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

I can’t really follow up on this intelligently at all, because I read the book like a year ago, and passed it onto my sister, but my $.02 is that I loved this book.  Ya I felt the love story was kinda pat, but so much else was done right in my opinion.  I liked Dante, she didn’t anger me in the way she seemed to irritate you guys.  Maybe I’m just too much of a spicy meatball myself to be bothered by her anger gyrations.  I don’t know.  Loved this book and the second one as well.

Candy, one of the things I like about your comments is that you focus on and resolve something that I find to be a real tension point in Romance reviewing:  should a book be graded based on the emotional reaction of the reader to a) the characters, b) the plot, or c) whether it’s romantic? 

Part of me feels that in Romance it counts when a reader finds that they dislike a character or find the book unromantic.  But another part of me feels that critique should be located in the logic and clarity of the book’s writing and execution—that it doesn’t matter so much whether you like something, but rather how well the author has pulled it off. 

But of course those two things are related at some level, which is what your comments indicate, IMO.  You say you don’t like Dante, but then you go on to point out how the execution of her character *as written* fed your emotional response. 

I’ve found as a reader that the reviews most helpful to me are those that ground an emotional response in the execution/writing issues.  Because even though I can’t guarantee that the review will anticipate my own issues, at least I know the reviewer has actually measured his/her reactions against the book itself, and I can get a sense of the book and not merely the reviewer’s likes and dislikes.

I just read this and the 2nd book in quick succession. You get a lot more of her past and she’s a lot… not softer or nicer… but Dante starts to figure out that she shouldn’t be such a badass asshole to her friends.

And are these Romance? Much more definitely fantasy/scifi, especially since the endings… oh sorry, won’t spoil it.

I gotta tell you, I consider comma splices to be a stylistic choice. I’d wager that’s why the copyeditor didn’t take them out. I loves me some comma splices, but I do try to use them in moderation, and my copyeditor didn’t take mine out.

(And yes, I know quite well that’s what the semicolon is for. I hate the semicolon.)

Anticipating that someone will ask “Why not just use semicolons?”. . . Aside from the fact that semicolons are clearly evil little bastards, comma splices convey a sort of staccato thought process for me. When the scene is chaotic, either emotionally or physically, I feel comma splices give the narrative a rough quickness that helps convey that urgency. I guess it doesn’t work like that for Sarah. *g*

I concur: comma splices are the work of the devil and should be purged. Purged!

Also, semi-colons are my favourite punctuation mark. Yes, I freely admit to having a favourite punctuation mark. Really, editing was the only career choice for a sick-o like me…

Aw, Katidid, I’ll CUT CHOO LIKE A PIG, BITCH.

Sorry. I couldn’t resist. *snicker* It’s a punctuation rumble!

Add me to the semi-colon side.  I owe my love of punctuation to a Jr. High English teacher with a bit of an alcohol problem.  In order to keep her classes out of her hair while she dozed off over her cup of spiked coffee, she set us endless grammatical exercises.  I don’t always use correct grammar but I know it when I see it-- and can diagram it as well.

I’m with you guys, but FYI - my publisher HATES HATES HATES semicolons. They prefer authors either to break it up or use a dash.

I once had a professor beat the comma splices out of me too :)

Out of curiousity, have you read/did you enjoy the Weather Warden books? They sound similar to this, what with the excellent basic plot ideas and failings with the main character sue. Which is a shame, because the smokin’ hot genie lover was totally wasted on her. They’re definitely more chick lit than romance, though.

Enjoyed the review. I read this book a year ago, I think, too and couldn’t finish it. I thought the heroine was annoying (and that doesn’t usually influence my reading much either if the story is compelling enough), the prose/voice style didn’t suit. To each their own as they say. Cool, wicked ass covers, tho.

I’m with Jenyfer on my publisher hating, possibly even loathing semi-colons.

Me?  I love them. *sigh*

Also read these when first published, so commenting from impressionville. I enjoyed them (which is a compliment in itself because I don’t usually like tradegy).  For me there is a black cloud of concern hovering over this series...concern it will go the same direction as Caine’s Weather Wardens.  Ie lots of action, but when you look back there is endless drama & crisis with no real resolution or direction. Also no HEA! 

When a series goes non-directional, I quit reading (several books ago for Rachel Caine, her YA titles have the same flaw).  Looking forward to #3 from Lilith.

