interview - Everything I Thought I Knew
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  Photo Content from Shannon Takaoka

  Shannon Takaoka is a young adult fiction author who wrote her first book at age 12, when she blatantly ripped off C.S. Lewis with an epic fantasy inspired by THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. (Well, maybe it wasn’t that epic — do 10 pages count?) Madeline L’Engle, Charlotte Brontë, Neil Gaiman and a host of other authors inspired her lifelong love of reading, and she’s especially into all things gothic, weird and nerdy. If a story involves time travel, strange science-y stuff or alternate realities, she’s in.

  Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Shannon now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two children and one very needy dog, who is probably leaning on her right now as she’s pecking away on her keyboard. Her debut novel, EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW, about a 17-year-old girl questioning everything about who she is and who she wants to be following a heart transplant, will be published by Candlewick Press on 10/13/2020 and Walker UK in 2021. She promises that it’s a little weird — but in a good way.

  Hardcover : 320 pages
  ISBN-10 : 1536207764
  ISBN-13 : 978-1536207767
  Publisher : Candlewick (October 13, 2020)
  Language: : English

  Praise for EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW

  “Everything I Thought I Knew is a page-turning, mind-bending story of hope and healing. The reader will root for Chloe from page one as she navigates her world post–heart transplant and tries to meld her prior reality with her new one. I couldn’t put it down; it is a beautiful debut from a talented new voice in YA.” —Alexandra Ballard, author of What I Lost

  The thoughtful balance of self-discovery, humor, and realistic relationships will bring in fans of John Green and Nicola Yoon. Readers looking for a good, cathartic cry will love Chloe’s journey from losing everything she thought she was, to finding the person she was meant to be. —School Library Journal

  Romance and quantum physics intertwine in this frothy introduction to multiverse SF. —Kirkus Reviews

  This is a satisfying soaper that combines pleasing romance with an enticing touch of the otherworldly. —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

  Greatest thing you learned in school?
  I think there are many moments during a person’s school experience that are important and memorable, but I can give you one moment for me that stood out. I had a fantastic Anatomy & Physiology teacher waaaay back when I was in high school. Her class was really challenging but also probably the most interesting one I’d ever attended up to that point. Anyhow, she took us on lots of field trips and one was to a research hospital to view open heart surgery. It stuck in my mind all of these years, and that memory ended up being one of the things that helped inspire my book. You never know when something you learn is going to have an impact on your life – it could be in the moment, or even many years later.

  Tell us your latest news.
  I now have a date for EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW’s UK release with Walker Books – it’s June 3, 2021 and there will also be different cover for the UK edition!

  I’m also participating in NaNoWriMo 2020 right now and hope to make headway on some new projects.

  Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way?
  All the great books I’ve read have for sure influenced me, and of course some of my past teachers. I’ve worked as a business writer in marketing and PR for a long time, and I think that’s really trained me to write clearly and economically, and to have a pretty thick skin when it comes to feedback. My first job when I moved to San Francisco years ago was at a small PR agency and my boss was a former journalist. He was always a tough (but excellent) editor. Polished writing is really the result of a lot of editing and revising so that was such a great lesson for me.

  Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
  Hands down, it has been hearing from readers. Every time someone tells me how much they enjoyed the book or what they liked most about it or what it meant to them, it’s just the best feeling.

  What do you hope for readers to be thinking when they read your novel?
  First of all, I hope they just enjoy it as a story. And I’m sure different readers will take away different things. When writing it, I was definitely thinking a lot about how our lives are shaped both by our decisions and also by things that we can’t control. (2020 is certainly evidence of that, isn’t it?) So, I wanted to look at how we reconcile and live with the tension between choice and chance. This is something Chloe grapples with in the book, and I hope her story makes readers feel more at peace with the fact that life is often unpredictable. There’s no way to plan for every possible contingency, and you don’t have to have everything figured out all the time, especially at age 17. We are always learning and hopefully evolving and being shaped by our experiences throughout our lives. Our identities are not static. I was also thinking about the fragility and beauty of life and what that means in terms of how we live. Having goals is fine of course, but I feel like a lot of us can get so wrapped up in what we want to achieve at some future date that we sometimes forget to appreciate the present moment. And finally, I was interested in exploring ideas around the interconnectedness and mysterious nature of the universe. Chloe really wants to try and understand the “why” behind everything, but I think there’s also something freeing in acknowledging that not everything about our existence can be fully explained.

