'Why My Love Life Sucks' by Shevi Arnold Tour-Playlist and Giveaway

So I’ve been asked to come up with 10 songs to mend a geek’s broken heart. I thought about it long and hard. I came up blank.

You see, there’s a contradiction between being a geek and breakup songs.

Being a geek is about love. It’s about being so in love with something that you feel the need to shout it from the rooftops, and you don’t care what anyone else thinks. You want Doctor Who to pick you as his next companion. You want to tell Hans Solo, “I love you,” and you want him to reply, “I know.” You want to be Link rescuing Zelda. You want to be chosen to join Starfleet or the Avengers. You want to fly on the Serenity with Captain Mal. You’re still hoping for your invitation to Hogwarts. It doesn’t really matter what it is you love. What makes you a geek is that you geeking LOVE it. That thing makes you happy just to daydream about it.

Breakup songs aren’t about love. They’re about bad feelings. They’re about sadness and anger and jealousy and the end of love.

So how could there possibly be a breakup song for geeks?

And it’s not that geeks don’t experience breakups. Of course, we do. And we have the thing we geeking love to console us.  

Take me, for example. I would eat my favorite ice cream, Godiva Dark Belgian Chocolate, and watch my favorite movie, The Princess Bride, about a dozen times. And at about the ninth or tenth time I would realize there’s a Westley out there waiting for his Buttercup, and I am that Buttercup.  

I could give you a list of soundtracks you could listen to, but I don’t think that would really mend a broken heart. Not unless the thing you’re geeky about is soundtracks, in which case, cool.

So instead I’m going to give you the unofficial soundtrack for my funny, geek-centric YA novel: Why My Love Life Sucks. You see, I love all kinds of storytelling, including movies and TV shows, and I sometimes envision my stories in those mediums--with soundtracks and everything.

So here are ten of the songs I hear when I think of certain scenes and characters from the book. Enjoy!

Why My Love Life Sucks soundtrack to the TV version in my brain:

Intro: “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” by Eric Idle (Monty Python)

Chapter one: “Breakeven” by The Script.

Chapter three (Amber): “She’s So High Above Me” by Tal Bachman

Chapter three: “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” (Gonzo’s Song from The Muppet Movie, with clips from Life on Mars, cover version by Paula Jarvis)

Chapter four: “Crazy” by Seal

Chapter five: “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas (Oprah show flash-mob version)

Chapter 10: “Galaxies” by Owl City

Chapter 12: “D & D” by Stephen Lynch

Chapter 16: “Fix You” by Coldplay

Epilogue: “May It Be” by Enya from The Lord of the Rings soundtrack

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GHBT: Why My Love Life Sucks- Review

Why My Love Life Sucks

The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer Book #1

Shevi Arnold

Published: March 23, 2010

Seventeen-year-old Gilbert Garfinkle is the ultimate tech geek. He likes to take apart, figure out, and fix things, and he dreams of someday fixing the world. But now his own life has been taken apart by the one thing he'll never be able to figure out. Her name is Amber, and she's a gorgeous girl with a killer smile who wants to turn him into her platonic BFF--literally forever! It's the ultimate geek's ultimate nightmare, and it leaves Gilbert asking life's ultimate question: "Why me?" 

Why My Love Life Sucks is a funny novel about geeks, girls, gadgets, vampires, and the start of a most unlikely friendship. It's the first book in The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, the series that proves it takes the ultimate geek to be the ultimate hero.

Why My Love Life Sucks is the first book in The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer Series by Shevi Arnold. When I'd first read the summary for this book, I was intrigued. A geek, for once! Lately all the boys (YA to Erotica) in books are the bad boy, dangerous, have tattoos and motorcycles and while yes, I do love me some bad boys, I feel the nice guys get forgotten. And I do love me a funny guy.

While I was interested, though, I honestly didn't expect to like this book nearly as much as I did. The characters had a surprising amount of story and the novel wasn't rushed or boring. I do find, though, that the story did drag in some parts. And personally (this is my personal opinion-- Doesn't mean the book is bad at all) I prefer more drama. And tears. Haha.

Overall, very good, funny novel :)

My Rating:

I've always been super geeky about comedy, fantasy and science fiction. 

When I was little, I'd take them apart and analyze them, kind of like what Gilbert Garfinkle--the hero of Why My Love Life Sucks--does with electronics. This continued into my college years, when I majored in English Literature and Theater Studies. 

For twelve years I worked in magazines and newspapers as an editorial cartoonist, illustrator, editor, arts-and-entertainment writer (specializing in children's entertainment and, of course, comedy), and a consumer columnist. 

My last job was at the Jerusalem Post, but I had to quit when my family decided to move to New Jersey to pursue better education options for my autistic son. 

This was in February 2001. Since then I've written 40 picture books and seven novels for kids and teens, four of which I've indie published. I was an ABNA quarterfinalist with Why My Love Life Sucks, and I won third place in SmartWriter's Write It Now contest in the the YA category (which was judged by Alex Flinn, the author of Beastly) for my romantic, YA ghost story, Ride of Your Life. 

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