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

Do I really need to summarize the story for you? Have you really lived under a rock for the past two years? Because I’m pretty goddamn sure I’m the last person to have succumbed to the lure of the giant homoerotic rapper wannabe clusterfuck tastiness that is the Black Dagger Brotherhood. But just in case you are one of the few, the proud, the hermetically sealed from pop culture (or at least romance-related pop culture), here’s the skinny. Yo. It be off the chain.

Wrath is the King of the vampires--and the last pure-blooded vampire around, incidentally. And he has all sorts of issues about leading His Race to the glory of the Third Reich, as well as massive issues about love and intimacy; that, combined with his monstrous cock, short temper and predilection for killing bad guys (in this book, you know they’re teh ebil because they smell like baby powder and can’t get boners) basically makes him classic romance novel hero material. When one of his warriors, Darius, asks him to ensure his half-vampire daughter, Beth, completes her difficult and dangerous transition into full vampirehood safely, Wrath refuses.

Then Darius gets blown into itty-bitty bits by a car bomb. And Wrath, wracked with guilt, goes to check out Beth’s situation, and finds that while he’s completely reluctant to help her, nothing can prevent a Monster Cock from uniting with a Magic Hoo Hoo. It’s like when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, except with more improbable orgasms and body fluids. And behold, within a couple of weeks, he resolves pretty much all his issues about love, intimacy and his hesitations about leading his race (part of which involves purging the world of a subhuman species that’s in league with a Satanic figure and engaged in a world-wide conspiracy to destroy his people).

And then there are the rest of his Brothers. Not real brothers. And not actual brothers either, if you know what I mean, despite their love of Ludacris. His fellow brothers-who-look-as-if-they-possess-advanced-degrees-in-violent-crime-except-they’re-really-killers. The Black Dagger Brotherhood. All of them will get their own stories and Magic Hoo Hoos, of course. The sequel baiting is shameless, as is the dangling of hot, tormented vampiric types. And then there’s the poor schmuck of a cop with absolutely no life who gets sucked into their world as well--but then Sarah wrote a hilarious and brilliant review of his story here.

Oh, and in the midst of all that is a heroine. That’s right. These are heterosexual love stories--nominally, at least. Beth starts out rather interesting, but devolves into a rather bland Mary Sue type by the end of the story, with all the Brothers fawning over her awesomeness. Remember what the more saccharine Julie Garwood heroines were like? Yeah, kind of like that, except with more pointless angst and less charming ditziness.

Like I said, I enjoyed the book a surprising amount, considering a) how terrible the prose was (which isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker--as always, I like point to my love of Gaelen Foley and Dara Joy as evidence that I don’t need scintillating prose to love a book) and b) how repulsive I found the characters. The story had an energy and drive that made me turn the pages, even though I knew exactly how everything was going to turn out.

But the characters...oy. To be frank, the Brotherhood didn’t come across as tough; they came across as really, really young, and trying much too hard. Guys who are that painstaking about appearing like hard-asses make me think of small-time drug dealers, or teenage boys showing off they cribs. ("It’s Delux, son! Delux. S’not that hard.” Heeee.) The contrived thug-speak and references to hip-hop did not help this image, feel me? Unlike Sarah, I had no problem picturing what race they were. The impression I got from the story was they were old Eastern European aristocracy, so the dudes were white, white, white in my head, and the way they spoke like unholy Valley Girl/gangsta rapper hybrids circa 1992 just compounded the hilariousness.

Less hilariously: The way in which the struggles the vampires faced was couched in racial terms made me feel squidgy inside, and not in a good way. You may have gathered this from the review. It’s not that I think the vampires are unjustified in killing off the lessers, it’s just that when bad guys are portrayed in that bad a light--as being somehow inherently evil when, frankly, the good guys come across as more creepy in some ways (the Scribe Virgin made my anti-authoritarian hackles stand up like whoa and like damn)--I can’t help but wonder what their side of the story is, as told by a differently-biased narrator. That kind of good race/bad race rhetoric and the obsession with bloodlines and pure blood being “stronger” than unpure blood...squidgy, squidgy, squidgy. For this reason, Tolkien and much of high fantasy in general makes me cringe, too. I mean, I get that the whole “born a king” concept taps into a lot of powerful fantasies, and let’s face it, autonomous democratic collectives based on consensus and merit just aren’t sexy, but sometimes, I just look at the framework of the world and go “Huh.” It’s not that I think these are somehow inherently racist portrayals, but the Othering mechanisms in these sorts of narratives are really, really fascinating, no? Especially the voluntary impotence of the Lessers vs. the overbearing virility of the Brotherhood.

