Blurb Business--A Mystery

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about what novels I’ve recently read. One of those novels was a young adult, chick-lit novel written by my friend Beth. (I didn’t mention, by the way, that when I bought the book I was so self-conscious about buying an aqua-blue-and-electric-orange covered, obviously-written-for-teenaged-girls book that I purchased Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love and another copy of War and Peace to make me less conspicuous, though now that I think about it, I probably looked even stranger to the woman ringing me up).

Anyway, I loved Beth’s little book, ate it up like candy, and I said so in that post.

Last night, I was channel surfing, and the TV wound up on an MTV commercial. The spot was for the six recently released MTV/Pocket Books titles, one of which is Beth’s book, Life as a Poser.

The commercial showed the covers of each of the books, while voice-overs in thick, valley-girl accents said things like, “I absolutely loved Cruel Summer.” I was thinking, here’s one of the perks of being published by a company in cahoots with MTV: an advertising campaign directed right at the people who may buy your books (and thirty-year-old men who are channel surfing or just happen to love the show Next). So, I was thinking this and waiting for Beth’s book to pop up, and when it did, the voice-over said, “I’m totally looking forward to the next book in the series.”

I thought, that sounds familiar. And then I thought, I wrote that in my blog. I just re-checked the post, though, and I didn’t write it in the blog. I sent it in an email to Beth herself, but it was through her author website, which is how we’ve been emailing each other lately.

The quote was attributed to someone on screen, but it went by too fast for me to read it. I want to know who it’s attributed to--if someone in the machine got hold of that email or whatever--and I keep flipping to MTV during commercials hoping to catch the thing, but I haven’t seen the spot again. (My wife, by the way, thinks I’m crazy, and that it’s a generic enough quote that anybody could have said it.) I’m not so sure, though. So, my three-and-a-half readers, look for the commercial, and listen for the valley-girl-accented, “I’m totally looking forward to the next book in the series,” and see what’s written on the screen. The curiosity is, like, absolutely killing me.