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

After looking at Amazon.com last night and seeing on their site that Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible had been out for about two weeks, off I toddled to the Borders that’s sort of near my workplace to get a copy of my very own in my hot little hands. I even checked the store inventory on-line beforehand to ensure they had it in stock. The webpage assured me that yes, it was available at the store.

Well, guess what?  THAT PIECE OF SHIT WEBPAGE LIED. According to the nice lady who helped me scour the whole store for the elusive tome, the release date is actually March 1, and it won’t be available until tomorrow.

Now at that point I wasn’t particularly bothered. I had a few other books by other authors I wanted to check out: Duchess in Love by Eloisa James, The Pirate Next Door by Jennifer Ashley and Lady-In-Waiting by Kathryn Caskie. I found the Caskie book, no problem, but it didn’t grab me by page 15, so I put it back on the shelf and started looking through the shelves for the James and Ashley novels.

And I couldn’t friggin’ find them. I checked the nifty web-based inventory at the store. Yup, allegedly they were in stock and on the shelves, and unlike Mr. Impossible, these books have been out for a while. I looked for about 10 minutes more before I gave up, and decided to go to the Barnes and Noble that’s sort of near my house. And I HATE Barnes and Noble with a passion because they ran the bookstore for my university and charged the most outrageous prices for textbooks (I mean even more outrageous than usual), plus I dislike how damn monolithic they are. I mightily resent having to go to B&N for ANY reason and having to give them my money.

Well, I needn’t have worried. Because freakin’ Barnes and Noble didn’t have what I was looking for either. They had every other goddamn book Jennifer Ashley and Eloisa James have published. I’m not kidding. They had Fool in Love and The Care and Feeding of Pirates and Much Ado About You and The Pirate Hunter and A Wild Pursuit etc. etc. etc. But the two books I was actually looking for? HA.

So now I’m in a royal snit. I went on-line and got all the books from Amazon.com because it was just much easier all around. But now I have to wait at least a week before I get Mr. Impossible. And I don’t wanna wait. I’m sitting here thinking things like “GODDAMN STUPID-ASS COCKHUMPING WHOREMONGERS WHERE’S MY LORETTA CHASE GNAAARRRRRRRR.” Oh sure, I could’ve fought my way through traffic on I-5 again to get my copy tomorrow, but then I would’ve been yelling out other expletives, this time out loud at all the buttwipes cutting me off on the freeway. I don’t feel up to it. So here I sit, and stew, and wait. And really, it’s all my fault, a realization that Does Not Help Matters.

Yeah, and you thought I was a regular model of sweetness and light. Now you know: waiting for something I want is not my strong suit.

Only two more days until Mr. Impossible hits the bookstores! Loretta Chase is one of my very favorite authors; together with Laura Kinsale, she’s written more keepers than any other romance author. I was so relieved when I read and loved Miss Wonderful, which is the prequel to Mr. Impossible; The Last Hellion (which was the last book she wrote for ages and ages until Miss Wonderful was published) was a huge disappointment to me and the only book of hers I don’t own. I have high hopes for Mr. Impossible, which is supposed to feature a sweet but not particularly bright hero. Viscount Vagabond featured a similar hero. Max Demowery wasn’t exactly dumb, but he certainly wasn’t bookish, and I really enjoyed his character. I’m hoping the hero in Mr. Impossible proves to be every bit as delightful.

Update!
Whoa, what the fuck? I checked Amazon in the beginning of February and the publish date was still set at March 1st. I just checked again, and I find out that the book has been out since February 16th. FEBRUARY 16TH!!!! Off I go to Borders tomorrow to get me a copy.

I’m not complaining, mind you. Just pissed-off that I could’ve been reading this instead of Taboo.

This is going to be the start of a multi-part series in which I examine (bitchily, natch) the various claims typically leveled against romance novels. Romances are unique in that it’s the only genre I know of associated with stupidity in the reader who enjoys them. Reading children’s books, thrillers, horror novels, science fiction, hell, even the lurid pulp novels of the 40s, 50s and 60s with titles like Nude Roller-Skating Venusians Attack! is generally regarded as acceptable, perhaps even ironic and hip, but once people find out you like romances—woo boy, you can pretty much bet on hearing several threadworn jokes about your IQ, or seeing somebody’s respect for your intellect drop several notches, if not bottom out completely. This happens even if you’re head of the class or a top-notch professional; I’d even argue that the drop in esteem is much more severe if you’re somebody who’s considered “smart” because people assume you should “know better"—an attitude that makes me want to “suggest gently” that they “stick their snobby opinion” up their “unwashed asses.”

