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

I just read some excellent news: Laura Kinsale won the Best Long Historical Romance RITA with Shadowheart, and Jennifer Crusie won the Best Contemporary Single Title Romance RITA with Bet Me. YES! *fistpump* This goes a long way towards ameliorating some of the rather puzzling decisions the RITA committee has made in the past. (I mean, c’mon, Worth Any Price was the best Short Historical for 2004? Da hell? Was it an especially lean year for historicals? And I’m big Lisa Kleypas fan, even, the kind who buys her books as soon as they come out and devours them within a day, whether they’re any good or not.)

Anyway, congratulations to Laura Kinsale and Jennifer Crusie. I’m doing the Happy Snoopy Dance.

Heather correctly guessed the answers to today’s Personal Ad challenge. All hail Heather!

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Kneel, Heather, for the Smart Bitches dub thee:

See? Told you the title would be all classy and shit.

I really do need to stay away from the AAR boards. I tell myself this, but I click on the linkies anyway. Oh dear. This one is Jorie’s fault.

One reader blames romance novels for the death of normal relationships.

I think romance novels are death to normal, real relationships. You start thinking all that action, adventure and passion is the norm in the real world. You start to look for a man with romance novel hero traits. As a woman who started reading romance in her teens I didn’t realize I was doing this until my early twenties. If the guy wasn’t exciting and romance novel like I didn’t want him.

OK, I’ll admit that this post wouldn’t have bugged me as much if the poster hadn’t made such a sweeping statement. Death to normal, real relationships? Not for me. Much as I love to read romance novels, I wouldn’t want to live one. Too much turmoil and heartbreak for my taste. But reading it and living through it vicariously? Hell yeah.

Hey, I wouldn’t want to live a mystery, SF, fantasy or, hell, even a lit fic novel, either.

If romance novels are fucking with your head, then by all means say as much. “I am unable to read romance novels without allowing them to fuck with my head. I will cease reading them because the fuckery is spilling into my life and the decisions I make.” That’s a perfectly acceptable sentiment. Saying that it’s the romance novel’s fault, though, instead of your own inability to separate fiction from expectations of reality? Pah. And trying to generalize this further and make it seem as if they’re responsible for a greater social phenomenon? Double pah.

And another musing came courtesy of Elizabeth Mahon, who spotted the following tidbit on Hollywood-Elsewhere:

Why do the women reading paperback books in subways and airport lounges always seem to be reading mass-market fiction? Why don’t I ever see one, just one, reading a book by, say, William Faulkner or Gore Vidal?

OK, anyone smell the fragrant sexist bullshit wafting off this observation? I rode public transport for years and years, and I saw precious few people, male, female or pre-or-post-op transsexual reading Faulkner or Vidal or other such lofty authors on the bus or MAX. Most of the men weren’t reading, period, and if they were, they were every bit as guilty of indulging in mass market paperbacks as women. The exceptions would be people reading newspapers (men seemed a bit more likely to do this than women) and college students doing some last-minute swotting on the bus, something female students seemed to do as frequently as male students.

At any rate, if this asshole had ridden public transport in Portland and seen me reading, he would’ve seen me reading everything from Lolita to Moby Dick to Le Petit Nicolas to The Shadow and the Star. I even read The Sound and The Fury on the bus. Does that make me all special and shit? Should I take a photo and e-mail it to this jerkwad?

The reply he wrote to Elizabeth when she e-mailed him about it was even more distasteful:

I don’t like mass-market popular fiction, as a rule. It’s basically junk-food stuff. There is a world out there...an amazing wonderful world of knowledge and exotic places and fresh atttitude and beliefs and sensuality and illumination...all of which is barely paid attention to by mass-market fiction writers. Don’t try and justify lazy, degraded literary appetites. So you read this crap yourself, right? That’s what your letter was about? You feeling vaguely guilty about putting junk-food fiction into your brain and your soul, and wanting to rationalize the anti-intellectual, impulse-minded, short-attention-span tendences of women of your generation? Something along these lines?

