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

You know that little faceless wooden doll that folks used to sketch body shapes? Or those nude models at figure drawing class that invited the artist to render accurately the human form?

Yeah. Neither of those two options were employed by the artists of the following covers.

Sarah: His face is shaded for inaccurate identification in a lineup, and her neck is eeeextra long to make strangulation nice and easy. But what’s really peculiar is her belt, which seems to be around her ribcage. That’d be much better for strangulation, sir.

Bonus snark from Sarah’s Hubby: “After the Roses, I will SNAP your HEAD OFF.”

Candy: Looking at the cover alone, I’d guess that the story tells the sordid tale of what happens when Pinnocchio grows up, realizes that wood doesn’t have a conscience, develops an unnatural taste for sawdust and starts stalking mannequins that were used in JC Penney circa 1985.

Sarah: His head, judging by the position of his arm, is growing out of his sternum. And again, the neck is long enough for some serious bling to go with that unbuttoned shirt.

Candy: Look, when people mention a dude’s endowed like a stallion, they’re generally referring to the size of his cock, not the length of his freaking neck.

Sarah:: How many times was his mouth redrawn? Can this man even talk for himself? Or does he communicate by pursing his lips and grunting?

Or maybe that pen he’s holding is an attempt to communicate something, something very, very small.

Candy: Hey, look, Steve Buscemi has a smarmier, pastier, tubbier younger brother!

Sarah: One, I see an ass cheek. Two, she has no torso. Does she have a liver? Is there room?

Or is she a little person? Her arms appear to be a standard length, but her abdomen is quite stunted. Folks on Discovery Health Channel would have a field day making a movie out of this condition: “When your torso is too short, and your ass hangs out of your jeans: The Deirdre Story.”

Candy: You know why she doesn’t have a liver? Because she’s about to chew right through this dude’s face and claim his for her own. Damn, that is one scary-ass look on her face. Somebody needs to ‘splain to her that cannibalism means she doesn’t throw in with the laws of God and man.

Calling all covers: we’re looking for particularly funkybad covers for international releases of US romance novels. Of course, this is for snarque purposes, so if you really really hated the cover for your novel’s Russian release copy or maybe thought the UK version of your cover was just horrific, send us a pic!

Gracias! 

Back when I was a grad student (which, if you rearrange the letters, spells “utterly miserable.” At least, for me it did) I had a professor who was marvelous, and who told me that during graduation, she hid a paperback novel in the pocket of her robes to read during the commencement ceremony.

There are, after all, few things more boring than a college commencement ceremony, except for the moment when someone you know has their name read aloud because they are, you know, graduating.

She was, for the record, rather bothered by trade and, I imagine, venti sized books because they did not fit in the pockets of her doctoral robes. She tried hiding one in the hood, but it was way too obvious. So paperbacks it was.

Iron Lesbian #2, a friend of mine in real life, gave me the heads up to the following story on the blog of a caterer. Seems granny packed a romance to hide out from Bridezilla.

I must ask the obvious. Which book was it? And, more to the point, what PURSE did she carry that would hold a romance novel? Not one purse that I carry to weddings would hold a romance. I need to pursue larger formal handbags, clearly. 

One year ago tonight, a whole mess of the Gulf Coast was, well, a whole mess. Last year we gave out links to various sources for donations, from aiding people to finding pets.

Now that it’s a year later, attention is again turning to philanthropy, and I have to say, without sounding like Lee (Leigh?) Greenwood, I am so proud of my own country when I realize the depths to which people gave to help out American citizens who were displaced by thousands of miles and literally lost everything they owned.

Candy and I have been trading email messages, talking about how we can mark the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy caught my attention. School libraries in the Gulf region are seriously hurting, because they are a “lower priority among philanthropists than public libraries,” though school libraries are struggling to rebuild their collections as well. Further, school libraries are funded through individual school boards, which are also pressed with the absorption of new students from other communities, and the rebuilding of their own physical buildings. Another problem is that most of the donated books are often inappropriate reading for school children and are usually leisure reading materials for grown ups.