  In your new book; EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW, can you tell my Book Nerd community a little about it.
  Sure. EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW tells the story of a 17-year-old girl named Chloe whose life is turned upside down by a heart transplant, and it causes her to question everything about who she is and who she wants to be. When we first meet Chloe, she’s in the fall of her senior year, and singularly focused on what comes next: applying to college and all that that entails – AP classes, keeping her grade point average up, participating in all the extra-curriculars that might help make her applications stand out. But then she collapses during cross country practice, and when we fast forward to six months after her heart transplant, everything is different. Chloe’s doing okay physically, but at the same time she’s finding it difficult to settle back into her usual routines and relationships. Instead, she’d rather party with her new friend Jane and do all the things she didn’t get to do when she was busy being the straight-A “good girl.” At the same time, she’s also experiencing recurring nightmares and strange gaps in her memory, where she keeps getting flashes of places, events and even people she’s sure she must know but that she can’t quite remember. It’s unsettling, but she doesn’t tell her doctors or parents because she doesn’t want to deal with any more medical issues – especially when all she really wants to do is try to forget about the transplant and focus instead on her newfound obsession: surfing (which also happens to include a very cute instructor named Kai.)

  What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?
  Social media! (And periodic bouts of self doubt.)

  What part of Chloe did you enjoy writing the most?
  I love Chloe’s curious and slightly nerdy side. Like Chloe, I’m a person who is fascinated by weird scientific theories, so I really enjoyed the parts of the story where she gets to dive deep into “research” mode.

  If you could introduce Kai to any character from another book, who would it be and why?
  Wow this one stumped me a bit. I have a couple of ideas of characters that Kai would certainly have a lot to talk about with, especially by the end of the story, but I feel like it would be too spoiler-y to say who.

  What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters?
  They sometimes did things I wasn’t expecting! (Just like real people, I guess.) I don’t plan out my entire plot, so one of the of the most enjoyable things about writing fiction (at least for me) is when you get in this mode where the story seems to take on a life of its own and your characters do things that surprise you.

  TEN FAVORITE BOOKS READ THIS YEAR (I KEPT IT TO YA RELEASES)
  1. THE EDGE OF ANYTHING by Nora Shalaway Carpenter
  2. THREE THINGS I KNOW ARE TRUE by Betty Culley
  3. THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS by Chloe Gong
  4. THIS IS MY AMERICA by Kim Johnson
  5. THE LUCKY ONES by Liz Lawson
  6. THE TRUTH PROJECT by Dante Medema
  7. THOSE WHO PREY by Jennifer Moffett
  8. TRUE OF FALSE, A CIA ANALYST’S GUIDE TO SPOTTING FAKE NEWS, Cindy Otis
  9. ACCIDENTAL by Alex Richards
  10. PRIVATE LESSONS Cynthia Salaysay
  What’s the most ridiculous fact you know?
  I’m fascinated by all the random things that we store in our brains. For me it’s song lyrics, especially from when I was really young. As a Gen-Xer, I have an almost photographic memory of the lyrics of cheesy 80s power ballads.

  Best date you've ever had?
  The one where my date cooked me a fantastic dinner. (Reader, I married him. And he still cooks fantastic dinners.)

  If you had to go back in time and change one thing, if you HAD to, even if you had “no regrets” what would it be?
  Oh wow, this is a tough question too. Who has no regrets? I might have tried writing a book sooner than I actually did. I’m glad I finally stuck with it!

  Choose a unique item from your wallet and explain why you carry it around.
  I have a PASMO card from the Tokyo metro that I keep in my wallet, even though I can’t use it at the moment. I traveled to Japan a few years ago with my husband and kids and it was such a fantastic trip for so many reasons that I couldn’t throw it away – it’s a reminder of that moment in time and also a reminder that we need to go back!

  Which incident in your life that totally changed the way you think today?
  Having kids has probably changed how I think about some things… though I wouldn’t say one incident in and of itself has changed the way I think. My mindset is more a culmination of all my experiences.

  What is the weirdest thing you have seen in someone else’s home?
  I’m going to cheat a bit on this… it wasn’t at someone’s home, but I once stayed at a hotel/B&B that kept ocelots on the property – they are semi-big cats that look like leopards – and that was pretty weird and unexpected. (At least it was unexpected for me – this was before Tiger King.)

  What was the best memory you ever had as a writer?
  The day I found out that my book had been officially acquired was pretty cool. And for sure holding the finished copy of EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW in my hands.

  A teenage girl wonders if she’s inherited more than just a heart from her donor in this compulsively readable debut.

  Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste.

  Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves—which is strange, because she wasn’t interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn’t hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.)

  And that’s not all that’s strange. There’s also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel and memories of people and places she doesn’t recognize.

