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

Entry #1
by Adler

“Look at me,” he said.
I felt a frisson run down my spine at the sound of his voice, and my lips trembled.  I kept my gaze fastened on the bubbles floating on the placid surface of my black coffee.
“Look.” His voice deepened.  There was no way I could resist that voice.
“Gary,” I heard myself say, looking up at his kind eyes.
“I need to know you’re in this because it’s what you really want,” he continued softly, “not just because you think it’s what you should do.”
I shook my head.  “No, I--this is all me, Gary.  All of me.  I’m just worried that after everything, you might not want-”
“No,” he broke in, eyes shining.  “Never say that.  If I know one thing, it’s that I’ll never love another woman more than you.  You are the sun, you are the moon, you are the shadows on a summer night.  My love, you are both the flower and the frost, the horizon’s promise, the timeless Muse, the breath in my lungs and the wisdom of the ages-”
“Wow, your English Lit degree really was good for something after all,” I said.
And then we done sex.

Entry #2
by Elle

“What’s next?  You tell me,” he said.  He held his voice steady but his grey eyes darkened to flint, betraying his anger.  “One minute I’m a guy named Sam Allen, lying in a hospice bed, dying of cancer.  The next thing I know I’m waking up in an Intensive Care Unit and I’m being told I’m a guy named Gary Farber who’s recovering from a head injury.”

His sister remained silent, her eyes cast down, refusing to meet his gaze.  He got up and started pacing around the room, his hands clenching and unclenching unconsciously as he spoke.

“You brought me back,” he said.  “I don’t know how you did it, and I don’t want to know.  All this metaphysical and magical hocus-pocus may make perfect sense to you, Candy, but I can promise you this much.  It won’t make a lick of sense to Sarah.  Your problem is, you never think these things through.  What did you think would happen?  What am I supposed to do, stroll up the front walk, knock on the door and say, ‘Oh, hi honey, it’s me, back from the dead.  What’s for dinner?’”

Entry #3
by Amy

“Please, Maureen, you must try and understand.” Gary’s eyes implored her, like twin pools of Cool Blue Gatorade. “I never meant to hurt you- never! It sounds so trite to say these things just happen, but I’ve never felt this way about a woman before. I feel light, alive… luminous! It’s indescribable. Someone so brilliant, so beautiful, so impeccably dazzling only comes along once in a lifetime… you understand that. Don’t you? Please, Maureen, say you understand.”

He clasped her hand tenderly, almost desperately. Maureen sighed.

“Yes,” she said cautiously. “I do. But for heaven’s sake, Gary, my grandmother is ninety-seven years old. Even for you, don’t you think that’s pushing it?”

Entry #4
JC Taylor

“They told me you probably can’t hear this, so I’m just going to let it all out. If you can, well. You can punch me when you wake up. Iwon’t mind—” He was quiet for a moment.

“I never thought about love much. Too busy, I guess. So when I woke up one morning with your elbow in my face and the thought hit me that I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it, I panicked a little. You probably remember – I told you I had a dentist appointment and tripped on the dog on my way.”

I could hear the smile in his voice, the crookedness of it, the way he ruffled his hand through his hair.

“I was back twenty minutes later with coffee and bagels, and you gave me the weirdest look. And that was it – I was done. I bought the ring that afternoon. So that’s it, Maggie. You need to wake up, because otherwise…I can’t even think of an otherwise. I’ll be here.”

And his hand wrapped around mine, warm and a little rough, and held on tight.

Entry #5
by Morgan

Gary finished another bite of vegetarian quiche. Gad, it was awful, but he’d go to any lengths to persuade Mary the killing was justified. 

“So that’s why I had to strangle the weasel,” he said. “It was a matter of life or death. Survival or…extinction.”

Mary crossed her arms. The negative body language emphasized her magnificent cleavage, which had an ironic effect on Gary’s pants.

Focus, Farber. “The California condor is the most endangered species in America. It’s even rarer than the black-footed ferret,” he said stiffly. “Yeah, they’re vultures and they eat meat, but…

Gary broke off as Mary shuddered in revulsion.  She hadn’t eaten meat since her fifth grade field trip to an African abattoir. He soldiered on. “If we’d let that egg-sucking weasel continue to raid the nest, it would set the recovery program back years.”

Mary glared. Gary cast about desperately for a more persuasive argument.

Then he noticed the $52,000 Rolex Pearlmaster on her wrist.