Woo damn. You know, when I see those godawful monstrous SUVs, H2s and pickup trucks all blinged out and growling along in the urban wilderness of Portland, sometimes I think “Holy shit, penis enhancer much?” This is the first time I’ve thought the same thing about somebody’s opinion about literature.

“LOOK AT ME! MY TASTE IN LITERATURE IS AWESOME! THE THICKER THE SPINE, THE MORE OBTUSE THE PROSE, THE BIGGER MY COCK! KNEEL BEFORE ME, BITCHES!”

All right, bitches. ‘Tis another Friday, and time for another Personal Ad challenge. Guess the author, title and heroine’s name (don’t forget the heroine’s name!) correctly, and lo, find thyself the proud owner of a happy, shiny, beyootiful and always-tasteful *koff* Smart Bitch aristocratic title.

Long Snake Moan

SWF, shiftless late-night DJ, currently unemployed, appreciative of PJ Harvey and REM (among others), looking for my even flakier sister and maybe some love along the way. Hot recluses who have undergone some sort of crazy emotional trauma a plus.

Writers: What do you do when you have a hero or heroine with a bazillion years of relevant backstory that must be brought to bear against the present-day romance?

Readers: What method of backstory development do you prefer?

Do you like the flashback? The dropped comment and the tearful, wrenching confession of what those dropped comments really meant? The prologue that tries to tie up the whole mess? What’s your favorite method of greeting the past when looking at the present and the future of a character? We want to know! 

OK, all of you who were taking bets on whether I’d love or hate The Demon’s Daughter can now close the books because the results are in: I liked. Liked it quite a bit, actually, but certain issues with the storytelling prevent me from giving it an outright A, though it’s still a keeper.

This is the first romantic steampunk novel I’ve ever read. The world is somewhat similar to Victorian England, in that there is a queen named Victoria and certain aspects of the culture distinctly resemble that of late nineteenth-century England, but there the resemblance ends. Like many SF/F novels, geography is compressed; on the same relatively small continental mass are countries that are analogues to real-world Mediterranean, African, Caribbean, Indian and Middle-Eastern cultures.

And then there are the Yama, humanoid beings in the coldest reaches of the far north. The humans call them demons, though not to their faces. The discovery of their advanced civilization is a relatively recent one when the book starts. The humans and non-humans are just barely beginning to learn to co-exist. One of the treaties struck up between Queen Victoria and the Yamish Emperor involves exiling the criminal lower-class demons (known as rohn) into the dockside districts of Avvar (think late nineteenth-century London with more diversity and fewer racial hang-ups). In exchange, the demons export their advanced technologies, such as electric horseless carriages, gasless lights and advanced surgical techniques.

Due to a truly bizarre progression of e-mail exchanges between some co-worker friends and me, I found a truly fascinating article about sea cucumbers.

The sea cucumber breathes through its anus, entertains visitors in its anus, and if it doesn’t like the look of you it projects its anal plumbing in your face. When it’s really under pressure it disembowels itself. Laura Woodward has been looking into sea cucumbers, literally.

(...)

When provoked, certain species of sea cucumber shoot a network of the culvian tubes that line its anus at the intruder. Computed as foe, I had encountered this bizarre self-defence strategy.

If small enough, the attacker becomes entangled in the sea cucumber’s sticky web.

Crabs and small crayfish can die a slow death this way. Fortunately for the sea cucumber its attackers are few and far between, and its internal organs are a highly poisonous and effective deterrent to most predators.

Even stranger is how this creature deals with a life-threatening situation. Its sides split open and it voluntarily disembowels itself, tossing most of its internal organs over-board.

I can’t stop laughing. Dude. The thing SHOOTS ITS ASS AT YOU WHEN IT’S PISSED OFF.

Aaaaaahahahahahahahahahaha.

Also: can you imagine how many supermodels and actresses would give their eyeteeth for the magical ability to jettison any and all superfluous innards?

But my real question is: when is someone going to write a sea cucumber shapechanger paranormal romance? Think of the possibilities! Anal sex would have a whole other ‘nother dimension to it. Literally.

I was reminded of why I avoid visiting the AAR messageboards yesterday. They’re a wonderful avenue of lively discussion, but OY, they’re such a time suck--and not only that, they sometimes contain some of the most jaw-dropping sentiments. Not only do I disagree with them, but I think they’re quite astoundingly silly.