I totally know what you mean about the weather warden books.  It’s like constant stress with no real payoff.  I have the most recent one and I haven’t cracked it yet.  A shame too, because I really enjoyed the start of that series.

Totally agree about the Weather Warden series. I started out absolutely loving it and then somewhere around book three put it aside in disgust over the way the “smokin’ hot genie lover” (great summary!) was treated. The first person POV was a huge drawback after a while because the heroine had become so unlikable to me. Nobody’s that hot, that cool, whatever. Had the same issue with Merry Gentry and Tinker, FWIW.

Oh, and Japhrimel’s reason for falling in lurrrrve with Dante? Didn’t totally buy it. What he did was wildly romantic, but there was too much telling ("You treated me like an equal!") and not enough showing, especially given the incredibly short time span of the book--the bulk of the action takes place in, what, a week? Dante was a dick to Japhrimel for a good proportion of that time, and when she finally softened up--well, I just didn’t buy that a demon, and not just any demon, but SATAN’S RIGHT HAND AND GODDAMN ASSASSIN, would soften up after such a short time, and for so little.

That was my main issue with the book as well, but I loved the writing and the world-building so much, I kinda just went “eh” and let it slide. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book.

Ooooh! I haven’t been in a good punctuation rumble in years. Bring it, VD; I’m taking you down!

Heh. Semi-colons: even useful when threatening. What more can you ask?

I don’t understand the aversion of certain publishers to the semicolon.  Can someone explain?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Most famous comma splice ever.  But, yeah, usually - they just piss me off.  Not as bad as the run-on sentence though.

...and did you have to put the Brady Bunch song in my head?  I mean really - I don’t need to be singing this all day.  The kids already think I’m nuts.

I don’t understand the aversion of certain publishers to the semicolon.  Can someone explain?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me the semicolon feels formal. I want my writing to be informal and friendly. The punctuation unnoticeable. I notice semicolons. I just do. Some of you notice comma splices, though, so there’s no good way to go about it, I suppose, which is why I say it’s sytlistic.

I think of semicolons as *almost* a full stop. I do use them when called for, but if I want barely a beat, not a full breath between thoughts. . . then I go to the comma splice.

Katidid, I’m gonna put that semicolon someplace tender, bi-yotch! (See? Now doesn’t it look like an obscene gesture? ; It’s mocking us all!)

Oops. Sorry about the run-on sentence. Ha!

My publisher doesn’t even like commas! I think because they feel like it slows the reader down or something. My eye glosses over a well placed comma but really stumbles when I feel like punctuation is used incorrectly or is missing entirely…

If they are phobic about the semicolon I don’t think I could stand to know what they feel about the colon. 

However, I did look up the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities which has to be the mother of all comma splices. It’s legal because it is a compare and contrast sentence but I have this image of publishers in a more formal period arguing with Dickens that he needed to replace the commas with semi-colons.  (And I must be showing my age or something but I keep putting that hyphen into the word.

Hyphen?  I hate hyphens! One of my copy editors hyphenated like a serious case of hiccups.

magic word: love94, hmmm

As an 18thC scholar, I way overuse commas according to our modern-day usage, just because I’m so influenced by what I read where they were still trying to figure out “correct” usage.

AND I know whether anal retentive gets a hyphen!  Woohoo!

“...tends to create a more frequent use of commas when writing, as it indicates a pause for breath...”

I can totally agree with that.  In my past, not-quite-as-lucrative career in professional theatre, I trained myself to consider a comma as a pause in the sentence, using it to take a breath or to allow the character to consider her next thought or transition.  As a writer, I tend to use commas in much the same way.  I consider it a natural point to allow the reader to catch up with me--if that makes sense.

My editor and publishers, on the other hand, ("on the other hand used as an aside so I get to keep my commas nyaaaaaaaah!) absolutely hate the fact that I am comma heavy in my writing.  Despite my assertion that at least I can spell, they continue to pester me about it.  *sigh*

And yes, I know quite well that’s what the semicolon is for. I hate the semicolon

I love semicolons . . . my CE did not. I think she changed every damn one to a comma. After a while I just gave up.

Not being a writer, I’m going on a tangent from the grammar discussion...to go on a bit of a rant about Anita Blake.

