Review policy: I only post reviews on my blog for books I feel strongly about, good or bad.
Title: STILL LIFE WITH STRINGS
Author: L.H. Cosway Read more
reviews
Being honest with your fellow man
Jennie Hansen is a respected reviewer/writer in Mormon fiction. She reviews at Meridian Magazine and (I believe) is a judge for the Whitney Awards.
She is also a LIAR.
I have been very unhappily mostly silent about this for two years now, but one of her latest blog posts, “A Reviewer’s Confession,” has me seeing red and I’ll be damned if I sit silent any longer.
In this confession, she said:
Only once did I give a book a one star rating and that was because the language was filthy and the author hadn’t researched LDS policy. (The author came unglued over my rating!)
Oh, Jennie. Honey. You haven’t seen unglued yet.
Why? Because you gave me that rating not actually having read the book. How do I know this? Because this:
the author hadn’t researched LDS policy
is patently untrue.
If you had read past the one-page prologue you would know that.
My journalism training had qualified me as a critic . . .
Apparently you didn’t learn how to check your facts (or other reviews) before opening your mouth.
You also probably don’t grok that part of the temple recommend interview where the bishop asks you if you’ve been honest with your fellow man. Or else you were honest and you don’t have a temple recommend.
I don’t know if you were part of the judging panel for the Whitney Award committee or not, but if you were, that adds another layer of fraud to your pattern of behavior for this book—and is the catalyst for my having come unglued at your “review.”
You lied about reading my book.
In church vernacular, then, I challenge you to:
1) actually read the book and rescind your lie
OR
2) declare publicly that you read the entirety of Magdalene. Anywhere will do: your blog, Goodreads, my blog, Meridian magazine.
But before you attempt #2, I want to direct your attention to Scott Hales’s review (he who is also a respected scholar of Mormon literature), the Exponent II review, and the Publisher’s Weekly review, all of which refute your claim that I did not research church policy.
You lied about reading that book, Jennie. That by itself is dishonorable and worthy of contempt. If you were assigned to read it for the Whitneys, you also tarnished the integrity of the awards.
Own it and confess.
“Heroine decapitates someone in the first scene”
I am proud to announce my first 1-star review for Dunham, which you can find here. But I will quote it in its entirety for your convenience.
This book contains some shocking and gory scenes of violence that, for me, were difficult to get past. It seems more like historical fiction masquerading as romance, which isn’t my preference as a reader. I found little to recommend the heroine (she decapitates someone in the first scene), and the hero’s introspection was clouded by odd lines that were stream of consciousness? Bad poetry? I’m not sure what it was, other than that I didn’t like it. I’m surprised that kind of thing got past an editor, as it should have been punctuated or scrapped entirely. In all, I just didn’t like the book–it seemed a little too in love with itself and was weighed down by too much needless dialogue that I couldn’t be bothered to wade through. This one was a DNF for me, unfortunately.
(bold is mine)
I am absolutely and utterly delighted and thrilled with this review. Why? I will tell you.
I wrote the first scene, where Celia mutinies her captain by beheading him on the first page, almost 20 years ago. It was not then, nor was it for many years afterward, warmly received by any critique group and/or would-be beta readers (except one total stranger who loved it). It was, apparently, “not heroine-like. Your hero could do it, though.” (That’s a quote.) (By a male.) In fact, it was insulted, reviled, and generally all-around “WTF do you think you’re doing? WOMEN DON’T DO THAT!”
And that’s why I kept it. Through all the naysayers and insults, I knew what I wanted to do and I never wavered. I meant to write a female pirate and I’d be damned if my female pirate didn’t act like an actual pirate.
Even when that wasn’t fashionable.
Regardless, that scene (as does every opening scene in every one of my books) serves as a litmus test for me and the reader. It tells the reader, “If you can’t make it through the first few pages, you really aren’t going to like this book, so don’t waste your time.” It’s a public service, really.
But if you can carry on in spite of its opening, you’re in for a real treat.
As for this: “It seems more like historical fiction masquerading as romance,” well, that’s probably true, too, although I never really looked at it that way because I consider myself a romance writer.
But you know what? What this tells me is that it will appeal to many people, not just romance readers who like strong females and want something different. Because I’ve been vindicated. There are plenty of people who like Celia because she decapitates someone in the first scene.
I like a good beheading in the morning.
PS Please please please go upvote her review because that’ll help me sell more books. CONTROVERSY!
Magdalene and Publisher’s Weekly
For an author, a Publisher’s Weekly starred review is one of the holy grails of reviews. It’s one of those things that, for a writer, is right up there with The Call (“Hi, Mojo. I want to offer you a contract for your book.”). I’ve had pretty close brushes with getting The Call, which (three times, to be precise) ended up to be “I love this book and I want to buy it, but I can’t because of Freak Things 1, 2, and/or 3.” What I have never dared aspire to (especially once I started down the self-pub path) is a review in Publisher’s Weekly at all, much less a starred one. But then Tuesday, this happened:
And you know what? I’m kinda proud because I had some goals with this book and, at least for this reviewer, I hit some of them. Later I received an email from the senior editor of reviews at PW passing along some more remarks the reviewer made, which made me believe that I accomplished almost all of my goals with the book.
But there is one I want to talk about because it’s not one that’s obvious. And it’s not obvious because I set this challenge for my own benefit, not for the reader’s.
In 2008, my editor for Monsters & Mormons, Wm Morris, wrote this piece at A Motley Vision (a Mormon lit blog): Stephenie Meyer’s Mormonism and the “erotics of abstinence.” The erotics of abstinence. Well, that’s an intriguing little idea. He was springboarding from this Time piece: Stephenie Meyer: A New J.K. Rowling?, wherein the author says this:
But it is the rare vampire novel that isn’t about sex on some level, and the Twilight books are no exception. What makes Meyer’s books so distinctive is that they’re about the erotics of abstinence. Their tension comes from prolonged, superhuman acts of self-restraint. There’s a scene midway through Twilight in which, for the first time, Edward leans in close and sniffs the aroma of Bella’s exposed neck. “Just because I’m resisting the wine doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the bouquet,” he says. “You have a very floral smell, like lavender … or freesia.” He barely touches her, but there’s more sex in that one paragraph than in all the snogging in Harry Potter.
I, like Wm (and pretty much everybody else who read the book), was intrigued by that idea.
