First Date by Krista McGee

book: First Date
written by: Krista McGee
genres: romance, chicklit, religious
pages: 322
own / library / netgalley
release date: January 10th, 2012
series? nope
publisher: Thomas Nelson


note: thanks to NetGalley and Tomas Nelson press for letting me read this book, I loved it. It was slightly out of my comfort zone, but that did not make me hate this book!

the book:
Meet Addy Davidson, a normal teenager who is happily living with her uncle, in a normal American town. But her life is about to be changed dramatically. She is asked to be one of the hundred girls who are participating in The Book of Love, a new reality soap in which they look for the prom date of the president's son, Johnathon Jackson. Addy does not want to participate in it, but in the end she goes. Immediately she finds out she is not like all the other girls that are participating. She wants to be smart, instead of popular, and is not as pretty as the other girls. Her #1 mission is to go home, as soon as possible. But when she gets to know some of the girls and the presidents son better, her opinion changes.
In this story you will get to know the importancy of religion and how it can affect parts of your life!

my review:
I would call this book: 'The Bachelor' meets 'America's Next Top Model' meets God, which is a very strange mixture, which turned out to be pretty good. This great debut novel of Krista McGee was nothing like I espected a religious book to be, and that is a good thing, because I espected all religious books to be kind of boring, but it was not boring at all.
Addy is the normal girl. The one that says she does not want to be famous, but finds out she actually has to, because god wants her to. The whole book is based on a TV reality show, 'The Book of Love' which seems kind of boring, but also seems like some show lots of people would love to watch, and that makes it a fun book. I loved the whole 'normal but actually not' thing :D
The plot of the book sounded pretty interesting, whit the whole TV-show thing, but it did not sound as something special. And I was completely wrong on that. This book was not some book you could call normal, maybe that's because of the whole religion thing, and maybe it is just about the book, but it's just the way I felt after reading it.
The characters in this book were pretty good. I would not say that I could perfectly relate to them, but they were not bad! At least the girl was not one of the stupid girls that fall in love with someone on the first sight, and the boy seemed pretty nice.
This book is also like America's Next Top Model in some ways, mainly because of the girls that compete agains each other, they are all so ANTM-like. Addy is the one special girl you always have, also with ANTM, the one that just does not fit in the group, and the one that wins in most cases. But I'm OK with the fact that it is like ANTM, since I love that show :D
There still are points that could be improved on this book, but this is a great start!


A wonderful debut novel of an author we definitely should keep an eye on!


I would recommend this book to: girls who love YA contemporary romance, they'll love this book!


my rating:
3/5 stars!


xo Mar

about the author:
Krista McGee writes for teens, teaches teens, and, more often than not, acts like a teen. Along with her husband and three kids, Krista has lived and ministered in Texas, Costa Rica, and Spain.