“Each California condor egg,” Gary said, “is worth approximately twenty million dollars.”

He watched, fascinated, as a warm glow of forgiveness filled her eyes and her nipples peaked beneath her silk blouse.

Hot damn, but he’d be getting some tonight.

Entry #6
by Hortense Powdermaker

An excerpt from LIFE SUCKS:  THE TRUE MEMOIR OF THE VAMPIRE GARY FARBER

Gary settled into the dentist chair and opened wide so Dr. Gupta could begin to reconstruct his snapped-off canine.

It had been a mistake to let his emo-angst interfere with his blood lust, but his first meal-candidate was so pure, so innocent, so…stacked. He’d always been a sucker for big, virginal breasts. So he’d given Connie Swail his cell number instead, and turned his attention to Charlotte, the elderly misogynist.

Who knew that her leathery neck would be his Waterloo? Of course, his teeth were over two thousand years old.

The problem was he had no dental insurance. Add that to his powerful sense of right and wrong, and he was metaphorically fucked. Sink his fangs into strangers? Give them instant anemia? Turn them into the living undead? Check, check, check. But the Vampyre Rules of Engagement forbade pick-pocketing, home invasion robberies, and sending off e-mails claiming to be the Nigerian finance minister with six million dollars that needed to be stashed in someone’s account.

He’d be working the night shift at McDonald’s for a year just to pay off Dr. Gupta.

Oh, if only mail fraud was an option.

Entry #7
by Meredith

From now on, he thought, everyone could just call him Ghery. Ghery Fharbher. He stretched, newly muscled arms nearly touching the ten foot ceilings, and the feel of his new body made him anxious. Like he should be kicking ass and taking names, rather than standing in line at the Starbucks, waiting for his mocha soy latte, no whip, easy on the mocha.

Some things never changed, even when you became a vampire.

The barista raised an eyebrow, before hesitantly pronouncing “Ge-hairy?”, reading from the coffee cup. Ghery growled, and he reached one beefy mitt—he was still amazed at the size of his hands, not to mention the size of something significantly lower and way more important, holy crap, that alone was enough enticement to join the Brotherhood—and took the latte from the tattooed, dreadlocked woman.

A noise from the cell in his pocket distracted him, and he pulled out the phone with his free hand. “Yo, whattup bro?” he said. No one had told him that the transformation would also result in his ability to speak homie like a pro, but there it was. Just one of the weird perks.

That, and the enormous dick.

Entry #8
by Shari

Professor Diana Anastasia Nikolaevna Spenser - it is imperative you come with me at once. Your father sent me. The secret code is vibrating biker ducky.”

“Look, I don’t know who you-” He silenced her with one black gloved hand. He was startled by the heat pulsing into his hand where he touched her lips.

“Mademoiselle, now is the time for action, not words. I am sworn to protect you from harm, but we must leave quickly – Glorificus is coming after you. I know I am a stranger to you. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Marquis de Carabas, Gary Farber. You may know me from my public persona as a romance novelist. My family has long studied the secret art of Shindai as well as the Way of Mrs. Cosmopilite. We are to rendezvous with whoever else escapes the assassins in Vanzagaria. I have a private jet waiting at the campus airport, but we must move quickly.”

Diana blinked at him. “Let me grab my towel, my M41A Pulse Rifle, and the Dagon Sphere, then let’s blow this joint.”

“As you wish.” Finally, a woman who knew the importance of always having your towel. Life was good.

Entry #9
by Jen C

“You bastard.  You have brow-beaten and intimidated other men with your broad shoulders and misogynistic attitude.  You have taken the law into your own hands and used your power and influence to make your own rules.  You maintained a sexual double standard against women who dared to meet your number of sexual partners.  You were sneaky, manipulative, and mean to widows and orphans. No one denies that you were clever, but you lacked compassion.

You vermin.  You were downright cruel to Cleo.  You should have called her after you slept with her, and shown her the love and commitment she deserved.  She’s beautiful, funny and sexy, and you let your issues with your ex cloud your judgment.  You should have let Cleo know how wonderful she is, and you wasted opportunity after opportunity because you didn’t want to give up your regular lifestyle choices.

But you were saved by her love and her fantastic bedroom skills, so it is time, Gary, to go beat the bad guys and save Cleo!”