Somebody needs to write a dissertation on the multifarious ways fertility issues are presented and worked out in romance novels. So much fodder for delicious, delicious deconstruction and analysis.

Oh, and speaking of the Scribe Virgin: man, she is one creepy-ass motherfucker. Holy shit. Screw the Omega. The Scribe Virgin is the one to look out for. I kept picturing a combination of Sadako and the Blair Witch every time she was described, only more glowy. Sarah said she picturd Orko, which is, like, leaps and bounds more awesome than the image I had in my head.

But like I said: the book was compelling. All that roaring, and rippling muscularity (Wrath’s abs are likened to smuggled paint rollers at one point, which: HEE. LA. RI. TY.), and angsty toothsome goodness was good, campy fun. I laughed, I cringed, I wanted to smack some of the characters around, but dammit, I turned those pages. I finished that book in two days, which is unheard-of nowadays for me.

So for those of you who haven’t read this book yet: everybody else loves it. And I mean everyone. Odds are high you’ll love it, too. If, on the other hand, you’ve found that your tastes correlate with mine a lot more closely: approach with caution and a finely-honed sense of high camp, because you’ll need it.

John: *walks in and waves*

Butch: Time for the obligatory appearance of John?

John: *nods and walks out*

Marissa: (growling) Man, this overemphasis on purity is driving me batshit. What is it with the focus being so heavy on the men to the point that us women are merely beautiful repositories for your manful lust?

Butch: Hey, like I said....

Marissa: Yeah, that’s how it’s written. But come ON now. The women in this series are such conduits to male homosocial eroticism it’s as if they aren’t real. Eve Sedgwick would pound her head on her desk if she read these books.

Butch: Male homo-what now?

Marissa: The homoerotic triangle as described by Eve Sedgwick, in which two men use a woman as a conduit to express their homosexual desire. All the women in these books are merely homoerotic conduits instead of fully-fleshed characters.

Butch: I hate to break it to you, but you weren’t there for the other scene we shot today. You were not needed as a conduit. Trust me.

Marissa: Oh, the hell I’m not. I’m the barrier and the conduit and-

Butch: Can you stop making such weird gestures? You’re getting coffee on my suit.

John: *walks in and waves, then walks out*

Marissa: What, you’re not going to name drop your tailor?

Butch: Like I actually know who made my suit?

Marissa: While we’re on the subject, I do not get the forcible mixing of female stereotypes on top of male stereotypes - it makes for very lopsided characterization. The men are exceptionally metrosexual males with uber-violent tendencies, and the women are barely fully written.

Butch: Hey, at least all us giant well-dressed high-end-Scotch-drinking men are told around by a floating glowing chick in a cape.

Marissa: And what IS her damn problem with questioning authority? You can’t ask her a question? What the shit?

Butch: Like I said -

Marissa: Yeah, I know. You didn’t write it.

Butch: Nope.

Marissa: Let me ask you a question.

Butch: Is that allowed?

Marissa: Bite me.

Butch: *snickers*

John: *walks in and waves, bursts into silent yelling, then walks out*

Marissa: Nice show of angst, there, John.

Butch: You’d think the Brothers or someone would have a clue that that kid needs more guidance than letting him sleep in his missing adoptive father’s office chair. But no, they let him go on in his own agony and pay more attention to the labels on their shoes.

Marissa: Seriously, Butch. Let me ask you a question.

Butch: Shoot.

Marissa: Black jism? Seriously? Black jism? As a male, would you write that?

Butch: Oh, fuck no.

Marissa: I didn’t think so. There are so many potential interpretations of the symbolism of that particular scene.

Butch: Don’t go there.

Marissa: Hell, I have nothing else to do. I show up and stand around looking perfect and give you a complex every other scene. And then I get to have an orgasm but only if you can’t control your raging lust and aren’t drunk off your ass again.

Vishous: Hey, don’t even talk to me about controlling the raging lust.

