It’s rare that I read a book review that makes me want to run out and buy the book being reviewed, but that’s what happened to me yesterday. Literally. The New York Times ran this review of a new novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by a first-time novelist named Marisha Pessl.

Right after I read the review, I went to Amazon.com and saw that the book’s official release date is not until next week. But I know that The Strand, a great Manhattan bookstore, sometimes has half-price reviewer’s copies of new books from overstock. I checked out the Strand’s website and saw two copies listed, so I walked over to the store. There was only one copy left when I got there, so I bought it.

Unfortunately, I’m reading another book right now, and I won’t get to the new one right away.

Incidentally, in writing this blog post, I googled the author, and the first two results were these two blog posts that say almost the exact same meta-thing about her. This:

So right away we’ve got the many of the necessary ingredients for being news-worthy: Pessl is young, she’s female, and her book sold in the mid-to-high six-figure range with lucrative foreign rights sales. [snip] … as I’m sure you’ve likely guessed by now — she’s the latest in a long, long line to suffer from “Hot Young Author Chick” Syndrome.

And this:

It happens a few times a year now. An attractive, young writer will come out of nowhere with a debut novel that leaves the publishers salivating. Sometimes it’s not the book itself that causes the commotion, but rather its perceived marketability—maybe the drool-worthy author photo, or the potential connections the book/author represents—that really get the publicity departments going… [snip] It would be easy to dismiss Marisha Pessl as another one of these writers. Her bio, after all, does list her as a model and actress as well as a writer. Her dreamy, airy author photo pretty much guarantees articles in fashion magazines along with snarky reviews by people who may or may not have actually read the book. The difference in this case, however, is that, despite a rocky start, her novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics is really quite good.

So apparently this book has gotten lots of pre-publicity buzz. God, I hope reading this book isn’t going to make me seem trendy. I hate looking like I’m hopping onto a bandwagon.