New Hollywood Book Publicity Firm Signs Author Lauren Roedy Vaughn's YA Book "OCD, the Dude and Me"

LOS ANGELES - July 9, 2013 - PRLog -- Los Angeles, Ca  - -  Seventeen-year-old Danielle Levine is your typical high school teen-ager – if you count having OCD and ADHD as typical. Danielle’s “special” conditions lead her to a school for students with learning disabilities, and, even here, she struggles to fit in.  

How Danielle navigates her status as a “learning-challenged” teen pariah is told, with equal parts pain and hilarity, in Lauren Roedy Vaughn’s debut Young Adult novel, OCD, THE DUDE, AND ME, which Kirkus Review has hailed as a “must-read.”  

Author Ms Vaughn signed on with Hollywood Book Publicity (http://www.hollywoodbookpublicity.com) at TBC that  is conducting an on line book marketing tour for OCD, THE DUDE AND ME.  Said Hollywood Book Publicity principal  Charles A. Barrett: "What a wonderful book Lauren has penned...I urge any reader of Young Adult books to go to the Net and learn more about this author and what she has created.... her book is a great summer read"

Told through a mélange of Danielle’s class assignments, journal entries, emails, texts, and letters to the school psychiatrist, OCD, THE DUDE, AND ME chronicles Danielle’s efforts to fit into a world that, to her, can be as alien as a distant planet. Yet, Danielle will be recognizable to her readers, with her body-image issues, her crush on an unattainable boy, and her feelings of insecurity over the rigid social code of high school life.

Just as things seemingly couldn’t get worse for her, Danielle meets a new friend, Daniel, who turns her on to the Coen Brothers’ classic cult film THE BIG LEBOWSKI and its indelible main character, the ever-cool, ever abiding Dude. Daniel and Danielle end up going to the prom together and to Lebowski Fest, an annual event celebrating the Dude and his Buddha-like philosophy, which says that things will work out if you “abide.”

Vaughn is especially equipped to write Danielle’s story. She has been a special education teacher and a writer for nearly 20 years. She understands that each student with a learning challenge has a unique profile that requires specialized intervention strategies. Danielle benefits from the guidance of charismatic adults to learn how to socialize and accept herself. She is also able to leverage her affinities—reading and writing—in order to shift her perspective and grow.  

Vaughn’s students “live with the stigma” of being called “lazy” and “different,” Vaughn explains. “It is my love for them, my understanding of their diversity that compelled me to write a fictionalized account of one of them and their world. I wanted them to see their value within the context of a story.”

The major reason for the presence of THE BIG LEBOWSKI and the Dude, Vaughn says, is that the Dude is “an iconic character who lived through a dramatic situation and kept abiding. He is a model for dealing with life’s difficult situations. There are other ‘dudes’ in my story who also affect Danielle.”

Vaughn herself says she is a “huge fan” of THE BIG LEBOWSKI. “When I was asking the story Gods to help me come up with what could help Danielle, that film popped into my mind. When Danielle witnesses the film, she realizes that life is unpredictable and often ridiculous … abiding is a saner choice.”

What critics are saying:

Publisher’s Weekly:  Pick of the Week
Kirkus Review:  “A must-read.” (Starred review)
Star Library Journal: “This one is sure to find an appreciative audience.” (Starred review)
Seventeen magazine online:  “The book's fun format of traditional long-form, texts, letters, and emails make this book easy and fun to read.”

About author Lauren Roedy Vaughn
Lauren Roedy Vaughn is an award-winning educator who has spent nearly 20 years teaching English to high school students with language-based learning disabilities. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles.

OCD, The Dude, and Me
Publisher:  Dial Books, March  21, 2013
234 pages, hardcover $16.99; ISBN-13: 978-0803738430, Amazon Kindle edition, $10.99, ISBN:  0803738439
Available at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and book stores nationwide

About Hollywood Book Publicity
Hollywood Book Publicity (http://www.hollywoodbookpublicity.com) is a new author and publisher book publicity, book promotion and book marketing service based at The Barrett Company LLC in  the world's entertainment capitol, Los Angeles, serving the global print, electronic and digital medias in the international book marketplace.