(with apologies to Gary Farber, who I am sure would be very nice to Cleo in real life)

Entry #10
by Liz

Yesterday Amber Granes had loved her position at G. Tycoon International. Today brought ferrets. Why couldn’t the project involve moody vampires or psychic federal agents? Why black footed ferrets?

“Ferrets are hot.” Amber swallowed against a surge of terrified joy. Gary Farber was behind her and fully clothed, that small detail proving she wasn’t dreaming. In her dreams, his relaxed fit denims were slung across her floor while that beautifully textured henley cradled her crumpled bra. Gary. His voice still promised all manner of sin in the bucket seat of his yellow Corvette. Flexible, compact, American sin.

“Gary. I’d heard you were busy conquering publishing.”

His blue eyes stared her down. Their black rims, as dark as his ragged ebony shag, seemed harder. “I’m proud of the work I’ve done, the women’s lives I’ve improved, but I’ve found a secret.” He dropped Tuesday’s copy of The Spite Spewer on her desk, folded to a full color photo of gap-toothed Madison with her prize winning cucumbers.  “When were you going to tell me about our daughter?”

“She’s not ours. She’s my twin sister’s. The one that’s dead.”

My comment:

Hey!

The new law extends the state court’s jurisdiction to allow for rulings that international court judgments against New York authors and publishers are unenforceable if the court decides that the libel law of the pursuing country’s judicial system is at odds with U.S. protections of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

The law came to the NY State Senate when “the state’s laws did not protect Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author, from a possible bid by a Saudi Arabian businessman to enforce a summary judgment issued by the High Court in London.”

From the Times UK Online:

Dr Ehrenfeld claimed her book, Funding Evil, in which she makes a series of allegations about the charitable activities of wealthy Saudi businessman Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, was protected under the freedom of speech section of the US constitution.

But in a 17-page ruling by Judge Ciparick in December, the New York Court of Appeals in Albany ruled that it did not have jurisdiction over Mr Mahfouz as they found he had not carried out any business in the state.

The Sheikh has always vehemently denied any link with terrorism, or terrorist support or funding, and claimed that the book was defamatory in suggesting that he supported al-Qaeda and terrorism either directly or indirectly.

Amid proclamations from state senators that “New York is the free speech capital of the world” (which prompts me to add, “Yeah?! I GOT YER FREE SPEECH RIGHT HERE!” because I am immature) Senator Martin Golden explained that “writers and journalists would have foreign defamation suits declared unenforceable in New York unless the foreign law provides the same free speech protections guaranteed under our Constitution.”

Dr. Ehrenfeld has described Mr. Mahfouz as a “serial libel tourist.” He’s scored several victories against other authors in the UK who have published similar allegations about his financial activities, and Cambridge University Press withdrew all copies of a book entitled Alms for Jihad by J. Millard Burr and Robert O.Collins.

Currently there’s one copy of Alms for Jihad on Ebay US, and the starting/buy it now price: $150.00. Some American libraries have “refused to withdraw the book from their shelves.” Searches of the New York Public Library catalog reveal two copies, both of which are listed as “lost.”

What I find most curious is how a court in New York will evaluate another country’s libel laws against the US protections of freedom of speech and of press so as to allow a potential suit to be declared unenforceable.

While I’m not sure this has direct links to romance, per se, despite the prevalence of sheikhs in each month’s category issues, I’m fascinated by the New York State ruling - particularly since many, if not most, major publishing houses are located in Manhattan.

Megan and Moe flay this article into itty bitty pieces bit by bit at Jezebel, and I nearly snorted beverage up my nostrils at their response.

Personally, I’ve learned quite a few things from Allen’s rather large trainwreck of an article - and after that much ranting I hope she’s feeling much better. Noteably: should I ever wish to go out on a limb with an outrageous opinion, name dropping every fifth word does little to strengthen an argument.

Also, mocking people with Morgellon’s disease is… well, shitful, and especially extra double cheese comical considering that the Washington Post just published an article about a month ago profiling the disorder, interviewing male and female sufferers. As someone who suffered hives for 2 years without diagnosis (but a shitload of steroids in the interim) I say, may Allen never suffer from a frustrating, idiopathic illness that is marked by itching.

But most of all, as Candy so eloquently said a while back, why must people continually harsh on the moral fiber of those whose taste we question?

