JJJ Book Club Latest News, Photos, and Videos

The book cover for John Green‘s new book is out and it will definitely catch your eye!

The “Turtles All The Way Down” cover was unveiled today on GMA earlier this morning, with the author — who’s also behind “Looking For Alaska”, “Paper Towns” and “The Fault in Our Stars” — debuting it on Twitter afterwards.

The book, which will be out on October 10th almost everywhere, centers on 16-year-old Aza Holmes, a young woman looking for clues in the disappearance of a fugitive billionaire, while grappling with mental illness.

The story begins with a fugitive billionaire and a cash reward. It is about lifelong friendship, the intimacy of an unexpected reunion, Star Wars fan fiction, and tuatara. But at its heart is Aza Holmes, a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

“More of a spiral. (not a lot of literal turtles in the book, I’m afraid!)” John clarified a fan’s question about there being actual turtles in the book.

He adds about the cover, “I’m so grateful to Rodrigo Corral (who also made the cover of TFIOS) for designing this cover. For me, it captures the book brilliantly.”

If you’ve read “The Princess Diaries” books, you know full and well that Mia’s dad, Artur Christoff Phillipe Gerard Grimaldi Renaldi, is alive.

In fact, he’s alive for the entire series — but not in the films, and the reason for that is all because of Julie Andrews.

Author Meg Cabot spoke to EW about her most famous book series and how it came to be that Phillipe was killed off in the movies.

“He plays a big role in the books…I was like, ‘Oh, oh, my God, what did he do?’ [Laughs] I forgot it was Disney and they always kill all the fathers in like every movie [laughs].”

But that wasn’t the reason they did it at all: “They said, ‘Well, we have this actress, who’s a really big actress, that we want to play the grandmother. And we wanna make her role much bigger, and kinda raise the stakes, and give her a lot more lines, and we think we can give her a lotta the dad�the dad lines,’” Meg shares.

After asking who it was and the actress being Julie — Meg possibly had the reaction we all would.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, kill the dad.’ [Laughs] I was like, it’s Julie Andrews, sure.”

Meg continues, “She is just so�such a nice, fun person, and great to be around. And, I mean, I think they tried to make her as horrible as they could, but it’s Julie Andrews.”

Fun fact about Tallia Storm that you probably don’t know — on top of being an amazing singer, she’s also an author!

She actually just dropped her second novel, Pop Girl: Signed With A Kiss, and the JJJ Book Club is obsessed with it.

We’ll actually be hosting a really cool giveaway with Tallia this week too, so stay tuned!

Here’s the summary:

After an I-still-can’t-believe-it brush with fame, teen singing sensation Storm Hall is determined to keep her star on the rise. She records a demo, and soon her all-time favourite label wants to sign her. And is mega-hottie rock god Jase Mahone flirting with her?

A hotel suite in London, fancy cars, parties – Storm’s finally living the dream! But life as a pop star means letting go of her old life, even the people she loves most. Is this really the dream she wants?

Click inside to read Tallia’s 10 Fun Facts about her new book now! More Here! »

The Princess Diaries is possibly one of the best movies, and best book series out there, so a Broadway Musical isn’t out of the question right?

That’s what author Meg Cabot is hoping for one day.

“The one thing I’m really hoping for is a musical, so I hope we have a Broadway musical,” she told EW in a recent interview.

“Obviously, somebody has to write the music and lyrics, and I’m not gonna do that because that’s not where my talents lie,” Meg laughs. “So I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that some day we’re gonna get one of those. That would be so fun.”

TELL JJJ: Would you want to see a Princess Diaries musical?

We’re all Harry Potter fans around here, and that means you have something in common with Chris Colfer, because he is a huge Potterhead.

The “Land of Stories” author recently dished about his days of standing in long lines and dressing up when each of the books were released in a CBC podcast.

“Those were some of the best memories of my childhood,” Chris says. “Looking back [though], I can’t believe that my mom would just drop me off in the middle of the night to wait in line with strangers. That’s crazy now that I think about it, but she knew I was among friends.”

