Available May 7th!!!
Bullies. No one likes a bully. When I started writing Dying for Devil’s Food and I knew Melanie Cooper was going to be confronted with the opportunity to face down her old nemeses, I had to think for the first time about why her school tormentors were they way they were. What made them so vicious and mean? This is Character Development 101 – figure out your character’s motivations because no one is a jerk for no reason. At least, I hope not.
Cassidy Havers and Dwight Pickard were the two students most responsible for Mel’s misery in high school. Cassidy nicknamed her “Melephant” and did everything she could to torture Mel about her weight, her looks, and her shyness. But why? Why would someone go out of their way to make another person so miserable?
I didn’t have much of a frame of reference for this because I was pretty lucky in school in that I can’t remember being bullied. Oh, sure, at six feet tall, I was teased just like the kid with the sticky out ears, the girl with the super thick glasses, and the boy who was so skinny he looked like he was made of string. But while I was teased for my height I never felt bullied, not like Mel did, so what made Cassidy so mean to her?
“Hurt people hurt people.” I read this sentence in a discussion about bullying awhile ago and it’s always stuck with me. It’s true, a person who is hurting will strike out and hurt other people. Knowing this, I thought long and hard about why Cassidy had wanted to hurt Mel so much back in high school. To my surprise, this added all new twists and turns to the plot that I hadn’t expected but was delighted to explore. I’d say more, but I don’t want to give away too much.
The other element of the story that surprised me was a surprise reconciliation with one of her former bullies. When one of her former tormentors grudgingly helps Mel track down the killer, it was an opportunity for the characters to discover each other beyond the persona of bully and victim. But after so much pain, could two people actually find friendship? Again, I can’t say too much but how does a person forgive someone for making them miserable during the most vulnerable years of their life? You’ll have to read the book to find out!
Here’s a longer description of Dying for Devil’s Food to whet your appetite: Melanie Cooper has zero interest in catering her fifteen-year high school reunion, but Angie insists it's only right that they bask in the success of Fairy Tale Cupcakes--and Mel's engagement to the delicious Joe DeLaura is the cherry on top!
Everything is going better than expected until Cassidy Havers, resident mean girl and Mel's high school nemesis, picks a fight. No longer willing to put up with Cassidy's bullying, Mel is ready to tell the former homecoming queen to shut her piehole and call it a night. But as Mel and Joe prepare to depart, Cassidy is found dead in the girl's bathroom, next to a note written in lipstick that points right to Mel--making her the prime suspect.
Now, Mel must follow the clues to find the real killer and keep her reputation from being frosted for a crime she didn't commit.
Everything is going better than expected until Cassidy Havers, resident mean girl and Mel's high school nemesis, picks a fight. No longer willing to put up with Cassidy's bullying, Mel is ready to tell the former homecoming queen to shut her piehole and call it a night. But as Mel and Joe prepare to depart, Cassidy is found dead in the girl's bathroom, next to a note written in lipstick that points right to Mel--making her the prime suspect.
Now, Mel must follow the clues to find the real killer and keep her reputation from being frosted for a crime she didn't commit.
How about you Reds and Readers, do you go to reunions? Were there bullies when you went to school? Do you think you can ever forgive a bully?
I must admit, I have yet to go to a high school reunion. Not because I don't want to, but I ended up 8 hours away from my high school, so it's hard to go back. And they always pick weekends that don't work well for me.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the new book. It's fabulous!
Thanks, Mark!!! Your review made my day!!!
DeleteCongratulations on the new book . . . it sounds wonderful.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don’t go to reunions. Oh, there certainly were bullies . . . I think you can forgive a bully, but it’s probably a lot easier after some time has passed . . . .
I was amazed at how the cliques seemed to fade over the years. Maturity and a sense of “we survived adolescence together” seems to take over.
DeleteWow! Who wouldn't want to read this book after your amazing description, Jen. Bullying is such an important subject and getting to root of why someone is bullying another is something we all would like an answer to. Oh, and that cover is to, well, die for.
