Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Have mercy, y’all. I’m not in labor yet but I totally busted my large gut at the reader-submitted covers. So today we present the Man Titty Hall of Fame, Volume 1. 

Some of our lovely readers have been kind enough to send us submissions for our cover snark, mostly with quiet pleas of anonymity so we don’t get anyone in trouble. Agreed! The delicate balance of bad cover and good sportsmanship and professional behavior is one we Smart Bitches to not want to monkey with!

To that end, we’d like to open our inboxes to your “Holy God Almighty I’ve Gone Blind” Bad Cover Submissions. Feel free to send us links, cover JPGs or GIFs, or just a title or author name, and we promise to dish out the snark without dishing on your identity.

So, let us have it.  Seriously! I’m 2 days overdue! If anything will send me into labor, it’s bad romance covers! I’ve already tried everything else (except Castor oil because that is disGUSTing).

Edited to add: You can email or . No need to worry about leaving a comment if you don’t want to go public! 

Sarah: Is she conscious? Dead? Wearing an ill-fitting prom dress? Is he preparing to drain her into that prominently placed urn?

But wow, that may be a Latino vampire. There is a shortage of minority vampire heroes out there. But this one? He looks so confused I’m not sure he knows what he’s doing. He’s got the costume, and the teeth, and the cape - can’t forget the cape. But his expression - check out the close up of the art - he looks befuddled, like someone gave him the costume but didn’t tell him what to do.

Candy: Homeboy doesn’t look like he’s ready to take a bite out of that neck so much as drool on it. Seriously. This is one vampire whose dentist overdid it with the novocaine at his last root canal.

(C’mon. All those centuries of drinking nothing but blood. Those teeth have to be ghastly.)

Sarah: Here’s my Night Game: sneak up behind this guy and topple him over with one well-placed push to the shoulder blade. Because he is WAY too top-heavy to be real! Seriously, his chest is almost twice as wide as his waistline.

Candy: Because of the way the cover is framed, I TOTALLY thought the chick’s arm was the guy’s at first, and I thought “EEK! GIMP ARM!”

But now I think “EEK! HEADLESS WOMAN!” Because seriously, look at the angle of the arm, and project the height of her shoulder, neck and head. We should see SOME part of her peeping up ‘twixt the shoulders of Gorilla-Boy there, even if it’s just the winsome wisps of feathered bangs. But we don’t. Maybe she’s severely hunchbacked? Or some ninja had sneaked up behind her and TOTALLY BEHEADED HER right before the camera shutter clicked?

Either way, what bliss.

Sarah: The damned. Oh, they sure are. Dude on the right has a very animal-esque snout going on thee. And Nia Peebles? Is that what happened to her?

But really, I fell bad for the dude up front with the man breasts held in place by a Victoria’s Secret underwire camisole. Snout-dude has been mocking him for hours by now.

Candy: Wait: blow-up dolls can be damned?

And my mind wonders: What are they damned to? An eternity of looking like slightly constipated SIMs? Is that, like, the Blow-Up Doll Hellish Fate the Blow-Up Doll preachers use to scare the horny deviants into behaving?

Sarah: This is, obviously, a DVD cover, but it had to be included, for both the poor-fitting vampire teeth and the absolutely bizarre expression.

“Excuse me! I must bite you! With my plastic teeth! I hope they do not fall out!”

Candy: See, what did I say about vampires needing dentists? I love the inset even more than the main picture. The dude has the SAME EXACT EXPRESSION in both.

Sarah: Yeah, I got yer “disdain” right here. I got disdain for your weird bony ribs, your nasty flat hair, and your itchy-looking man-pelt. Not to mention your abnormally-long neck.

Candy: Look, it’s one thing to be stalking hot ladies while undead. It’s another to do it while so undead, your arms are decomposing.

Or do vampires get leprosy, too?

Sarah: There’s the obligatory extended-neck pose, the hot-colored background, the full moon, the shirtness dude. But she looks… bored. He’s not even looking at her carotid. He’s looking at her right boob like, “Oh, look. Another titty. And it’s not as big as mine.” (And are his nipples too high or is that a spot on the graphic?)

And she’s got this expression on her face like, “*Sigh* Go ahead. Bite my neck, whatever. Just don’t stain my dress.” These must be the two most underwhemled vampire romance protagonists ever.

Candy: Homegirl’s arching away with that look on her face because the dude? Has blood breath like you will not believe.

Sarah: “I am zee most handsome vampire in all zee world. Gaze upon my manly chestes hairs. Long to play the laces on my shirt like a lute, using only your teeth. But I do not want to suck your blood. I want to steal zee hair care products from your cabinet. Damn. I am the smooth.”

Candy: The only way this guy could look any more gay would be if you strapped a sparkly purple dildo to his head. Again, I blame Anne Rice.

Sarah: BWAHAHAHAHAH Hair of the Dog? Is that a less-than-flattering endorsement of the heroine’s looks? Metal-headed vampire Trent Reznor is cursed - to go back for more of Thorina’s blood to cure his hangover, cursing every step because she is so almighty ugly!

