Rebecca is overwhelmed by the pressure of preparing for her bat mitzvah while grieving the loss of her mother and dealing with growing insecurity. Her friendship with Hailey is fraying, leaving Rebecca to find comfort in her dog, Meatball. Meanwhile, Nikki’s family has lost their home, forcing them to move into a smaller, less glamorous apartment. Nikki hides her financial struggles by lying to her old friends, even stealing money to maintain appearances. As their paths cross, Rebecca and Nikki form a deep, unexpected bond. Funny, fast-paced, and heartfelt, Rules for Liars is about making mistakes, asking for second chances, and discovering the truth is worth telling.
Today author Debra Garfinkle spills all the secrets including her favorite part of writing books, what it was like working with April Patten, and more!
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
I have always been a huge bookworm and loved to write. As a child and teen, I wrote short stories and poems for fun. The theme for my bat mitzvah reception décor was books. I also wrote thirteen poems for the occasion, which we made into a little book and gave to my guests.
I became a lawyer because it involves a lot of reading and writing and usually pays much better than novel writing. But even while practicing law fulltime, I wrote novels early in the morning, on lunch breaks, and on weekends.
What is your favorite part of being a writer?
I love hearing from children and teens who are fans of my books. I’m also thrilled that my books have been translated into eight languages. I love to imagine children in the Czech Republic, Germany, Turkey, and other countries enjoying my writing. For me, it’s all about bringing joy to readers.
How did you and April Patten go about co-authoring a book?
Although April lives in Oregon and I live in Southern California and we have only met once in person, we have been close friends for almost twenty years. We email each other and talk on the phone a lot and were even featured in a news segment about good friends who hadn’t met each other in person.
I think April first came up with the idea of writing a book together. We were both excited with the idea right away. We discussed what the book would be about, came up with a loose outline, and started writing. In alternating chapters, April wrote in the point of view of a Christian girl and I wrote from the perspective of a Jewish girl. They went from enemies to friends to—well, I don’t want to spoil anything. We edited each other’s work as we went along.
In writing together, we combined our strengths. April is really talented at plotting, writing fast-moving scenes, and creating descriptions to make readers feel like they’re right there. I think my strength is in developing characters that readers root for. We both have good senses of humor and like to make each other laugh. Hopefully, readers will laugh too. The novel came together easily and was very fun to write.
How did you come up with the story for Rules for Liars?
We used our own backgrounds to create the setting and characters. Both April and I come from families that struggled financially, and April has lived in Oregon most of her life, so we set the novel in a rundown apartment building in Oregon. I love dogs, so I include them in almost all of my books. Rules for Liars has Meatball, a huge, slobbery, not exactly attractive mutt who is nevertheless quite loveable. April used her babysitting experience to write about a horrible babysitting gig in which everything goes wrong. My older sister has always been very popular and well-behaved (in contrast to moi), so I gave Rebecca a seemingly perfect older brother.
A good story needs conflict. I had become a bat mitzvah and helped my three children become bar and bat mitzvot. I knew the months leading up to it could be stressful, so we made Rebecca struggle hard with her bat mitzvah prep. As for Nikki, we thought there would be a lot of conflict if she had lied about her family’s poor financial status in order to keep up with her rich friends, and then had to move to an area she considered to be on the wrong side of the tracks. As we wrote, the conflicts grew deeper and the characters blossomed.
What is your favorite line from the book?
Well, it’s more like a few lines, in which Rebecca complains about her brother Noah, who always seems to outshine her:
“No one could live up to Noah, not even the biblical Noah. Sure, biblical Noah had made a nice ark and got the animal pairs on it OK. But if my brother Noah ever built an ark, he’d probably make it twice as big and board four animals of each type, just in case something happened to the first two. And I’d have to spend the next 40 days on the ark listening to Dad brag about Noah saving mankind and animalkind. I’d dive off the ark and take my chances in the flood.”
What was the best part of writing Rules for Liars?
I had a blast thinking up wild costumes, song titles, and lyrics for the boy band in the novel. Also, it was great fun to work on the ending, which has several surprises I don’t want to give away. But my very favorite part of writing the book was collaborating with April.
Praise for Rules for Liars
“A tender, insightful exploration of friendship, forgiveness, and the courage to live authentically.”—Kirkus Reviews
Connect with Debra
Debra Garfinkle is the author of thiry-seven books for children and teens. She lives in Southern California with her husband and one-eyed dog. Debra has three grown children and a law degree. She loves speaking at libraries, schools, and conferences.