ReplyDeleteI have gone to the past two reunions for high school, and they were both so much fun and actually life changing for me. I reconnected with some friends who are such positive forces in my life, and we get together between reunions, too. I've thought about the bully question, but I really can't remember any bullies when I was going to school. Well, there was the one neighbor kid who said he'd make another friend and I eat worms, but that never happened, and his sister told me her dog was better than mine, which he wasn't. I grew up in a small community, and at that time, back before electricity, it seemed we all looked out for one another.
Eating worms - that is so childhood, isn’t it? Glad it didn’t happen!
DeleteI love the cupcake mysteries, and this one sounds particularly delicious! Can't wait to read it.
ReplyDeleteI was bullied by a couple of girls--separately--when I moved to a new elementary school. Looking back, I think both did what they did because they saw my presence as a challenge to their own social standing. Each was the leader of her own clique, and a "smart girl." I came in out of nowhere, a bona fide brainiac and "weird" kid, with no interest in paying homage to either of them, so they tried to bully me into line. I talked to my mother, who talked to my teacher and the school principal about one of them, and she left me alone. In later years I learned that she continued to have anger issues and the problems that came with them into high school. I confronted the other one myself, and we eventually became close friends. My rule of thumb nowadays is to push back when a bully pushes me. Most of them back down and go looking for an easier target.
Gigi, I’m so glad you were able to handle it. Bullies are usually, as you said, looking for a target for their anger.
DeleteCongrats on the release, Jenn!
ReplyDeleteOne girl was mean to me for reasons I never understood. Next year is our half-century reunion (gulp). If any of my former classmates gets it together (Pasadena area of California) to plan a gathering, I've decided to ask her about it. She probably doesn't even remember...
Wouldn’t that be something after all these years? Do let us know - looks like a book idea in the making to me!
DeleteCongrats on the new book Jenn!
ReplyDeleteI don't go to reunions. I have some people that I talk to from high school but other than that I have no interest in reconnecting with people I didn't really connect with back then in the first place.
Yes there were bullies in high school.
As for forgiving, I know that most people think forgive and forget. I don't necessarily subscribe to that. Sometimes, remember and hold a grudge is a far more realistic notion. I don't mean actively or anything because these people might not be in your life now. However, I don't think you have to feel like you have to accept their friend request on Facebook just because you happened to be part of the same graduating class either. I don't look back with rose-colored glasses.
I think that’s wise, Jay. Some people really don’t grow and change. I’m a big believer in healthy boundaries.
DeleteOr, as a friend once put it, "Forgive your enemy, but remember the SOB's name."
DeleteJenn, the new book sounds terrific. Congratulations!! Your books are always so much fun, but also ABOUT something important.
ReplyDeleteWe've all experienced 'mean girls' ... though mostly I flew under their radar and was ignored. The bullying I experienced was from within my family. The great thing about being a writer is that the bad things that happened to you are grist for good storytelling.
I DID go to my last reunion and found that my classmates seemed to be perfectly fine people. Nice, actually. As a teenager I was too wrapped up in my own drama to connect.
Teen drama - living it right now! This, too, shall pass :) I had a cousin who was a bully - needless to say we’re no longer in touch. Family bullies are the worst.
DeleteCongrats Jenn! This sounds like a great story. I don't remember bullies in high school, but I do remember a situation in middle school that I'll always feel badly about not reporting. We had one blind boy and somehow he was put up to pretending he could grope women because he couldn't see. So he'd wander through the halls with his hands out laughing and reaching. It was awful, especially for him. I can't remember if anyone ever put a stop to it, but we all should have...
ReplyDeleteThere's a job for Mel! Congrats and looking forward to reading the new book!
Oh, the things peer pressure can do...SMH. Hopefully, the coming generations will do better.