Moreover, from Charity Navigator, I learned that:

Compassionate people from across America have cleaned off their book shelves, rushed off to the local book store to purchase new books, or have held a book drive, all in an effort to replace the library books destroyed by Katrina. Thanks to their efforts, the New Orleans Public Library system reports that it has received over 1 million books. While no one can deny that this is a tremendous outpouring of generosity, it is also a perfect example of misplaced philanthropy. There are no librarians to catalogue the books and no shelves to stack them on. What the library system really needs is money to rehire its staff and rebuild its libraries. Yet, well-intentioned people continue to send books, only to see them rot and decay in untouched boxes.

Since there’s no shortage of paperback donations winging their way to the Gulf region, Candy and I thought we’d focus on the children’s libraries and reading programs that need help, and specifically, the green paper donations that make a difference directly.

So on the first anniversary of Katrina, we’re issuing the Smart Bitch Reading Challenge: we will match all your donations up to $250.00 US.

You can pick your charity; far be it from us to tell you what to do. Simply send money to a charity of your choice focusing on rebuilding school libraries, local children’s reading programs, or children’s literacy in the Gulf Region. Then all you have to do is email a copy of the receipt (feel free to edit out all your personal information if you don’t want us to have it). We Smart Bitches will match the total amount given by all the Bitchery donors and give that lump sum to UNICEF’s fund to rebuild children’s libraries and educational sites for the US Gulf Region. The deadline for donation submissions is September 30, 2006.

Here’s a list of a few organizations that can help get children’s books back in the Gulf region, and if you have a not-for-profit organization you’d like us to add to the list, please let us know.

Book Relief, A FirstBook Initiative.

The Louisiana Library Associaion Disaster Relief Fund is now accepting monetary donations to assist school, public, and academic library restoration efforts in southern Louisiana.
Please make checks payable to: LLA-Disaster Relief and mail to:
LLA
421 South 4th St
Eunice, LA 70535

The Texas Library Association’s Disaster Relief Fund will donate 100% of the funds sent their way to the library association in the state of your choice.

UNICEF is “soliciting contributions earmarked for children affected by Hurricane Katrina. Working out of Washington, DC, it is coordinating international support for children, their families, and for the restoration of educational settings—schools, libraries, and other places of learning. This is the first time in its 59-year history that the United Nations Children’s Education Fund has been involved in relief efforts in the United States.” (source: School Library Journal)

Darla suggests Donors Choose, where teachers looking for assistance with individual projects can solicit aid from individual donors for specific projects. That page highlights several Gulf-area projects for schools, from writing center supplies to construction projects. 

Beth has some words to say about how writing and reading are personal, and how talking about the books you’ve read is necessarily a process that involves the personal.

I’m le crunched for time (between work and helping my best friend move, I haven’t had much computer time lately), and I have some muddled thoughts about this that I’ll set down when I have a moment, but in the meanwhile, talk amongst yourselves in the comments, whydontcha?

For the first time in a long while, I took a trip to the Barnes & Noble to look at the romance shelf and see what books are out beckoning for my wallet.

A few thoughts: is it me, or is it getting hard to find books to read when westerns are right next to paranormals and then right next to contemporary suspenseful romance? I understand the validity of alpha-by-author, but it was getting seriously confusing. But then you run into the problem of authors writing across genres, and other authors whom I usually associate with one type of romance trying out another, like Mary Jo Putney, who has a paranormal out under the name M.J. Putney.

So I left without buying anything, but not because there was nothing I wanted. Ha - there was plenty I wanted. I was annoyed because they offer wireless internet for $4.00 for two hours, but then don’t offer electrical outlets to plug in your laptop. My battery, I am sad to say, would not last two hours. W.T.F?!