In 2008, Mitch and Cassie were a bare glimmer in my mind. I had mentioned Mitch’s name a couple of times in The Proviso with absolutely no intention of following up on that. Cassie didn’t even exist when I wrote the sketch with a nameless unreliable and unlikeable narrator in the style of “Snuff.” I like to do those sometimes, usually because something catches my attention and I’m restless and haven’t written for a while and though I only have a few words in me, they must come out. That 250-word monologue was in my head when I started thinking about Mitch’s role in Sebastian’s life. The two disparate ideas simply wound in and around each other like different streams of smoke drifting on the same breeze, tickling my mind with vague possibilities.
I was still in the planning stages of Magdalene, trying to figure out if I would or would not have my bishop succumb to temptation. I will tell you: I didn’t want him to, because that wasn’t who he was and besides that, I’d already gone down that road with Giselle. But how was I going to do this? I didn’t think I could write sexual tension, didn’t think I could carry abstinence too far and still make it seem legitimate. (We Mormons have all sorts of ways to justify our celibacy, but nobody outside our culture buys a word of it.)
Then I stumbled upon the “erotics of abstinence.” Stephenie Meyer had to go to paranormal lengths to justify abstinence until marriage. I don’t write paranormal, so I didn’t want to do that. She also had teenagers, which is its own justification. I don’t write teenagers, so that was out of the question.
I wanted to do that. With adults. Who weren’t vegetarian vampires. Plausibly.
I wanted to do it better.
So I did.
Book Review: The Ugly Princess
The Ugly Princess
by Elizabeth K. Burton
Published by Zumaya Publications
The only thing wrong with this book is the cover. Blech. (Although the irony is cute.)
But I didn’t beg the author to point me to an e-copy (which she so obligingly sent me in a format I could use, yay customer service!) because or in spite of it. (It’s only currently available in dead-tree version; I expect it’ll show up on Fictionwise soon.)
Here’s the official blurb:
The king is dead, long live the queen!
Well, not if the King of Nadwich and the dead monarch’s three royal ministers have anything to say about it.
It’s up to Sir Christopher Evergild, the Royal Champion, to see that the new queen survives to take her throne—even if she is so ugly she’s been locked away for twenty years with only trolls for company. Chris is prepared to do his duty, even if The Ugly Princess does turn out to be the lunatic she’s always been rumored to be.
What he isn’t ready for is having his entire world turned upside down and inside out—and having to decide between love and the fear that has haunted him most of his life.
This is going to be a short review because, well, I loved everything about it. After speaking with the author, however, I have a feeling she and I share sensibilities in our stories, so take everything I say with that in mind. Or not.
This is a fantasy with sweet romantic elements and I love the sweet stories as much as I love the hawt ones. There is no swearing or sex (oh, maybe a “damn” or “hell” here and there, but I can’t remember). It’s set in the imaginary world of Karlathia, which I envision as a fairy-tale village whose battle technology is a weird mix of firearms and medieval hand-to-hand combat.
It has two narrators (Bertram, the kingdom’s seneschal, and Christopher, its army’s chief general), and is split into first and third person, which I love. In the almost-omniscient first person, the prose is loose and funny, yet cozy because it breaks the fourth wall, yet is more formal and intense (and removed, natch) in third person. Both suit the respective narrators’ personalities very well.
Descriptions as seen through the seneschal’s first-person point of view were sharp:
He [evil monarch] cut his food into tiny bites, chewing each one thoroughly before swallowing. He did not mix the fare on his plate, finishing one item entirely before proceeding to the next.
Those two brief sentences tell me a whole lot about that character.
Bertram’s overstated understatements and asides make me smile and laugh (in fact, I’d go so far as to say he upstages Christopher, but that is not to the story’s detriment):
Going to the aforementioned clothes press, I discovered my host had an exceedingly eclectic wardrobe–everything from complete Court regalia to a set of rags that seemed held together mostly by optimism.
*
Demtri [idiot nephew of evil monarch], seemingly oblivious to what was happening, sat on the throne with a large bowl of grapes on his lap, tossing them in the air and attempting to catch them in his mouth. His aim was not particularly commendable.
*
At this point I struggled not to draw my pistol and punctuate Niklaes’s arrogance with a lead period.
It was a very fun and funny read. Bonus! I learned a new word: eldritch.
Liz, give me your Paypal address because I want to pay you for this.
Yet more reviews!
I had a nice surprise when I opened up my Amazon reviews page and saw that Midwest Book Review had given me 5 stars. On their own site, I got a “Reviewer’s Choice” listing for March. They’re fairly important in bookland, from what I can gather, so I wasn’t even sure they’d review it. You can imagine my delight when I found out that not only had they reviewed it… I need to contact them to change my pub’s name, though.
Then Th. gave me what I think is an awesome review. Heck, I’m just grateful he read it at all, since as far as I know, he’s the only Mormon who has. He hated Knox. To me, that was incredibly instructive and has had me thinking about a similar reaction I had to the characters in another book, on which I will expound further once I gather my thoughts.
I’m in the process of gathering the vignettes and outtakes from The Proviso (which you can read online here) and compiling them into a nice e-book format for download. This one has a different cover. The photography was supplied by Eric Bowers of Madness Matrix Photography whose work I love and especially because he loves Kansas City, too.
Pimping…me! More reviews.
More reviews! You readers are rackin’ ’em up and I appreciate every single one, believe me. Lessee, from the latest three, at Amazon:
1. LINK
Oddly enough, I see a lot of talk of it being specifically Mormon, and though I found that lent an interesting thread of morality you don’t see every day, it’s also ALL about the sex. Surely, this didn’t come from the same ideology as those fanatics who spent a fortune trying to manhandle CA politics or force feed us the Osmonds as paragons of virtue. . . The religious undertones didn’t even strike me as odd until I stepped away from the story and realized how much the rest of it doesn’t fit with the stereotype. I’m still not sure how to integrate the two…
[…] What most of us identify as “Mormon” just doesn’t really factor into the story. It’s more of an interesting little sidebar and to focus on that aspect ignores the fact that in general, it’s just a damned good story.
2. LINK
…it is one of few books I’ve read where religion and politics mingle, and it was quite a ride. Like a previous reviewer mentioned, I did have stereotypes in mind when I opened this book, and it made the characters all the more human to me, because even though I am not a fan of politics, nor a member of the Morman church, I could still relate.
Moriah Jovan has a gift with words, and a wonderful ability to make her characters so vivid. The heroes, the heroines, and everyone else that crossed their paths throughout the course of the story.
3. LINK
The quixotic mixture of murder, revenge, sex, and religion is really what caught my attention about this book in the first place, especially in the context of the Mormon religion. Wallace Stegner once wrote that “it is almost impossible to write fiction about the Mormons, for the reasons that Mormon institutions and Mormon society are so peculiar that they call for constant explanation.”
