Thanks, first and foremost, to my agent, Brooks Sherman. Thank you for believing in this book and for taking it (and me) on. One of the greatest memories I have is the thrill of that first phone call from you. Thank you for holding my hand through what has felt like a pretty steep learning curve (also don’t let go, please and thanks). I’ve always felt like I was in good hands with you, and that has made all the difference.
Thank you to my editor, Leis Pederson, for having a thing for rock and roll romance (a thing I can definitely get behind). You really understood what this book was about from the start, and I can’t thank you enough for helping to get it out there into the world.
There are many people without whom this book would have never been written, in fact couldn’t have been written. Would have never been read by anyone outside of a handful of friends. But before I set out on the impossible task of naming and thanking as many of those fine folks as I can, I have to say that this book belongs to Lo.
Lo (the Lauren half of Christina Lauren, also forever lolashoes in my heart) and I found each other writing Twilight fic years ago, and immediately became smitten with each other’s words. It was Lo who grabbed my hand in late 2010 and just wouldn’t let go until I got my own story out into this world. Aside from myself, who had to live a lot of this book’s small adventures and then write the actual words, there is no one who has done more to help Loud, the story, become Loud Is How I Love You, the book. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was five, and on this voyage to make that dream a reality, Lo has been my North Star. And there in my heart, Lo, you will always be.
You don’t have to look far within that constellation to find Christina, and PQ I can’t thank you enough for all of the cheerleading and straight talk, too. Thank you for being an enormous talent who inspired me and so many others in the fandom long before we ever even knew each other. Thank you for answering all of my flailing texts and being a phone talker like I am. You always manage to calm me. Thank you for your secret blurb that makes me laugh every time I think about it.
To Debbie, my Snarkier Than You, I owe a profound and special debt. It was Deb who first read the first thing I ever wrote and finished—my Twilight fan fiction, Osa Bella. I never thought anyone else would ever see it, but she said we had to publish it on her blog. (I didn’t even know what fan fiction was at the time! Also Deb, that exclamation point is for you.) Not only did Debbie read the thing (several times) and encourage me to share it, which in turn introduced me to an amazing community of smart and hilarious women, she also told me how to fix the story. And then she told me how to fix everything I’ve written ever since, including this book, and still, as I’m writing this now, Debbie is home with her nose in Google docs reading my words in her own free time, adding tons of hyphens and telling me when I’m not describing this hook up in enough detail, and all kinds of other things that end up making a story like this so much better. Debbie, I’ll never find a way to tell you I love you enough times, in enough different ways, to convey how important your support has been. We’ll just have to spoon it out in a little hotel in the Pacific Northwest. Again.
Tonya, thank you for being my friend and reading my stuff and always telling me like it is. Your moral support has meant the world to me. Thank you for listening and laughing and liking me even though I am an awful, terrible Cards Against Humanity player. Can’t imagine writing another word without your razor sharp eye for what makes a story work.
Caren, you were the very first to read this whole manuscript with fresh eyes when I expanded it to a novel. I have long been an admirer of your voracious reading habit, and I always thought if I could write something that you would love, then I’d really be