Author Lauren Gibaldi explores the emotion-packed years of teenagers

In Christmas, Florida, a young lady is living the small-town life of many like herself.

Looking to take over the family restaurant after graduation, she has her plans set in place — until a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presents itself.

The summer before her senior year of high school, she gets accepted into a prestigious theater camp and from there, her entire world perspective opens up and everything she had planned goes up in the air.

What happens next, well, you’ll just have to read for yourself, when Orlando’s Lauren Gibaldi’s new book, “This Tiny Perfect World,” makes it debut.

“It’s considered ‘young adult,’ as the protagonist is a teenager and all the problems are teenager-y problems — if you will,” Gibaldi said. 

The roles of teens as central figures is something that pops up in Gibaldi’s published work, which includes her two other books — “The Night We Said Yes” and “Autofocus.”

As a librarian at the Alafaya branch of the Orange County Library System and as a former high school teacher, Gibaldi has worked with teenagers every day for years.

Those daily experiences inspired her to write about the transformative years that come with becoming an adult.

“It’s a really interesting time when someone is figuring out who they are and who they want to become,”Gibaldi said. “We might laugh and be like, ‘Oh they’re having boy problems; that’s nothing.’ But I remember being 16, and having boy problems is really important to you or having family problems, or not knowing where you want to go to college … all of these things are really big.

“Despite being in high school several years ago, the problems are still the same,” she said.

Gibaldi even takes into account her own life when she was a teenager as inspiration with her work — reading the old journals she has kept from those awkward high-school years.

Although technology advances and new variables play their roles, the issues faced by teenagers are still basically the same as those that she and everyone else has faced, she said.

“You can kind of get how real everything feels,” Gibaldi said. “It’s raw and interesting, and I want teens to know that it’s OK and that we’ve been there, and that it gets better.”

The process of writing the book and publishing it has been a two-year long adventure for Gibadli. It all started with an idea and approval from her editor.

From there, it took between four to six months to finish the first draft. It used to take only one to two months for that first draft, but having kids slowed that down.

After months of editing and rewriting, Gibaldi brought on a literary agent to help with final edits before shipping it out to different publishers. Gibaldi’s book was picked up by HarperCollins — one of the world’s biggest publishers.

To celebrate the book, Gibaldi has planned a small release party at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 3, at the Barley & Vine Biergarten, before she makes a few different trips to festivals in Tennessee and New York. She will return home in April for the Orlando Book Festival.

Although she is a family woman now and works hard at the library job she loves, Gibaldi said she doesn’t have plans to drop writing any time soon — if ever. There’s too much of an adrenaline rush to stop.

“There is a certain amount of excitement every time you see your book published or you get the final copy, and I’d like to just keep experiencing that, honestly,” Gibaldi said. “I still think that it is a miracle that I am published, so every time it happens is thrilling and amazing — I just want to keep doing it.”