Jovan has achieved a remarkable degree of success in this regard, allowing non-Mormons fascinating glimpses in a natural manner without bombarding us with definitions and explanations. There is a refreshing honesty and lack of rationalization when it comes to questions of morality and faith in a modern world.
[…] The characters are strongly delineated and fascinating. They are the most vivid and striking people I’ve had the pleasure of “meeting” via the printed page in a long time. They may be a bit larger than life, so to speak, but never over the top. I don’t always agree with them or like them, but I will always remember them.
Bold is mine. ’Cause it’s my favorite part of the whole review.
Book Review: The Duchess et al
The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom & Their Lover: An Erotic Novel
by Victoria Janssen
Published by Spice
Please note the title and study the cover a bit. Does that say “romance novel” to you? Me, neither.
And yet, despite the absence of the word “Harlequin” anywhere on the cover, on the copyright page, on the “coming attractions” back matter, apparently, Romancelandia thought this was a romance. I don’t know why, unless Romancelandia simply has no history with pure erotica.
There is a difference between romantic erotica and pure erotica (aka could-be-porn-if-that’s-your-definition) and perhaps Ellora’s Cave has just trained Romancelandia to read “romance” or “romantic erotica” where they see “erotic novel” or “erotica.”
I don’t know how this could have been mistaken for a romance.
Moving along. Jessica, over at Racy Romance Reviews, reviewed this and while her review wasn’t necessarily favorable, it was academic (’cause she R 1) and in no way (I thought) insulting. She also admitted that she didn’t have much experience with whatever “pure” erotica really is.
I wanted to read this book, but balked at paying $11.30 for the ELECTRONIC book, so someone took pity on me and sent it to me, requesting that, if possible, I review it because that person was interested in my opinion (though heaven only knows WHY!).
My opinion is that I can’t finish this book.
Why?
The nastiness that went on concerning a liveblogging “review” incident between Dear Author and Smart Bitches (NOT linking). I didn’t read the transcript, so I am not speaking to whether the liveblogging was nasty or not, but the comments on the thread really, really disheartened me. It destroyed any enjoyment I might have gotten out of it and made me want to pick nits where there were no nits to pick.
I read 40% of the book before I simply had to put it down, so I feel very cheated and I’m going to address others’ complaints of the book that apply to what I read and comment on those, then I’ll pick the two very big nits I actually did have.
COMPLAINTS:
1. Nobody could figure out the setting, but thought it might be somewhere in 17th-18th Century France.
Okay, first, it’s erotica. Have we established this fact? It doesn’t need a setting. It’s a fairy tale and the descriptions were such that I envisioned a Neuschwanstein-type castle.
As long as the descriptions of the castle let you know these characters were amongst lush, and candles were the major source of light, and the clothes were voluminous and bulky, the exact place and time weren’t important.
2. That the sexual situations were totally ridiculous.
Yeah, they sure were. It’s erotica. Have I mentioned that? The “plot” of escaping the abusive-cum-murderous husband is a lot stronger than in most erotica I’ve read, but still more flimsy than that of a romance novel. I suppose if one were reading it as if the plot were the strongest element, I could see how one would be tempted to want to call it “romantic erotica” and be disappointed in the result, but let’s get real: erotica doesn’t need an actual, fleshed-out (heh) plot.
3. That Camille’s reasoning for escaping her abusive-cum-murderous husband RIGHT THEN was flimsy.
Actually, I thought that part was very well set up and the strongest point of the plot. Camille was on the last upswing of the abusive-husband cycle and she knew it. I’ve volunteered at battered women’s shelters. There comes a do-or-die point (literally) for the woman to run and she usually knows when that is. Whether she runs or not…well, that’s up to her.
4. That there just happened to be brothels everywhere along the path they took on their escape route, doubling as inns.
Yeah, there sure were. It’s erotica. Have I mentioned that?
5. There are eunuchs! In a place we think might be 17th-18th Century France. Eunuchs! What the fuck?
Fuck, indeed and precisely. It’s erotica. Have I mentioned that?
STRENGTHS:
I think Jessica summed it up best when she said this:
In some ways, despite the sexual sadism of the Duke, this book offers a very positive view of sex. Sex is the go-to coping strategy for most of life’s problems: Need an heir? Feeling stressed? Husband trying to kill you? Lonely? Bored? Want to show someone you have power over them? Need a place to stay for free? Want to escape those thugs? Need a favor? Want to convince someone to ally with you? Want to thank someone? The answer is sex, sex, sex, sex, and more sex.
That was its strength and its purpose. Why? Because it’s erotica. Have I mentioned that?
Okay, so now that we’ve got all that out of the way, here was my problem with what I read:
NIT ONE:
The cover. Come on. It’s gorgeous, absolutely breathtaking all textured and ripe with hot redhead right there in the center of groping hands and a pearl necklace around her neck (make of that what you will).
Except…Camille is described as having black hair with gray streaks.
FAIL.
NIT TWO, which is the genuine weakness of the book:
The sexual logical inconsistencies. “What?!?!” you cry. “You just finished telling us it was erotica and don’t get hung up on the ridiculousness of it. What could you possibly mean?” Not that way, you silly goose.
1. Camille needs an heir or her husband will kill her. Her husband is shooting blanks. She summons the groom to attempt to impregnate her because any child of his could pass for her husband’s. Okay, so far so good. Sounds like a plan. But immediately after finishing with the groom, she is summoned to her husband’s wannabe de Sade dungeon.
[Her husband] had to fuck her at least once, in case she had managed to become pregnant that afternoon.
Okay. We know she doesn’t want to, but we get the timing issue. But then he doesn’t. And not only does she not worry about this, it doesn’t even occur to her that she missed her chance to cover up her possible switcheroo.
2. Camille’s been married to this dude for 20 years and has been exposed (as a spectator and submissive) to every sexual deviance possible because he’s sick and twisted that way. And yet, this night, the relatively mild antics are…different? And now she’s aroused by them? After 20 years of debauchery? Really? Just now? No, I don’t believe it.
a. She has eunuchs who are her bodyguards and, ostensibly, sexual servants. She has an ivory carving (dildo). In 20 years of exposure and being aroused (for the first time!) that night, she finally—FINALLY!—asks her eunuchs to pleasure her? No, I don’t believe it.
b. In 20 years of exposure and forced sexual obeisance, she’s never given head until this night? (That’s the way I read it, anyway.) No, I don’t believe it.
In other circumstances, she might have enjoyed tasting so large a cock, but not in front of the duke.