I’m pissed off at her as she has ruined me for most of the “necromancer/vampire slayer” genre.  Her characters cannot seem to move through a scene without having some sort of mystically orgasmic experience with multiple characters.  Her main characters seem to pick up powers and to deal with them without much need for learning how to deal with them or control them...certainly there does not seem to be a psychological adjustment period.  And, there does not seem to be a “normal” looking person in her universe.  Everyone is gorgeous and is wearing barely any clothes, yet seems to conceal weapons all over their bodies.

It just got to be all too much for me.  Now when I see anything that seems similar, I go screeching to the hills.  The one exceptional exception would be Octavia Butler’s last work, which was (of course) a work of genius.

it sounded interesting until you said First Person. meh. i can’t stand that writing style… i’ll give this one a pass.

Comma splices are not the Devil. Even Satan has standards.

It’s an extremely rare writer who is able to use a comma splice effectively. The first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities would not have been as effective had Dickens used semi-colons between his cascade of juxtaposing phrases. But few of us are Dickens. In normal narrative or dialogue, comma splices are annoying and make a book appear to be poorly edited.

Either use a semi-colon or rewrite the sentence.

I think of semicolons as *almost* a full stop. I do use them when called for, but if I want barely a beat, not a full breath between thoughts. . . then I go to the comma splice.

The semicolon is not simply for timing; it connects two separate but related thoughts.

Interchanging semicolons and commas to indicate breath or cadence ONLY makes sense for works that are read out loud. For written language, it changes the meaning of the sentence.

Substituting a comma for a semicolon slows the reader and causes comprehension errors. In my first sentence, had I used a comma, the reader would first assume the comma indicated a list: “not simply for timing, cadence, or breath”. Another possibility following the comma is a clause like “not simply for timing, according to Strunk and White.” Studies show that when these expectations are violated, the reader may have to re-read parts of the sentence.

The one time when semicolons and commas may be interchangeable is when making a list. If one of the items in the list is complex enough to need an internal comma, then the main commas are promoted to semicolons.

1. The choices are: oranges, oranges, plums, and pears, grapes.

2. The choices are: oranges; oranges, plums, and pears; grapes.

#1 lists 5 choices, including a repeat.

#2 lists 3 choices, including a mixture.

This was my favorite book of 2006. I totally got Dante and she didn’t bother me at all. I thought the “romance” between Dante and Jaf was perfect and I even cried at the end of it. I never cry. Like, ever. The ending would have definitely sucked if I didn’t know there were more books in the series.

And commas, spliced or otherwise, give me a headache.

Yes, as I’ve said before, I understand the proper use of semicolons. I believe that you must understand a rule in order to break it. I also believe that language is a fluid and living thing and (dare I start this argument again?) a form of art and personal expression.

Comma use was very different a hundred years ago and it will be very different a hundred years from now. I like comma splices. Apparently publishers like comma splices. You don’t have to.

I like comma splices. Apparently publishers like comma splices. You don’t have to.

And that came off as more snotty than I intended! I meant something more along the lines of “To each his own” instead of “Up your nose with a rubber hose!”

I loved both Dante books.  Can’t wait for the next one to come out.  It’s been about five months since I read them but ... as I was reading your description of the book and characters I almost feel as if we didn’t read the same book.

Anita Blake… has ruined me for most of the “necromancer/vampire slayer” genre.

Same!  I have Wft Devil on my TBR pile, but I’m reluctant to try it because of La Hamilton.

It’s a tribute to LKH that she created a world that leaves such an impression.  But yeah, the flaws in those books make me hyper-sensitive to similarities in other books.

In part, I think it’s hard to mix horror and a HEA.  It’s a tough sell that these are ferocious creatures AND they pine for a white picket fence.  Some authors “humanize” the badass lustable thangs with guilt or need for a mate, but the angst can be a personality flaw like an “I’m so faaaaat” heroine.  Evil objet de lust with self-esteem issues seeks romantic love… in therapeutic setting… while not losing his evil. Right.

I’m looking for an antidote: an equally strong vision that cancels out LKH.  I enjoy Kelley Armstrong’s werewolves and Kim Harrison’s series (satisfying but not squeaky-perfect endings).  Keri Arthur and Karen Chance have interesting worlds but more flaws.  Arthur’s heroine is on the “feisty"/TSTL side and gains powers à la Anita.  (Was I so critical pre-Anita?) Chance loves to infodump, and her “go back in time and fix it” device is irritating.  But I’m getting over the LKH-genre allergy.  I’ll try Devil.