For example, from this message on the AAR Reviews board (the thread started out as a discussion about Lisa Valdez’s The Passion):

Political correctness is diluting and changing our language, and in its name, there are many traditional behaviors that are no longer PC. Classic romance is all about “When men were men and women were women.” Today, the heroines have an edge--they banter with the men, they are as aggressive as the men--they might as well BE men. And the heros are drawn to them because they are “different” and “more exciting and stimulating” from the usual women they meet? What rubbish! Who wants a wise-cracking, sarcastic virago who doesn’t need a guy for anything because she can handle it all herself? With these tougher heroines, there is nothing much left for the men to be, except “gentler,” more “sensitive,” and the heroine’s “best friend.” More rubbish! I like your descr1ption: “A contemporary romance set in 1812.” I live in 2005 and I read historicals to get AWAY from contemporary life.

I wrote a reply, as did someone named Lisa. Go read ‘em if you like. Myself, I’m staying far, far away since I’ve said all I wanted to say on that board. There was, however, an issue that was brought up in this post that I didn’t address in my reply, and that’s the issue of political correctness.

Robin, one of our regular visitors, has mentioned in one of her comments that political correctness has come to mean something bad, but “something is only ‘PC’ based on your own subjective standards of conduct.” She hit the nail on the head. Nowadays, when a powerful figure makes a blatantly racist, sexist or otherwise repugnant statement, any attempts to point out the shitfulness of said statement are immediately labelled attempts to be PC, therefore wrong or suppressive or unrealistic. Shit, ifeminist.org has labelled The Vagina Monologues as PC, and while I do think that parts of it are disturbingly anti-male (something other friends of mine picked up on as well), a play in which a roomful of women are encouraged to scream out “Cunt! Cunt! CUUUUNT!” with almost orgasmic fervor could hardly qualify as politically correct without twisting around the definition of PC quite a bit.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible for political correctness to go too far. People squealing when someone uses the word “niggardly,” for example. That’s not just PC going too far, it’s just plain ignorant. See that dictionary? Learn to fucking use it. The etymological portion of the definition might be of especial interest. I might even start up a society: The Association for the Preservation and Appropriate Use of the word “Niggardly.”

But back to historical romances. Blaming the departure of old-skool romances featuring alpha assholes and simpering ninnies on modern political correctness is grossly inaccurate. First of all, I think the answer is as simple as this: The market changed. I read those old-skool romances as a young child, before I’d even HEARD of the term “political correctness"--hell, this was before the PC movement gained steam--and before I learned what feminism was. The stories still bothered me. All I knew was, I really didn’t like the way the heroes were rewarded for being mean. I’m going to guess that a great number of women felt much the same way, and started glomming romances that featured heroes who were actually, y’know, NICE once in a while, and publishers, who are in it for profit, after all, perked up and took notice.

Look, if old-skool type romances were still overwhelmingly popular, d’you honestly think publishers wouldn’t be pumping out new titles the way they are vampire romances and chick lit? I’m not going to be simplistic and claim that publishers sell exactly what all the readers want, all the time, but they do generally respond to market pressure. Hey, I wish there were more medieval romances and romances featuring heavily-tattooed atheist heroines; you won’t catch me blaming this lack on political correctness, though.

Second of all: Why in the everloving fuck are some people so eager to label strong, capable, independent women with a sense of humor as mannish and undesirable? Hey, I’m not especially fond of unrealistic superheroines who are capable of taking over Daddy’s floundering company before she’s out of leading strings, either, but honestly, I encounter far more heroines of the exact opposite kind in romance fiction: heroines who fuck up consistently and require the hero to save their fucktarded little asses. And even then, I don’t think of the unrealistic heroines as being unfeminine. Frankly, romance doesn’t have a problem with masculinizing its heroines. It does have a problem with feminizing and idealizing the heroes, but this happened even in old-skool romances. What, you think any self-respecting guy, much less a tough-ass captain and rapist extraordinaire, would say some of the absolutely mortifying things the hero does in The Flame and the Flower?

