And the winner is...

Amanda! Who evidently never drove in the southern part of Indiana,where I'm from. Once you get to Bloomington you get hills, and past that the landscape is filled with mini-mountains (or really big hills) sometimes called "knobs." There's even skiing! So contrary to popular belief, Indiana is not all flat and boring. Just, most of it is.

I have to say though, while you guys did say some v.nice things, there are even more truly amazing things about Indiana that weren't mentioned. Some of these facts beat the pants off of that Dr. Jones you guys kept mentioning. For instance #29: Peru, Indiana was once known as the circus capital of the United States. Lots of actually cool famous people are from Indiana or did stuff in Indiana. Kurt Vonnegut and Charles M. Schulz were from Indiana. So was Orville Redenbacher (who my parents once met in a hotel elevator.)A metric ton of astronauts started in the Hoosier state. Let's not forget about my favorite sex researcher, and yours, Alfred Kinsey. What I'm saying here is; let's be honest about Dr. Jones, that last Crystal Skull movie wasn't even all that great!

Now that you've all been schooled in Hoosier pride, and the winner has been announced, this concludes my first contest. Thank you everyone who participated, or even thought about participating but couldn't think of anything to say about Indiana.
Many more contests to come, and soon! Check back next week, because if things go well, I might have a signed book to give away!

Contested: Hoosier Pride.

Are y'all ready for this?
Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani



This is what it looks like when a book disparages my homeland and makes me too angry to finish. Each slur against Indiana made me angrier and angrier until finally there was a comment about a teacher not possibly being able to buy leopard print Sketchers in Indiana because they were too cool. (SKETCHERS? REALLY A-TRIG? Not only have I owned similar shoes (and numerous pairs of Sketchers) but I bought them all at reasonable prices and tax rates because I got them in Indiana!)

I gave this book more than enough chances, we are almost to Thanksgiving in the school year and still the Viola has little to nothing good to say about Indiana and so I'm done. I give up, and you get to reap the benefits of my ex-pat Hoosier pride.


You get to participate in my first ever book give-away contest to win this ARC! I think that my state-bias might be clouding my vision to the rest of the story. Especially since I rather liked Big Stone Gap. So, I'm ready to give this ARC on to someone else to read and review. To win this contest write a comment on this post filled with Hoosier love. By which I mean, it must state at least one reason why Indiana is great (or at least, not nearly so bad as A-Trig is making it out to be.) It can be something you experienced, heard about, learned in school, whateva. I will RANDOMLY choose a winner from the comments. Only one comment per person please.

I know my home state has flaws and parts of it smell funny. I know there are a lot of rednecks (so many that some in St. Louis have replaced the word for redneck with "Hoosier.")But, I also know that some awesome people have come from there, spent time there, or were born there (and no, I'm not even including just generally famous people like John Mellencamp or Dan Quayle in that list, but I am looking at you Will Shortz.)

Many of my friends and all of my immediate family live there, and I feel like many of the qualities I have that I actually like about myself come from being raised there and no where else in the world. So let's hear it for the Crossroads of America, and me passing this not even released yet book onto someone who can appreciate it more than I'm capable. The contest ends Monday, August 3rd at 7pm (EST)Indiana Time (well, most of Indiana time!) Don't forget to leave your email address or some other way for me to contact you if you've won!I'll also be posting the winner Monday night.
Commence to commenting!