Just about everyone takes potshots at romance readers, even if (actually especially if) the person has never read a romance novel. I’m tired of these assumptions, and I’m tired of the double standards. This particular tirade deals with the claim that romances are bad fiction because they’re so unrealistic—one of the most common accusations levelled against romance novels.

Mrs. Giggles came up with the absolutely hilarious Regency Drinking Game. In the spirit of good-natured rip-offs (think of it as an homage, if you will), the Smart Bitches have come up with the Contemporary Romance Novel Drinking Game. Bottoms up, and if you can think of any additions, feel free to suggest them in the Comments.

The heroine:

• Is a virgin: 1 sip
• Over the age of 25: 2 sips
• Over the age of 30: 5 sips
• Is not a virgin but has never, ever, ever had an orgasm: 2 sips
• Is not a virgin and has had terrific orgasms, but only because she had sex with the hero before the book began, which has resulted in a Secret Baby: 3 sips
• Is a virgin and somehow still manages to have a Secret Baby (yes, this book exists): Toss the book against the wall and proceed to get as drunk as you can
• Is not a virgin and has had terrific orgasms, then broke up with the hero and has remained celibate: 4 sips
• Celibacy lasts more than 2 years: 5 sips
• Celibacy lasts more than 5 years: 10 sips
• Is not celibate, but the sex with other men has been terrible: 10 sips
• Is described as “curvy” and “busty”: 1 sip
• And then you find out she’s 5’10” and 110 lbs: 1 mug
• Hates herself and her body because she’s been called “fat” by everyone she’s ever loved: 10 sips
• Then you find out she’s actually 5 lbs. under her ideal bodyweight with really, really big tits: 1 mug
• Heroine IS actually overweight (in romance novel terms: more than a size 10): 5 sips
• Has some kind of quirky non-office job like owning a pet store specializing in antique dog collars, or is a Las Vegas showgirl: 3 sips
• The showgirl is a virgin: 1 mug
• Is vaguely described as a “consultant”: 3 sips
• Is employed in a clearly care-giving profession (nurse, doctor, counselor, therapist, social worker, etc.): 2 sips
• Has a home-based career, without children: 2 sips
• Has a home-based career, with children: 4 sips
• Never insists the hero wears a condom: 2 sips
• When the hero decides to bareback or forgets to put on a jimmy hat, decides it’s proof of their TRUE LURVE: 10 sips

The hero:

• Is a police detective: 1 sip
• Is in some way employed in investigations and is a former member of law enforcement: 2 sips
• And was booted out of law enforcement, unjustly of course: 3 sips
• Is a Navy SEAL: 1 sip
• Is a member of some other type of Special Forces task force: 2 sips
• Is a secret agent: 2 sips
• For another country: 5 sips
• Is a sports stud: 1 sip
• Is a cowboy: 1 sip
• Is a doctor: 1 sip
• Is a millionaire/billionaire entrepreneur who’s somehow not a gross, balding, overweight 56-year-old lech who exclusively dates supermodels and Playboy Playmates: 3 sips
• Is a business tycoon who doesn’t actually spend 14 hours a day in his office, leaving him plenty of time to chase the heroine all over the earth: 3 sips
• Is a corporate drone whose job is so boring the author doesn’t even mention it: 1 sip
• Is an alleged geek who doesn’t play video games or RPGs, make Monty Python references, or indulge in any other kind of real-life geek behavior other than look really, really cute in glasses: 3 sips
• Is an alleged geek who makes huge blunders while talking about computers or explaining basic scientific theorems: 10 sips
• Is an alleged geek with limited lovemaking experience yet still makes heroine orgasm the moment he brushes against her clitoris: 1 mug
• Has a big dick, a detail which is noted with clockwork-like precision every time a love scene comes up: 1 sip
• The dick is so big it hurts the heroine, which is noted with clockwork-like precision every time a love scene comes up: 2 sips
• Has an even bigger gun: 2 sips
• The gun is so big it hurts the… oh wait.
• Spends more than 2/3 of the book being angry, snarling, or shouting: 4 sips
• Big-dicked, big-gunned, cranky hero is in a Linda Howard novel: 5 sips
• Or a Susan Andersen novel: 5 sips
• Incessantly calls the heroine “babe”: 1 sip
• Has dated one skanky hobag who has somehow soured his opinion of all women: 2 sips
• Is currently involved with a skanky hobag: 5 sips
• Skanky hobag turns out to be the villain, or in cahoots with the villain: 4 sips

