Every six months or so for the past decade, I’d randomly type ‘Elissa Schappell’ into Amazon’s search bar and cross my fingers. I kept hoping and hoping that she had released a book that some how slipped by me. I fell in love so hard with her collection of linked short stories Use Me that I longed for something else.

When I spied Blueprints for Building Better Girls on some Fall 2011 release list, I bounced in my chair, fist pumping like a member of the Jersey Shore. I was excited.

I marched right into this collection of interlinked stories with nary a worry. Not once did it cross my mind that this book would be disappointing. I didn’t entertain the idea that maybe this wouldn’t live up to my memories of Use Me. I knew, knew that Elissa Schappell would deliver the goods.

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