Butch: Man, did you ever get the short end of the stick.

Vishous: Very funny.

Marissa: Now I’m “feeling” you. You two were more “will they or won’t they” than Butch and I, and we were setup to be together on the back cover copy, for God’s sake.

Butch: True that, true?

Vishous: Double true.

Marissa: Oh, shut up.

Butch: I gotta say, Marissa does have a point. I don’t get it - in one scene I totally get that you dig me, and I let you know that I understand, and then you get all close and I grab your ass and am freaked out by “the vibe” to the point I won’t think about it.

Vishous: I think that was meant to leave something to the reader’s imagination.

Marissa: Yeah, imagination. Imagining them tossing the book at the wall.

Vishous: I feel that.

Marissa: Oh, shut up. And take your boots off the table.

Vishous: “Shitkickers,” ma’am. They’re “shitkickers.”

Marissa: Yeah, that’s real bad ass coming from a man whose name reads way too easily as “viscous.”

Butch: Viscous? You mean like black jism?

Vishous: Shut up both of you.

Rhage: What up, yo.

Marissa: Hey there. You’re totally an accessory character in the book but you have the best line in the whole damn novel.

Rhage: What can I say? I’ve got the best extra “h” name in the book, so I get the funny funny.

Vishous: “Bus exhaust.” Now that was some funny shit right there.

Butch: Yeah. Lucky Bhastarhd.

The short review? This book went around in a damn circle sixteen times, and I finished it solely so I could find out what happened to everyone BUT the main characters. I couldn’t have given less of a shit about Butch and Marissa, and I had to wade through 300+ pages of anghsty crahp before I could find out any progression of character for John, Vishous, and the rest of them.

And also, the villain? WAY too easy to kick the shit out of the villain. They are crafty and everywhere, but it’s amazing how easily they get the can of whoopass opened on their powdery behinds, and how utterly unscary they are, because so much time is spent WITH the villains and their amazing disorganization that they seem more like pale slapstick mimes more than actual menaces. I don’t give a shit about Mr. X. He’s less malevolent and more whiny with every page. The freaking Scribe Virgin is more unsettling than the Lessers, and she’s supposedly part of the forces of good.

But what really twists my knickers is the violation of rules: spoilers ahoy, ya’ll. So Butch is allegedly part vampire, only he never went through the change at the appropriate time. But because his father was likely or hinted to be a vampire which, according to the laws of the created universe in which this book operates, should have caused him to at least have some transitional indications but didn’t, the Brothers can still force him over to their side through a very strange ritual. What the crap was that? It’s so fudgy it’s like cheating on the rules.

And that’s how I felt after I finished the latest morsel of vampire crack: cheated. And cranky. Sorry. Crahnky. The books are still eminently readable, but the almost campy, addictive prose is less enjoyable when the story suffers through the lead characters and is only interesting due to the ancillary folks. Of course, I’m told all hell breaks loose in the end of the next one, so I have to decide whether to read it or just leave the series at this book.

Wilson uses Ellie as the reader’s access point and world building device: she’s an unschooled yet deeply skilled woman learning of Fey culture firsthand. Conversely, Ellie is well-versed in folklore of Fey culture and of the legend of Rain himself. Through Ellie, the reader learns the present state of the Fey, and their past as well.

But gosh darn, she’s perfect. Seriously, I don’t want to reveal how she is perfect in every way, but clearly untapped wells of massive awesome reside in Ellie, and each chapter grabs a trowel and digs the reader closer to the subterranean depths of innocent awesome that reside in Ellie. In just about every respect, she is nearly perfect, and despite making social gaffes, she does nearly everything with grace and kindness. It gets a bit old. But even then I liked her. She skirts the border of Mary Sue but I found her to be more than just the typical marvelous fairy-tale heroine.

She has a darkness to her that is dangerous to the future of the story, I think. While I can’t get into the specifics without giving too much away, Ellie’s lack of knowledge and control about her skills are doubly harmful to herself and the other Fey, particularly since her origins and the source of her gifts are a mystery. Further, because she is so freaking perfect, as high as she rises in status during books 1 and 2, she has that much farther to fall.

