Alex, Approximately

Product Description In this delightfully charming teen spin on Youve Got Mail, the one guy Bailey Rydell cant stand is actually the boy of her dreams-she just doesnt know it yet.Classic movie buff Bailey Mink Rydell has spent months crushing on a witty film geek she only knows online by Alex. Two coasts separate the teens until Bailey moves in with her dad, who lives in the same California surfing town as her online crush.Faced with doubts (what if hes a creep in real life-orworse?), Bailey doesnt tell Alex shes moved to his hometown. Or that shes landed a job at the local tourist-trap museum. Or that shes being heckled daily by the irritatingly hot museum security guard, Porter Roth-a.k.a. her new arch-nemesis. But life is whole lot messier than the movies, especially when Bailey discovers that tricky fine line between hate, love, and whatever-it-is shes starting to feel for Porter.And as the summer months go by, Bailey must choose whether to cling to a dreamy online fantasy in Alex or take a risk on an imperfect reality with Porter. The choice is both simpler and more complicated than she realizes, because Porter Roth is hiding a secret of his own: Porter is AlexApproximately. Review Youve Got Mail gets a teenaged spin in this story of Bailey, classic film buff and product of divorce, who moves across the country to live in a California surfing town with her dad. Baileys been swapping movie facts with online pal Alex, a boy who happens to live in that same California town. Alex, though, still thinks she lives on the East Coast, and doesnt know her real name-Baileys mom is a high-powered divorce attorney, and Bailey is all too familiar with the value of privacy. A summer job at a local museum has Bailey finding a new best friend in spunky, British Grace, and a new nemesis in Porter, a security guard and member of a legendary-and plagued by tragedy-surfer family. Its not long before Bailey and Porters verbal sparring turns into something more, and while it becomes clear to the reader that Porter is Alex, neither he nor Bailey have any idea. Strong character development makes this a must form romancereaders: bottled-up Bailey has plenty of secrets in her past, and Porters family dynamics, plus his Hawaiian background and disintegrating friendship with a troubled fellow surfer, give him depth. There are a lot of different, sometimes dramatic, threads here, but the plot never feels overcrowded. Movie quotes kick off each chapter, and the California backdrop is an ideal setting for this uncommonly nuanced summer romance. - Maggie Reagan -- Booklist, Starred ReviewA movie-obsessed teen moves to her dads beach town and unexpectedly falls for an edgy surfer rather than the film-buff soul mate she was expecting to meet. The summer before senior year, 17-year-old Bailey Rydell moves from D.C. to her fathers small beach town on the Central California coast. The one perk of moving is that Alex, her favorite chat-mate on a classic-film fan forum, lives there too, and she plans to surprise him-not that they know one anothers real names (she goes by Mink online). Her first day working at a mansion-cum-museum, introverted Bailey, a white girl who sports platinum-blonde Lana Turner pin curls, meets Porter Roth, a ridiculously good-looking but cocky 18-year-old security guard from a legendary local surfing family. Porter, whos Hapa (half Polynesian/Chinese, half white), has a unique way of exasperating Bailey. As she futilely attempts to find Alex via chat-transcript clues, readers will figure out his identity long before she does. Theres definitely a The Shop Around the Corner buildup to the romantic chemistry, but in addition to their charming banter and online-quiz exchanges, Bailey and Porter also tackle substantive issues such as anxiety, PTSD, drug abuse, cheating, and sexual experience. Bennett creates an authentically multicultural ensemble, from Baileys Nigerian-by-way-of-