Kirra asked Heather Demetrios:

I recently read Bad Romance and I thought it was a fantastic book because it's something young teenagers could read and relate to and hopefully grow to understand/prevent abusive relationships from reading it but I wondered what inspired you to write this story from the point of view of a teenage girl in an abusive relationship for young adults?

Heather Demetrios So, this book was originally sold as a memoir. I was in a bad romance when I was in high school that was very similar to the one in the novel. I ultimately decided a novel would be a better choice - there were all kinds of complications involved with it being a memoir. It was important to me to tell my story and to make sure as many teen girls as possible (and guys!) could read it. 1 in 3 teens is affected by teen dating violence, so this is a really serious issue. I wanted people to understand how hard it can be to get out of a bad romance, even when it's so obvious you need to break up. I also wanted to show how important your friends are if you're going through something like this, and how difficult it can be for people who have challenging home lives.

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