In My Mailbox and a Note on Personality Book Matching

So. Here’s a Little Known Fact: I read about 95% of the books sent to the NSCGs. Then I pick the NSCG reviewer who I believe the book will fit best. So almost all our books are personality matched. I want to give each book the best review possible. Interesante, si? So if you find a reviewer who reviews the kind of books you like, it's likely that you share the same taste in books.

Here is the general book type of each reviewer:

Halley
romance, whether it is young adult or adult (really, give a girl and a guy some chemistry in a book, and Halley’s there)

Viola
historical (she knows Henry V like you won’t believe) and fantasy/science fiction (esp. fantasy involving Avalon and King Arthur which usually has both history and fantasy)

Liesel
sarcastic books, books with smart humor, fantasy (like Inkheart)

Angela
upper class teen books (GG, The Luxe, etc) and fantasy (more of a Pendragon, Eragon, Maximum Ride sort of fantasy)

Nora
John Green (I am not kidding. Occasionally she’ll find a book that’s “not bad”, but John Green is her everything where books are concerned)

Bella Aire (me)
almost anything that goes in the “Fiction” side of the library (I also have a soft spot for strong female protagonists…and the boys who love them…Is anyone else in love with Joseph Jared of the Jacky Faber books or is it just me?)

With all the matching, I sometimes feel like I’m running a book dating service rather than a review site! It’s actually really exciting for me when a book and its reviewer hit it off, so to speak.

So that may give everyone a better idea of the reviewers' book types.

Anyway, here is what made it's way to our (figurative) mailbox:

A Match Made in High School by Kristen Walker (To Be Released in May 2009)
When the principal announces that every senior must participate in a mandatory year-long Marriage Education program, Fiona Sheehan believes that her life can’t get any worse. Then she marries her “husband”: jerky jock Todd, whose cheerleader girlfriend, Amanda, has had it in for Fiona since day one of second grade. Even worse? Amanda is paired with Fiona’s long-term crush, Gabe. At least Fiona is doing better than her best friend, Marcie, who is paired up with the very quiet, very mysterious Johnny Mercer.

Pranks, fights, misunderstandings, and reconciliations ensue in an almost Shakespearean comedy of errors about mistaken first impressions, convoluted coupling, and hidden crushes.

I really liked Book Nymph's review for this one, so I decided to check it out. I read it, and immediately thought of Halley for the review. It matches her book-type well, I think.


Hot Mess by Julie Kraut and Shallon Lester
EMMA FREEMAN IS waving buh-bye to her standard summer of stationwagoning around the suburbs. This summer she’s heading to the big city. Emma’s totally prepped for days at a fabulous internship and nights of socialite-ing around town. But when you’re 17 and not an heiress, reality is far from pink fizzy drinks and red velvet ropes. As the summer heats up, Emma learns that glamour is hard to come by when your only friend is too boy-crazy to hang, your budget is more H&M than D&G, and you spend 8 hours a day working for a man who proves that the devil wears Dockers too. Add one little white lie told to one very hot coworker and a roommate who makes Paris Hilton look junior varsity, and this summer in the city is starting to turn into one hot mess.
I'm actually in the middle of this one, and I really like it so far. I might be doing an internship this summer, so I'm curious about how it worked out for the girls of Hot Mess.


MAX (Earlier Titled Water Wings) by James Patterson (To Be Released in March)
Maximum Ride and the other members of the Flock have barely recovered from their last arctic adventure, when they are confronted by the most frightening catastrophe yet. Millions of fish are dying off the coast of Hawaii and someone--or something--is destroying hundreds of ships. Unable to discover the cause, the government enlists the Flock to help them get to the bottom of the disaster before it is too late.

While Max and her team are exploring the depths of the ocean, their every move is being carefully tracked by Mr. Chu--a criminal mastermind with his own plans for the Flock. Can they protect themselves from Mr. Chu's army of mercenaries and save the ocean from utter destruction?

I love this series so much! The Final Warning, the last Maximum Ride book, wasn't my favorite in the series, but this one more than made up for it. We have a lot more Fang in this one, and, come on...who doesn't want more Fang? This might even be the best Maximum Ride book so far. Angela nabbed this one for review, so I'm a bit jealous, but I know she'll do the book justice. So good! Expect a review closer to MAX's release date.


Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson
In a Ya-Ya Sisterhood for teens, Peaches combines three unforgettable heroines who have nothing in common but the troubles that have gotten them sentenced to a summer of peach picking at a Georgia orchard.

Leeda is a debutante dating wrong-side-of-the-tracks Rex.
Murphy, the wildest girl in Bridgewater, likes whichever side Rex is on.

Birdie is a dreamer whose passion for Girl Scout cookies is matched only by her love for a boy named Enrico.

When their worlds collide, The Breakfast Club meets The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in an entirely original and provocative story with a lush, captivating setting.

I've heard good things about this one, so I borrowed it from an old drama friend. I'm excited about reading it. Plus, hello? It's summary compares it to the Ya Ya Sisterhood, The Breakfast Club, and Traveling Pants. Well, sort of. So I have to see if it lives up to it's comparisons.

American Teen (A Movie)
The documentary hit of Sundance 2008, American Teen offers up irresistible archetypes of everybody's high school years: the jock, the nerd, the prom queen. You can't blame filmmaker Nanette Burstein (The Kid Stays in the Picture) for focusing on these easily-relatable figures--they pop off the screen. She spent the school year with the senior class at Warsaw High in Warsaw, Indiana, a close-quarters town where, it seems, the lives of the adults are not so different from the lives of the teens. You'll hiss pampered princess Megan, whose behavior verges on the sadistic; you'll roll your eyes at geeky Jake, whose way with the girls does not measure up to his fantasy world of knights and fair ladies; you'll feel for Colin, whose shot at going to college is quite literally his jump shot. Most of all you'll be drawn in by Hannah, the typical creative-misfit type, whose gamine charm is subject to alarming depressions. The movie succeeds at its goal, which is to make all this familiar material come to life (even if an average year of The Real World accomplishes similar things). Purists might have more qualms about the extent to which the kids' actions occasionally feel motivated by the camera's presence, and how the film crew decided to let some of the more serious decisions unfold. Such unease probably won't deflect the general good time, nor the sense--for anyone over 18--of "thank god that's over." --Robert Horton (From Amazon's Reviews)

I won this from one of Melissa Walker’s Win-It-Wednesdays. How cool is that?


So now that I've wrapped up the Mailbox part, I have a question for our readers: Which NSCG reviewers' book-type do you share?

always,
~bella aire~

IMM is a feature begun by the Story Siren: http://www.thestorysiren.com