Some readers may be bothered by the degree of sparkly perfection that is invested in Ellie’s character, but Wilson’s skill in developing the other characters assures me that she’s not going to neglect the development and potential flaws of her heroine. She’s too smart a writer, if books 1 and 2 are any indication, to fall for such an easy characterization.

Rain is a delicious fantasy hero, all magical and powerful and shapeshifting into a big ass fire-breathing cat with wings. He’s a few thousand years old and can kick all kinds of ass, but he has some big ol’ flaws to overcome as well, both as a mate and as a king. He’s tormented by his past, and has a stubborn tendency to see things in black and white. He needs to grow up despite being thousands of years old, and his pairing with Ellie, who is so very, very young by comparison, twists the balance of power back and forth, between his magic, her innocence, her knowledge of humanity and his inability to be flexible with other’s faults.

The books build a LOT of world and a LOT of characters and sometimes the plot drags for having so many players to introduce. But each one is fascinating enough that I didn’t feel overwhelmed with people to keep track of. Wilson does an outstanding job of balancing development of character with development of the saga - I don’t get tired of any of the new characters, and even caught hints of characters to come who I anticipated. There’s a lot to keep track of but it’s worth every moment. Further, it’s another marker of the excellence in the writing: the Fey and the mortals both are flawed characters, but Wilson manages to lend humanity to the Fey and nobility to the mortals who might otherwise seem pale in comparison to the amazing magical skills of the Fey. Plus, Wilson’s portrayal of how easily those who are scared or intimidated can be manipulated by rumor and falsehood parallels the current political situation in a great many places. Like I said, there’s layers. Layers like a stack of Big Macs.

Some of the reviews elsewhere talk about the slow development of the plot - this is true. But it’s also deliberate, I think, because in every respect, the story and the characters are moving towards battle. There’s a lot of mention of the Fey’s skills in war, their weapons, and their manner of fighting, and the enemies rising against Rainier and Ellysetta and the Fey and the Celerians. The preparation for that battle, and the smaller battles that precede it in books 1 and 2, is deliberately slow because it heightens the tension and the importance of what’s going to happen. The parts I found myself skimming more were those that featured extended face time of the evil Mage, or of the idiot queen of Celeria, who really never got what was coming to her in my opinion. The malevolent hand-rubbing glee of those who plotted against Ellie and Rain grew tiresome. Instead of developing an exceptionally large Big Bad for Ellie and Rain and the rest of the Fey to battle, those who plotted against them seemed more pathetic or egomaniacally overblown to be as scary as they may have been meant to be.

However, Wilson circumvents one plot foible that irks the crap out of me most of the time: the idea that because the narrator and the story proclaim person A and person B “soul mates” and that they are Meant to Be Together, they are hereby exempt from all normal awkward process of getting to know the other person - even though they are for all intents and purposes complete freaking strangers. While the courtship between Ellie and Rain goes on awhile, and they fly off here and there to be alone during the appointed times for courting, they do navigate the process of learning about each other like any other couple might do, soul mates or not.

Within that courtship is a fascinating balance of power on which I am still ruminating: he recognizes and claims her (I keep envisioning the Jersey/Philly version of Rain’s claiming of Ellie: “Yo. Ellie. Youse’s my true mate, or what?!") but they have to bond on many levels and establish psychic and physical links to one another to complete the pairing, or he will die from her absence. She has to accept and believe in him - and love him, of course - to create those links. He identifies her, but she has to accept him - so the stability and health of the relationship, even on a magical level, depends on both of them.

Wilson’s prose is tight, balancing action, romance, magic and simple humanity. It’s a world that’s easy to step in and out of, and despite the immense number of things going on, I didn’t lose track of the story’s multiple threads - and for a distracted person such as myself, that says a lot. I had to stop myself from reading the book more than a few times because I knew if I sat down to read a few pages, I’d end up reading dozens and lose complete track of time. When book 3 is published, I’m going to have to mark time in my agenda to read it, because the pleasure of losing one’s self in the fantasy world should be a sizable indulgence. A mere bubblebath won’t cut it. This is a book worth taking a weekend vacation solely for the purposes of reading it. You could book a room at the Holland Tunnel Motor Lodge and just sit and read.

Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea.