  Is there something wrong with her head now, too, or is there another explanation for what she’s experiencing?

  As she searches for answers, and as her attraction to Kai intensifies, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew—about life, death, love, identity, and the true nature of reality.

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  Interview: Shannon Takaoka, Author of Everything I Thought I Knew
  October 15, 2020
  Leave a comment

  Please Note: I received an electronic review copy of Everything I Thought I Knew and was monetarily compensated in exchange for composing and hosting an interview with the author. This compensation in no way affected my opinions.

  Title Everything I Thought I Knew
  Author Shannon Takaoka
  Pages 320 Pages
  Target Audience Young Adult
  Genre & Keywords
  Publication Date October 13th 2020 by Candlewick
  Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● The Book Depository ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound

  A teenage girl wonders if she’s inherited more than just a heart from her donor in this compulsively readable debut.

  Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves — which is strange, because she wasn’t interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn’t hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.) And that’s not all that’s strange. There’s also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel and memories of people and places she doesn’t recognize. Is there something wrong with her head now, too, or is there another explanation for what she’s experiencing? As she searches for answers, and as her attraction to Kai intensifies, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew — about life, death, love, identity, and the true nature of reality.

  About Shannon Takaoka

  Shannon Takaoka is a young adult fiction author who wrote her first book at age 12, when she blatantly ripped off C.S. Lewis with an epic fantasy inspired by The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. (Well, maybe it wasn’t that epic — do 10 pages count?) Madeline L’Engle, Charlotte Brontë, Neil Gaiman and a host of other authors inspired her lifelong love of reading, and she’s especially into all things gothic, weird and nerdy. If a story involves time travel, strange science-y stuff or alternate realities, she’s in.

  Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Shannon now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two children and one very needy dog, who is probably leaning on her right now as she’s pecking away on her keyboard. Her debut novel, Everything I Thought I Knew, about a 17-year-old girl questioning everything about who she is and who she wants to be following a heart transplant, will be published by Candlewick Press on 10/13/2020 and Walker UK in 2021. She promises that it’s a little weird — but in a good way.

  Author Links: Website ● Twitter ● Instagram ● Goodreads

  1. Everything I Thought I Knew is your debut young adult novel. What have been some of the best and/or most difficult moments in your journey to publication? Are there any words of wisdom you could offer to prospective authors or those preparing for the publication of their own debut novel?

  For prospective authors, I think the hardest part is finishing that first draft. Having the stamina to keep going on something that may or may not pan out can be a difficult thing to wrap your head around. It was definitely hard for me. Before Everything I Thought I Knew, I had a few ideas that I started to work on that kind of fizzled out, and I realized that if I was ever going to get a book published, I first had to commit to finishing one. So I just tried to turn off the self-doubt as much as I could and I kept going. So keep going! And if your first attempt doesn’t work out, try again. Persistence is a big part of it. My other advice: READ. Read a ton. Read in the genre you want to get published in and read outside of it. Read fiction. Read non-fiction. Read novels. Read short stories. Read poetry. Read great journalism. For me, reading is the best teacher – better than any book on craft or class I’ve taken (although those things can certainly be helpful too.) I’m always analyzing my favorite stories and trying to understand what makes them tick.

  For writers preparing for publication, it’s a looong process, and the toughest part of that is being patient. There are so many moments where you are waiting – when you’re querying, when you’re on sub, when you are waiting on editorial notes once your book has sold. And I think many writers will say this: use that time to work on new ideas. The waiting is much better when you have other things to occupy your creative space.

  In terms of best moments, I do love the act of creating, and it’s always great to have one of those writing days where everything just clicks and you are really excited about your story. And during the path to publication, it’s been awesome to have such a supportive team of people behind me, especially my agent and my editor at Candlewick, who both have been instrumental in helping me make this book the best that it can be. And there’s nothing better than hearing from readers who connect with and enjoy the story.

  2. The novel’s protagonist, Chloe, muses about how she has changed while growing up, transforming from a child with endless curiosity and questions (“Why do my fingers wrinkle in the bath? Why don’t we get burnt up by the sun? Why are we here? What happens when we die?” etc.) to a single-minded, driven teen who grew to believe that “right answers are what really matter”. Is there an aspect of yourself you feel you lost as you grew older, and would you recapture it if you could?

  Oh, for sure! I love that young kids are curious about everything and pretty uninhibited about asking questions. While I’m still a curious person – I think all writers are to some extent – I do wish I could recapture more of that playful, uninhibited, experimental energy that very young kids have, before they start worrying too much about what other people think of them or before they start to focus on grades rather than just learning for the fun of it. Play is a such an important part of creativity. I don’t necessarily feel like I’ve lost my sense of playfulness, but adulting can sometimes muzzle it a bit, so I do have to occasionally remind myself to not focus so much on an outcome or worry about whether I’m doing something “the right way” and just have fun, especially when I’m writing.