Off I went to the used book store instead to look for awesomely bad covers (I think Candy and I need our own VH1 special, right after Awesomely Bad Hair Bands and Awesomely Bad Red Carpet Fashion. Who wouldn’t tune in to listen to us talk about Awesomely Bad Romance Cover Art?) and oh, the joy. I found one of the Rebecca Brandewynes that y’all spoke of where she poses on the back cover in a dress and style to mimic the artist’s rendering of the heroine. As soon as I scan in the pictures, I’ll post them.

Here’s a good question for all the vampire romance writers and fans: check out this comic and hook me up with an answer.

(Update by SB Sarah: Forbes has relaunched the article, this time with a rebuttal alongside it, advocating men live up to the responsibilities of home, family, and keeping your damn mouth shut when you have nothing of value to say. No wait, that last one is my recommendation. Sorry.)

(Update! Forbes has pulled the article and the slideshow, so I’m linking to a couple of enterprising Livejournallers who’ve copied and pasted the text in their entirety to their journals. For the pictures that accompanied the slideshows, check out the remix at Gawker. When I have a moment, I might try re-creating it because it the pictures and the text together were so deliciously stupid.)

...because professional women are cheating bitches who are impossible to please.

Or so says Forbes Magazine.

Be sure to check out the accompanying slideshow.

I like this particular bit:

If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy ( Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill ( American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier ( Institute for Social Research).

That last part just kills me. Your house will be dirtier if both you and your wife are working. Goddamn uppity women! Git back in the kitchen and git mopping! And bring me a sammich!

Look, numbnut, if both spouses are working full time, of course the house is going to be dirtier than if the wife stays at home and dedicates herself to domestic chores. Jesus fuck, am I being too Captain Obvious here? What the author also neglects to mention is how in households in which both spouses work, women often still end up doing the lion’s share of the housework.

And this bit of tricky dickery cannot go unremarked:

The other reason a career can hurt a marriage will be obvious to anyone who has seen their mate run off with a co-worker: When your spouse works outside the home, chances increase they’ll meet someone they like more than you. “The work environment provides a host of potential partners,” researcher Adrian J. Blow reported in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, “and individuals frequently find themselves spending a great deal of time with these individuals.”

There’s more: According to a wide-ranging review of the published literature, highly educated people are more likely to have had extra-marital sex (those with graduate degrees are 1.75 more likely to have cheated than those with high school diplomas.) Additionally, individuals who earn more than $30,000 a year are more likely to cheat.

Notice how the author very cunningly doesn’t mention which spouse is more likely to cheat when working outside the home. Working outside the home increases the odds of infidelity, period, and god forbid that women be as susceptible to temptation as men. We much prefer them on those nifty pedestals--well, as long as they can dust, vacuum, mop and do laundry while attached to ‘em.

Further down, the author debunks himself quite neatly, though he tries to side-step it:

A few other studies, which have focused on employment (as opposed to working hours) have concluded that working outside the home actually increases marital stability, at least when the marriage is a happy one. But even in these studies, wives’ employment does correlate positively to divorce rates, when the marriage is of “low marital quality.”

So, to sum it up: Working outside the home will make matters worse when things are kind of shitty to begin with, because it provides women with the means to meet other people with whom they may be more well-suited as well as the money to make it on their own.

OH REALLY YOU DON’T SAY HEY GET THE NEWS CREW ON THAT REVELATION, WILL YOU?

And this bit from the slideshow is just too, too precious:

A 2003 study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family concluded that wealthier couples with children suffer a drop in marital satisfaction three times as great as their less affluent peers. One of the study’s co-authors publicly speculated that the reason is that wealthier women are used to “a professional life, a fun, active, entertaining life.”

Lord forbid that a woman get used to having a fun, active, entertaining life. Also, I’m sure the fact that high-paying jobs are higher stress and require longer work hours than lower-paying jobs has nothing to do with the wealthier couples feeling more stress and unhappiness once babies arrive on the scene. No, it’s because professional women are SPOILED BITCHEZ.

