UKYA Blog Tour: Chatting With C.J. Skuse

The UKYA blog tour has been created by the lovely Lucy at Queen of Contemporary who's dedicated a whole month to celebrating UKYA with the help of other book bloggers across the UK. Today I'm getting my fangirl on as I'm delighted to have one of my favourite UKYA authors C.J. Skuse (Pretty Bad Things, Rockoholic and Dead Romantic) on the blog chatting about her books as well as the UKYA genre. C.J writes hilarious contemporary stories with a flare for the wacky and strange (in a good way). If you're looking for a fun read with lovable characters I couldn't recommend her books more.

 Chatting With C.J

Hi C.J, thanks for stopping by the blog today! I love your books and I’m trying not to fangirl too hard at the fact that you’re on my little corner of the internet. 

In the theme of the UKYA blog tour I’ve decided to include some UKYA related questions as well as some general ones... 

General Questions: 
1.) Why do you write Young Adult novels as opposed to books for Adults?
I started writing for teens when I was a teen myself and it’s just something that’s sort of stuck with me. Whenever I conjure up a new character, they’re always the age I was when I began to write seriously - seventeen.
2.) Out of all of your characters which are you most like?
The main characters in all of my books contain a slice of me. They are kind of like my Horcruxes; the different chunks of my soul. Paisley in Pretty Bad Things is Angry Me on a very bad day. Jody from Rockoholic is Obsessive Me. She has the same fixations, same attitude to most things and she is probably the one who most resembles me in my day-to-day life. Camille in Dead Romantic is Romantic Me. The next two characters in the two books I’m currently writing represent the Sensible Me and the Childish Me.
3.) Where do you get your story ideas from?
Anywhere and everywhere. Conversations, films, books, people I meet. I fixate on subjects and want to know more about them, so I research them to death and want to build books around them, like when I was writing PBT it was Hansel and Gretel and Bonnie and Clyde. With Rocko, it was Stephen King, rock stars and The Rocky Horror Show. For Dead Romantic it was teenage graverobbers and Herbert West: Reanimator. At the moment I’m fixating on imaginary friends, riots and mythical beasts.
4.) Describe your books in three words.
Unbelievably fucking cool

UKYA Themed Questions:
1.) What is the best UKYA book that you’ve read this year? 
 The Savages by Matt Whyman.
2.) Who are your favourite UKYA authors?
 Lucy Christopher, Rachel Ward, Melvin Burgess, Kevin Brooks, Malorie Blackman, Holly Bourne, Holly Smale, David Massey, Tabitha Suzuma, Patrick Ness. The UK has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to top quality YA fiction.
3.) What would you like to see more of in UKYA?
Quality stand alone fiction that speaks to real contemporary teens
4.) What upcoming UKYA books are you most looking forward to reading?
Monster and Sam and Delilah, both by C.J. Skuse funnily enough ; )

Thanks for chatting with us C.J! I love that your characters are Horcruxes of yourself. You obviously have excellent taste in UKYA authors, and I'm really looking forward to Monster and Sam and Delilah!

For more from C.J follow her on Twitter and check out Pretty Bad Things, Rockoholic and Dead Romantic on Goodreads.

I'd love to know what your favourite UKYA book of 2013 is? What upcoming UKYA books are you excited to read in 2014? And what would you like to see more of in UKYA?