  3. Everything I Thought I Knew explores how Chloe’s life has been altered by a diagnosis of a heart defect and a subsequent transplant surgery. Prior to the discovery of her heart defect, Chloe is a competitive, driven, goal-oriented teen with a lot of plans for the future. Unfortunately, her diagnosis and subsequent transplant occur just as she’s preparing for her midterms and college applications and this upends her meticulously-organized life. Because of this, one of the central themes of the novel appears to be navigating and coping with immense change. How do you effectively deal with change in your own life and do you have any advice for young readers as to how they can do the same?

  Ha, well, I’ve always been a bit of an overthinker, and change can sometimes throw me for a loop, which then sets my “control” mentality into motion. That’s when my anxious brain starts to tell me that if I just plan for every contingency, nothing bad will happen. But life doesn’t work that way. We can’t possibly plan for every contingency. Things will happen that are beyond our ability to control and that we don’t get to choose. Sometimes big, traumatic things. (2020 is certainly evidence of that, isn’t it?) But we do have a choice in how we respond and what we take from whatever happens and how we move forward, and that’s definitely something that I wanted to explore in the book. Change, whether expected or not, good or bad, is a part of life. Sometimes I handle change well, and sometimes I don’t, but I’m lot happier when I try not to ruminate too much over things I can’t control (unless it’s something that truly does need to be processed, like grief) and instead focus my energy on the things I can impact in a productive and positive way. I guess the “Serenity Prayer” endures for a reason!

  4. When Chloe first learns of her heart defect, she thinks “I’m going to die before I turn eighteen. I’m going to die before I graduate high school. Before I get to go to college, visit Tokyo, climb the Eiffel Tower, fall in love, own a dog, and become the first scientist to confirm the existence of life on another planet.” In this and other respects, Everything I Thought I Knew reminds readers of the fragility and unpredictability of life and, consequently, to treasure each moment and pursue our passions and goals whenever possible. Like Chloe’s wish to visit Tokyo or climb the Eiffel Tower, is there anything you dream of doing or accomplishing one day?

  Well, publishing a book was a pretty big dream of mine, and I hope to be able write more books. I’ve also been lucky to do some of the things that Chloe dreams of, like travel, and in light of this last year, I’m very much looking forward to when we can all do that again without anxiety. So, right now, I’m dreaming of going to a big city like New York or Paris or Tokyo, eating out at restaurants, doing and seeing all the things and wearing outfits that do not involve sweat pants!

  5. Following her transplant, music becomes a passion and obsession for Chloe, one that “opened my mind to another universe – one I never knew existed” and “made me feel less alone with my thoughts”. Are there any songs that have had a significant impact on your life and can you share a little about what they mean to you?

  That’s a good question. I think music in general has this amazing ability to anchor moments of our lives, whether it’s because the lyrics mean something to us or because of who we were with or what we were doing when we heard a particular song. Anything from Prince’s Purple Rain album will instantly conjure up my middle school self, for example. Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together makes me think of my wedding. A few years ago, I saw Arcade Fire in concert and remembering the entire crowd singing along to Wake Up gives me such a pang right now, especially because it feels like it will be a long time before we get to do that again. Music really helped me unlock the emotion of the book. Hello My Old Heart by The Oh Hellos in particular is one that I will always associate with writing and thinking about this story, so that one is meaningful to me for sure.

  6. After her transplant, Chloe experiences a number of inexplicable symptoms, including memories, newfound interests and nightmares that are not her own. This leads her to do a great deal of research on the subject of cellular memory and question whether or not she’s exhibiting traits and memories of her heart donor. When crafting the novel, was it difficult to manage the delicate balance between realistic, contemporary issues of change and coming-of-age with other elements that seem more abstract or intangible in nature?

  Yes and no. I always knew this story was going to depart from “reality” in some way while still being grounded in a contemporary (rather than high fantasy or sci fi) setting. Many of my all-time favorite books walk this line – Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I really like the idea of using “What if?” scenarios to explore questions related to all the things that make us human. In introducing a speculative element into a contemporary setting, I did worry a little about getting the balance right. Would the fantastical elements seem too unbelievable or over the top? But in the end, I just had to shut that worry off and let my imagination go. I love stories that throw a weird premise or strange twist at me, so I guess I just followed the advice about writing the kind of book that I typically like to read.

