More than for any of my other books, the biggest inspiration for the Gigi Shin series is my friends, especially the ones who have been with me since I was Gigi’s age (and sometimes even before that!). Thank you to all my friends, who, throughout the decades, constantly teach me a lot about myself and others. For not giving up on me even in the dark times when I’d given up on myself. You make my world a brighter place.
I would of course also like to thank my agent, Penny Moore, my editor, Alyson Heller, and the other individuals in my team at Simon & Schuster, without whom my middle-grade stories (both the Mindy and Gigi books) would just be ideas in my head. Thank you for trusting me with not one but two different series for kids.
Family plays a lesser role in this book than the previous, but it is a major factor regardless. Just as my friends heavily inspired Gigi’s friends, Gigi’s mom was greatly inspired by my own. Thank you, Umma, for always being there for me and trying your best to be a good mom, even when we live a whole ocean and a continent away from each other. Like Gigi and her family, my parents and I don’t always understand each other, but I’m grateful for our fierce love for one another all the same.
A whole separate thank-you goes to H, who is there for me through thick and thin. Thank you for being my “Paul.”
Finally, thank you so much to you, reader, for picking up this book and following along with Gigi’s story. I hope you (and everyone else I mentioned in this section, as a matter of fact) never give up on yourself and the pursuit of doing what you love to do. It sounds cliché, I know, but sometimes we all need the reminder. Stay true to yourself like Gigi learned to do in this book. Things may not turn out exactly how we’d like them to, but that doesn’t mean great things won’t happen. <3