I touched upon this in my review of her most recent book Now Entering Addamsville, but Francesca Zappia is a very interesting author to me. Since I finished that book so recently, and since I’ve read all of her books now, she was a natural choice for my second author spotlight. She’s published three books traditionally, and one through Wattpad, which I admittedly have not yet read.
Her first book, Made You Up tackles a heavy subject matter in schizophrenia, and is a book that I find myself thinking about still. I first read it in August of 2015, while on a trip to Texas. I flew through the book, and thought that Zappia tackled the unreliable narrator very well. My heart still breaks at the thought of the major “twist” in this book, because it was something that I didn’t see coming at all. This was honestly one of the books that got me back into reading right as I was going into my last year of college.
In May of 2017, she published her second book, titled Eliza and her Monsters. This book was a huge deal to me when I read it. I thought the way it portrayed anxiety and perfectionism was absolutely incredible, and I loved the characters and the story it told.
I went over most of my thoughts about Now Entering Addamsville in my review already, but I will say that I’m glad that she did branch out into another genre, but I wish that she had stuck with having a heavier subject matter.
Zappia herself is just a very interesting person to me. I’ve read a lot of her answers to questions on Tumblr, and I find it fascinating how long she’s been working on her books and her characters. I could definitely feel that love and that care put into her first two books, and I’m hoping that she has more of this to share in the future.
Though I’m reading less and less YA these days, I think that Zappia is one that I’ll continue to keep an eye on as she publishes, because I really appreciate her work and her emotional connection to the novels she’s crafted so far.
-Siobhan
Ghost Shark Reads 