The Ex-Effect delivered by Kristi Chestnutt at the 2015 Writer’s Digest Annual Conference Pitch Slam
Getting over him? Easier than she thought. Not falling for him all over again? Impossible.
The Ex-Effect is a 65,000 word Contemporary YA novel about Kate Winston, a high school Junior, who is suffering from the cruelest of break-up methods—the text.
One glorious and way-too-short summer. That was all it took for Kate Winston to lose her heart to Jared Elliott. It started fast and ended faster. He went from being the boy at school with perfectly-styled hair and legendary class theatrics, to boyfriend, to ex-boyfriend in three short months, leaving Kate with a serious case of post-Jared trauma.
She’s determined to get her life back on track, even if that means having to hang out with Jared and his new maybe-girlfriend in the process.
Only the more time she spends with the two of them, the more she realizes she had Jared all wrong. Beneath all the exaggerated stories and hair gel is a surprisingly normal guy struggling to keep it all together—a guy who has a ton of friends at school but not many outside of it, a guy who cares enough about her to help her move on with someone new, a guy who is dealing with pretty heavy family issues, a guy who, it turns out, has always needed a friend way more than he’s ever needed a girlfriend.
And when Kate’s world starts to crumble all over again, Jared’s the one who helps her pick up all the pieces, the one who gives her the courage to leave the confines of her bedroom, the one who is there, waiting to put her back together. Heartbreak is the very thing that drove them apart, but it also might also be the one thing that brings them together and heals them both.
More about Kristi Chestnutt:
Besides being a short (five feet zero inches) aspiring YA author, Kristi is mom to one totally adorable kidlet, owner of one neurotic Boxer dog, and wife to one VERY patient man. She loves Red Sox baseball, snowboarding, hiking, all sorts of music, and of course, writing/reading anything she can get her hands on. If you ever meet her in person, there’s a good chance you’ll be hugged. Consider yourself warned.
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