DeleteCongratulations on your new release! Bullies, mean girls, cliques. I still have flashbacks to the horror of the junior high cafeteria when I'm looking for a seat at a luncheon or dinner.
ReplyDeleteOh, that’s the worst. The year we moved (I was 9) scarred me for life!
DeleteI never experienced bullying, despite being the new kid six times during my school years. I was always pretty confident (or at least self-sufficient) so that may have insulated me. It didn't hurt that my second high school was at the time one of the largest in NY State. There was literally a tribe for anyone and everyone, so much less need to jockey for position.
ReplyDeleteJenn, I'm so excited for your new book!
Julia, that helps! That was among the reasons I decided to go to a university with 30,000 students.
DeleteDiana
Thanks, Julia! My school was average in size (1200 kids) so there were plenty of groups to choose from but you still knew most of the kids.
DeleteWell, it’s interesting, because I didn’t think of it as bullying. It’s just that… Nobody liked me, and they made that clear. I was voted “most individual” and they put my picture in the school paper upside down to show how weird I was. It was not anyone’s finest hour.
ReplyDeleteI think it made me stronger, though, and I went to my high school reunion with much happy anticipation. Since I turned out OK :-)
Jenn—Hurray!!! This book sounds absolutely terrific. And I know it will connect with a lot of people… Such an important topic, and so wise of you to tackle it in this way! Yay
Hank, this makes me want to go back in time and be your friend. The girls you went to school with missed out.
DeleteHank - That may be the most passive aggressive thing I’ve ever heard! I’m with Karen - we should go back in time and be a proper squad!
DeleteI'm definitely in with the Hank's friend squad. It's so weird to think of you that way Hank, since everyone adores you now!
DeleteHank, I can't imagine this! I'll bet those girls were just jealous because they knew you would be successful!
DeleteOh, I love this! YEAH. Let's go back and SHOW THEM!! Thank you! I am smiling just thinking about you all.
DeleteAnd Debs, nope, good answer, and I am very grateful, xoxoo but they just thought I was weird.
Weird kids, unite, Hank! I was one, too.
DeleteYay--love being with you all!
DeleteCongrats on the new book, Jenn.
ReplyDeleteI went to my 10-year high school reunion. It was...interesting. Especially to see how different the "popular" kids' memories differed from my own. I was bullied a bit, but it was tame compared to what goes on these days.
The “popular kids” - I always feel sorry for them in the sense that most of them peak in high school - how sad.
DeleteI always thought that, too, Jenn. Isn't it interesting? High school is NOT where you want to have your biggest success!!
DeleteJen, any book that has chocolate in it has my name written all over it!
ReplyDeleteI was bullied, bigtime, in fifth grade, by a classmate, and then the nun who was our teacher amplified the bullying, humiliating me in class. I learned from that experience that I had to be my own advocate, because only one friend stood up for me that day, out of a class of nearly 50. My mother never once walked into our school, and would never in a million years have intervened on my behalf: "you must have done something to deserve it". So, thanks for that. But most parents didn't do such things, back then, at least not in my hometown or experience.
Our 50th high school reunion is coming up, and the bully will no doubt be there; she usually attends all the gatherings, since she still lives in our hometown. I've had occasion to see her a few times when I've gone to get-togethers (I've attended most of our reunions), and she has not changed a bit. She is still a Mean Girl. I just avoid her. Oddly enough, she avoids me, too.
Other friends, women I really want to see and spend time with, refuse to attend reunions, saying it's too painful, still. I say get over high school. It was a long time ago (for me, anyway), and I've had a wonderful and full life since then. What didn't kill me made me way stronger, baby. If I avoided seeing the other 300 people we went to school with because of that one person, well, she would win, wouldn't she? And I refuse to allow her that power.
Good for you, Karen! My best friend refuses to go back - I had no idea she hated it ( major senior heartbreak) so much!
DeleteCongratulations on your new book Jenn !