And third: lamenting the departure of alpha asshole heroes in historicals because they’re no longer PC somehow assumes that some of the things these jerkwads did (such as repeated, unremorseful rape of women) was condoned in ye olden tymes and somehow some sort of historical fact. The idea that these types of heroes are somehow more convincing for their time period makes me want to bang my head against the desk. The idea that these types of heroes are real men while the heroes who refrain from doling out physical, verbal and emotional abuse are watered-down pussies makes me want to bang my head even harder. I guess having a Y chromosome and a set of cock and balls is not enough to make someone a real man. Ye have to RRRRRAPE the wee lassies, mon!

Political correctness, while occasionally verging on silly, has made people think about the language they use and re-evaluate cultural attitudes, and that’s always a good thing. No, I don’t believe that changing the language will change societal attitudes--witness what’s happened to the word “special” once people started using it to describe retarded kids instead of calling them, well, retarded. And “retardation” and “retarded” were (still are) bona fide medical terms before being co-opted by assholes everywhere (including me) as an especially pejorative synonym for “idiot.” But in terms of effecting greater cultural change, thinking about the language we use, the attitudes we carry and why we say things the way we do is a decent first step. Yes, some people go off the deep end, but them’s the breaks. In my opinion, someone who uses PC as some sort of all-purpose whipping post is engaging in lazy thinking. It usually stands in for “my opinion is unpopular, and it’s not unpopular because it’s wrong, or because the majority of people just simply hold opinions different from mine--it’s because of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.”

p.s.: Blame Sybil for providing the initial link to the discussion.

I carry this big honking leather bag to and from work because it holds the phone, wallet, train tickets, MetroCard, umbrella - and book or magazine with no trouble zipping up over all that junk. The book/magazine part is key. I have a few bags that will hold a paperback, but the slighty-larger sized books (I can never remember which is trade and which is that other thing) or a magazine or catalog? Fuggedabahadit.

So I have this awesome bag. And I get on the bus with my awesome bag. And I have...no book! I finished my book over the weekend (review pending) and forgot to put ANOTHER BOOK IN THE BAG. I had nothing! Nothing! (Nothing....if I don’t...have...youuuuuuuu!).

I read the internet as long as I had a signal to my phone, but Lord have mercy that dial-up speed gets tiring. So I need your help!

I need something I can read on the bus home - either printed out or on my Palm as a text file. So: gimme your recommendations for an e-book, or a pub story to print and read on paper. I’m not adverse to paying for my pleasure (heh) but please, nothing over $5-$6 since I already have a monthly budget set aside for my Books(not)Free - so I don’t want to spend anything in supreme amounts. Heck, if I wanted to do that, I could go to the Duane Reade and buy something the color of candy hearts with some chick’s cartoon legs on the cover.

So - break my e-book maidenhead and give me some ideas! 

Do you hear that soulful sucking sound? That slurrrrpy noise of happy indulgence? It’s not me eating ice cream; it’s the sound of corporate task forces sucking the creativity out of individual artists. Individual creativity, it is taking the nose dive, and it’s making me cranky.

The trend I speak of isn’t so much new as it is a development of an established trend. Did anyone else notice how the Sweet Valley High books were “Created by Francine Pascal” but “Written by Kate Williams?” Whatever happened to Kate Williams, anyway? She’s the one who spent years writing about the Pacific-blue depths of Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield’s eyes, and how they were a perfect size six (ugh ugh ugh). And yet the series was marketed as “Francine Pascal’s.” Ya think ol’ Kate ever got bitter about that?

And of course we know that V.C. Andrews’ books were written by committee after her death, thus enabling the ATF, or Andrews Task Force, to continue sucking the teat of majestic royalty. If she’s going to sell, she’s going to keep writing books - death can’t stop a profit.

Now, we have the teen girl series books, a new breed of young adult novels targeted at adolescent girls. From Gossip Girl to The Clique, to the tv show Roswell, Alloy Entertainment, a media force that makes publishing houses quiver in the knees with envy, has discovered the magic formula(s) for creating the new version of SVH serial young adult novels.

