In search of book reviews

I just read -- and completely agreed with -- Victoria Chang's latest blog post about the state of literary reviews moving out of the hands of bastions like the New York Times and online in a more grassroots effort. Victoria's blog post is in response to a post by Jacob Silverman on the Virginia Quarterly Review blog that bemoans Salon.com's decision to review MTV reality star Lauren Conrad's novel, L.A. Candy. Why was this worthless book reviewed, he wants to know, and do all books even deserve reviews? Aside from the touch of imperiousness, my question is why did he waste a blog post basically giving Conrad's novel even more press (complete with dust jacket image). Maybe they were looking for a few more page views at VQR?

Vanilla Heart is an indie publisher, so they don't have the budget to send out dozens and dozens of review copies of Conquering Venus. That means I'll be sending some out myself. Here's my offer: I'm looking for five blogging friends (or new bloggers I've yet to meet) to review my novel when it's published in August. I'll send you an autographed copy free of charge. Who's in?