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

Did anyone else own a copy of The Practical Princess and Other Liberating Fairy Tales?

Reading Sarah’s excellent entry about so nice heroines and one of the comments about how many romance novels perpetrate the helpless woman mythos found in most fairy tales got me thinking about this book. And really, it’s way too good not to share, though sadly it’s out of print.

The first story, “The Practical Princess,” is probably my favorite. Princess Bedelia was blessed with the usual fairy godmother gifts at her birth--beauty, wit, etc. etc. But one fairy godmother decided to gift her with common sense. Everyone needs common sense, after all, even princesses. The king was puzzled by the gift, though. Why would a princess need common sense?

But whaddaya know, the fairy godmother was right. The awful, ugly, greedy Lord Garp tries to trap Bedelia into marriage, and she foils him at every turn, and in the end she rescues a very cute prince--all with her common sense.

The book is filled with stories like these. Some of the heroines are beautiful, a few are not (there was one who was excessively freckled, if I remember correctly), but all of them kick ass and save the day (and usually the prince).

I miss this book. It’s packed away in a box somewhere in Malaysia. I’m going to see if I can find a copy here in America.

Candy and I spent a good bit of time this weekend talking online - though I had to go to bed way sooner than she would like, what with my east-coast stylin’s and all - and one of the items we discussed included: the soundtrack of your nookie. Specifically, what songs immediately get you in the mood, and we’re not talking for romance novels, either. Consider this the mix CD of SBTB - what’s on it?

Ever since Sarah and I started this site, I’ve been reading more romance novels than I have in a long, long time. In fact, it’s been about five months now since I’ve read a single non-romance title. I’m thinking it’s time for a break. I have a couple of romances to review, but once I’m done with those, I’m going to give myself at least a whole month away from mainstream romance. I have loads of science fiction, literary fiction and non-fiction I’m dying to pick up. If nothing else, I really, really want to finish reading Musashi, which I abandoned back in January when I picked up Sharon Shinn’s Angel-Seeker.

This won’t affect most of the updates for this site; I have loads of articles and fun things planned for it, and of course regular features like Covers Gone Wild and the personal ads game won’t be impacted. The only thing that’ll change is the lack of romance novel reviews from me. My question is: would y’all like me to review the non-romance books I read? If yes, would you like me to review only the genre fiction (SF, fantasy, thrillers, etc.) and therefore still keep to the letter of “Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels” or would you be interested in me busting out with the snark on literary fiction as well? I’ll go with whatever the prevailing opinion is.

I am in the middle of an advanced reader copy of a novel to be published later this fall, and while I am enjoying the reading, I have to say, editors, copy editors, and those whose job it is to catch the pickiest of the nitpicky, and pull all the coherent threads back together, I am in awe. Awe, I tell you.

It’s not that this book is not well-written or that this ARC is full of errors that distract me - it’s only a few “and” where “an” should be, and at one point the sister is a she-shit, and at another the heroine mentions her as if she hadn’t been mentioned at all prior, and while it’s my job to evaluate the plot and the storyline, I am thinking more as I read this how much I take for granted the people whose job it is to catch all those and/an and bring the loose strands back into the braid. If it were my job, I would go in circles and have no idea how to see the big picture and the little parts. The larger story and the smaller parts that create it would blur and merge from big to little and back again, like looking too long at an MC Escher picture.

So to the editors, wordsmiths, typesetters, grammar sticklers, and authors out there: this Bud’s for you.

From a humble reader: I say, Thank you. 

Sarah and Candy are incommunicado for three days because of Sarah’s lack of internet, and THIS is what they start talking about first thing Monday morning.

Candy: Hey, how’d the moving go?

Sarah: Moving went well. LOVE the new house. We not only hired movers to move us, but we hired movers to PACK which was a WEIRD experience. They packed EVERYTHING. And I mean, every thing. My mother in law helped us unpack because I am limited in energy and it is far too easy for me to hurt myself, and she opened a lovingly wrapped paper bundle of… takeout Chinese duck sauce packets.

Sidebar: Can evidence of arousal in Chinese romance/erotica heroines be likened unto duck sauce? Discuss!

Candy: I love that the movers packed your duck sauce packets! BWAH! And I’m glad you asked about comparisons to duck sauce, because seriously, you could’ve said fish sauce. Or sweet-and-sour. Or oyster.

Sarah: See, I’m a big fan of duck sauce, though not from women, and while I don’t think I’ve ever had fish sauce, or oyster, I have had sweet-n-sour and lobster, and I don’t think they match the true erotica heroine consistency I’m looking for.

Of course, then we have to discuss the hero: egg roll? Kung pao chicken roll? Chicken skewer?

Candy: I’m pretty sure you’ve had oyster sauce. If you’ve had stir-fry or fried rice, you’ve had oyster. Few people realize that the distinctive taste of Chinese stir-fry is almost entirely due to oyster sauce. The sauce itself is thick and gloopy and brown, and it’s not a dipping sauce at all--it’s used strictly for cooking, near as I can tell. I have a giant bottle in my refrigerator at all times for the making of the stir-fry.

It would be too funny if in the Chinese version of the Catherine Coulter novel you told me about, the hero had used oyster sauce to lubricate the heroine’s cunny instead of cream.

As for what the hero should be: pork ribs? Or if he’s especially large--beef shank in herbal broth?

Sarah: Stirfry is oyster sauce? No kidding! No wonder stir fry makes me ill. Just about all the valve-type shellfish, like clams, oysters, mussels, etc, make me iller than ill. I be illin’.

Oh my GOD yes. Midsummer Magic, with oyster sauce! UGH!

Pork ribs would be GREAT. Perhaps we can work this into the character generator script? He’s as big as an egg roll, or some chicken satay on a skewer, or a shishkabob - the whole thing. Useful if one is a sheik, no?

Candy: Hey, if the hero’s a sheikh, then we need to include leg of lamb. Or mutton. He’s baa-aaa-aaa-d to the bone.

And the heroine’s sauce would be some kind of yogurt-tahini combination. HAAAAA.

Sarah: Totally, if the hero is a sheik, there needs to be mutton or some kind of shank (har har shank). Or, if he were seriously teeny, a pine nut. And tahini would work. Or, on a bad day, hummus. 

Candy: YES to the hummus. CHUNKY hummus.

Or chunky kefir.

Wow, that just made me throw up a little in my mouth.

Sarah: Hummus with Roasted Garlic and Pine Nuts!

Candy: Screw the pine nuts! This heroine wants cucumber! An UNCUT cucumber!

Sarah: Don’t forget the yogurt sauce.

Ok. Now I’m nauseated, too.