MEET THE NEW BLOGGERS!

Eeeee, it's finally time for that announcement. The announcement! First, I want to give a huge thank-you to every single person who showed interest in co-blogging and -reviewing with me; it really does mean a lot to me that so many of you were interested in blogging with me. This may sound cliche, but I truly do wish I could have chosen you all, but ultimately I chose two awesome applicants of the however many there were, and now it's time for you to meet them! Below is a little something about them, personally, and you'll also get to see some more of them on the blog through their awesome reviews and whatnot. 

Meet Melanie! 

Hi bibliophiles! *waves awkwardly*

My name is Melanie (or just Mel) and I am 13 years old from Melbourne Australia. (Clearly, I’m the oldest of the newly grown family. Hah.) I also blog at YA Midnight Reads and have been loving this hobby of mine ever since December last year, when I started. My obsessions include procrastinating, reading, CHOCOLATE, buying too many books, having sudden spaz attacks, excessive comma use and watching My Little Pony. I also play Netball and Piano. If anything, this is what you must tolerate with me - most of my spaz attacks will be because of Percabeth. Percabeth is a ship name of Percy and Annabeth from the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. If you didn't know what Percabeth was until now, I highly recommend you go and read that series! *haunting stare* Other than that, my reviews will try to sound as posh as possible but probably have a touch of craziness in them. Also, since I'm an Aussie, I’ll try to share some Aussie books here as well!

I cannot wait to start co-reviewing at Finding Bliss in Books, I’ve been stalking Blythe’s reviews for a while so it’s exciting to blog with her.

Meet Kate!

Hi new book friends!  My name’s Kate Bond.  I’m an actress. I live in Los Angeles with my wonderful husband, who writes for tv, and two adorable dogs, who do not.  I read a lot—usually at least five books a week.  When I was nine years old I was sent to the principal’s office for sneakily reading a copy of Gone with the Wind I’d tried to hide inside Charlotte’s Web, which was our assigned text and which I had read the year before.  Looking back at that moment, what really strikes me is that I was stupid enough to think no one would notice the dictionary-sized novel.  How could I have been smart enough to read a book that high above my grade level while lacking the ability to understand something as basic as EVERYONE CAN SEE THE SECOND BOOK YOU ARE HOLDING?  

My parents divorced when I was four, and during kindergarten my sisters and I (I'm the middle child) moved away from Atlanta to live with my mom's new husband.  The town where I lived from then until my eighteenth birthday is tiny, located in rural Georgia.  The movie My Cousin Vinny was filmed there during my childhood, which I say not to brag but to explain the “yikes” of it all.  My family of seven (I had a stepsister and -brother) lived in the middle of the woods in a two-bedroom house.  I loved having so many siblings, but reading became a welcome means of escape for me, and to this day it’s the only thing that can really calm me when I’m scared or stressed.

The summer before my senior year of high school, things got…complicated at home.  As a result I ended up homeless, living in my car while I finished high school.  So while I had full academic scholarships, I didn’t go to college.  Instead I drifted around the country working a series of weird jobs—I ran an airbrush tanning salon in Florida, worked as a tour planner in Kentucky, and was a group sales manager at a hotel in the Chicago area—before finally making my way to California.  

My career path only got stranger once I arrived in Los Angeles.  My resume reads like a joke about ADD.  I’ve been the executive assistant at a law firm; corporate sales manager for a language interpretation company; publicist at a pr firm that represented fashion brands; field organizer on Obama’s first presidential campaign; manager in Disney’s online division; and costume designer/stylist on commercials, music videos, and films.  When my husband and I got married three years ago I finally dropped all the crazy day jobs (although I will still occasionally leave town for a few months at a time to help out on political campaigns, and I work with a charity called the Alliance for Children’s Rights (which will make me cry if I talk about it too much)) to settle back into acting full-time.  

And that’s where I am now!  I’ve been on Lie to Me, Person of Interest, and a failed MTV pilot that no one will ever see.  I produced and starred in a web series last month, and I think we’ll have it edited by July, so that’s exciting.  I love YA fiction because it can be emotionally honest and use strong metaphors in ways that traditional literature just isn't allowed to.  I generally prefer books written by women (with some notable exceptions like Charlie Huston, Neil Gaiman, and Terry Pratchett), and I try not to consume media that doesn’t consider the feminine perspective. 

I will never forgive C.S. Lewis for sending Susan to hell for wearing lipstick and nylons in The Chronicles of Narnia.

You can find me on Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/ladykatebond and on twitter at @ladykatebond.

There we go! You've met the official two new faces of Finding Bliss in Books, and I am absolutely ecstatic to have the opportunity to blog with them because they're awesome, as am I ecstatic for you to get to get to read their reviews and get to know them even more so through interaction from future (and inevitably awesome) blog posts. Eeee! In case you couldn't tell, I happen to be very excited.