  7. While reflecting on the concept of parallel universes, Chloe wonders whether she would choose to change her life and return to a time before her diagnosis and transplant, if given the opportunity. This inspired me to reflect on and recontextualize challenges in my own life and question how things that seemed difficult in the moment have altered the course of my life and whether there was anything positive that could be drawn from those experiences, however difficult. Are there any themes or messages you hope readers will take from Everything I Thought I Knew?

  I think part of the message goes back to that earlier question about the things we can control and things we can’t and how we reconcile and live with that tension. You don’t have to have everything figured out all the time, especially at age 17. We are always learning and hopefully evolving and being shaped by our experiences throughout our lives. Our identities are not set in stone. And for sure I was thinking about the fragility and unpredictability of life and what that means in terms of how we live. There’s of course nothing wrong at all with having goals and plans, but I feel like a lot of us can get so wrapped up in what we want to achieve at some future date that we sometimes forget to appreciate what’s happening in the now. And finally, I was interested in exploring ideas around the interconnectedness and mysterious nature of the universe. Chloe really wants to try and understand the “why” behind everything, but I think there’s also something kind of freeing in acknowledging that not everything about our existence can be fully explained.

  Thanks so much for interviewing me – these were great questions!

Takaoka, Shannon EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW Candlewick (Teen None) $17.99 10, 13 ISBN: 978-1-5362-0776-7

What if memories could be transplanted along with a heart?

Before Bay Area 17-year-old Chloe collapsed while running and learned about her congenital heart defect, she was a competitive senior with her eyes set on college. Life post–heart transplant is completely different, and Chloe can’t seem to connect to her old life. Inexplicably drawn to taking up surfing, she finds herself falling for Kai, her enigmatic surf instructor. But she can’t ignore the constant, haunting nightmares and surreal, fragmented memories that inexplicably bombard her. A lifelong fan of science, and especially multiverse theories, Chloe finds herself hoping that cellular memory, the ability to store memories in cells outside the brain, is true. Because she’s almost 100% sure her anonymous heart donor gave her more than just an oxygen-pumping organ. What begins as a predictable rom-com veers into alternate/parallel universe science fiction, with each layer casting more doubt on Chloe’s reliability as a narrator. A slow start with repetitive exposition gives way to a page-turning finale. SF newbies may find the conclusion thought-provoking even if the puzzle pieces of Chloe and Kai’s relationship don’t always quite click into place. Chloe is White and Kai, who is from Hawaii, is biracial (Japanese/White).

Romance and quantum physics intertwine in this frothy introduction to multiverse SF. (Science fiction. 14-18)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Takaoka, Shannon: EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2020. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A632285486/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a63cc266. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020.

TAKAOKA, Shannon. Everything I Thought I Knew. 320p. Candlewick. Oct. 2020. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9781536207767.

Gr 9 Up--Chloe's senior year is everything she planned: cross-country team, extra-curriculars, and AP courses to ensure she gains entrance to one of her top schools. But she didn't plan to receive a heart transplant. Now instead of graduating with her best friend and academic rival, she is attending GED classes with people she would never have talked to. Drawn to the dark and dangerous Jane, Chloe ventures into a world of rule-breaking and limit testing. And she can't explain the strange memories--if they are real memories--that haunt her. There's also the man who was crying in her hospital room post-surgery, but the hospital swears there were no outside visitors. Is Chloe losing her mind? Could the memories belong to someone else? Part self-discovery, part scientific mystery, Takaoka weaves a story that keeps the pages turning and the heart stirring. Chloe must overcome a life-changing event while navigating changing friendships, newfound love, and her place within the world. She is forced to reassess the things she valued and realize that not every success in life is contingent on course schedules and college acceptance letters. This is a great choice for readers who seek heavier content, but may not be ready for older YA material. The thoughtful balance of self-discovery, humor, and realistic relationships will bring in fans of John Green and Nicola Yoon. VERDICT Readers looking for a good, cathartic cry will love Chloe's journey from losing everything she thought she was, to finding the person she was meant to be.--Carrie Finberg, South Park H.S., PA

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Source Citation
MLA 8th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Finberg, Carrie. "TAKAOKA, Shannon. Everything I Thought I Knew." School Library Journal, vol. 66, no. 7, July 2020, p. 69. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A629053961/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d661ba28. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020.

"Takaoka, Shannon: EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2020. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A632285486/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a63cc266. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020. Finberg, Carrie. "TAKAOKA, Shannon. Everything I Thought I Knew." School Library Journal, vol. 66, no. 7, July 2020, p. 69. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A629053961/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d661ba28. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020.

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