ReplyDeleteIt is not the first time that I read about réunions here and it seems to me that they are much more popular in the USA than in Quebec. I must say that I moved out shortly after college and even if I was not bullied , I didn't have many friends , too shy.
So I never received an invitation and around me I don't know many persons who were invited or went to a reunion.
Interesting! I’ll have to ask my Nova Scotian friends if it’s a thing there or not!
DeleteCongratulations and happy book birthday! Great post! Your post about bullies reminded me of a novel about a young man who was bullied by a bully who was gunning for him. Turned out that they were half brothers though the young man never knew before he was killed in an "accident".
ReplyDeleteRegarding reunions, I have been to my college reunion. Unfortunately, my high school class never had a reunion after the 10th reunion (I was living abroad and could not make it). The president of the senior class was a promising African American and he was engaged to marry the love of his life. She died in an accident and he decided to kill himself. He was a wonderful person. Always kind to others.
Regarding bullies, I wonder if Cassidy was addicted to drugs before she was born. When I was a kid, the bullies often were born to mothers on drugs. I remember being bitten on the first day of kindergarten and I was whisked away to a Catholic school after that. I remember my teacher at the Catholic school never allowed bullying! I remember that if any child bullied another child, then the bully would get a time out! The worst thing you can do to a deaf child is to make them stand in the corner and stare at blank walls!
Since the 2016 election, there have been an epidemic of bullying out there. For example, I was on Facebook yesterday and many of us were so excited about the royal baby. This bully said mean things about the Duchess of Sussex so I blocked that person.
Yes, I could forgive a bully, though I highly doubt that I could trust that person again.
Diana
I’m so sorry about your class President - such a tragic loss. Oh, the times we are living in - the bullying - what gets me is that it’s adults! The teens I know would never behave the way our public figures do - it’s crazy!!!
DeleteThank you. Yes, it is such a tragic loss. Agreed it is crazy about how a few of our public figures behave and unfortunately, they get the most media attention! The teens I know behave better than that! I try to be kind to others.
DeleteCongrats on your book birthday, Jenn! Some days I find myself dying for chocolate.... High school reunions--I've been to two in the past 40+ years and I find that sufficient. I'm still friends with several of my classmates, but we don't need a reunion to keep in touch. And as for bullies--another plague I don't think will ever go away.
ReplyDeleteSadly, you’re right. Plague is the perfect word for bullying. Sigh.
DeleteShalom Reds and fans. Jenn, congrats on the book. Being diabetic I am not supposed to eat cupcakes but I do when the opportunity presents itself. I actually have a friend who I haven’t seen in years who had started a cupcake business. We used to be neighbors but I moved a little distance away and I haven’t kept up with her and I don’t know how the business went for her.
ReplyDeleteI was bullied a few times before the seventh grade. Nothing ongoing and continuing. Just sort of random occurrences. I remember once being challenged to a fist fight, I was pushed into a row of bushes with thorns. I suffered a small cut on my inside right wrist. To this day, going on sixty years later, I still remember his name and I bear the scar.
Over the years, I never kept up with any of my high school friends. Facebook sort of changed that about 10 years ago. Most of my close friends weren’t on any social media sites but many other classmates were there. I’ve skipped the several reunions in these past ten years both because of expense and trouble. However, in the last year, someone organized an all classes reunion (from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. It was held on the boardwalk of the beach where we grew up and the only cost was transportation and the sandwich shop food which we ordered when we got there. I think about 150 people turned up and they are repeating the event at the end of summer this year. It was the first time that I had taken the subway out to our old neighborhood since I was a teenager. I didn’t really know anyone. A few people remembered me. Most of us are late middle-aged (or older). Mostly white. (Segregation is still a fact of social life in New York City.) They did hire a band. I don’t think they were paid a lot of money. The restaurant might have picked up the tab for that. I don’t drink alcohol but the cash bar was very busy. It is being organized again this year in September and I expect the turnout will at least double.