I love the Charlaine Harris books, though maybe they’re not quite as fantasy-steeped? Sookie’s not exactly a bad-ass, but i do feel happy at the end of each book regardless that some don’t qualify as happy endings.

Oooooh...shall we start arguing next about the Oxford Comma? Cause I love me some Oxford comma almost as much as I love semi-colons.

In order of preference, Katidid’s favourite punctuation marks are semi-colons, Oxford commas, and em dashes.

Katidid

iffygenia: It’s not really a romance, but you might try Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. Very few authors can write vampires in a way that I’m willing to tolerate, and she’s at the very top of that list. Just be prepared for a hell of a lot of baking details and a hunger for muffins.

Shit, I don’t even know what an Oxford comma is! I think I just got beat down!

(Off to Google. . .) Oh, hot damn! I love the Oxford comma too, and I didn’t even know it! I think we’ve found common ground just in time to save my life. (That Katidid is cute, but she’s balls against the wall with a blade.)

I’ve got another one. Relying on nothing but my natural intelligence and writing instinct, I stumbled into the English way of punctuating a quoted word or phrase. For example: The name tag read, simply, “Me”. As opposed to putting the punctuation inside the quotes whether it belongs there or not.

I’ve always done this it the British way, and only recently found out it was “wrong”. Ha!

We who like to do things the British way salute you, Victoria.

:)

Victoria, it bugs the ever-loving shit out of me when my students use the English method.  They’re not using it because of any knowledge--they’re doing it because they’re appallingly ignorant.  And they continue to do it after an entire semester of me telling them NOT to do it.  ::sigh::

Yeah, but don’t you find the American way offensive? “You widdle ones don’t need to tax your brain thinking about this. Pretend it’s a full sentence and just put it inside the quotes!”

Ergh! It’s so obviously wrong! You can’t apply it to question marks! Did the name tag say “Screw You?” doesn’t make any sense at all.

Do you mean your students make the distinction between a fully punctuated sentence INSIDE the quotes and an incomplete phrase that SHOULDN’T be punctuated? Because I’d be pretty impressed, if that were the case.

But you make me wonder now whether this was a later development for me. Some sort of evolution. English professors liked me well enough in college, certainly.

I had the dubious benefit of a Scottish education - equal parts parsing sentences and regular doses of corporal punishment. Yep, I learned the hard way. My first college paper in the U.S. had my professor’s face as red as the penmarks on my “horrendous misuse and overuse of punctation”. What’s an expat Brit to do, but learn the “American Way”, which seemed to consist of run on sentences, extremely short ones, and some bizarre quotation rules. Now, for better or for worse, I punctuate purely by instinct.
Loved the punctation rumble - I didn’t know anyone still cared. Judging from some of the unreadable tripe I’ve been subjected to recently, publishers certainly don’t care about grammar and punctuation as much as the biyatches on this thread. Unfortunately.
My pet peeve is the whoring of the exclamation point. E.g. It was the best of times! It was the worst of times! The exclamation point had never been so popular! Writers used it incessantly to bring forced excitement to their dull sentences! But it didn’t work!

Oxford Comma?

huh. i didn’t even know that freakin’ little thing had a name, much less such a hoity-toity one.

Ready to rumble?  Again?  My biggest peeve is the myth (yes, myth, nyah nyahhhh) of the evil split infinitive.

I was taught that to deliberately split an infinitive can sometimes be both more precise and more elegant.  I’d never heard the idea that split infinitives are always verybadthings until my 6th year of university, when I received a low grade on a paper for “SIs”.  Since then I’ve asked all my editors, and they’ve all said it’s a myth.  As does the Oxford Press Dictionary, praise the drol.

And besides....  To boldly go?  So not the same as To go boldly.

Split infinitives strike me as a holdover from someone’s sad attempt to impose Latin grammar rules on English.  One cannot split an infinitive in Latin as it’s a single word.  I’ve yet to understand why splitting infintives is a bad thing.  It’s a rule without any plausible explanation.  If someone understands why this is a disaster, please explain.  I’ve been curious.

As to commas.  I feel like editors have become laxer and laxer about correcting grammar in books.  I remember a recent Sherrilyn Kenyon where the rules about comma use seemed to change from sentence to sentence.  A publisher should at least impose some sort of standard rules on this in their own publishing house.

