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

Bronwyn Clarke was kind enough to mention us funky Bitches in an interview in The Australian. How COOL is that? I am literally hopping up and down in my bed. Ow.

So to further pimp Bronwyn since she pimped us down under (now that was a fun sentence to type), check it: Bronwyn’s survey for her PhD candidacy, for which she’s studying online communities related to the romance genre. Have at it! 

Submitted by Darlene Marshall

I bought this book from Planned Parenthood when my lads were small.  I still love it.  It speaks in plain language, uses a Q&A technique, and best of all from my POV, used schematic drawings of people to show what intercourse looked like. I liked that because I can remember feeling frustrated during sex-ed over the lack of real explanation--I knew the egg and the sperm got together, but I wasn’t sure how the man’s penis got inside the woman’s body.  Were they standing up?  Sitting on chairs?  Leaning against a wall?  Of course, now I know all of that’s possible (just read my books for details), but that’s the kind of, pardon the expression, hard-core information a pre-teen wants!  They also want to know if it’s normal to masturbate, to have wet dreams, to get erections at awkward times (like when you’re thinking about linoleum) and what the opposite sex looks like naked.

My sons are now 20 and 24, one’s gay, one’s straight, both are pretty normal members of society.  I would highly recommend this text for parents of sons, and I have no doubt the one for daughters is equally valuable.

Bitchery reader Peaches sent me the most thoughtful and thought-provoking question, which is both a rumination of the state of parenting and sexuality in our culture, and a request for YA books that deal with sexuality and sexual intercourse honestly and appropriately.

With all the hype about the new tv series adaptation of Gossip Girl, I decided to look it up and see what it was about.  Wikipedia assured me that it wasn’t really my kind of book, but it also lead me to this article.

The article is basically a mother feeling sorry for herself that her daughter is reading Gossip Girl, a series she disapproves of.  And while the mother is applaudably refusing to forbid the book, she basically goes on for a few paragraphs with “I’m trying to stop it, how do I stop this? My daughter reads other books besides trash, btw, but parents! What would you do?” and I couldn’t bring myself to feel the least bit bad for her.  The reason for this is of course that her daughter is 14, and its perfectly natural for a 14 year old girl to be interested in books with sex in them.

This got me thinking about Parents versus the YA romance genre, or the romance genre in general.  The “it sets a bad example” or “full of poor role models” complaints aside, the article’s author’s real problem seems to be she can’t process the fact that her kid is curious about sex and of course she’s not the only mom with those feelings....

So in my own roundabout way I arrive at my question: Are there any YA novels out there that properly prepare young women for the reality of sexual relationship?  Any books that do [for sex] what Are You There God, it’s Me Margaret? did for the period?  So the parents dont like Gossip Girl--is there another book they can encourage their daughter to read so these poor girls don’t hop from Harry Potter to Beloved without a damn clue?

And just out of curiosity--how does a romance writer mom handle The Talk, given their unique vantage point in professional sexual expression?

In a nutshell (hur hur) Peaches has hit the nail on the head with my #2 gripe about parenting right now : violence is much more acceptable, prevalent, and available in terms of entertainment, but put a naked breast on tv and we need to set off a flare and sound sirens because someone will complain. Oh, that naked breast, won’t you think of the children?

Sexuality and sex itself are subjects that we (and I’m speaking specifically of Americans here) are profoundly uncomfortable with, particularly when it comes to frank discussions of how we humans get made n’stuff. I think it began with the founding (or colonizing, more specifically) peoples in this country, some of whom were Puritan and were desperately afraid that somewhere, someone out there was having (a) sex (b) fun or (c) all of the above. Our attitudes and reactions to sexual content are varied but there’s still a gut reaction that sex isn’t ok to talk about, but heck, if you turn on the tv before 9pm you can see any number of people getting killed, being processed post-mortem, in autopsy, or about to be killed. In my never-humble opinion, something is very very wrong with that imbalance.

Rant said, do I know how I’ll approach talking to my sons about sex? Not a clue. Fortunately, at 22 months and at almost two weeks of age, I don’t have to tackle that conversation with either of them just yet. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it (hur hur) but I hope I can keep in mind that I was very curious about sexuality when I was younger and had few options through which to discover and learn about the subject. With kids and the internet today (oh noes!) there’s no telling what happens with a cursory Google search. My kids will end up thinking sex begins with some kind of fetish.

So what books do you recommend for curious YA-age kids? And how do you romance writing moms handle The Talk?

Behold: the prize for the best Banned Book Review for 2007: your choice of the children’s or adult’s Banned Book bracelet. You too can sport a miniature cover of To Kill a Mockingbird or Captain Underpants on your delicate wrist.

So far we have a very few entries (not including mine, which isn’t eligible) so if you’d like a shot, please send your review of one of the top 100 most challenged books from 1990-2000 to me asap.

Bitchery reader Eliza was kind enough to send me the .mp3 of Alan Rickman reading Sonnet 130. Try to breathe normally, ya’ll.

(And please, right click and save lest you hurt our server’s feelings. It’s listening to the .mp3 on repeat, too.)

Sonnet130.mp3

If the next RWA National Conference is in Seattle, I hope we can all get together and ride the SLUT.

Graceful curtsy to Debunot for the link. 

Bitchery reader Liv is totally inspired by our romance sleuthing:

I’m amazed at how good the Bitchery is at identifying books, and I’m hoping they can do one more - the first romance I ever read.  Here’s what I can remember:

The heroine is visiting someone, and gets put up for the night in a bedroom that turns out to be the hero’s (who’s away somewhere).  The hero returns unexpectedly late that night, crawls into bed and immediately falls asleep.  Of course, the next morning, the hero and heroine are found in bed together and must marry to stave off any scandal.