Some of our readers wondered if we’d create a special edition of Covers Gone Wild wherein instead of bitching long and hard about covers featuring Lord Mantitte, his immaculate wax-job and his patron saint, Our Lady of the Perpetual Wardrobe Malfunction, we’d discuss the cream of the crop, the best of the best, the covers that actually make us stop and say “Ooooh, pretty!” instead of making us want to claw our eyes out and pray for a swift, merciful death once we gaze upon them. In short: romance novel covers that DON’T suck unwashed, sweaty monkey ass.

We hear, and we obey. This week, I, Candy, will show you some of the covers I really, really like. You’ll notice that most of these don’t feature any men. It’s not that I’m a closet lesbian--not that there’s anything wrong with that--it’s just that most male romance cover models leave me cold. It’s more than their faces, because even the bare torso shots leave me going “meh,” and I like rock-hard abs just as much as anyone else. I think it’s very likely the cheesecake factor. Cheescake is tasty to eat, but not particularly tasty for mine eyes.

For instance, if the cover for Mr. Impossible hadn’t been such a hideous, iridescent pink, I would’ve included it in this list because it gets a lot of other things right: the half-smile, the pose, the period costume, and the miraculous fact that the model was actually allowed to keep his fucking shirt on instead of having it absent or, even worse, tucked neatly into his belt but completely unbuttoned. If the background had been desert sand, blue sky and a pyramid or two, this cover would’ve easily made the list.

Honestly, why aren’t I consulted when it comes to these sorts of things? My taste in cover art is impeccable. IMPECCABLE, I tell you. Don’t believe me? Check these out.

Zebra’s Regency line is putting out some truly lovely covers lately, and this is one of my favorites. It’s demure, it’s sexy, the look is very clean and elegant, and the font doesn’t make me want to weep and call the police to report curlicue abuse. Plus: I want that dress. This is a refrain you’ll probably hear very often in this entry, because damn, I love poofy, gauzy, girly dresses, and I love it when they’re used to good effect on a romance novel cover. Sigh.

Every time I walk by this book, I pick it up. Every time, I remember it flunked the 15-page test, and put it back regretfully. That, folks, is good cover design. I like the scratchy, textured illustration, I love the heroine’s outfit, and the cover just screams “Buy me! I’m a fun book!” Too bad the 15-page test screams “Don’t buy me! I’m mediocre, with the potential to veer into extreme annoyance the more you read me!”

Ooops. So much for not bitching. Sorry.

P.C. Cast is one lucky bitch. Most of the covers for her books are just gorgeous. I had a hard time picking the one I liked best for this entry, but I finally settled on this one because I love the colors, the textures, the expression on the woman’s face, and her kickass dress. I want that dress. Dammit.

OK, not romance, but chick lit, but man, a lot of chick lit books have covers that just kick. ass. The cover looks fun, the design is clean and uncluttered, and having the title and author on the boxes is a pretty nifty idea. And that pink herringbone skirt? Want it. Dammit.

Regulars to this site will have seen me mentioning this cover a bunch of times. That’s because I think it’s sexy done RIGHT. It’s kinky, it’s sexual, yet the cheescake is pretty discreet, and the models’ faces are shadowed so they don’t interfere with my concept of what the characters look like. Too bad the story itself was about as sexy and fun as watching Carnie Wilson getting her stomach stapled.

If I had to choose a favorite style of historical romance cover, I think covers based on old paintings would probably be it. This book, however, isn’t really a romance; from what I can tell, it’s a historical novel. But who cares? The cover is beyoootiful. I love the texture, the curlicued border on the left edge, the rich colors, the discreetly sexy painting, the fonts. Now why can’t more historical romances have more covers like these instead of pumped-up gym monkeys sporting scary eyeliner?

Stay tuned next week for Sarah’s whack at Romance Novel Covers that Don’t Suck!

Congrats to Garianne for guessing today’s “Guess That Lonely Heart.”

The Smart Bitches proudly dub thee:

In a five-second IM conversation one night (because we Smart Bitches have yet to actually speak live to one another - ha!) Candy posited the following: what behavior from a heroine will we never, ever see in a romance novel?