Hi, David, I love the casual seaside get together! My high school reunions (I haven't attended one yet) seem to be held out of town, which I don't understand. I want to go home not somewhere else. You know?
ReplyDeleteJenn, conrats! LOVE the cover, love the concept for the book (mine is on the way!), and I'm wondering if, when you conceived this book, you were thinking about the plague of adult bullying that seems to have overtaken us...
ReplyDeleteI don't remember being specifically bullied, but I certainly never felt popular, either. I didn't have an official high school graduating class (having dropped out my junior year) but I have been to one reunion--my fourteenth. Even then I remember thinking how old the popular girls looked! I have just realized that next year will be my 50th--yikes, how is that even possible!!!! I do keep up with a couple of primary school friends on Facebook, and my third grade best friend is still my bestie, lo all these many years later, and I count that as one of the blessings of my life.
I remember being bullied one time and I still have no idea why, other than someone was being mean. I used to like to go to the rollerskating rink and an older (ninth grade to my seventh) told me she would beat me up if I went there again. So I stopped going. I told my granddaughter about this recently and she asked me if I told anyone, like an adult. No, it never even occurred to me at the time. I'm not even sure I told a friend but I thought that girl was very strange making a threat like that so I decided to stay away from her as much as I could. Apparently not going skating wasn't that big a deal.
ReplyDeleteI was about to say I'd never been bullied and then a couple of incidents popped out of my brain, the section labelled ancient history. But neither incidents were related to school. When I was about 5 Mom went to a house to visit some lady, I have no idea who. I was supposed to play with her little girl who was around my age. I don't think I knew her from school. Anyway an exorcist needed to work on this kid. I vaguely remember she tried to lock me in a closet. I definitely remember her trying to whip me with a fishing pole. Fortunately Mom checked on us and we left. Never saw that girl again. Years later in junior high there was a boy my age who liked to hang out on the wooden pedestrian bridge over the ditch at the end of our street. He would call me names (none of which I understood, being totally ignorant). I told my big brother, he confronted this kid, and it never happened again. As for reunions, I've been to just one. It was dismal. I attended 3 different high schools (grades 10-12); a public HS I loved in Houston; a public all-girls HS in Metairie, LA (their answer to integration), and a private Episcopal school in Metairie for my senior year. It was all just weird. I went from a class of 900+ to only girls to a senior class of 60.Very strange. I've lost touch with everyone in Houston, although that is the reunion I went to. I chatted with a few people I had known slightly; saw a woman I had been friends with until she got too big for her pants. Unfortunately she hadn't changed. Anyway I swore off reunions. None of my old friends had shown up. As for Metairie, I used to hear from the private school but they were looking for donations. I have one friend from those days. She lives in Atlanta now and I did get to spend some time with her several years ago. She is one of those rare friends that you can pick right up again with as though no time has passed.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your new release!
ReplyDeleteI live across the country from where I grew up & so have never been to any of my own class reunions. I have been to some of my parents' reunions tho. They went to a high school in a really small town, so a number of their reunions were family friendly barbecues.
I didn't enjoy school, certainly wasn't popular but had a good group of friends. The teachers were all horrible old women and I was labeled a bit of a trouble maker because I spoke up if a teacher was being mean to a student. But I ended up as a prefect and I got into a top university. So ha ha. I've never been back but I do meet up with college friends every 2 years
ReplyDeleteA girl used to say mean things and flick milk at me in cafeteria study hall. She stepped on my heel going back to home room, and I kicked her and flew to my home room. She never bothered me again.
ReplyDeleteI didn't go to my high school reunions at first, partly because I was voted the shiest girl in my yearbook, and partly because my mother had bad experiences at some of her reunions. However, a classmate who goes to my church, talked me into going to the last two, and I really enjoyed them. Everyone talked to everyone. I only knew people who were in my classes or from my neighborhood but that didn't matter. Our 50th is coming up this August.