After talking with Hubby about Allen’s article, I said, “You know what burns my toast? She craps all over what she considers the bad taste of other women, and make sweeping judgments about the relative intellect and quality of women who do things she doesn’t like, when there are plenty of doofy things men do that are, in the long run, equally harmless and not at all indicative of their quality as a gender.”

For every woman that watches and enjoys ”Grey’s Anatomy,” there are plenty of men who do some really daffy things, and I’m not lining up for the opportunity to call them “dim.”

Hubby said, “Like continuing to play contact sports after their bodies are too old for it?”

Yes! That. Professional and otherwise.

Like, managing the minutiae of a nonexistent sports team? I’ve got no room to mock that one; my fantasy baseball draft is in a few weeks.

Men’s taste in television? Aside from the number of dudes I know who watch Grey’s Anatomy, there’s plenty to examine. From the sample of the various men who hijack the clicker in my house, from Hubby to his father to our houseguests for aforementioned baseball draft, men’s taste in television can be varied, bizarre, and often features gratuitous breasts.

Or, as Jane just pointed out, their taste in tv is just plain inexplicable: see “The existence and popularity of Jackass.”

And what about the compulsion to watch the end of a game just because it’s on tv, sometimes even a game that was actually played sixteen years prior? Thank you Classic Sports for that oddity. (Note: please don’t show game 7 of the 1992 NLCS, people at Classic Sports. It makes Hubby beyond upset.)

Additionally, as Jane pointed out to me as we discussed the article, men seem to believe that yelling at the TV actually impacts how the game turns out. What is with that?

Some guy stereotypes are rooted in tiny fragments of truth: how many of us know a man, as Jane said, who steadfastly refuses “to ask for directions because being lost is smarter than knowing where to go?” *raises hand* My father in law owns, like, six different GPS units because he hates asking actual humans for directions.

How about owning two distinct levels of clothing: work and not work?

But in all seriousness, what boggled my mind most of all was Allen’s directive that we women should “relax [and] enjoy the innate abilities most of us possess and revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel.”

Things, I might add, that men are ridiculed as dim and weak for attempting to do alongside women: “tenderness toward children… and the weak and the ability to make a house a home.”

How many times do you see positive fatherhood in popular culture? Stereotypically, men are bumbling fathers, distant fathers, cold fathers, or nonexistent fathers. Yet the real men I see everyday in my home and in the homes of my friends and acquaintances are possessing of those same qualities Allen identifies as “innate” to women.

I’ll take the men I know, silly and rooting for mythical sports teams, and the Grey’s watching women that drive Allen so far down the lane of Batshit any day over any more articles like this one.

Man am I ever glad Allen is not part of the village that’s supposed to help me raise my children.

Ink Exchange begins with another look at a scene from Wicked Lovely in which Aislinn, the heroine of Wicked Lovely, sees a faery walk into the local tattoo parlor and touch a steel case, something that faeries are not supposed to be able to do. In Ink Exchange, you find out who that faery is, and why he can touch metal and not be sickened by it.

Leslie is a friend of Aislinn’s, and in the prologue, Irial, the faery from the tattoo parlor, is watching her. He calls her a “lovely broken toy.” That pretty much sums up Leslie: she’s desperately trying to recover her own health and happiness after an assault perpetrated by someone she ought to be able to trust. Her attempt to reclaim herself centers around acquiring a tattoo, and she’s frustrated in her efforts to find the perfect image. Like many women who pursue ink, she wants to reclaim her body for her self. She wants something unique, that won’t appear on the skin of anyone else, and when Rabbit, the tattoo artist, shows her a book of drawings of his own design, one image speaks to her and, in a way that alarms her slightly, demands that she choose it. Ultimately, that tattoo links her in a dangerous, addictive, damaging and symbiotic relationship with Irial, and in the course of identifying what that relationship is and whether she wants it, Leslie realizes how weakened, and how strong, she truly is.

Leslie’s choice to use a tattoo to reclaim her body is understandable, but when that tattoo and the forces behind it turn on her and claim her body for the use of someone else, her own choice becomes another assault without her consent. Exploring consent and assault through the tattoo allows the reader to examine the larger issues of consent and assault operating within Leslie’s backstory, and the whole book is layer upon layer of parallels.

One of Henderson’s concerns was whether 12 year old girls ought to read this book. My answer: “Without equivocation: Fuck, yeah.” The story explores themes that will give a young woman entering puberty a buffet of crucial topics to think about, topics that become particularly important because around 12 years old, my hormones hit the highway to Pueblo Loca and I was batshit miserable through most of it. This book is about so many layered and devastating things that affect teenagers, including sex, sexual assault, autonomy, addiction, strength, power, powerlessness, and how easy it is for damaged children to be taken advantage of by those with agendas of their own.