But to tie this to romance novels: How many of you have noticed how contemporary romances oftentimes demonize the working life, specifically for women? I’ve noticed several stories about women on the verge of burnout who find fulfillment in a life filled with babies and domesticity, or who find themselves time-travelling to a simpler past, back when a man was a man and a woman was a woman and a staph infection was a staph infection and could kill your ass if you so much as looked at it cross-eyed, or other such malarkey. I also notice a preponderance of heroines who claim to love their jobs, who muse repeatedly how their jobs are their life and they’re superlative at them when in fact they turn out to be incompetent, borderline insane morons--who, more often than not, cock up the birth control and end up conveniently pregnant.

Yes, I realize romance novels are escapist fiction, but not all of us dream of escaping into a life filled with Diaper Genies. Some balance would be nice, is all I’m sayin’.

In our last request for international romance, a few folks wrote in with romances that take place aboard a ship, and though the characters might be English, the locales were certainly not.

As a spin off, I thought I’d ask the Bitchery for pirate romance, or any high seas romance they’d recommend. I’m personally a sucker for pirate romance, because it’s a lot of fun to say, “YAAAAR!”

Pirate and high seas romances can easily be campy and fun, particularly because some of the problems that faced the crews at that time can mercifully be avoided, particularly the more awful illnesses. Seasickness? Ok. Often occurs, in fact. The trots? Oh, heck no.

Personally, I had a heck of a good time reading Pirate Prince by Gaelen Foley, particularly for the glee with which she amped up the more fantastical elements of the plot.

Also, there was a book I once read, and of course I can’t remember the title or even the heroine’s name, but she was a pirate with a long, wicked scar on her forearm. She also had an arch-enemy who was mad as a March hare who desperately wanted to impersonate her. Ultimately, the arch-enemy was attacked by a parrot who gave her a smiliar scar on her forearm, enabling her to launch her own evil-pirate career as a doppelganger to the heroine. But that’s about all I remember. However, it was an equally fun read.

So - what nautical tales of romantic mahem do ye recommend, mateys?

Bookseller Chick made me snort-laugh with this entry about authors you know you should give up, but just can’t.

I have two:

• Stephen King - he started to suck the almighty hairy nut starting around Gerald’s Game, but I can’t stop buying his books. I don’t even read them. I just have them. Sometimes, I cave in and attempt to read one, like that time I tried to read Black House because I love The Talisman so damn much, but when I found out King and Straub had perverted it into yet another goddamn motherfucking Gunslinger-related book, the book dropped from my nerveless fingers and I had to break into my emergency stash of scientific non-fiction just to calm my nerves.

  The books, they taunt me. I can hear them. And sometimes, I cry in the cold, unforgiving dark for the love that used to be.

• Robert Jordan - The less said about that habit, the better. No, really. I’ve stopped reading, but my heart stops and I pause dead in the bookstore every time I see a hardcover book with his name embossed on the dustjacket, and I pick it up, hope singing in my heart, and the refrain, it hums is this it, is this it, is this FINALLY it, will you finally find peace? only to find that no, the saga isn’t even close to coming to an end yet.

Deep in my heart, I know this to be true: they hurt me only because they love me. I can leave them any time. No, I swear it. 

I confess, I’ve been putting off writing this review for weeks. No, not weeks. Months.

The thing is, I can’t figure out the point of this book. Specifically, why it was published. It’s not completely unpleasant, but the story and characters have all the flavor and zip of day-old tapioca pudding. It’s one of those “Oh, lookit the adorable girl snagging herself a cynical, glamorous doctor, and he loves her because she’s so innocent and refreshing and gosh-darn good with children” stories that clog Romancelandia like a particularly persistent species of mite (yeah, still reading Parasite Rex, could you tell?). It’s nothing you haven’t seen, read and/or heard a million times before. So to make it more fun for me to write, and God knows, for you to read, I’m going to present this review in haiku format. I can only thank sweet baby Ganesh that “anesthesiologist” is seven syllables.

“Girl in a Million"--
Only if clueless, klutzy
British girls are rare--

Meets friend’s hot cousin:
Anesthesiologist
living in Holland.

Clumsy Caroline
trips. Pratfalls are so cute! (Barf.)
Hero carries her.

