I would liek to welcome Chris Reardon, author of Obstacles to the blog and I thank him for taking time out to have a chat with us. My review of the book will be posted soon.

Q. What is OBSTACLES about and what message are you trying to convey to the readers?

OBSTACLES is mainly about death, and how people deal with it. It’s obviously the scariest and most universal thing everybody has to face. I wanted a first person view at someone petrified of dying, and even living itself. I wanted to see what this person would do when a little kid is facing the thing that scares him so much. Character development was extremely important to me. I wanted to show that people CAN completely change.

Q. Who among the characters you created can you relate to the most and why?

Alcott, the protagonist, would be the most relatable to me, and hopefully most readers. That’s why it’s from his perspective. Everybody has nightmares and gets down on themselves sometimes. He’s absolutely afraid of everything. I didn’t want a protagonist that had no problems and nobody could relate to.

Q. Which character did you find difficult to write about?

Gari was definitely the most difficult to write. He’s supposed to be the opposite of Alcott, at least on the outside anyway. He takes on death with a smile and doesn’t hide in fear, despite being so young. That’s a very hard concept to grasp, but some people must have that bravery.

Q.  Which are your favourite books/authors?

I love the A Series of Unfortunate of Events books! They are by far my favorite. It’s a nice break from the ‘all happy, no problems’ type of stories. Those kids go through some horrible experiences! The characters were very relatable and interesting since they were so different from each other. I also liked how they helped each other. When one wanted to give up, the other two got them right back up.

Q. What are your hobbies?

I really like playing tennis, video games, reading books, running, writing, playing flute, and listening to music.

Q. Name a place you would like to visit most.

I really want to visit China. I’ve heard so many cool things about it from the cities to the scenery.

Q. What according to you is the best thing about writing a story?

The best part of writing a story is knowing you’re in control. You can do whatever pops into your head. I really liked having that freedom to be able to change/create anything at the drop of a hat. There were no rules, and no limits