Sidekicks
Heroine’s Sidekick:

• Is described as “wacky” and whose only function is to make the heroine question her own attractiveness in comparison to Mme. Wacky: 3 sips
• Has red hair: 1 sip
• Has big boobs: 1 sip
• Never actually says or does anything remotely “wacky”: 1 mug
• Is wacked in a satisfying and gruesome way: chug and call Sarah to recommend book immediately

Hero’s Sidekick:

• Is more stylish than hero: 1 sip.
• Is gay: 2 sips.
• But hero doesn’t know sidekick is gay: 1 mug.
• And is involved with sidekick: are you sure it’s a romance?
• Is hero’s partner in investigation/law enforcement: 2 sips.
• Swears he himself will never marry: 2 sips.
• But is paired off in secondary romance plotline: 2 sips.
• Is killed off: 3 sips.
• Saves hero’s ass once in story: 1 sip.
• Saves hero’s ass twice in story: 2 sips
• Hero should be dead due to his own stupidity but is saved on multiple occasions by quick-thinking hero’s best friend: 1 mug.

If any of the following words are used at any point of the story:

• Redolent:1 sip
• Turgid: 2 sips
• Erection: 2 sips
• Penis: 2 sips
• Cock: 3 sips
• Dick: 4 sips.
• Fiercely: 2 sips
• Huskily: half the mug
• Savage: the whole damn mug, please--and make sure you savor it with sweet, savage pleasure
• Beguiled: 3 sips
• Arousal (if used to refer to an erection): 2 sips
• Arousal (if the hero actually uses the word to refer to his erection): 10 sips
• Sensual (if used as a euphemism for “heroine looks like a two-bit skank"): 2 sips
• Sensuality (if used as a euphemism for “heroine is acting like a two-bit skank"): 2 sips

I love looking at the referrer log for this page. Because of the rampant potty-mouth and our choice of domain name, I suspect 95% of our visitors are just confused. as. hell when they click on this particular Google result. “But where are the pictures of the hot bitches humping?” they probably cry into the depths of the night. But no reply awaits them, alas, alas. Just a couple of smart-mouthed chippies talking endlessly about romance novels.

So other search engine results that somehow or the other point unsuspecting schmucks to this website:

• Gay Dominican cock (now talk about being REALLY disappointed when they actually see what this site is about)
• Bitches humping bitches (I need to use another term besides “hump"--maybe screw? Bone? Pork? Give her the ole in-out, in-out? Walk the ferret? Spelunk for treasure?)
• Books about good and vs. evil in Moby Dick (the poor schmuck trying to find help for her college writing assignment was all outta luck, I’m afraid)
• Blog romance novel published (GOOD GOD, finally, a relevant search result! I’m swooning! Catch me! *splat*)
• And a bunch of referrals from a series of German porn sites.

So once again, I will mention romance novels and romance novel reviews because this site is really allll about what we love and hate about romance books. Not that it’ll do any good. But I gotta keep trying.

Picking up romance novels based on the cover is a very iffy proposition. Laura Kinsale, one of the best romance writers out there, was cursed with a whole series of appalling Fabio covers while writing for Avon. Loretta Chase and Ruth Wind, also excellent authors, have also been saddled with more than their fair share of terrible romance novel covers. (I know of a few which would be perfect for “Covers Gone Wild” snarkage, so stay tuned, kiddies.) So I don’t generally pick romance novels based on the covers.

But Taboo. Oh my. That cover is hot. And a testament to the marketing effectiveness of a really, really good cover, because boy it suckered me in good. I mean, look at it!

Freakin’ HOT. Unfortunately, it was an absolutely terrible book. It was only 181 pages, but it took me 6 days to finish reading it because every time I picked it up, I ended up falling asleep—not exactly the effect I hoped to achieve while reading an erotic romance. Now I just look at the cover, and shake my head sadly. So much potential. This cover deserves a much better novel.