So…has she or has she not experienced pleasure before? Has she or has she not given head? The implication before this passage is that she had (by force), but at this moment thinks about how delicious it might be if her husband wasn’t watching? Say what? No, I don’t believe it.
c. It’s discussed that she was never unfaithful to her husband—in 20 years!—and just that day with the groom was the first time for seeking her pleasure elsewhere and the first time, in fact, that she’d known pleasure at all. No, I don’t believe it.
d. Once the entourage takes to the road, it’s as if everything is a new experience for her, as in, she never knew X activity existed. She becomes lovers with her maid and the author makes a point of letting us know that she hasn’t had a woman. Really? In 20 years of Duke Debauchery and forced sexual obeisance and his own propensity toward voyeurism and she’s never done a woman? No, I don’t believe it.
I think I would have had a problem with Camille’s contradictory sexual history anyway, but I don’t think it would have made me simply put the book down and not want to pick it up again. The unpleasantness surrounding it combined with that simply destroyed any enjoyment I might have had.
Quite simply, it was a chore to read, which frustrated and disappointed me to no end because it was a book I wanted to read and expected to enjoy.
Since this was given to me, I’d like to pass it along. First person to email me gets it.
Book Review: Waiting for Spring
Waiting for Spring
by RJ Keller
It’s been a long time since I threw common sense to the wind and stayed up to finish a book knowing how much I had to do the next day, but not resenting it the next day because it was totally worth it.
This book has no spiffy genre classification. After some thought, I think I’d call it “literary romance.” I don’t know what “women’s fiction” is and I’m not sure I really even know what “chick lit” is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not either of those. And you know, lately, I’ve been very happy with the books that haven’t been easily classified.
Here’s the blurb:
It’s not the kind of pain she can see and smell and wrap with an ace bandage. It’s the kind she tries to numb with sex and work and cleaning-cleaning-cleaning the house. The kind that comes from enduring a lifetime of rejection. First from her mother–whom Tess knows would have aborted her had the law allowed it–then from a string of men whose names she can never remember. And finally, at age thirty-four, from her husband of ten years; the man who once promised to love her forever.
You want angst? I gotcher angst right here, pal. And this is the good stuff, the kind that jerks you around and bashes you over the head and makes you come back for more to see how it all ends. In my experience with literary fiction (one of which was an Oprah pick—sue me), there seems to be some sort of unwritten rule about writing angst, which is to understate it, to let the subtleties of the angst dawn on the reader like a sunrise behind storm clouds.
Problem with that approach is that A) I don’t ever get to know or care about the characters enough to care about their angst and B) their angst isn’t that big of a deal anyway; if the characters clearly don’t care about their angst, why should I? So I’ll read literary fiction, don’t get me wrong, but later, I’ll scratch my head and say (if asked), “Yeah, I think I read that book, but I don’t remember the name or the author.” I just remember dipping my toe in the wading pool of that world once upon a time.
The main character, Tess, has angst and she doesn’t seem to care about her angst, either. But I cared about her angst from the very first paragraph:
They say actions speak louder than words. Maybe. But words do a hell of a lot more damage. Even well-meaning words spoken by well-meaning people.
People like Sister Patricia Mary Theriault. She was my catechism teacher when I was seven years old. Until she ruined my life. […]
Then she told us about the bad soil. […] But the only bad soil I heard about was this:
“As the Sower was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on and–”
Path. Trampled. Bad soil. […]
“Don’t let your hearts become trampled down, children. Keep them soft and fertile so you can feel God’s love inside of you.”
Seven years old. And already I knew I was in some deep shit. The kind that even Sister Patricia couldn’t do anything about.
The twin hyperbolic allegories of “until she ruined my life” and “Seven years old. And already I knew I was in some deep shit” are not, actually, hyperbolic or allegorical, but the reader doesn’t find out why or how until far, far into the book.
You might be tempted to point out that this is simply excellent fiction infrastructure, to which I would say…yeah, I know. But I don’t see that a whole lot anymore. As far as I can tell, the current writing fad is to make me, Random Reader, ask the question and then never let it linger like a good combination of spices on my tongue or let me savor the moment of enlightenment when/if it happens.
Instead, it will ask the question and proceed to answer it for me 2 pages later and sometimes, even worse, will over-explain it in case I didn’t get it fast enough or thoroughly digest all the layers of subtext. I’m very tired of being treated like an idiot in my fiction and, further, I hate that I actually have to call attention to this amazingly annoying trend.
There are quite a few laugh-out-loud lines, sharp. Wry.
When Tess, age 34, takes Brian, age 25, as a lover, they finish, talk, then begin again not long after. Tess observes,
Ready again. Twenty-five. Gotta love that.
Keller also gives the reader glimpses of the spirituality that’s woven all through the tale; they glimmer, like the gold threads in shot fabric:
The stars, he said, were actually souls; all the souls that were too restless to be locked up in heaven. They were so restless that God let them stay outside at night to play.
And when an 8-year-old girl about to take her first communion asks Tess if she believes in God, Tess says:
“Yes, I believe in God. I just…I don’t feel close to him in church.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
I shrugged, even though I knew exactly why. I knew because I’d felt that way since I was a little girl, sitting in my church clothes, listening to the Mass. Trying to feel His presence. Struggling to feel His love. But there was nothing there. Nothing but words I didn’t completely understand and scary status. And then, one beautiful Sunday Spring morning when I was nine years old, something occurred to me. Something I never told anyone else.
He’s not really in here. God doesn’t live inside a building, and that’s all a church is; just a building filled with lots of words. […]
Because Anne [of Green Gables] said that if she really wanted to talk to God, a real true prayer, then she’d have to go outside to do it. She’s need to surround herself with God’s creation, with His beauty; drink it in and let it fill her up. And then she could look heavenward and just feel a prayer.
The narrative itself is choppy, with sentences and paragraphs written in fits and starts, which perfectly mirrors Tess’s personality and her coping mechanisms (particularly her “personality disorder”). In fact, a good portion of Tess’s internal dialog and her observations are written as wry asides to herself and she is inviting you, Random Reader, to chuckle along with her.
And I did. Even while I had tears running down my cheeks.
Judge. Book. Cover.
Th., give thanks and be glad! You are no longer alone in your opinion on my cover. 😉
LDS Fiction has very kindly listed my book amongst the LDS fiction released in the last little while. You have to request this, along with sending its information and the cover (because the poor blog owner can’t be expected to keep track of all the LDS authors and fiction out there). If I recall correctly, I didn’t send a pic of the cover with it because, well, it has bewbies on it. It’s entirely apropos to the story thematically (on about three different levels), but unless you read the book, you aren’t going to get that. On the other hand, I know the audience there and while I didn’t think it would appreciate the cover, obviously the blog owner did what she thought consistent with her blog.