Being who we are, we came up with a very organized list. Behold: our take on Romance Taboos, Heroine-style.

Consider it the romance parallel to the oft-debunked guide on How to Be a Good Wife.

A Romance Heroine:

1. Would never have had an abortion and harbor no guilt and/or regret about it.

2. Would never sleep around just for the sake of doing so, or actually enjoy casual sex (unless it’s erotica). There’s got to be some moment, if the heroine HAS done this, of “OH, my life had no MEANING and I was CHEAP for doing so!”

3. Would never be an atheist and remain that way throughout the book (she would have to Find God!).

4. Would never start out devout and then end up atheist or agnostic - and obviously be happier with this (non) belief system than the religious structure she started out with.

5. Would never be a close-minded conservative, e.g. make anti-gay or anti-working-women statements (or the like). It might be implied but it ain’t said outright.

6. Would never knowingly cheat on her husband, and even in the remote possibility that she does, he probably did it first. And if she cheated on him, they’d never, ever end up together again. This taboo is not held against heroes, of course--The Marriage Bed and Your Wicked Ways are just two books that involve adulterous heroes who get an HEA.

7. Would never admit to liking, or having had, pussy. Maybe in erotic romance, but gay/bi men are much more common (or so it seems to us, anyway).

8. Would never be impatient with and admit to not liking children. This applies to heroes too. Those heroines that don’t want kids (Min, for example) are never mean to kids, and are usually spendidly comfortable hanging out with them.

9. Ditto animals. If either character starts out not liking children or animals, by the end of the book she’ll have babies dangling off her teats and he’ll be covered in dog hair and they’re both Ecstatically Happy with that situation.

10. Heroine would never be physically stronger than the hero, barring a paranormal involving a vampire/werewolf/demon/alien/whatever heroine and a human hero.

11. When involved in a business deal, especially a takeover, the hero HAS to come out on top. If the heroine belongs to the company that’s initiating the merger, her company will portrayed as the Eeeeville Corporation trying to stomp out the plucky competition, and she’ll eventually side with the hero. If vice versa, her company will be portrayed as the incompetently-run business that is saved by the hero’s huge yet amazingly compassionate and ethical behemoth of a company, and again, she’ll eventually side with the hero.

12. Never exists without one nurturing aspect to her personality. She might be tough as nails business-wise, but she grows plants like a gardener on speed. She could be a toned, competitive athlete but she also has sixteen cats and four dogs.

13. If she’s run down, stressed out and unhappy in a small town, she won’t find happiness and fulfillment by running to a large city, revelling in the increased job opportunities and anonymity this affords her, then making a new group of friends who share many of her same interests and finding a new man--one who has never been her high-school sweetheart or childhood crush. In short, she won’t have to go back in time to find herself. (The reverse happens all the time in romance novels.)

You know the drill: hook me up with author, title, and character’s name, and if you’re the first correct answer, you get yourself a Smart Bitch title.

Come and Set Me Free, Baby

Mild-manned antique-fiend, underwhelmed with herself, though most would kill to be her size, seeks man locked in a box of someone else’s making to unleash her desires and emotions. I will follow the right man through past, future, and parallel worlds.

From Charlie All Night by Jennifer Crusie:

“Listen to me,” Charlie said and the intensity in his voice stopped her in midsentence. “One of the biggest problems this country has is that people think a law is only a law if they agree with it. And if they don’t it’s all right to kick [gays] like Joe out of the service and bomb abortion clinics because there’s a higher law at work. And that’s garbage.... The law is the law. If you don’t like it, change it. But don’t break it and then start whining when there are consequences.”

I love it when a character says or does something in a romance novel that makes me stop still and go, “Well, damn hell, that was freaking brilliant.” I’m frequently charmed by the clever reworking of traditional romance structure, and I’m always a sucker for a good, long attraction stage between the hero and the heroine, but when a character or plot development does more than just develop the romance, and makes me think differently about things completely unrelated to my own fictional escape, I am just so impressed, with both the author for the intelligent insight, and myself, well, for reading romance.

What are some moments of brilliance in romance novels you’ve read, beyond plot and character?