The Smart Bitches were e-mailing each other about women of leisure as they’re depicted in historical romances, and somehow we got sidetracked into talking about romance novel villains instead. Go figure.

Candy: I read The Lady’s Tutor a few years ago, and I didn’t like it too much. The thing that bothered me the most was the villain. Oh, so not only is he bisexual and emotionally abusive, but he’s a CHILD-MOLESTER as well? Feh. Just once I’d like to encounter a hetero child-molester in a book, ANY book, since in the real world the vast majority of pedophiles are straight. Using homos and bisexuals as villains--and EVIL EVIL EVIL ROASTING BABIES ALIVE AFTER MOLESTING THEM villains at that--is one of my biggest pet peeves in fiction of any sort.

Sarah: Speaking of cliché villains, you know what else I hate? I hate when an author can’t come up with a good bit of characterization to define how bad the villain is using multi-dimensional scenes or actions. No, the author just says, Hey! I know! This man is BAD. He is E.VIL. So I will make him… cruel to animals! What a cop out. Not only do I find it horribly upsetting but it’s such a weak ass wussy way to make someone evil. I mean, dang. What happens if someone is gay, an incestuous pedophile, AND cruel to the horses? Why, he’s satan! ARGH! God that makes me nuts.

The villain for Duke of Sin is also half Jewish. His ancestors are Bohemian Jews who emigrated two generations before. I am still not sure why it is relevant. Perhaps he is also gay, an incestuous pedophile, and mean to the horses, on top of being Jewish. Then he’d be more than Satan. He’d be über-Satan. Satanalicious! The Duke of Satan! GAH!

Candy: No, if a villain was all of the above he wouldn’t be the Duke of Satan, he’d be part of the secret cabal in charge of the World Bank, the stock markets and the mass media! Those goddamn faggot Jews are ruining our shit yet again! The only way he could be worse was if he somehow managed to be both Jewish AND atheist.

Sarah: Don’t forget Hollywood. We control that, too. Last I heard, anyway. Tom Cruise still won’t return my calls so I don’t know for sure.

Candy: Hahaha. And man, don’t get me started on Tom. You know, he’d make an excellent villain. Too good looking, member of a weird cult, generally beloved, yet something about him gives me the jibblies.... Bleck. Anyway, romance novels tend to have really sloppy villains. Popular fiction in general isn’t all that great when it comes to creating convincing villains with realistic motivations, but most romance novel villains are just downright ridiculous. They’re often psychotic, when most of the bad people in the world aren’t psycho per se, they’re simply greedy, callous and/or selfish in certain ways, and to a certain extent they’re blind to how much harm is caused by their actions. I believe in the banality of evil, which is a term Hannah Arendt came up with to explain how so many people accepted--even embraced--the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. People who commit evil acts often sincerely believe they’re acting on the best interests of their families and their community. But romance novel villains? More often than not they’re just batshit insane, boy. Think of all the pointless romance novel tragedy that could’ve been averted if only the villains had access to Haldol or Thorazine!

This week, we’re beating up on Dara Joy covers once again. We can’t help it. Deep, deep down inside, we’re just Really Bad People. Now, make no mistake, we feel bad that Dara seems to be having one mother of a legal tussle with Dorchester Publishing and has had to resort to self-publishing her books, but damn, there is no excuse for these covers. Perhaps it’s part of her plan to make her readers feel the same pain she’s going through in a really visceral way?

Candy: This cover uncovers a whole new world of hurt. (Har har, I said “cover uncovers.") First of all: THAT HAIR. WHY GOD WHY? If Louis XIV had been fed a non-stop diet of LSD and crack, he still would’ve rejected that wig as too tasteless and far-out. And those incredibly creepy eyes. Evil, unnatural, yellow eyes, searing into my brain. And his mouth just looks weird. If this guy grinned, I bet we’d see a bunch of needle-sharp teeth. It would explain the misshapen pout. And… And… Words fail me. It’s just so BAD. How could anyone think that cover was good enough to release? Even a plain black cover with just the title embossed on it would’ve been better. If something like the creature on the cover tried to hop into bed with me, I’d shriek and throw one of my cats at him in the hopes they’d morph into Battle Cat and help protect me or something. No, wait, on second thought, he looks like he’d actually enjoy molesting cats. And gerbils. And various and sundry small, furry woodland critters.