Cute kid smashed by fall.
Supah doctor to rescue!
Of course it’s hero.

Hero and kid’s mom
have a past. Caroline makes
stupid assumptions.

(What can you expect?
It’s a Harlequin, dude. Be
grateful it’s not worse.)

Kid nursed back to health.
Behold the healing power
of saccharine schmaltz.

Nurse saves kid from car.
Nurse’s life at risk! Oh noes!
Will she recover?

Bla bla bla bla bla
Doctor falls in love with nurse
Reviewer’s puzzled.

They didn’t spend much time
together. Brute dullness is
perhaps attractive?

Secondary tale
between kid’s parents riddled
with Big Mis. ARRGH. URGH.

Overall: not bad
But definitely not good.
Mostly, it’s boring.

That’s right! More lush, buxom covers from the art department assigned to the first edition paperback issues of Rebecca Brandewyne’s romance novels!

Sarah: Lucky Angelina Jolie. Before Billy Bob, before Brad, there was Bodacious Man Titty with Bonus Mullet. They’re aimed right at her throat too. Hope he’s not carrying concealed.

Candy: [insert Friends of Dorothy joke here, because so many are jamming my brain right now I can’t even stand it]

Sarah: The dude looks like my husband’s uncle. The lady looks ridiculous in her coiffure and her alarming cleavage that reaches clear up to her clavicle. And the setting looks like he’s about to toss her off a cliff, or clear across that starlit sea.

Candy: Man! Have you seen people with bitchier expressions? Between that and their 80s Hair, those two look like they belong in Dynasty, or Dallas, plotting the downfalls of their even more ridiculously-coiffed brethren. “Baby, let’s kill Sue Ellen and make a run for Acapulco--and none of that ‘oh it was all just a dream’ crap, either.” “Honey, you get me SO HOT when you’re talking murder one.”

Huh, actually, the dude looks kind of like Patrick Duffy.

Sarah: I’m going to hell for saying this, but do you think her name is Sue Nami?

Because they’re about to get very, very wet, judging by the height of the horizon.

Candy: How To Tell You’re Dating a Mannequin:

1. He’s silky-smooth all the time without the benefit of a razor or body wax.

2. His hair is the same color as his skin and has all the touchable softness of a sheet of linoleum.

3. Genitals smell weirdly like plastic.

Sarah: International flavor! Purpurbluten! Think that translates to “moustached man loves masculine back musculature?”

Candy: That leaf coyly hiding the woman’s nipple is killing me. Killing. Me. It’s all “Oh, I know, they look like they’re going to fall on the floor and fuck like crazed weasels any second now, but modesty must be preserved, damn you--so I offer my paltry services in covering the nippage. Think of the children. Won’t anyone think of the children?”

Know what else is killing me? The day-glo color scheme. What the hell? Did the publishers reckon that German romance readers are color blind? 

Better Days Ahead is a 1950’s saga of several families whose misfortune leads them to California. Their lives begin in disparate settings and by the end of the novel are entwined in multiple ways, struggling with racism, violence, class differences, and the loss of their collective innocence.

I found that throughout most of the book, the struggles overshadowed any moments of growth or contentedness for the characters, which made the novel increasingly difficult to read as it continued.

I don’t read comics very often, and when I do, I’m lucky enough that my comic book geek friends often recommend me the best of the best.

Last weekend, I read the first issue of Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, and I have to say, I’m in love. The artwork is gorgeously Gorey-esque (and, well, gory), the characters are oddball and charming (what’s not to love about a sentient maggot who possesses the body of a corpse?) and the glimpses of backtory fascinating. If you’re into humorous horror, this comic will be just your ticket.

Yeah, it’s not a romance novel, but comics are pretty damn trashy, right?

Tara Marie, I bet you’ve been on the edge of your seat waiting for your Smart Bitch Title. Well, your wait is over. For correctly identifying our Guess that Lonely Heart as Celine Fontaine in Shelley Thacker’s Forever His, please kneel, and arise a member of the SB Peerage.