I’m usually not to good at this internet networking stuff, but I got a GoodReads message from soon-to-be debuting author Kirsten Hubbard about a review I wrote awhile back and was so glad I did. And not just because I later ran into her on metafilter (gotta love those mefites). She just released the cover image for her first book, Like Mandarin, and it’s just as exciting as the blurb/premise:

I want to be beautiful like you, I thought, as if Mandarin were listening.

I want apricot skin and Pocahontas hair and eyes the color of tea. I want to be confident and detached and effortlessly sensual, and if promiscuity is part of the package, I will gladly follow your lead. All I know is I’m so tired of being inside my body.

I would give anything to be like Mandarin.

It’s hard to find beauty in the badlands of Washokey, Wyoming. Fourteen-year-old Grace Carpenter knows it’s not her mother’s pageant obsessions, or the cowboy dances and pickup trucks adored by her small-town classmates. True beauty is wild girl Mandarin Ramey: seventeen, shameless and utterly carefree.

Grace would give ANYTHING to be like Mandarin.

When the misfits are united for a project, they embark on an unlikely, explosive friendship, packed with nights spent skinny-dipping in the canal, liberating the town’s animal-head trophies, and constantly searching for someplace magic. Grace even plays along when Mandarin suggests they make a pact to run away together. Blame it on the crazy-making wildwinds that plague their badlands town.

But all too soon, Grace discovers Mandarin’s unique beauty hides a girl who’s troubled, broken and even dangerous. And no matter how hard Grace fights to keep the magic, even the best friendships can’t withstand betrayal.

I love books about complicated female friendships, and I don’t think there are nearly enough of them. So, in short, I’m jazzed about this book and this author. Keep an eye out for her, okay?

Parisian Love, Part II from Matt Haughey on Vimeo.

Oh, and we’re attending the 10th anniversary metafilter meet-up in Orlando this week-end. Expect pictures. And custom t-shirts!

I made my first metafilter front page post yesterday.

70+ comments! I’m glad it wasn’t a total bust. Are you proud of me? I am.