Other crimes against humanity committed on that cover: the font, complete with terrible PhotoShop effects, and that hideous sparkly pink background, clashing merrily with the guy’s sallow skin and hallucinogenic hair. Mommy, please make the hurting stop.

Sarah: Oh. My. Gooooooooooooood. That is like, when self-publishing goes horribly horribly wrong.  I have a few things to say:

1. “Cover Artwork by Dara Joy” - When bad covers happen because of bad writers?

2. People are paying money for this! BIG money for this book! Why? Because that is one big breathtaking cover right there. Woo damn. People will pay top dollar for Dara’s house of Photoshop.

3. I love that excerpt from her website: people bustled, and her eyes are gleaming in anticipation. Is this book one big cliché? Is the only exception the cover? Because that cover, it is not the cliche. It is a nightmare. Enquiring minds want to know!

Sarah: I don’t even know where to begin with the mocking of this cover. I love the poorly-Photoshopped headband on his head, and with that expression, it looks like it hurt, that headband application. He looks so familiar. Maybe he’s from a porno? He kinda looks like Travis Tritt, only with a really smarmy look about him.

Candy: You are so right about him looking like he could be a pornstar. He also looks like he could be a meth dealer. (And hey, pornstar and meth dealer are hardly mutually exclusive occupations.) You know where you probably saw him? COPS. Maybe one of the “Tazed and Confused” episodes.

God, that greasy wig is driving me crazy. I just want to grab an industrial-sized bottle of shampoo and hose him down.

It is too early for a full review, but I am so happy reading “Bet Me” by Jennifer Crusie, after reading several mediocre romance novels, that I had to share. Is there a, “YAY FINALLY” rating on this site? Because that’s what I’d give this book. 

It’s true. Not because of my Heathen Godlessness (or at least not only because), but because I dare to review books.

The piece starts off calmly and reasonably enough. The writer, PaperbackWriter (PBW for short) explains why she doesn’t read reviews of her work, and why she doesn’t think book reviews necessarily help her.

And then right around paragraph 8, she starts losing it:

Now, some ditz with internet access and a hair up an orifice for whatever reason wants to come and tell the world how he or she would write my book? Oh, be my guest. Only when you write that review, imagine how you’d feel if I came into your place of business, knowing little to nothing about how to do your job, and commenced to decide how well you did it. Then imagine me going to your boss and saying, I think Jane Reviewer sucks at the job that pays her mortgage, feeds her children and keeps her from living under a bridge. Dock her pay, will you? Now I’m off to smear her on every bookkeeping site on the internet. Oh, and if you ever need a new bookkeeper, here’s my card…

So, okay, despite this, I accept that I am a public figure, subject to public opinion. Goes with the job. Certainly you reviewers are entitled to your opinions, and free speech—something I dearly love—protects your right to air them. Air them. But expect me to read it? Think I’m going to learn something from you? Based on what? Have you written sixty-two novels? I have. How many of yours are published? My #27 and #28 will be out next month. Let’s put some credentials on the table here.

Right, forgot. You don’t have any. You just have your opinion.

REEEERRRRR! HISSSSS! Somebody put some SoftPaws on this dame. Hey, you know what? I write for a living. Not fiction, true, but I’ve produced, edited and revised well over 100 technical manuals in the five years I’ve worked as a writer/illustrator/webmaster for my company. And if a mechanic complained to my boss and said “That latest service manual is complete shit, the instructions and photos are confusing,” then based on what this writer is saying, I’d be justified in telling the customer: “GET THAT HAIR OUT OF YOUR ASS. You don’t know the torments I went through to crop, adjust and clean up those photos! You don’t know how many meetings I had with engineers and how many prints I consulted to find out the tolerances required for the clutch! How many service manuals have you created? Oh that’s right, NONE.”

This example is not strictly analogous, of course. Writing fiction is very different from writing a tech manual, just as the reasons why people read a tech manual are generally very different from the reasons why people read a novel. But the claim that those of us who don’t write or edit fiction professionally are not qualified to critique or have an opinion on a book is quite possibly the most fragrant pile of bullshit I’ve encountered in quite a while, and is a classic defense posture affected by thin-skinned whiners everywhere when their work is reviewed negatively. Last time I checked, reviews involved a person’s opinion based on several complex factors, chief of all being personal aesthetics, and I don’t see how publishing 28 books would somehow enhance my aesthetic sense. Now critiquing somebody’s bookkeeping, or engineering, or a PhD dissertation on the flurorescence of nitrous oxide when bombarded with high-energy electromagnetic waves would take a LOT more technical knowledge than reviewing a book--but even a layperson can catch errors and point out incompetence if the mistakes are particularly flagrant. So PBW’s analogy is even shittier than mine is.