Was it bad? OMG. Please. It was fucking awful. And yet, I read it. And I paid .01c for it - which was still too much because instead of the drawing cover in the image above, I got one of the later copies of the book that features a photograph of the Daniel twins. In this one, “Elizabeth” is wearing perfect pancake makeup and is covered up to her chin by a hospital blanket so only her giant noggin shows, while “Jessica” is dressed marvelously in shiny iridescent pink taffeta and pink pants. I like the drawing version better, but hey, it was a penny. 

Elizabeth Wakefield lies in a coma because she and her boyfriend Todd got into a motorcycle accident and while he’s fine, she’s nonresponsive. There is, of course, no mention of WHY she’s nonresponsive, or what injuries she sustained. She’s just in a coma. The story opens with Jessica sitting at her bedside, and the narrator going on for two damn pages about how usually you can’t tell them apart, but now Elizabeth looks like crapola on a crapola-colored cracker, and Jessica looks fabulous as usual. But Elizabeth is DYING do you hear me DYING.

Dear Lord.

No, sorry. Dear Sister.

Enter the doctor:

A hand fell on Jessica’s shoulder. Startled, she jerked her head up.

“Miss Wakefield?”

“Yes.”

“I could see the resemblance. You’re both beautiful.”

Jessica regarded the man in his white lab coat....

“I can only guess how painful it is for you to see your sister like this.”

“I’m so worried!”

The man stooped so his face was on a level with hers....

“My name is John Edwards. I’m the neurosurgeon on your sister’s case.”

John Edwards?! No shit! Hope is on the way!

I know, there’s no way the author could have predicted the name but still. Absurd mental image yielding to complete befuddlement, ahoy!

So aside from the vaguely inappropriate remark by Dr. John Edwards (who also is running for President and talks about the two Americas and the plight of those living below the poverty line, in case you missed the political subtext of the book) and the complete lack of response from Jessica, Dr. Edwards is here to set Jessica straight about her sister’s recovery in a scene filled with angst, emotion, and a whole mess of continued inappropriateness:

“Jessica, accidents happen. They aren’t anyone’s fault. And right now, blame isn’t important. Guiding Elizabeth back to all of us is. I’ll help, Jessica, but it’s really up to you.”

“Me?”

“Talk to her. Just talk to her.” Suddenly he turned, and Jessica saw anger and frustration in his face.

“Jessica, doctors can keep people alive with machines, but we can’t will them to come back to us. Sometimes, it doesn’t happen, no matter how much you and I want it. The only thing we can do is try.”

What the almighty fucking hell are you talking about, John Edwards? You’re the one with the neurosurgery specialty and you’re telling dipshit Jessica it’s all up to her? Dear Lord.

No, Dear Sister!

It’s all up to Jessica to bring Elizabeth back, so she starts whining and pleading with Liz to wake up already, that it’s all Jessica’s fault and everyone loves Elizabeth and whine whine, oh, the angst, the angst.

Add in some crying, some very awkward backflashes to how Elizabeth ended up in a coma in the first place, and it’s worse than anything by page 9. So far, this book is on the annoyance scale between fingernails on a blackboard and the sound of someone using a circular saw to cut ceramic tiles.

Then Dr. Edwards comes back into Elizabeth’s room while Jessica is promising never to forgive Elizabeth if Elizabeth has the audacity to die - and really, were I Elizabeth, given Jessica’s performance that might have been preferable.

Dr. Edwards tells Jessica that her self-flaggellation isn’t what he had in mind, and whereas I wanted Jessica to tell that dimwitted blowhard to get on with the doctoring already and enough with the pathos-ridden babble, Jessica listens to what he says, and starts chatting with Elizabeth as if Elizabeth could answer. So we go from angst to random bits of gossipy, self-absorbed crapola, including a hit list of the plot lines of the past six books of the series. You know how, during the Top 100 shows on VH1, like “Top 100 Utterly Ridiculous Pairs of Socks Of All Time,” they start off each new episode by playing a snippet of every video in that countdown? It’s like that, only instead of 100-10, there’s only six books of plot lines to go over, thank the good Lord.

Then, miracle of miracles, Elizabeth moans.

“You deserve a lot of the credit, Jessica”

“I do?” Jessica shivered with pride, relief, and just plain ecstasy. Elizabeth was awake and she’d helped....

“Liz. Hey Lizzie. Time to wake up.”