So I’ve garnered a one-star review. Oh, wait, did I say REVIEW? I meant to say, a one-star disapproval rating, based on the cover.
That’s an awful cover. I don’t think I would pick up based on the cover. I couldn’t have it in my home.
To be fair, it does say “rate this book,” not REVIEW this book, but in my world, you kinda have to read a book to rate it, so I think I can be cut some slack for assuming that a rating = review.
This kinda reminds me of the “reviews” Eugene’s book got wherein some folks flew up into the rafters over the fact that there was a bishop’s wife and a vampire together. (Or, better, when the back blurb SAID there was a bishop’s wife and a vampire together, and the reviewers didn’t get it might not be something you’d buy from Deseret Book until they got to the sex scenes.)
I can so appreciate that someone wouldn’t want the print version in the house, so the Lord has provided you with a SOLUTION!
EBOOKS!
Give thanks and be glad.
Zoe Winters’s “Kept”
Kept
by Zoe Winters
published by IncuBooks
Zoe is an independent publisher I “met” by happenstance when I got soundly thrashed on Dear Author for suggesting that a multi-published author whose 3-book SERIES contract had been canceled after book 2 (leaving her fans out in the cold with characters they loved) actually self-publish the third book in the series (you know, since her rights had reverted back to her and she already has a fan base salivating for it). Good gravy, you’d’a thunk I’d said the Rapture was coming tomorrow and they’d all be left behind and have 666 burned into their foreheads bwahahahahaha burn in hell losers.
Anyhoo, as Bob Ross would say, it was a happy accident.
Kept is a free novella you can find at her site (link above) in PDF form. You can find it at Amazon in Kindle for 80¢ and you can find it on Smashwords in various formats for those of us who bitch if we don’t get it the way we want it. Somebody call me a waaaaahmbulance.
And really, “free” is my second-favorite four-letter f-word.
Here’s the blurb:
Greta is a werecat whose tribe plans to sacrifice her during the next full moon. Her only hope for survival is Dayne, a sorcerer who once massacred most of the tribe. What’s that thing they say about the enemy of your enemy?
Now, I don’t do much paranormal and I really don’t like shapeshifters, but throw the word “sorcerer” or “wizard” or “warlock” at me and I’ll take a second look. And I’m glad I did.
Beefs first:
The story was a little choppy in moments of transition, but I’ve seen that so much lately that it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to and, I’m guessing, readers are being taught to get used to it and, by extension, writers are doing it more.
Also, the story could’ve been longer with more explanation of the world. I (Random Reader who likes really really really long books) would have liked that. Let me get you some salt for that opinion.
Good stuff:
What glimpses of their world I got, I liked. I could tell it wasn’t a half-assed world half-thunk-up on the fly, and that it had depth and detail underneath. (Repeat: wanted more.)
I really enjoyed the hero’s crankiness and the fact that he was “old” (how old we’re not told, but I inferred around a century). I liked that when the hero and heroine had sex pretty nearly upfront it was because of species-specific hormone issues (i.e., cat in heat) that she usually controls with medicine, but didn’t have her medicine with her.
I laughed a lot through this book. The banter is witty and cute, seems natural to both of them, and gave the characters the depth that natural humor brings to people.
The cover’s pretty and the interior design is good. In short, it’s right up there with a lot of the novellas in the anthologies by traditional publishers that are on bookstore shelves and much better than a lot of other stuff I’ve read lately from the e-presses that I paid for. I enjoyed myself.
Coulda been longer. Did I say that?
So. If you get it from Smashwords, leave a tip, okay?
Book Review: The Truth About Roxy
The Truth About Roxy
by Jenny Gilliam
published by The Wild Rose Press
I like the longer single-title contemporary romance (no suspense, thanks, and the category lengths are just way too short) and lately, the ones I really like have been coming out of the smaller e-presses. They’re not as well edited as I’d like, but they’re fun reads whose story lines seem to stick with me quite a while.
The Truth About Roxy was a light, fun read that still managed to make me laugh and cry. I’ve read another of this author’s non-suspense novels (Letting Luce) and it was just as light and fun. Even *I*, lover of all alpha heroes monied, adore that Jenny’s characters are normal people like me, with normal-people jobs and normal-people problems.
Here’s the blurb:
Roxy Palmer is a walking, breathing cliché. And darned tired of it. Working as the assistant librarian in her small, Southern home town, Roxy also anonymously pens the local love column, ASK PAULA ROCKWELL–Thorton, Georgia’s answer to Dear Abby. But when the door leading to Roxy’s lifetime dream is slammed in her face by one of the good ol’ boys, Roxy brings out the big guns–and turns the genteel town upside down with her racier, feminist, home-wrecking new format. Paula Rockwell is making Sheriff Noah Kennedy’s life crazy. He’s got angry husbands lined around the block, demanding the cancellation of the column, fights breaking out and women catching their boyfriends’ trucks on fire. If he ever gets his hands on that woman… But he’s got his hands FULL of Roxy at the moment, and if he ever discovers the truth about Roxy, all hell will break loose.
Beefs first:
I thought Noah’s extreme reaction to Roxy’s coming-out (as it were) was too much, because he’d known her all his life and he should’ve understood her better.
And oh, that cover, bless their hearts. [Insert longsuffering sigh here.]
Good stuff:
Again, fun, light romp. The characters were engaging and I believed in the nutjobs and the goofy backwater Southern town because they were drawn so vividly.
I had a really good time with this book, and that’s all I care about.
More reviews for The Proviso!
Wow. It doesn’t rain but it pours and I so want to thank the reviewers for their time!
First up is from R.J. Keller’s blog:
My faithful readers know I’m always looking for something more than just a good book. I want a book that moves me, or makes me think about or look at Stuff in a way I never have before. And I recently found such a book. […] This is a deep, intelligent book. It’s a long’un, yes, but so engaging that I didn’t want to put it down. The characters are real, the writing is top-notch…oh, and it’s damn hot, too!
One of the best books I’ve read in a very, VERY long time. Highly recommended.
And second is from Julie Weight’s blog:
This books moves at a slower pace than I’m used to but it’s been a long time since I picked up and read a lengthy, layered story that delves into the details of the characters. As I read it and sometimes got annoyed with the slow pace, I remembered that I loved Shogun – and if you’ve read Shogun you know how involved that story is! And this story takes the time to acquaint you with the characters. […]
[…] in my opinion this is a character-driven story. Any story about religion, money, politics and sex is about entanglements, complications, lies, deceit, manipulation, good and evil – and this The Proviso delivers in spades while delving into the human side of the main characters. My favorite part of the cover says what this story is really about: “…embroiled as they are in their war, the last thing they expect to find on the battlefield is love.” […]
Bottom line? Big thumbs up for this first novel by new author Moriah Jovan.
