What starts off as a light-hearted competition to live without modern technology for a year turns into a fight for survival in this unputdownable young adult thriller by New York Times bestselling author Jarrod Shusterman and debut author Sofía Lapuente.
Read on to learn more about Retro, book recommendations, writing, and so much more!
Hi, Sofía and Jarrod! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourselves?
Sofía: Hola! Absolutely. We are a screenwriting/bookwriting team, travel companions, a procrastinate the dishes duo, life partners and pretty much everything in between. I’m from Madrid Spain, and I came to this country to realize my dream of storytelling! Now I’m living that very dream!
Jarrod: And I LOVE writing with my chica Sofi, especially because we get to work from the bed or the couch! Our new book RETRO such a combination of both of our personalities. A fun thriller about what would happen if you took the Retro Challenge—to see if you can survive without your smart technology, and if you make it the whole year you get the scholarship of your dreams!!
Sofía: Only, things get dark, and contestants start disappearing, and if our strong Hispanic protagonist, Luna, can’t figure out who’s sabotaging the Challenge. Maybe she’s next… Oh and one of the best parts is that every chapter is a retro song, so the index is a playlist that you can literally listen along to as you read!
Quick lightning round for you both! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
Jarrod: First book I ever read was, IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE, which taught me some dark truths about human nature. The book that made me want to become an author was the crazy Roland scene in my father’s novel, UNWIND! And I can’t stop thinking about THE POWER OF NOW, because these days I’m working on my zen J Highly recommend it!
Sofía: Growing up I was oddly obsessed with THE CAT IN THE HAT, and when I got older I really took to THE HUNGER GAMES, but it wasn’t until reading the screenplay for that movie did I realize that I wanted to write movies too. And as of late, I can’t get THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO off my mind because we live LA and we’re just enchanted by the classic golden age of Hollywood. Plus I believe in true, pure love, and it’s reflected perfectly in that book!
Retro is out January 24th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Sofía: Guilty pleasure, hilarious, addicting, thriller!
What can readers expect?
Sofía: Readers can expect to take a crazy roller coaster of a journey with Luna, explore her Hispanic heritage, make all new snarky, hilarious, diverse best friends, be surprised by twists, and question how we treat each other through our devices, and our relationship with our own technology. They can expect to feel like they’re living in a Retro movie, with a ton of heart, and an ending that may just bring tears of joy to your eyes <3 And expect short gripping chapters, so that you may finish it in just one day!
Where did the inspiration for Retro come from?
Jarrod: Well, in the 300,000 years that humanity has existed, since the discovery of fire or electricity, never before have we seen a cataclysmic change greater than what happened around year 2000 (which is why we chose that as the cut off year for what is Retro) because since the advent of technology everything changed. And we wanted to write a book that talked about that. How we treat one another. The amazing things about technology, and where we as people fall short in our dealings with it. We feel like it’s so important and yet it’s not talked about as much as it should be. We also wanted to take readers on a fun bingeable escape, and to feel like they’ve made a bunch of new friends they would have never met before! We really just wanted to entertain the readers!
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Jarrod: I love writing Luna because she reminds me a lot of Sofi! She’s smart, driven, creative, hilarious, warm-hearted, with A LOT of character. I learned a lot about my writing partner while writing, and working together is one of the joys in life. Even if it’s not always easy, it’s so rewarding and worth it. So yeah. If you can’t tell, I’m kind of a hopeless romantic!
Sofía: Me too, which is why writing together came long after we met and decided to share a life together J That’s why we fit so well together and we believe that love makes it’s way to the page! My favorite character is Mimi: the quirky queer, pink-haired, lizard-loving, brutally honest (to a fault) best friend—and Darnell has been Retro way before the challenge even began. Then there’s Samantha, the pigtailed princess who was bullied really bad, and then turned consummate strong survivor. And while reading you’ll meet many more! For us, representation was so important when creating our characters, so everyone feels like they can come along for this wild journey. Basically, this group is meant to be your new best friends! And yes, it was really interesting for us to write Luna, because usually protagonists are a bit general in personality so that they may connect with all types of readers. But we took a very different approach. We made someone that feels so real, you think you know her. And she’s total BFF material.
Can you tell us a bit about the writing process?
Jarrod: Absolutely! So communication is EVERYTHING. We are both very different people, with different mother tongues, cultures, sexes, genders, religions, and customs—so our ways to see the world and story can be quite diverse. For that reason, we plan everything together. All the plot points. Every single emotional beat. How the characters will be. And only once we are on the exact same page, can we write something that we both truly love. Every line is debated, so that there isn’t a paragraph that doesn’t have both of our voices infused within it. We edit our work a few times before we consider it a draft, because there’s so many things we want to accomplish. In the debate of Planners or Pansters, we are totally Planners!
Do you have any advice for those who may have set some writing resolutions for the new year?
Sofía: Write. Write. Write! Most people start a story an never finish it, so if you join the club of those who do finish, consider yourself pretty special and feel good about it. You deserve it! And then when you’re done celebrating all night long, wake up the next morning and write even more! I would say that you need to write A TON to make it. 10,000 hours is usually the way to mastery, but with writing it can be even more complicated because it’s an subjective artform, with many different creeds and ways to reach success! So find a mentor (even if it’s a book) and learn the craft through that mentor! Stick to your writing philosophy and don’t give up this year! English is my second language, and it’s not easy for me…so if I can do it, you can too!
What’s next for you both?
Jarrod: We have a few secret projects coming up. Essentially RETRO was just phase one in our master plan, which is to publish a ton of books that are all thrilling, fun, high-concept and full of heart! We also plan to integrate music into what we do, as you’ll find in RETRO! In addition we’re really excited to get Retro developed as a TV show—which is definitely in the cards for 2023!
Lastly, are there any 2023 releases our readers should look out for?
Sofía: Nicola and David Yoon have an imprint called Joy Revolution, where they are flipping the script on diverse stories, told from unique new perspectives! So go check out, UNFAIRLY CUTE and QUEEN BEE! And, of course, if you want to read something unlike anything you’ve read before, that makes you fly through the pages, that is a bingeable thrill ride which makes you feel like you’re living in an Retro movie, with total Riverdale vibes and all the heart in the world—then you should get our books RETRO, which comes out 1.24.23!!!
Jarrod: To stay on the pulse of what we’re up to—and see some behind the scenes content about author life, follow us on social media! We’re on TikTok and Instagram! Promise you won’t regret that you did!