It’s only page 12! There’s a whole entire book to get through - and really, the back cover description makes it sound like Elizabeth will be blissfully comatose through most of it. No such luck for her, or for me. 

Elizabeth’s eyes opened fully. She stared at her twin sister and moistened her dry lips.

“Jessica!”

And like that, It is ON - the un-blurbed plot that isn’t mentioned in the back copy. Elizabeth now thinks that she’s Jessica. Whoa, nelly. We can’t have two sixteen year old twins with impulse control issues who symbolically represent the Id without one of them representing the Super-ego. This is a disaster!

I won’t bore you with the entire book except to invite you to shuffle the following plot cards. No matter what order you choose, you’ll get the basic plot of the book.

1. Elizabeth does something very Jessica-like: e.g. is thoughtless, self-centered, flirtatious, and generally awful.

2. Jessica notices that Elizabeth is “different” or that “something is wrong,” but doesn’t know what to do.

3. An ancillary character notices that Elizabeth is “different” or that “something is wrong,” but when that character mentions their concerns to Jessica, ol’ Jess blows up at them for saying something unkind about her Dear Sister.

4. Jessica has to save Elizabeth from one scrape or another, such as getting into trouble with their parents, or going out past curfew, or failing a test.

5. Elizabeth tells Jessica she’s being a stick in the mud.

6. Jessica is pissed off that she isn’t having any fun because Elizabeth is getting all the attention for her short skirts, sexy flirtation, and utterly Jessica-like behavior. It’s a double-switch identity crisis. Oh noes!

Enter Bruce Patman, the slimeball rich kid who took advantage of Jessica in an earlier book, and has had it in for her, and for Elizabeth, ever since. Elizabeth, it seems, has given Bruce the brush-off ever since he dared mess with Jessica, and since Elizabeth is an unfailingly loyal and utterly milquetoast kind of girl, she sides with Jessica and hates Bruce.

But Elizabeth-acting-like-Jessica thinks Bruce is atche-ay-dubble-yew-tee HAWT. Elizabeth-as-Jessica thinks her boyfriend, Todd of the motorcycle of coma-inducing power, is coma-inducing himself, and wants nothing to do with him. She wants Bruuuuce. And Bruce is very pleased with this turn of events.

Now, it would have been very sexy, and very intriguing if there had been a subtext of vindication or even validation for Bruce: he’s a slimeball, but there was ample opportunity to turn him into a slimeball who could be cured by the power of Luuuurve™.  Of course, that does happen later, but for now, Bruce wants to get in Elizabeth’s pants and he has nefarious intentions with no emotional redemptive possibilities behind them. He’s a date rapist, pure and simple. He tries to get her drunk at a party, and Todd rescues her. Then Jessica tries to intervene, but not before Bruce escapes (in his Porsche, of course) with Elizabeth to take her on a tour of his beach house.

Bruce...pulled her onto a large white couch and began kissing her again.

“Ummmmm, Bruce,” she murmured.

“You like this, don’t you Liz?” He let one hand slide lightly onto her breast, waiting to see if she would protest.

“That feels so good, Bruce. “ Elizabeth sighed and ran her fingers through his dark hair, then pulled him closer.

Elizabeth couldn’t see his triumphant smile and didn’t know he planned to gloat about his victory over the girl who had always snubbed him.

And there you have it: the moment my young pre-teen self almost passed out. Bruce copped a feel and they used the word “breast” in a Sweet Valley High novel.

As a not-at-all-pre-teen reading the scene? My reaction was somewhere between, “Oh, yawn” and “Dear Lord.” Also Dear Sister.

So can I spoil the ending for you? It’s just too doofy and unreal not to.

Elizabeth and Bruce kiss their way upstairs, and it looks like Bruce might actually get into Elizabeth’s pants, when he decides to go downstairs for more wine (and one would hope, a condom). Elizabeth, confused in the dark, starts hearing a buzzing in her head, trips, and slams her head on a table. She doesn’t know where she is! It’s a strange bedroom! She doesn’t remember getting there! And then Bruce Patman walks in with wine and a big leer, and she goes running out of there, completely terrified.

She goes right to Dr. Edwards, the neurosurgeon, right? Gets herself the mother of all CAT scans?

Ha. Dear me, no.

She goes running down the beach away from Bruce.