Julie also notes:
I have a print copy of the book and the first thing you notice is it’s size. It’s huge. The second thing you notice is that it’s absolutely gorgeous. The cover art is extraordinary, in my opinion. If you walked into a bookstore and this was on the table inside the door, you wouldn’t be able to resist walking over and running your hand over the cover before you flip it over to see the back (also beautiful artwork). When you lay it open, the inside is as gorgeous and rich as the cover and there are actual chapter titles, something you rarely see any more in a book.
The print copy is expensive. I know the author believes in e-books and of course the e-book version is much more affordable. However, for those of us who like the tangible feel of a print book, this one is worth it (and would make an excellent gift for any reader on your list).
Emphasis mine.
And really, you have to read Keller’s post on “more than just a good book” (linked above) because I so identified with it as a reader. Those are the books I read as a teenager and they’ve gotten more and more scarce over time. I’m still looking for those books, though now I have a head start since I’ve got a copy of Shogun in my hands.
Thank you, ladies!
You can purchase The Proviso at B10 Mediaworx in print ($27.99, and we do offer gift wrapping) and ebook ($8.99). It’s also available for the Kindle and soon you’ll be able to purchase it in the iTunes store as an iApp (we’ll let you know).
The Proviso reviews start coming in…
…and it’s good!
I had never read a romance book like this one before; one that mixed Mormonism, Libertarianism, politics, Wall Street, and love, with a hot, at times blunt, dash of sex. It deals with pretty weighty themes and moral tightropes, yet never in a preachy way. The author has fairly intelligent characters and expects her reader to be at least as intelligent. That’s refreshing too. The meandering into theories and philosophies is also fascinating and is a pleasurable stimulation for the synapses.
Thank you for reading it, Sam.
Book Review: Do the Math
Do the Math
by Philip B. Persinger
published by iUniverse
I read a review of this book that pissed me off, but the blurb looked interesting and so I went forth to iUniverse (yes, it’s independently published) to purchase the ebook. I will spare you the nightmare of actually getting the book, but iUniverse? Bite me. Fortunately, the author came through for me when I copied him on my bitchmail to iUniverse (which they still haven’t responded to). Anyway, he got me a print copy of his book posthaste and so I was a fan on that basis alone.
Here’s the blurb:
What could be worse than losing the love of your life? Getting her back!
William Teale is a brilliant professor of mathematics. His theory of inevitability posits that any human action, no matter how insignificant, might result in a disproportionately huge calamity.
His wife, Virginia “Faye” Warner, is a world-famous romance novelist who specializes in reuniting soul mates after a tragic and prolonged separation. According to her math, “one past and two hearts plus one love equals four-ever.” The Teale-Warner marriage is a thing of geometric and artistic perfection, a melding of the heart and the brain-amour and algebra.
But when Faye’s ghostwriter suffers a nervous breakdown and shakes all the arrows out of Cupid’s quiver, Faye reintroduces her husband to love. Unfortunately, it’s not with herself, but with the woman William had loved and lost years ago. Love is about to clash with inevitability, and it’s unclear which will emerge victorious.
Told in the off-beat voice of William’s graduate intern, Roger, Do the Math reveals the curious relationship between logic and love and the delightful consequences of taking a chance.
Only one bad point and it’s technical: The funky paragraph breaks in dialog. Oh, I don’t mean the looooong monologues that have to be broken, but, for example:
“Her home away from home,” he answered. “Room 407. New Coventry Medical Center. Only the best.”
“By the way,” he added as he picked up Claire’s drink and toasted me with it. “You did very well tonight, Roger.”
That unnecessary split happened enough that it was annoying, but certainly not enough to diminish the overall fantasticity of this novel. If you ever needed a posterbook for the validity of self-publishing, this is it.
And one aside, which I don’t know if it was tongue-in-cheek or not. A vague reference is made to the movie Poltergeist, but the story is set in 1978 and that movie didn’t come out until 1982. I could see how that could go either way, so I’m giving the author the benefit of the doubt.
This is the story of 50-year-old professor of mathematics William Teale and Virginia, his romance-novel-writer wife and Claire, Teale’s lost love from 25 years ago. It’s told from the point of view of his 25-year-old intern, Roger, in first person. And oh, it takes place in 1978. Did I say that already?
This book’s kinda sorta billed as a romance. I think. I’m not really sure. And I don’t really know what it is anyway except hilarious. I know it’s supposed to be poignant and bittersweet. I know it’s supposed to be about Teale’s relationship with his wife and his lost love. Really, I do know that.
But what you have to know going in is that I have an eccentric sense of humor and a wee bit of a crush on higher math. Can’t add or subtract without a calculator (multiplication and long division are simply out of the question) and I really just don’t care for discrete math much, but after some struggle and time, I’m a fair hand at simpler calculus. It’s like the bad boy you just want to take home and try to tame.
Okay, so what that’s got to do with the price of tea in China is this: If you don’t get the math jokes, it’s okay. It’s still funny. If you do, it’s ROFLMAO funny. The author conflates mathematics and romance in such a bizarre way I can’t help but chortle just thinking about it. For instance, Teale tries to figure out what to do about his problem using set theory in a discussion with Roger:
“It’s about balancing the quality of the empty set against one with two elements,” I started out. “That just doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said.
Relieved by that concession, I followed up.
“Then how can a set of two elements be qualitatively equivalent to an empty set?”
He smiled wearily. “Unexplored territory, isn’t it?”
He thought a moment longer. “It’s the wasteland,” he said. “We understand the null set. There’s nothing there. But a set of two elements which has no connection, or, if connected, no contiguousness, that is, ultimately a set that is in and of itself empty, isn’t it?”
In other words, using set theory, Teale equates his relationship with his wife (two elements in one set that are disconnected) to a set with nothing in it.
All the little oddball characters that populate a college campus/faculty/town are fondly drawn and you can immediately find the equivalents of these people in the memories of your own college experience. All the subplots come together nicely in one tight, tidy little knot at the end (although I’ll admit I knew where one of them was going on page 23, and sure enough).
Now, about that “romance novels are just a formula” business: That is repeated ad nauseam throughout the tale, but funny enough, even though they spend valuable computer time (vacuum tubes! keypunch cards!) trying to figure it out, they read from a how-to-write-romance manual and follow it strictly, and yet…they never manage to figure it out, disproving their own premise that there’s a real formula to it.
