Interview & Giveaway with Bethany Ramos!

So today is the last day on my stop of the 5 Stages of Grief Tour *Sniff* It has been so much fun exploring the world of Chick Lit! For today's post, I have Bethany here on the blog to tell you all a little bit more about herself, her life, and her book. So please enjoy!

Hi Bethany! SO great to have you on the blog! So tell me a little about yourself! What got you into writing? How long have you been writing? What got you into writing? That sort of thing :)
Thank you very much for having me! I have been a freelance writer for three years, which is something that I decided to pursue kind of randomly. I was working as an aesthetician in the beauty industry and decided that I wanted to start beauty blogging, and it all spiraled from there. I wrote my first novel over a year ago.

That's great! So why Chick Lit? What draws you to the genre?
As a reader, I have always loved chick lit. And I'm also a fan of trashy reality TV. :-) So basically, I love anything that is fun, light, and witty.

Haha, so true. Every girl needs her trashy t-v/magazines/etc. So do you write about actual people and experiences that you've had or do you just make it up off the top of your head?
In 5 Stages of Grief, I definitely draw from actual people and real life experiences. If anyone who knows me has read the book, then they have probably recognized quite a few stories in the plot. But in my next book that I just finished,Adventure to Love, I wrote more about the characters that didn't come from real life.

Ha I'd like to meet the crazy people in your life then! So when you write, are you a plotster or a pantster?
Plotster! I work much better if I can nail down a basic plot outline in advance, even though it doesn't necessarily mean I have to stick to it.

So in 5 Stages of Grief,yYou write about some extraordinarily bad dates that Danielle has to go through. Any basis to those dates? What's the WORST date you've ever been on?
Oh, yes, all of those dates were semi-true! I have to say that the worst date I have ever been on was similar to the date with Ryan in the book, where my date kept asking me rehearsed questions, like if I preferred cats to dogs and how I like to unwind after a long day of work. Yikes!

Bleh...I can't imagine dating someone that boring! He had me snoring and I wasn't even on the date! lol..Sp do you have any online dating experience? If so, how did that go? Hopefully it worked out better than poor Danielle's dates did :)
I actually don't have online dating experience because I reconnected with my best friend from high school, who is now my husband, after a long, long string of bad dates. But I always say that if I weren't married, I would definitely go for online dating. I have seen quite a few friends happily find a good match online.

Aww! Well congrats for the two of you! Not to cause any trouble, but what would you do if YOU found out your dead husband had been cheating? Stalk the mistress? Dig up the cheater's body and throw it off a cliff? Drown your sorrows in wine or Tequila?
That's a great question! I would probably go more with drowning my sorrows in Bailey's, and then I'd obsess about it so much that I would be forced to stalk her!

Haha! Me too girl, me too...only I'd probably go for something stronger than Bailey's! Then get into trouble because sloshed me would probably get caught stalking her! Thanks so much for joining me and I really loved 5 Stages of Grief! I can't wait to read anything else of yours that comes my way!
Thank you very much, and I'm glad that you enjoyed it! I appreciate your review. :-)


That was Bethany Ramos y'all! She's a great person and I hope you all have had an awesome time getting to know her a little bit and have enjoyed my stops on the tour. If you haven't seen my review of 5 Stages of Grief or checked out Bethany's Guest Post all about Internet Dating you should definitely scroll down a few posts. Make sure to check out the other stops along the way to get even more info and exerpts from the book and all sorts of other things.

Does 5 Stages of Grief sound like something you would love to get your hands on? Fabulous! I am giving away 1 paperback copy of 5 Stages of Grief by Bethany Ramos! To enter just fill out the Rafflecopter below!


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Bethany Ramos Tour: Guest Post- Internet Dating

Hey Everyone! Welcome back to Day Two of my stop on the tour of 5 Stages of Grief by Bethany Ramos! In her novel, Bethany has her characters go on several dates with guys they've met on the internet. It made me kind of curious about finding love on-line...since I am in college and have more guys than I know what to do with, I have never tried the online route...but I asked Bethany to tell me a little bit about it...you know...just in case :) lol
                                                  Pros and Cons of Internet Dating

 Today, almost everything can be done online, including meeting that special someone. In my chick lit novel 5 Stages of Grief, I explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of the world of online dating.

Whether people you know are willing to admit it or not, the odds are that a large majority of your friends and family members have dabbled in the online dating pool and may have even met their significant other online.

So is Internet dating the right choice for you? Before you take the plunge into the virtual dating realm, it helps to explore the advantages and disadvantages:

Pros of Online Dating

1.    Convenient. You can’t beat the fact that you can set up an online profile on a dating website from the comfort of your own home and then have potential matches sent to you. You don’t have to comb your hair, listen to bad pickup lines, or spend the entire evening at a bar looking for a date.What’s not to love?

2.    Advanced search results. Is it possible to meet someone out and about and screen them in advance to see if they’re the right candidate for a date? Not really. But on a dating website, you can set up your search criteria to screen out people that you would never dream of dating, like much older men, guys without a job, or people who don’t share your interests.

3.    Make a quick connection. After you’ve determined that a person is a potential match, you can chat with them or exchange a few e-mails to see if your personalities click. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily indicate physical chemistry, but it will give you a quick look into how well you interact with a potential date… before you take the risk of meeting them in public.