Chris remembers standing in those lines with all his friends…sort of.

“I was with…I hate to say town regrets, but you know, nerds…we were all there together and there for one thing. We dressed up, we talked about that world and would pretend we were part of that world. It was a magical feeling.”

Chris says that the entire franchise and author J.K. Rowling were huge inspirations to him, too.

“A lot of authors who are in this position where they’re able to talk about works that inspire them, they whip out like Tolstoy and maybe some more impressive titles, but it ["Harry Potter"] was [mine]. It captured my attention in a way that had never been captured when I was a kid and the reason I learned how to read.”

TELL JJJ: Which was your favorite Harry Potter book?

Do you have dreams of becoming a novelist? Aspiring Author 101 is a new feature on JustJaredJr.com where we dive into the nitty gritty of writing a novel with some of our favorite, successful YA authors.

Our next writer is the super talented Jenny Han, who recently released her highly-anticipated book Always and Forever, Lara Jean. (Get it now!)

It’s the third book in the popular To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series.

You may also recognize Jenny for her The Summer I Turned Pretty and Burn for Burn trilogies too.

We sat down with her to get the goods on her writing process, her advice for aspiring authors, and more.

JJJ Aspiring Author 101 – Jenny Han

Hardcover, paperback or digital copies? I read books on my iPad when it’s not something I necessarily want to keep on my shelf. I like to buy hardcover, but I actually do like having a paperback version of it. If it’s something I love, I really like to have something I can carry around with me.

Favorite place to write? My favorite place to write is usually on a writing retreat. A couple times a year, friends of mine and I will rent a house somewhere beautiful, and write. We always pick a house that has a hot tub (laughs). It’s always nice to take a break and chat. It’s almost in that college mode. It can be a lot of fun. It’s also just that solitary pursuit.

Music or no music? For It’s Not Summer Without You, I was listening a lot to Taylor Swift‘s album…I think it may have been Fearless. There were a couple songs that really tapped into the pain of the story. You know that song ["The Way I Loved You"], I thought a lot about that song with Jeremiah and Belly. For me, it will help me to quickly get to an emotional place that I need to be in with certain songs. I always have playlists for whatever I’m working on.

Endings – happy, sad, or ambiguous? I like endings that leave the door open to other possibilities.

Best advice for someone who wants to write a novel someday? I always have a diary. Getting in the habit of writing in a very honest, truthful way where you don’t hold anything back, it helps you find your voice. That’s really the key thing for any writer. There are only so many stories in the world that exist. All stories are derivative of something else, but only you have had your experiences. Only you can bring that story out from your point of view. So I think it’s honing that.

More Here! »

Chris Colfer‘s book series, “The Land of Stories“, will forever be one of JJJ‘s favorites.

With the sixth and final book of the series out now, the author is looking back on how the book was made and revealed in a new interview with CBC’s Q podcast that it was quite an interesting story in how he wrote it all.

“I was about 7,” Chris recalls about just when the idea came to him. “My younger sister had just been diagnosed with epilepsy, a very rare form where she had 50 of them an hour. As a way to escape what was going on, I would write.”

“I would daydream about these random adventures that I would rather be having then being stuck in a bad family situation,” he adds. “That’s when the book came to me, fully formed. [The books tell the same story] now, as when I was a kid.”

However, it took some years to actually write it all out — he was actually writing it while on the Glee Concert Tour!

“It was crazy,” Chris admits, but “I had a method. I had a hard time writing on the plane because it would shake and I couldn’t focus on the [computer] screen to write.”

“My method would be that we would see ‘Don’t Stop Believin’, I would run back and write a page; I would run back on stage to sing ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ and come back and write another page; then slap on a leotard for ‘Single Ladies’ and then run back and finish the page I was working on.”

What a crazy method! He laughs about it now, though.

“It was crazy, but it kept me on my toes.”

“The Land of Stories: Worlds Collide” is out on book shelves now.