I had no problem with this facet for three reasons: (1) Though all the characters (including the romance novel writer and her ghostwriter) think this, it doesn’t seem to be thought of as a bad thing; it’s simply a fact of their life and needs to be adhered to as any other product specification, as they’re up against a deadline, and (2) This is set in 1978, remember. The specifications outlined are, to the best of my recollection, exactly how romances were written in the late ’70s, so I can’t really go throwing stones at fact (or at least my perception of fact), and (3) For all the “formula” talk, it was still respectful of the genre and its fans.
Some passages that made me howl (and wake up the Tax Deducations) got their pages dog-eared. (The horrors!) Examples (although I must warn you that my sense of humor is a bit, ah, weird, and these are somewhat out of context so they might not translate):
[Sample from a technical writer for a nuclear reactor handbook applying for the job of a romance novelist ghostwriter]:
“…pump type can be determined by identifying flange at top of housing. Inductive cooling pump has a rigid pressure release vent hanging down perpendicularly on flange centerline. Whereas action release coil pump is unique because of the two nipples protruding from either side directly above the emergency bleed valve.”
and
“A warning. The manifold might be hot. Use caution when sliding the spanner between the opened blades, as there is a danger of electrical arcing… It might be necessary to remove the probe from the main sheath and reinsert with proper lubrication… If vibration continues, apply appropriate torque to the uppermost junction point until release is achieved…”
[Romance novelist] closed the booklet with a rude snap.
“There has been a terrible misunderstanding here.”
“I’m sorry?” said Claire.
“This seems so–how should I put it? Technical.”
Even though it is in no real way similar, it vaguely reminded me of Neal Stephenson’s The Big U. Loved the premise, loved the voice, loved the characters and the humor is dry enough to make you beg for water.
And, oh, the author didn’t assume the reader would be 5 and need everything explained.
Meh.
I’ve had something rolling around in my head for a while since Dear Author asked, “What’s wrong with a C Review?” More recently, a discussion at Racy Romance Reviews involving a book I must get expanded on the conversation at Dear Author (I have a sneaking suspicion RfP and I are on the same wavelength with regard to this).
To clarify: C means neither good nor bad, but average.
To me, an average book = meh = forgettable. In my opinion, if a book is forgettable, it didn’t finish the job it started. What I haven’t figured out yet is if a book is so bad it’s not possible to forget, did it do its job?
I’m trying to distill this out for myself, but I’m reading a lot of books lately that are meh. In fact, they are so meh I forget I was reading them the minute I turn my ebook reader off to tend to other things. As I said on the Dear Author thread, I found a dozen books by bestselling authors that I didn’t remember buying and, worse, that I didn’t remember reading until I scanned the blurbs. Mind you, these are books that got high marks at Dear Author and Smart Bitches (I know, ’cause I went back and looked).
Now we have DocTurtle reading a Harlequin Blaze as a challenge by Smart Bitches to read a “real romance” and see how wonderful it is. Turns out he’s having fun, but not of the type everyone expected. He seems to read in fits and starts, so obviously it’s not keeping his eyeballs glued to the pages, unless that’s the type of reader he is, which I don’t know.
So what is this meh? Where’s it coming from? One of the last non-meh books I read was Ann’s because it was so damned different. What made it different?
I’ll tell you what made it different. She broke all the “rules.” Somewhere, somehow, with the evolution of RWA and its sister organizations and their writing workshops, easier access to agents and editors, more stringent-yet-vague criteria on how to write a query letter, and more propagation of some writing “rules” (the ones that would get you a D in any college creative writing course–ask me how I know), there’s been some weird homogenization. (And I started noticing this really begin to gather steam in the early ’90s.) Yeah, you can have unique plot devices or tried-and-true plot devices done differently, but essentially, the voice has become the same: same meter, same literalness (thanks, RfP) to supposedly make for clarity, and same explanation of things that I (Random Reader with a modicum of intelligence) don’t have to be told and would have rather inferred or been left wondering.
Tired, y’all. I’m tired of reading the same stuff over and over again. Even the stuff I’m getting mad at and simply not finishing–one reason is because the voice is tired on top of other problems. Everybody’s taking voice lessons from the same singing teacher out of the same songbook. The only reason I remember any of these books is to say, “Oh. That.” And off it goes to be archived on CD or in the box to take to the used bookstore–without finishing. One book I’ve been looking forward to reading and bought on its release date (because I had it on my calendar as a reminder) was a real let-down.
This “write from the heart and you’ll get sold if you try hard enough” cheerleading? Bullshit. Don’t write from the heart; write from the rules. Write what the gatekeepers tell you to write and, more importantly, how they tell you to write it. Obviously, lots of people love it, and I am the High Priestess of Capitalism, so I’m not arguing with an established market.
But…if everyone’s following the rules, how do you know the reading public wouldn’t like what you wrote from the heart? I know how you know. The gatekeepers won’t buy it because why mess with the homogeneity of voice? People like it; people buy it. [Insert philosophical plug for doing things independently, but that’s not what this post is about.]
Nothing, but nothing, makes me realize how homogenized the romance voice has become until I read something different. Kristan Higgins’s books were different and I enjoyed them muchly (although I heard some whisperings they weren’t romance so much as women’s fiction/chick lit and honestly I don’t know what the hell difference it makes). Ann’s, of course. Laura Kinsale, always. Eva Gale, who came here as a poster (never heard of her before that), whose voice (albeit short pieces) just pushes all my right buttons (not talking about the erotic aspect, either).
Remember, I’m not talking about archetypes, plots, and themes. I’m talking about rhythm, word choice (e.g., the obsessing over avoiding “be” verbs and adverbs that spawns ridiculously tedious prose), dialog tags, over-explanation, and, yes, punctuation, which is one of the biggest tools in keeping your rhythm and singing in your own voice.
RfP said it best over at Racy Romance Reviews:
My most frequent complaint lately is that genre romance has no voice: it’s overly literal and can over-explain mundane detail to the detriment of style. Some of my favorite novels include more impressionistic passages in which I’m not sure exactly what’s happening, but they’re wonderfully referential and evocative.
I mean, come on. If I’ve noticed it and other people have noticed it enough to remark upon it and complain about it (and we’re only a fraction of a percent of the reading public), maybe there are a lot more people tired of it than the gatekeepers think.
When does a blog stop being yours?
In romance [well, in other genres also? I don’t know], sometimes authors strike such a chord with readers that the characters the author created seem to belong to the readers (aka fans). When an author does something bad to one of her characters, much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues. Well, you know, you write romance, you know that there needs to be a happily ever after (HEA) or at least a happily for now (HFN) ending. (We will parse the romance “formula” later.)