The skilled depth and layering of the story is unfortunately undermined by some aspects of the execution. The dialogue can slide from enigmatic to pretentiously vague with disturbing ease, and there’s a dramatic self-consciousness to the narration and the characters themselves that reminds me of teenage angst and drama, which made the already-painful storyline a bit more difficult to read, though the tone is in keeping with the age of the protagonists. The mortal ones, anyway.

The mortal wrongdoers who harm Leslie also for the most part disappear, and no closure is granted for the reader or for Leslie - at least, none that is disclosed - and while the paranormal characters do experience their own denouement and conclusion. The significance of the fact that Leslie wants very much to return to the mortal world from her involvement with the faery world is diminished by the focus on the faery characters, (spoilers ahead: highlight text to read it) and in the final scenes, Leslie is a background character, once again used to highlight and underscore Irial’s significance. Relegating Leslie to the background, to be commented on by other characters, did not sit at all well with me since the story is as much about Leslie’s recovery of her self and her autonomy as it is about the faery courts operating around and through her.

The other aspect that irritated me was that so many of the ancillary characters knew what had happened to Leslie before the novel began, and did nothing. They just knew, and watched her suffer, and did nothing. On one hand, their inaction was somewhat understandable seeing that, faery-involved or not, the protagonists of this series are teenagers, who are not powerful by any stretch, particularly these teenagers who operate largely without sound parental guidance or presence.

On the other hand, even within powerlessness, there is the opportunity to help her, and not one of them took it. I may be picturing my own teenage life through tinted happy glasses but I’d like to think that if I knew a friend had suffered the way Leslie did, I would have found some way to help, or at least let that person know I would help them find safety.

Finally, a word of warning to those who come to this site looking for romance reviews. This isn’t a romance. (spoilers ahead: highlight text to read it) There’s not a happy ending for Leslie in the sense that a romance reader may be looking for, though the situation in which the book leaves her is entirely appropriate and optimistic. This is not the same style of faery tale as Wicked Lovely and readers expecting more of the same of that novel will not necessarily find it.

It’s hard to describe concisely what this book is about. On the surface it’s about a girl who gets a tattoo and finds herself mixed up in multiple faery courts. But it’s also about a girl recovering her autonomy after assault, and her right to choose to feel overwhelming pain rather than have it taken from her without her consent. It’s about addiction, and about how choosing pain often means choosing to live, but it’s mostly about how brave, adult, and courageous a decision it is to make that pain-full choice for yourself.

Henderson’s assertions that 12 year old girls ought not read this book because of her mistaken perception as to the sexuality within the story are infuriating in light of the manner in which this book explores profoundly important issues. I can think of few books that should be required reading for teenage girls, but this is certainly one of them. It’s painful, and it’s important.

Following Sassy, more than a few alternative and dare I say realistic magazines for women have survived, including Bust and Bitch, a magazine which I totally love (for obvious reasons).

A few months back, Candy and I were contacted by a writer, Kathleen Shaw, who was working on an article for a new publication for young women, and who asked if we’d like to talk about our website. Never ones to turn down an opportunity to talk, Candy and I emailed back and forth with her, and hello, Smart Bitches appears in the Rebel Girls section (oh, you have no idea how much I enjoy that - thank you!) of Sadie Magazine.

Sadie is a feminist mixture of reviews, creative writing, do it yourself tips, recipes, and profiles of women in uncommon situations which, for example, examine the experiences of women in the process of changing genders, or the growing fame of women rappers in Cuba.

I’m enormously flattered to be in the premiere issue, to say nothing of being called “badass.” For our site to be included in a new magazine that seeks to “tackle fun and substantive issues in a market that regards women as recipients of ad campaigns” is an ass-smacking honor. While the site has a number of technical and stylistic glitches to smooth out, I had a good old time stealing an hour to read about Vadis Turner’s art made from everyday girlhood objects. And though I’m not sure the need for a Sassy-esque magazine still exists, particularly in light of the internet and it’s ability to connect any two people with like interests, the founders have distinguished themselves through content that features women I’d otherwise know nothing about. Finding the Sweet n’Low prom dress alone made my day.