They move away to some grand but dilapidated estate, which the heroine begins to fix up.  The hero is described as a dandy or a fop, and the heroine is an uptight, spectacle-wearing prude.  Through the joys of house rehabing or somesuch, the hero starts to think the heroine looks kinda sexy in soot and construction dust.  At some point, the heroine gets kidnapped and taken to a cave.  The hero tracks her down, beats up the bad guys, and rescues her.  The heroine realized he’s not such a dandy after all but a hot hot manly man.  Much sex and at least one baby ensues.

I remember that it was Harlequin - and I think it was published in the mid-nineties.  I hope this is enough for someone to identify it!

Bring it on - sexy heroine with construction dust? Mrwor! 

Submitted by Charlene

Go Ask Alice was published in 1971 as the true diary of Alice, an innocent young Christian girl who is slipped a dose of LSD in her soft drink while she is at a party and almost instantly turns into a promiscuous, drug-addicted runaway. She eventually reforms and returns home but after being rejected by her peers returns to the streets, dying of an overdose three weeks after the diary ends. In an act of selflessness, her parents arranged for publication of the diary in hopes of warning other youths about the perils of the counterculture.

The book was an immediate bestseller. Shocked parents, educators, and ministers bought the book, hoping that Alice’s lessons would persuade young people under their care not to succumb to temptation. Unfortunately for the adults involved, many young people had immediate strong doubts about Alice’s story. For instance, Alice’s explanation of how she became addicted to speed is literally impossible, and the counterculture lifestyle is portrayed as a nest of hippies, liberals, and people of colour (in other words, People Not Like Us) whose main point in life appears to be to defile helpless innocent white girls. The prose is beyond melodramatic (and beyond the capacities of most teenaged girls, for that matter) and Alice never misses the chance to moralize. All in all it appeared to many teens to be nothing but clunky, heavy-handed propaganda, and was often scorned and parodied.

The young weren’t the only ones with questions, though. Doubts surfaced very early among critics as to whether the book was a true transcript of Alice’s diary. For one thing, it doesn’t read like something written by a teenager. Alice barely mentions her friends or boys, instead devoting enormous amounts of space to long-winded, largely inaccurate descriptions of the effects of drugs that read as if they had been plucked from a church youth handbook. “Editor” Beatrice Sparks admitted in 1979 that the book was not a transcript of her patient’s diary but only based on it, but the release of numerous very similar (and equally factually suspicious) books by Sparks which also purported to be “true diaries” has increased the suspicion that Go Ask Alice is fully fictional. Later research by Mark Oppenheimer and others has supported the theory.

Go Ask Alice was removed from many libraries after conservative parents complained about the book’s graphic depictions of sex, drug use, and violence. Although it has never been banned for being a fraud, it has in recent years been moved - to the fiction section, where it belongs.

I love period movies and I love Israel Kamakawiwo’ole - so this video made me absurdly happy. Enjoy!

Ahoy! First to offer the heroine’s name, author’s name, and title of the book in the comments receives - the Smart Bitch Title™.

Into the light of the dark black night

Strong, gifted woman seeks equally strong and noble man from a completely different culture and society to help me face a cold, deadly, and frightening challenge, and stay by my side as I come to terms with my chilling gift and lifelong responsibility and move from first love to true love. You must be willing to watch me die and trust that although I’m cold and lifeless, I will be back to be with you.

Please don’t forget to send in your Banned Book Review, wherein you review one of the top 100 most challend books from 1990-2000. We’ll vote on the best ones - so be creative - and I promise awesome asskicking prizes. Email your reviews to and asap!

So many people sent me the link to MelJean Brooks’ guest entry on Dionne Galace’s site that I’ve watched this video about three times already. It’s hilarious. Especially the part about the hotdog.

Courtesy of Darlene Marshall comes this link from Canada.com - Men with deeper voices are seen as more potent and virile, and in one study, produced more children.

So if you imagine the dialogue spoken aloud as you read a romance, do you have a particular voice in mind? And what male in your opinion does have the sexiest voice? 

From the Shameless Self Promotion Department we have the following entry.

A friend of mine sent me a link to this article about the new Grey’s Anatomy spinoff, Private Practice. The article is mostly an interview with the two executive producers, Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers, but touches on a subject that I should have mentioned but was too bashful to do (and boy howdy, do I really need to get over that!): I was published recently in a Smart Pop anthology of essays examining Grey’s Anatomy.

The article mentions the unique popularity enjoyed by GA, which is the subject of my essay, and really, it’s past time I mentioned the book because the folks at BenBella were wickedly fun to work with. My essay is an analysis of the hybrid status of GA as both a popular show and a cult show - it has a deeply devoted following usually found among cult shows, but it’s also watched by millions of people every week through multiple seasons. It brings in ratings and has a huge internet community devoted to fanfic, spoilers, and behind the scenes info. In the analysis, I trace that hybrid cult/pop status to what I believe to be the root cause: the writer’s blog that allows the show’s fans access to the team of writers working on each episode.

Not once do I mention romance, though, and since this is at best shameless promotion, I felt a little squidgy about mentioning it. But since the fall season is starting up and the book is (ahem) on sale now, I figured I might as well run this up the flagpole. If anything, you can go find my real name and read my spanky bio, which makes me giggle even though I wrote it. 

Bitchery reader Amy asks for recommendations, oh well-read Bitchery:

[T]he reason for my bothering you is to ask you and all other sisters and brothers of SB for help. I am a great lover of Laura Kinsale, esp. Seize the Fire. Yes, I am a fangirl of the” angsty”, “gut-wrenching” intense romance school, and I would appreciate it very much if you could help me to find more treasures in this particular school of romance.

So - angsty romance - bring it on! What’s your pleasure?