I respect PBW’s freedom to read or not read, or to take to heart or disregard any and all reviews about her work. But she completely misses the point about why people like me write reviews. I don’t write reviews in the hopes of instructing the author on how to do her job, just as Joe Mechanic isn’t trying to tell me how to use PhotoShop and InDesign when he’s telling me that something about a manual is confusing him. I write reviews for a myriad of reasons:

• I’m a loudmouthed, opinionated bitch, and I figured what the hell, I might as well share my opinionated bitchiness on the Interweb since everyone else is. I’m nothing if not a joiner!
• I really, really love reading books in general, and romance novels in particular. Writing about it provides just another outlet for my fascination with the genre.
• I want to share the good books I’ve read, and warn people who might have similar tastes to mine about the stinkers.
• I enjoy writing, but unlike some authors--fuck that, MANY authors--I realized long ago that I can’t write fiction worth a good goddamn, so this is a fun project for me to keep the old gray matter working and my writing skillz sharp. (Note my substitution of the letter “z” for “s” in that last sentence. This indicates I’m young, hip and urban!)

If an author decides to take a review to heart and gets rid of annoying verbal tics or drops stupid plot devices, then hooray, awesome, champagne all around. But really, it’s an incidental by-product of reviewing, and not its primary purpose. My take on the whole thing is: if authors see the same criticism pop up over and over again, perhaps instead of saying “EVERYBODY IS FULL OF SHIT!” it might behoove her to see if these myriad viewers coming from different backgrounds and presumably with a variety of tastes might have a point? And hey, sometimes everybody IS full of shit--what else can explain the popularity of Avril Lavigne? But sometimes they’re not.

Her claims that reviewers are somehow out to get her, that we somehow run around posting every negative review to every website and clamor at her publisher to cut her contract, also strike me as distinctly paranoid, with a good dash of delusions of grandeur. So far I’ve written one bad review for this site. I haven’t publicized it. I haven’t gone on Amazon to throw in my 1-star review, which would certainly be higher-visibility than a website that ranks 99 for “romance novel reviews” on Google but number 2 for “trashy bitches”. I haven’t even asked anyone other than my sister and my best friend to look at this website. When I snarl and snark while writing a review for a bad book, I consider it cathartic, but I certainly don’t have a vendetta against the author. I’m snarky, not Annie Wilkes. The only authors I give a shit about are the good ones, and these are the ones I’m much more likely to talk about. The bad authors can be rolling in dough (God knows many of them are) or trolling the streets for their next hit of crack for all I care. And I honestly don’t think many (if any) reviewers behave in the way PBW writes about when they encounter a book they don’t like, simply because psychosis is a pretty rare ailment.

And towards the end of this blog entry, PBW really starts losing it. Witness:

I listen to my readers; if I hadn’t at least five of my books wouldn’t exist. They write to me, and talk about what they like and don’t like. They are always in the back of my mind when I write. Occasionally I write things or change things to please them, too. I can’t make them all happy, that would be like trying to count all the stars in the galaxy. (...) But I listen, because it’s part of the unwritten contract between me and someone who paid seven or nineteen or twenty-five bucks of their hard-earned money for that book.

I don’t maintain that kind of contract with reviewers, 99% of whom get the books for nothing from my publisher. Some of you write great reviews that sell a lot of books for me, but that doesn’t offset the hatchet jobs that cost me sales. I’m not going to kiss your ass. I’m not afraid of you. Mostly I feel nothing but contempt for you, as a soldier feels for an informant (stole that from my man Flaubert.) I’m working on turning that into pity. Because as much hell as I’ve gone through, it can’t be anything compared to where most of you burn.

So at first I thought maybe she was bitching about Amazon one-paragraph hackjob reviews, but this last paragraph indicates that she isn’t. Hey, here’s a thought: if there are more negative reviews than positive from across the spectrum--both “professional” reviews and reader reactions on sites like Amazon.com--perhaps, just maybe, what you’re writing is shit? Just a thought. Not that I’m trying to say all great books are critically acclaimed; Moby Dick tanked when it came out, but even now you can still make an excellent, convincing argument that it’s an overrated piece of crap. (Not me, personally, I love that huge, unwieldy piece of insanity. Now on the other hand, ask me about Wuthering Heights, go on, I dare you...)