It was wonderful to know who she was and where she was again. A brilliant moon sailed through the dark sky, and she wanted to yell, “Hi there, you old moon!” She wanted to thank the stars for still shining. The sound of the surf crashing on the beach was a symphony.

Dear Lord. [NO, Dear Sister!]

It’s an amnesia storyline except that Elizabeth had no idea that she was acting out of character. She never confessed to not knowing who she was or to even the slightest bit of confusion, until she whapped her head on a table and realized she was about to do the boingy-boing with Bruce Patman. Only then does she remember that she didn’t remember but now she does remember - and I’d sure like to not remember I read this book, personally.

Elizabeth runs right into Todd, who “looked for a moment into Elizabeth’s eyes.... those beautiful sea-colored eyes were the ones he know, the tearstained face was the one he loved.” It’s her! It’s really her! And Elizabeth is all teary because she doesn’t understand what’s going on.

Are they on the way to the neurosurgeon yet? Of course not. They go… walk on the beach! Because Elizabeth is back to being Elizabeth, and all is well.

One of the reviewers on Amazon, an Australian named “Nu-Girl,” writes, “How Elizabeth finally regains her memory and identity in the dark is so simple, so rational and yet so wholly unexpected that it neatly merges with the escapist / fantasy tradition of this genre without losing its believability.”

I don’t know about that - there’s no neat merging for me, nor is it the slightest bit rational. And believability? What malarkey. The whole resolution is unbelievable, not to mention enough of a blue-balls read to make me and many, many other readers turn to more satisfying romance novels, where the word “breast” is one of many words used to describe the hummuna-hummuna action.

What I find amusing is how many readers share that experience with me - this book somehow led them to look for more satisfying reads in a sexual and emotionally climactic sense, and ultimately led to a romance reading habit like mine. I suppose I should have some feelings of appreciation for Dear Sister, but really, it just makes me say repeatedly under my breath, “Dear LORD.”

And finally, the winner of my Dear Lord It’s Dear Sister contest! It took me 42 minutes to read this book, and I dog-eared 30 pages. My grade: D-.

The person who came closest to guessing was : Jaynie R! Congrats Jaynie - enjoy your free books. Maybe if you’re lucky my copy of Dear Sister will be one of them! MWaaaahahahahahahahahaaaaa.

Chapter 1, set in 1950:

A drunken lounge singer who does not know she is pregnant goes into labor and thinks it’s indigestion, which she should treat with rum. More rum. Lots of rum. And a little Coke (liquid, not powder). Her water breaks in a flood and she collapses in the puddle while she’s on stage singing. She gives birth to a breech baby boy who, while it’s not said outright, is likely premature. But what IS said outright is:

“The doctor moved his hand from the point at the top of the baby’s head down to what should have been the back of a rounded skull, but was, instead, pancake flat. The doctor was certain that these malformations were created by the mother’s serious weight deficiency.

‘His head is groteqsuely deformed and it’s likely that he’ll be retarded....’
‘Please, doctor, I beg of you. DO whatever you can to make my baby well.’

Dr. Clark had no choice but to honor his Hippocratic oath.... He placed his hands on the baby’s head, and began applying pressure to the protrusion. He ignored the infant’s hysterical cries as he attempted to mould the crown. Pressing and pushing at the baby’s capitulum, Dr. Clark shaped it as if it were a slab of clay. He was successful in forcing the point to a smooth curve, although he could not fully round the back of the skull. Dr. Clark had made a vast improvement to the original disfigurement.”

Now, I’m pretty sensitive to most things baby-injury related, and this literally made me nauseated. Babies’ skulls are flexible and soft, but they aren’t softened clay. And pressing on a skull protrusion? With softened birth-canal-ready skull bone on top? Wouldn’t that, say, DAMAGE THE BRAIN? If the child weren’t likely to be “retarded” when he was born, he would certainly be mentally damaged now!