Well, I can see why there’d be some legitimate reason for distress here. The author created these worlds and people and they belong to her, true, but the public pays to read about them. Do they have an expectation to get the story they want/expect/hope for or not? Hell, I don’t know. I’m going to write my Imaginary Friends the way my Imaginary Friends tell me to. [Uhm, I’m independent. I can do that.] But I have to expect that some people are going to cry foul if I just completely make one of them [insert horribleness here].
But now over at one of my must-stops for blog cruising, Dear Author, apparently the blog has ceased belonging to the person who built it, maintains it, and pays for it–which is a far different matter from creating books that you then persuade the public to buy who then eats them up and feeds your bank account.
I’m watching this train wreck of a thread and wondering: Why, if people don’t like a thread, a blog, don’t they simply stop reading? This isn’t Usenet, people (darn it). It’s Jane’s blog. She can post what she wants to and expect reasonably that people will remember that fact–without having to confront people who feel betrayed that what she said in her own house didn’t exactly fulfill their reading expectations that day. The sense of entitlement running through the thread is kind of…interesting.
Yo, all you gotta do is not go there. Or not read. Or sumpin. When did Jane’s blog become yours?
I yam what I yam
I try to be literary. Really, I do. That’s what Smart People do.
I read Racy Romance Reviews and Read For Pleasure and Teach Me Tonight and I think, “Gee, these women are Smart. ” I am not that Smart. So I don’t comment much.
I read the in-depth reviews at Dear Author when they talk about worldbuilding and layering symbolism and use all sorts of literary techniques I learned but didn’t absorb for whatever reason. I read Mrs. Giggles reviews, wherein she’s snarkalicious but not (IMO) unkind–and I think, “Gee, these people are Smart.”
I read A Motley Vision and occasionally, Segullah. I read Theric and Tyler and Trevor. I think, “Gee, these people are Smart.” I am not that Smart. So I don’t comment much, except at AMV, where I probably drive the regular inhabitants insane with my less-than-suave sensitivities. Every time I post there I think, “That was a stupid thing to say.” But I let it lie because that’s who I am, even if I don’t like it sometimes.
And this is why I didn’t study English lit. I can’t analyze worth a damn and half the time, I don’t even know what the existing analyses are saying. I suppose there’s something to be said against a writer who doesn’t think about Great Works beyond “thumbs up” and “thumbs down,” but really, I’ve just come to the point where I have to admit that I like what I like and a good portion of it is crass and commercial.
Then again, sometimes the labels are deceiving. Perhaps I do like crass and commercial, but most times when I pick up a romance novel that intrigues me (mostly historicals), they’re rich and complex, layered and moving so that I’m still thinking about them long after. Sometimes they depend more heavily on characterization or on plot, leaning to one side or the other, but I really don’t care. When they strike a balance–well, that’s a lagniappe.
All I want is a good book to curl up with and a story that sticks with me a while.
But hey–I liked “I’m Too Sexy,”
Book Review: Married to a Rock Star
Married to a Rock Star
by Tami Parrington
published by Prairieview Publishing via Lulu
I read a great review of this book and went immediately forthwith to purchase it. I don’t know whether I’m more upset with the book or with the review, but let’s just say this would’ve been a wallbanger had it not been on my precious ebook reader. I shouldn’t have finished it, really, but I kept reading because I thought surely, somewhere along the way, the heroine would pull her head out of her ass.
Alas.
I wanted to like this book. Really. I thought I would like this book because of the real-life fantasy of it (as in, not elf- fairy- magick-type fantasy). It’s independently published and I want and need to support that community. Thus, I’ve been sitting on this review for several days, thinking about whether I wanted to post it or not.
Here’s the summary:
Out in the country, Karen and her two teenage children have a new neighbor-Isaiah Highland, who is anything but the farm type. Isaiah is a rock-star looking for peace, starving for privacy, and he’s found them both…and a whole lot more. Swept into a world of fame, fortune, and betrayal, Karen finds herself in a world far removed from her little farm.
Two separate worlds….
Worlds bound to collide…
When they do Isaiah and Karen will have to choose between their own versions of paradise…and each other.
Good points:
1. It’s readable.
2. Great concept.
Bad points:
1. Consistent homonym, spelling, and grammar errors that should’ve been caught by a proofreader.
2. Kansas City errors. If you want to get detailed with a city, please know what you’re talking about.
a. There are no stockyards and haven’t been since 1974.
b. Kemper Arena is not a stadium and is not referred to as such by locals.
c. Bryant’s (the one on Brooklyn, which is the one referenced in the book) isn’t a restaurant; it’s a sleazy, nasty, dirty BBQ diner (which was a lot sleazier, nastier, dirtier when Mr. Arthur Bryant was alive and sitting in his straight-backed metal chair with his arms crossed over his chest, right next to the BBQ pit, overseeing the operations with an eagle eye) which does not take reservations and there is no cutting in line and most definitely not at midnight and I don’t care who the dignitary is (uh, with the exception of Jimmy Carter when he was president; I think Clinton chose Gates). Considering I worship at the altar of Arthur Bryant, this is an affront.
3. A 40-year-old 1-year-widowed heroine who:
a. becomes a rock star’s groupie in front of her 15-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter,
b. drags said teenagers back and forth across the country to follow this guy around,
c. tolerates his milieu’s dismissive treatment of her,
d. tolerates him screaming at her in front of Princess Stephanie of Monaco for talking to reporters when she has no idea what the word “groupie” really means,
e. takes the advice of aforementioned 17-year-old daughter who says, in effect, “If you don’t fuck him, the groupies will,” so she does,
f. goes back to him after he’s abandoned her 90 miles from home with no cash and slaps her (in front of aforementioned teenagers and his entire milieu),
g. tolerates the groupies anyway,
h. seems to have no grasp on how her behavior can/will affect her already angst-ridden children (their father died barely a year ago, remember) and if she does, doesn’t seem to care, and
i. doesn’t seem to love the guy in the first place, or at least if she does, I see no reason why she should and she never indicates by thought, word, or deed that this is anything but an exciting fling for her, no matter how degrading.
4. No comeuppance for the, ah, “hero,” who begins the “I love you” business as a bargaining chip.
And you know, I could’ve gone with it and had snarkworthy fun with it had not children (impressionable teenagers, yet) been involved in her rapid and willing debasement. For that, I felt dirty after reading this book and I finished it wondering if the reviewer (whose recommendation I took) and I read the same book.
The pink-collar ghetto
Will this taint never go away? A man writes it, it ain’t romance, it’s literature. Film at 11.