Cons of Online Dating

1.    Potential safety issue. If you’re interested in online dating, make sure that you are using a reputable website that requires a membership and screening process. And if you decide to go on a date, always, always tell a friend or family member where and when you are going so that they have your back.

2.    Less traditional. There are still some of us that are hooked on the romantic movie scenario. Boy sees girl, their eyes meet across a crowded room, and it’s love at first sight. While that is romantic and magical, it’s also very rare. And when you explore the world of online dating, you won’t be attracted to a person based on their physical appeal first of all. That will come later.

3.    It’s not free. While there are free dating sites, those that require a membership may have a better screening process with better candidates. So you do have to be willing to pay a monthly membership fee if you want to check out the “cream of the crop”.

Cool. :) That's good to know if I ever run out of random boys who hit on me at clubs or what not. I'm actually terrified of internet dating. I would feel so embarrassed if I found someone I know! Or what if I meet the next Craigslist killer? *shudders* Oh well... I guess I will try extra hard to meet the man of my dreams while I'm still in school. I work at Starbucks so I'll just write my number on all the hot guy's cups...tehehe

Review: Five Stages of Grief by Bethany Ramos

Hi my lovely followers! I know you are all looking forward to Steampunky goodness, and believe me, you will have tons of it this month. But before we get into all that clockwork quirkiness, It's time for something entirely different. lol. Today, I have the pleasure to host author Bethany Ramos! She is touring her book 5 Stages of Grief and the tour will be stopping here for the next three days! Yay! If you can't tell, 5 Stages of Grief isn't usually what I read...but hey, I should step out of the box more often because it was great!

Title: Five Stages of Grief
Author: Bethany Ramos
Series: N/A
Pages:
Publisher: Black Opal Books
Format: Paperback
Genre: Chick Lit
Source: Provided by author for touring purposes

Synopsis:
Danielle thinks that the worst is behind her, but she could't have been more wrong. As a beauty editor of Denver's hot new High Life magazine, Danielle Starkey didn't have becoming a widow on her to-do list. Then nine months after her husband's death, she discovers he booked a vacation with another woman. Suddenly, Danielle sees Adam's death in a whole new light and has to get over it - for the second time.Hit with the truth when she least expects it, Danielle brings a fresh, funny, and honest approach to the grieving process as she struggles through online dating, stalking her dead husband's mistress, and, hopefully, finding the man of her dreams. With her stubborn and sassy best friend April by her side. Danielle refuses to let sleeping dogs lie. Will she finally face the truth about herself and her marriage? Or will she succumb to one of the five stages of grief?

My Review:
I am not normally a big Chick-Lit reader. A lot of it is way too fluffy for me and I just kind of feel a little ditsy and idiotic while reading it. Of course...sometimes you just need a bit of fluff to keep you from going insane. We can't all read classics and deep intellectual essays all the time. Sometimes you just want something pink and girly and ridiculous...which is probably why actresses like Katherine Heigl and Kate Hudson still have jobs. Regardless...like a pint of Ben and Jerry's, sometimes you crave things that aren't that good for you, and I just had to take up Bethany's offer when she was looking to tour her new book The 5 Stages of Grief. And Lo and Behold! This wasn't just some fluffy, candy-coated bit of sugar-lit like I thought it would be! True, there's a lot of girly-ness, and Cosmo reading, and general drunk-girl-banter...but it still had depth, life, and this great optimism about getting over yourself that I found really refreshing.

This book provides a whole new twist to the cheating husband story. The main character Danielle is struggling through the grief that her husband died a terrible and early death at the age of 29, when she is blindsided by finding out that he wasn't such a good guy at all. In fact, he had a mistress on the side, even though they'd only been married for 3 years! The total arse! Now she has to deal with the conflicting emotions of grief, anger, and confusion...all while stalking his mistress and attempting date after date with awkward or terrifying Internet matches...

I found Danielle to be extremely likable and she's so relateable! It's honestly like someone made a carbon cut-out of me, aged her about 10 years, and then just plopped her down in Denver. I swear, the way that Danielle acted and spoke and even obsessed about reality TV was like Bethany was spying on me and just wrote my real life on paper. Her voice is utterly original and full of personality. There is no challenge whatsoever to get that movie going in your head when she's narrating. She definitely channels someone like Carrie from Sex and the City or The thing I liked most about her was that she wasn't some annoying, whiny twit that shows up in a lot of Chick-Lit books. She was smart, career driven, and has a tendency to go off the deep end sometimes. All in all, she was hilarious and nice and made you empathize with her. 

I give 5 Stages of Grief 4 out of 5 Keys!! Like I said, I am normally  not a big reader of Chick Lit. Sometimes it makes me feel like I am wasting my time, or that by reading it, I am becoming progressively stupider until I have the IQ of a sponge. However, 5 Stages of Grief has gotten me to reassess my concept of Chick Lit. Sure it's still sugary sweet and a tad fluffy...but...even though you might not be doing mental jumping jacks when you read it doesn't make it bad. It makes it an enjoyable and hilarious insight into the mind of the modern woman. After all...most of us aren't intellectual geniuses, feminists or brain surgeons. We're normal everyday girls...we like our chocolate, trashy magazines, and our wine...and there's nothing wrong with that. I liked this book so much that I am considering opening myself up to even more opportunities to read Chick Lit in the future, instead of only once in a great while. Yay for broadening my reading! :)