conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a story titled It Wasn't Always Like This about Charlie, Emma, Church with the genre: Teen & Young Adult, Science Fiction & Fantasy.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Gr 8 UpSeventeen-year-olds Emma O'Neill and Charlie Ryan are immortal and in love forever. In 1913, they and all their family members, living together to jointly run a Florida nature museum, were tricked by a huckster into drinking a tealike potion concocted from the plants and waters of the elusive "fountain of youth," believing they were receiving a potential vaccine against polio instead. Eventually, when the fanatical leader of the local cultish Church of Light realizes that no one in either family is aging, even Emma's toddler brother, he declares them evil and burns their buildings to the ground. Only Emma and Charlie escape and hence survive, since burning is one method of killing immortals. After splitting up for safety, they elude resolute Church descendants through the decades until the present. Emma, who becomes a private investigator, follows trails of murder victims who look disturbingly like herself and Charlie. Charlie goes to war and adopts several identities. All the while, both try desperately to reconnect with the other. Told in third person with chapters set in decades past and present, the story holds convincing characters, a captivating plot with some twists, an aura of time travel, and an array of vivid settings that make it easy to suspend disbelief and accept the slightly pat yet satisfying ending. VERDICT Teens who relished the classic Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt will revel in this tale with a related premise for older readers.Diane P. Tuccillo, Poudre River Public Library District, CO
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Tuccillo, Poudre River Public Library District, CO. In 1913, they and all their family members, living together to jointly run a Florida nature museum, were tricked by a huckster into drinking a tealike potion concocted from the plants and waters of the elusive "fountain of youth," believing they were receiving a potential vaccine against polio instead. Eventually, when the fanatical leader of the local cultish Church of Light realizes that no one in either family is aging, even Emma's toddler brother, he declares them evil and burns their buildings to the ground. Only Emma and Charlie escape and hence survive, since burning is one method of killing immortals. After splitting up for safety, they elude resolute Church descendants through the decades until the present. Emma, who becomes a private investigator, follows trails of murder victims who look disturbingly like herself and Charlie. Charlie goes to war and adopts several identities. All the while, both try desperately to reconnect with the other. Told in third person with chapters set in decades past and present, the story holds convincing characters, a captivating plot with some twists, an aura of time travel, and an array of vivid settings that make it easy to suspend disbelief and accept the slightly pat yet satisfying ending. VERDICT Teens who relished the classic Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt will revel in this tale with a related premise for older readers.Diane P.Gr 8 UpSeventeen-year-olds Emma O'Neill and Charlie Ryan are immortal and in love forever.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It Wasn't Always Like This
  He leaned against the counter, studying Emma with his bug eyes. She couldn't put her f inger on it, but he didn't look quite as sick as he'd looked before. He wasn't shaky or sweaty, although his skin was still pasty and his eyes rheumy. But looking almost imperceptibly healthier didn't make him any less peculiar. If anything, his gaze was more intense.
  Was he going to ask for lemonade? He usually did, though why he insisted on drinking it here, which inevitably cleared the shop of costumers, was as much a mystery as anything else about him. There was just something about the careful, exacting way he stared at her—at everything and everyone, even more, she thought, since he convinced them to drink that tea—that made her skin crawl.
  Emma managed a polite nod. Where was he going with this? There weren't any lobsters in the swamp. She knew what lobsters looked like, but she had never eaten one. She had never thought about them in any particular way. But she was not a stupid girl. She knew he was trying to tell her something, maybe teach her some sort of lesson. But what?
  Kingsley Lloyd's broad mouth stretched in a lopsided smile. Simon was lumbering around outside in his white sailor suit, clinging to his mother's hand, mouth red and probably sticky from peppermint candy.
  People. She tensed. For the f irst time ever, someone had spoken of... it. This thing that Emma kept feeling, this thing she feared was somehow keeping Simon from growing. This thing that neither her parents nor Charlie's would talk about. Emma's heart skipped a beat. She lowered her voice. "Are you saying we're like lobsters, Mr. Lloyd?"
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about shifted.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It Wasn't Always Like This
  He leaned against the counter, studying Emma with his bug eyes. She couldn't put her f inger on it, but he didn't look quite as sick as he'd looked before. He wasn't shaky or sweaty, although his skin was still pasty and his eyes rheumy. But looking almost imperceptibly healthier didn't make him any less peculiar. If anything, his gaze was more intense. 
  Was he going to ask for lemonade? He usually did, though why he insisted on drinking it here, which inevitably cleared the shop of costumers, was as much a mystery as anything else about him. There was just something about the careful, exacting way he stared at her—at everything and everyone, even more, she thought, since he convinced them to drink that tea—that made her skin crawl. 
  Emma managed a polite nod. Where was he going with this? There weren't any lobsters in the swamp. She knew what lobsters looked like, but she had never eaten one. She had never thought about them in any particular way. But she was not a stupid girl. She knew he was trying to tell her something, maybe teach her some sort of lesson. But what?
  Kingsley Lloyd's broad mouth stretched in a lopsided smile. He shifted his gaze to the window. Simon was lumbering around outside in his white sailor suit, clinging to his mother's hand, mouth red and probably sticky from peppermint candy. 
  People. She tensed. For the f irst time ever, someone had spoken of... it. This thing that Emma kept feeling, this thing she feared was somehow keeping Simon from growing. This thing that neither her parents nor Charlie's would talk about. Emma's heart skipped a beat. She lowered her voice. "Are you saying we're like lobsters, Mr. Lloyd?"
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Emma sat up and took the watch into her hand. She traced the shape of the hawk with her f inger. Charlie had lied to her that day on the road, or rather, he had not told her the full truth. Hawks wanted their freedom, yes. They were temperamental, and sometimes you had to wait them out. But those goshawks that Charlie had so carefully tended—they mated for life. They found the one for them and they didn't let go.
  She would keep on searching, not just for Coral, but for Charlie. She wouldn't give up. Because she didn't want the watch to be the only good thing she had left.
  Charlie headed back to America after the Armistice with no home, no job, no family, and no Emma. He had left the one person he never should have, and now she could be anywhere. And why? Because at seventeen you do very stupid things, believing with all your heart that they are not stupid at all.
  His goals were the same as they had been since Worley's death. Find Emma O'Neill and tell her what an ass he'd been. And destroy Glen Walters—if he still lived—and burn his Church of Light to the ground.
  He wondered brief ly about Kingsley Lloyd. Charlie suspected that the bastard had also drunk the tea. But that wasn't his problem. The world was a big place, and no doubt Kingsley Lloyd had run as far away from the O'Neills and Ryans as he could. Maybe he'd dried up the stream and taken the plants. Anything was possible.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last three paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'It's a strange and wonderful task to write a story about immortality: A girl and a boy, in love and stuck at seventeen'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It's a strange and wonderful task to write a story about immortality: A girl and a boy, in love and stuck at seventeen. A Fountain of Youth. The crazy, sad, happy, romantic, and dangerous hundred-year adventure that happens when they lose each other.
  No problem, I told him. But I also want to make you cry. Because living forever, that would sometimes make you cry, right?
  And to the entire Soho Press team, including but not limited to Bronwen Hruska, Juliet Grames, Rachel Kowal, Janine Agro, Meredith Barnes, Rudy Martinez and cover designer Christian Fuenfhausen—I am ever so lucky to be part of your astonishingly creative, nimble crew.