Candy: Colossus’ fey younger brother starts posing as a vampire to get more chicks. All he can snag is that one desperate high school senior with the wonky teeth, but he’ll take what he can get, thankyouverymuch.

Candy: Bitch, please. This is the cleanest-cut rebel I’ve ever seen. What’s rebellious about him? His unnatural love of Brylcreem? His choice to use steroid cream AND shoot it up? His decision to use SPF15 instead of SPF40 sunscreen? His weirdly offset nipples?

Sarah: Whoo. What a rebel. To throw off the expectations of society, and insist, visit after visit to the hair salon, on sporting a mullet. The mullet alone is worth the 300-page effort of taming him.

Candy: YIKES! This book should’ve been titled To Tame a Texan-Sized Dong. I gotta respect a wang so massive that it merits its own drop shadow effect.

Sarah: Things are bigger in Texas, from the man titty shadows to the, um, crotch bulge. You think they use him as a sundial out on the range?

“Hey, Chase or Clay or Austin, whatever your name is, face north and drop your pants. I don’t know what time it is!”

Candy: BWAAAAHAHAHAHAH! Genies come from bottles, and apparently white boys dressed in Indian drag come from brass gongs. What do you have to rub to summon him? Or does he appear when you look into the mirror and say “Savage man titty” three times in a row?

Dude looks psycho--just look into those cold, dead eyes. He looks like he’s ready to cut choo, mang.

Sarah: When I posted these covers last night for our mutual enjoyment, I said to Candy, “One of them doesn’t fit the whole “To Tame...” theme, but it was too great to pass up.”

It’s Gong Show Indian! And here’s your host, Insolent Bored Savage.

Hope he doesn’t chip that mighty tomahawk when he sounds his gong.

I think someone gave me a baby onesie in the same pattern as his wrist band, too. Nice!

Candy: Are they referring to the man, or the woman? Both of them look pretty damn domesticated to me. Unless he’s wearing a leather bustier and frilly satin panties underneath his suit? And then, like, any second, he’s going to rip his suit off, prance around to remixed Madonna songs and Vogue like it’s 1995. And then when the woman can’t take it any more she’s going to be all “RAAAH, take this, bitch!” and whip out her 10-inch cock because she’s a man, baby. And that’s when the dude busts out his miniature cat-o’-nine-tails and yodels “DOWN, SIMBA!” while playfully whipping at her enormous and surprisingly hairy balls. THAT, my friends, would be hard to tame indeed.

Sorry, really boring covers with really stupid titles make me come up with really inappropriate stories.

Sarah: It would so not be hard to tame her. She’s so realistically rendered, after all. Just break her over your knee. She’s so thin she’ll splinter.

Candy: Why do all these Texans need to be tamed? This dude doesn’t even have a donkey schlong to scare us with. Frankly, the only thing that needs to be tamed on his guy is his mousse usage--look, man-bangs are not meant to stick out four inches from the forehead, mmmkay?

Sarah: Yet again, another Texan to tame, and yet again, the fashion choices of these men need taming more than the men themselves. From a manly mullet to wearing your vest without a shirt. The time has come to tame these men into fine metrosexuals who have age-appropriate non-professional-hockey-player hairstyles and the smarts to think, “Hm, if I’m going to be roping steers perhaps I ought to protect my pebbular nipples with a shirt.”

Candy: And this guy? He needs to tame his usage of sunless tanning products.

I love the look on his face, too. Is he constipated, pissed off that it’s an anemic chick laying her hand on his bountiful bosom and not Diego, his hot Puerto Rican personal trainer, or just trying to restrain his roid rage in general?

Oh man, it would be SO AWESOME if somebody wrote To Tame the Roid-Raging Gym Monkey. Any takers? Anyone? Anyone?

Sarah:: Speaking of nipples… is he missing one? Is she looking for it? Did it get rubbed off by that strap of leather across his chest? Is that what inspired this pose?

And is he wearing leather pants? Is this Mick Jagger, Highland Warrior?!

Candy: This is a classic. Almost as classic as that “Pull My Finger” Viking. There’s really not much I can say that can beat teh funney of this cover. I do wonder if he’s wearing several other people’s scalps on top of his own hair, because that do he’s sporting? Looks poofy and creepy and unnatural.

Sarah: Kenny Loggins, sporting unfortunate facial hair, grabs a red kitchen towel and some low-slung chaps to pose for romance novel covers. Although, to be fair to Mr. Loggins, I don’t think his man titties cast a drop shadow effect as great as this guy’s. Must be some digital editing.

The low-slung chaps are curious. Aren’t the chaps there to prevent chafing between one’s legs? Wouldn’t a large portion of inner thigh be in need of some Blue Star Ointment ("Jock itch! Ring worm! Psoriasis! Teter!") after one quick trip down to the mini mart on horseback? (Shut up, the reservation does TOO have a mini mart!)