And I’m just wondering: who does she think reviewers are? Some sort of weird sub-human, non-reader category? Because she makes a very distinct and bizarre demarcation between “readers” (who are good, and praiseworthy, and worth listening to) vs. “reviewers” (who deserve to burn in Hell if they dare have a negative opinion about her work). Y’know, last time I checked, every book reviewer is a book reader. If you paid any attention to high-school math when they covered Venn diagrams, that’d make us reviewers a sub-set of readers. Unless you volunteer for a big website like All About Romance or work for a publication, most of the people writing reviews on the Internet paid for the books out of their own pocket. She needs to make up her mind: either reviewers are worth listening to, or we’re shitful freaks. Or are we somehow magically less shitful if we paid for the book? Will our opinion somehow be more valid? Then let me state up front here: Sarah and I pay for ALL the books we review, one way or another. Sarah gets many of her books through Booksfree or buys them outright, while I either buy them or get them through the library (which I pay for with my taxes).

Are there good reviews and bad reviews? Of course there are. The bad ones go something like “I LOVED THIS BOOK! FIVE STARS ALL THE WAY! THIS AUTHOR DESERVES ORAL SEX WHILE BEING FED CHOCOLATE-DIPPED STRAWBERRIES BY HOT SHIRTLESS TENNIS PLAYERS INTO PERPETUITY FOR WRITING THIS GEM! A+++!” The good ones not only tell you the book was good, or bad, or mediocre, but WHY the reviewer thought so in an honest, coherent, entertaining manner. Reviews are not literary analysis--or at least they shouldn’t be unless you’re either a pretentious whore or have a fairly perverse sense of humor. Reviews are primarily gut reactions tempered by self-reflection.

So in short: if I’m burning in hell, I kind of like it here. I prefer warmer climates, anyway, and besides, it’s a dry kind of heat.

p.s. Did you like the way I casually tossed out references to science and literature? I wish I could’ve done it with the same panache she said “my man Flaubert,” but alas, I’m afraid I’m not a published author.

p.p.s. Hey, I guess I need SoftPaws too.

p.p.p.s. For a response that’s a lot more measured and a whole lot less catty than mine, check out what Laurie Likes Books wrote on her blog.

Men’s Health columnist Joe Queenan wrote a recent article on romance novels, chick lit and romance conferences. Check it out, it skewers certain aspects of romance novels pretty accurately and hilariously. A notable quotable:

The very premise of the romance novel is that for every woman there exists a perfect mate, and that most of the fun in life consists of finding that star-crossed lover. Preferably one who removes her underwear after teasing her with his serpentlike tongue.

I wrote this review back when the book was first released in 2000 and posted it on my old Tripod website. (No, I’m not about to tell you what it is. It’s a pretty embarrassing old site, complete with “LOL!"s and emoticons.) I re-read this review recently, and decided eh, what the hell, I’ll clean it up a little and post it here.

Enjoy this Blast from the Past. As you can see, I was every bit a snarky bitch when I was 22 as I am now at 27.

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I can’t tell you how excited I was to finally get my paws on The China Bride, after what felt like a lifetime on the library “on hold” list. I really liked the prequel, The Wild Child, and when I heard that The China Bride was set in China and featured a Chinese heroine, I was almost vibrating from anticipation. But the book turned out to be… flat. Putney is either brilliant or mediocre, and this book definitely falls into the latter category.

I had a nightmare this morning while snoozing after my alarm clock went off. I dreamt I was still reading The Real Deal, and the descriptions of Simon’s gunmetal gaze were driving me batshit. Then my cats woke me up for realz. I can’t even tell you how relieved I was when I realized:

a) I have finished The Real Deal; and
b) I have returned it to the library.

Yes, this is how bad the book is. It’s so bad that my subconscious has decided to use it to punish me for whatever infractions I’ve committed lately. Maybe using the word “cock” one too many times, I don’t know. I’ve never dreamt about bad books before. I’ve had dreams in which I was reading; these mostly happen when I fall asleep while in the middle of a book. But never a dream in which I was actively thinking “GOOD GOD when is this book going to end?”