I’ve recently found that commas are disappearing right and left in books.  Unfortunately, rather than leading to an easier read by removing visible breaks, it creates confusion.  I can’t figure out which parts of the sentence are meant as parenthetical commentary and what are part of the main body of the sentence.

Bookworm, I totally agree on the exclamation point.  Authors should be limited to one use per book.

Thank goodness it’s not just me wondering where have all the commas gone.  I can manage a comma splice if the books is but when it’s and its gets confused I start to hiss.  I firmly maintain that without commas (especially Oxford commas) one can not write clearly.  However, I am one of those people that loves to litter my [formal] writing with the noble semicolon as well as em and en dashes, and those lovely brackets. :^)

Now, Working for the Devil was a book I really enjoyed but at the same time it drove me up the wall because Japhrimel just didn’t get enough screen time and I kept waiting for him to do something really nasty.  For Hell’s assassin he seemed rather squemish but I couldn’t decide if that was really him or if he just didn’t want to scare off Dante.  As for him falling in love with Dante I got the impression that it was more to do with an expedient way for Jaf to get out of his current position and if she needed to believe he loved her for him to get what he wanted then that’s what Jaf was going to do. 

Anita Blake (especially the later ones) made me rather touchy about magickal powers and cure-all sex and I found that Dante didn’t bothered me in that regard.

I *just* posted about exclamation points over at the AAR blog (sorry for website plugging) because I really hate them. Really. More than secret babies. More than surprise werewolves. More than anything else, overuse of commas will turn an okay book into a wallthumper.

Witness: The Secret Passion of Simon Blackwell. A nice book. I liked the characters. Sure it didn’t do anything different, but it was solid. But Oh. My. Freakin’. God. If I had to read one more exclamation mark in deep point-of-view, my head would have exploded. Desperate. Truly.

I was educated in Canada, by the way, and work in Australia now, so I have a horrid mish-mash of grammar and stylistic rules floating around in my head. Personally, I think split infinitives can be truly lovely.

I really enjoyed this book and I have studied martial arts. At the time I was equally as bitchy as Dante, so I can speak from experience when I say finding your center, like finding yourself comes across in different ways. 

The issue with her and in book two it is revealed in more detail is that she always hurts and pushes away those she loves for fear of them leaving her.  Her parents abandoned her, then her case worker died and she was left alone in that school where horrors were around every corner.  Doreen died and Jace left her for no reason (so she thinks).  Come on people, she has abandonment issues that manifest themselves in her interactions.

Yet, her friends know that for all her bitchy ways she is a scared little girl who needs love and support.  Trust me when I say I identify with that in too many ways.  Friends have a way of not letting you push them aside to lick your wounds and hide.  The people who love you find a way to force you to fight and to live.

With regard to Jaf, he cares for her but he also used her to buy his freedom, the love actually is developed more in book three.  But the equal bit is very powerful as is their connection. He sees past the facade to the heart of the person and though she is being an Ass she is also loyal and loving in her own way.  Yes, she treats him like shit but she treats everyone that way and to him that makes him equal.  He didn’t jump bad because he would have scared her and she was already mentally fragile.  The wing thing almost sent her over the edge. 

But the one thing I think people over look in this book is the fact that she trusted Jaf which was a major leap for her and that she forgave Jace.  When a person is emotionally scarred you develop rules that are so strict that it keeps hurt at bay or so you think.  She let go of some of those rules of engagement and allowed Jaf to see her, Saintcrow did this in a very subtle way and many missed it. 

Dante grew and in that growth she got stronger (Jaf’s giving of his own power).  I honestly don’t think this was purely done out of love but more to the point to ensure his freedom from the Devil.  If Dante didn’t accomplish the task set by the devil neither her or Jaf would have lived.  Like I said before the love came later in book 3 when she accepted him and actually spent time with Jaf in a non-life threatening situation.

There were flaws in this book but the storyline and action were enough to keep it going and once she opened that world up, I fell into it hook line and sinker!

I gave it a B+/A- because I totally understood the coldness and anger Dante tried unsuccessfully to portrait and why the people in her life looked past that to the inner her.  She can be a bitch but in a pinch she has your back and would go down fighting for you in the end.  What more can you ask?