Further, regarding whether she knew she was pregnant, I am fully aware that there are some women who are able to completely mentally suppress any knowledge that they are pregnant. I find that hard to believe in this case. I submit the following evidence: “Her five foot four medium-built frame had never boasted an enviable hourglass figure.” That could mean she’s fat or she’s very thin, and since she’s discussed as malnourished in later pages, I’m going to go with thin. I’m 5’3”. I am not my ideal weight. I’m a bit over. Fine. At any time PAST 20 weeks, I was identifiably pregnant. No way you couldn’t tell I wasn’t expecting. Yet this woman has a “small swelling of her abdomen” BUT gives birth to a boy who survives his first night in ICU with “no complications.” So he’s old enough to survive as a preemie, but she’s not big enough to look identifiably pregnant. And I’m left very confused as to whether this character is at all trustworthy in her observations of anything.

In the next chapter, another character is introduced who finds his wife in bed with some dude, so he divorces her, but his lawyer doesn’t list enough specifications in the custody settlement so the ex wife freely packs up the kids and her new husband and moves away without telling him. And thus he loses touch with his daughter. He marries again to an equally horrible woman, and though his friends know she’s awful, they don’t warn him, and yet again, he flies right into marital unhappiness, part deux. This time, his second daughter is subject to the abuse of his second wife, who is livid at the fact that her child was not a boy because a girl will compete with her mother for looks and attention.

Then, another character: a woman meets her future abusive spouse, goes out on their first date, and gets a little drunk off his homemade liquor. He decides to have sex with her, but, oh no! She has a hymen of steel:

“‘Goddamn it. I’m going to fuck you if it’s the last thing I do.’

Rather than torture himself, he thrust his fingers back into her orifice. Over and over he hammed then into her until his hand was covered with blood. Dolores was beyond the reality of pain. She was delirious, nearly unconscious. But Thom Drake wasn’t concerned. He grabbed his penis and with his entire body weight, he thrust himself into her. Finally, he penetrated her hymen. She was no longer a virgin when he collapsed onto her lanky body....”

‘So, Dolores, what do you think of making love? I thought it was pretty good myself. Once I broke through that steel door of yours....’

She didn’t know how to respond to him.... [N]o one had told her what to expect. So when Thom Drake told her he had just made love to her, she believed him.

‘It was alright, I guess. It hurt much more than I ever thought it would.’”

Covered with blood and he still has a hard-on? That is one dedicated first date/rapist. And, to make matters worse, she gets pregnant after that first experience.

I kept expecting something redeeming to happen to any one of the collection of characters, but very little in the plot changes the maudlin, depressing events.

Besides these examples of horrible violence and physical impossibility, the dialogue is stilted and unrealistic, the characters are wooden unless they are bleeding, and the only secondary character I liked was Ruthie, an African-American woman who takes in Dolores when she finally decides to take her two daughters and run her pregnant self away from Thom after he hits her in the head with a frying pan and tries to kick the baby out of her stomach. (Again, nausea). Not one of Dolores’ coworkers could rent her a room in their houses to get her away from her husband, though they all gossiped about how she should leave him. But Ruthie has plenty of room: she had inherited a house from her grandmother, who received it as an unprecedented bequest from her former owners. Ruthie thus became one of the only black landowners in 1950’s rural Alabama.

But then, enter the unrealistic: the outside of the house is kept in a dirty, shabby condition so no one would pay much attention to the house or it’s occupant. But the inside is like stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia: beautiful plush furniture, warm lamplight and a perfect interior, all invisible from the street. They’ve been saved, just like the claymation baby.

And yet the sad events, often to the point of horror for this reader, continue. Ruthie was a lone influence of kindness in chapter after chapter of really shitful things happening to perfectly normal people, and in the end, even Ruthie isn’t exempt from evil.

The innocence that other reviewers of this book mentioned is certainly palpable, but instead of seeming historically appropriate, it seemed more unbelievable to the point of ludicrous, and was very disrupting to my involvement in the story. It also isn’t a romance, so readers looking for 1950’s saga romance, be warned.

My recommendations for future books in this series, as the author’s website indicates that it is a trilogy, would be to address, first and foremost, the dialogue. Often the characters say things that people wouldn’t say out loud, that don’t flow out of the mouth easily and seem stilted and awkward. Further, the characters spend time telling each other their backstories, instead of letting the story at hand progress. In general, there is a lot of telling, and not enough showing, which further damages the credibility of the characters. 

But beyond the writing mechanics of fiction, the depths to which these characters sink was difficult for me to endure, especially when it became clear that the “better” was not really ahead, though perhaps the future installments will lead to more happiness for these characters.