Kristen asked Jennifer Weiner:

Hi Jennifer, I have always enjoyed your characters back in the 70's and 80's, they relate to my own childhood well. What books and authors did you love in your growing up years?

Jennifer Weiner I was a big reader growing up. I read a lot of YA books – everything by Judy Blume and Paula Danziger and books like The Mists of Avalon. I read mystery series -- Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden – and Harlequin romances by the boxful. I read everything by V.C. Andrews – not just “Flowers in the Attic,” but also its many, many sequels – and popular fiction by writers like Stephen King and Susan Isaacs and Jean Auel and Rita Mae Brown and Judith Krantz (if New York Times critic Dwight Garner wrote about hating it, chances are, I loved it!) My mother was, and is, in two different book clubs, so she was always bringing home books, and I’d usually end up at least taking a look.

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