Judy Sheehan

Hello! I grew up in a house with 11 brothers and sisters, 2 parents, and 1 bathroom. I learned a lot from that experience: how to eat faster than I should, how to make my scary-smart siblings laugh, and, well, how to hold it in. That’s why I could sit for hours and hours at Starbucks and keep writing I WOKE UP DEAD AT THE MALL without taking a break. I’m madly in love with the characters of I WOKE UP DEAD AT THE MALL. Maybe they’re all a small part of me, which makes me really conceited, doesn’t it? It’s the story of Sarah, a girl who spent her whole life keeping herself on the sidelines. She was that blurry girl in the background of the yearbook photos, the girl whose name you almost remembered, but didn’t. But then, Sarah is murdered. This makes no sense. Why would someone want to kill that not-so-memorable girl in the crowd? To help ease the pain of dying so young, the after-life is at the Mall of America. Take whatever you want, it’s free. Eat whatever you want, you’ll never get fat. Just make sure that you work through your unfinished business and move on. But Sarah goes off the rails as she connects with her fellow dead teens, and falls hard for Nick, the guy with the shoulders. She finds herself tied to life and the living in ways that surprise her, especially when she learns that the one person she loves back on Earth is in grave (yes grave) danger. Thanks for reading my note. Thanks for reading, in general. I hope that you’re happy.