Paula Yoo: Good Enough

Let's get one thing straight. GOOD ENOUGH is a FICTIONAL NOVEL. I'm not as smart as Patti, and I don't play the violin as well as she does!

But eagle-eyed readers caught real life tributes, like my "random name generator" technique using real friends' names for many of the minor characters.

My real life and fictional worlds collided on Thanksgiving when I attended my 20th high school reunion. I was nervous because I was a geek outcast amongst Beautiful Perfect People who attended Prom while I stayed home to practice my violin. Would everyone stick with their cliques and ignore me? Would my teen angst bubble to the surface again?

To my surprise, I had a BLAST! Gone were the cliques. Everyone was genuinely happy to reconnect on equal footing. I even met the real-life "Ben Wheeler"! Still as cute as ever... and we had fun bonding over our memories. My teen angst was replaced with pride in having survived high school. Turns out everyone - even the Beautiful Perfect People - felt at one point they weren't good enough. So congratulations to everyone in the Avon High School Class of '87 - you guys are MORE than good enough!

Paula Yoo
Author of Good Enough

www.myspace.com/paulayoo