L asked Michelle Hodkin:

How did you come across the Jungian Archetypes, and how did it become the basis of your book?

Michelle Hodkin I can't actually remember the first time I learned about them--I think it might've been in an English class when the teacher was talking about mythology?

The idea that there could be a reality-based explanation for myths fascinated me, and made me interested in Jung's ideas about the collective unconscious and archetypal figures and motifs. That led to an interest in Freud and psychology in general, and I thought it would be cool to take what seems like a straightforward young adult paradigm--misfit girl meets mysterious boy--and go really deep with it, to the point where I made psychological profiles of each of the characters in the books with the help of a psychologist. I wanted the motivations of Noah and Mara and the other characters to feel real to readers, so I borrowed them from real life.

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