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

TV:

X Files: I will mention this first because redwyne was kind enough to send me an X-Files desk wallpaper that about knocked my socks off. I love this show, and I love that my TiVo has six million episodes saved up, though Hubby is getting pissed that there’s not room for Quantum Leap. But I have to clarify: aliens? Conspiracy? Black oil? Do I care? Meh. I watch the episodes according to the relationship episode guide and check out the subtle ways in which Mulder and Scully interact with each other. I even have this theory that they were all kinds of hookin’ up after the first season or so, and we just never saw it on camera. But when it comes to nuanced portrayals of attraction, particularly attraction unfulfilled, the writers of the early seasons had it cold.

NCIS: Are you watching this show? I love this show. And again, crime? Murder investigation? Drama? Meh - not so much. But the weird mentor/mentee affection between Abby and Gibbs? And the sparring between Kate and Anthony? Oh, baby, baby, how was I supposed to know? Kate and Anthony particularly are great to watch for that attractive romantic spark because they walk that fine line - but never cross over into “I hate you,” “ NO, I hate YOU” bickering. They work together, he gives her shit, she gives him shit, but when the poop hits the oscillating air circulating device, they have each other’s backs, no question.

CSI: Crime? Guts? Gore? Meh. Grissom & Sara? Whoa. Seriously, I never even noticed until one episode hit me over the head with it, and I was all, “Huh? Seriously?” I googled “Grissom and Sara CSI” and holy hell did I miss that boat when it sailed. There were already comprehensive websites tracing the clues to their possible relationship. And it’s nowhere near as fun now that Sara keeps bringing it up. Sheesh.

Buffy: Buffy. Angel. Spike. Mrowr.

SportsNight: This show lasted one season, but mercifully it came out on DVD last year. It’s an Aaron Sorkin show, and if you’re familiar with the first two seasons of the West Wing, you know the rapid dialogue and verbal content of the show moves the plot and the character development - same with SportsNight. If you’ve never seen it, imagine a behind-the-scenes portrayal of a SportsCenter-esque show with cast romances. Marvelous - dialogue driven romance. Just the way I like it.

Cupid: Six years ago, there was the fantastic show that I liked. As a result of my saying out loud how much I liked it, it was cancelled. Cupid starred Jeremy Piven as Cupid, the God of Love, cast out of the heavens for his cynicism and only allowed to return once he’s matched 100 couples in true love. Marshall plays Claire Allen, the psychologist into whose care Cupid, or Trevor Hale as he calls himself, is released by the courts. And as luck would have it, Allen runs a lonely hearts group of people trying to learn to make romantic connections with other people. Each episode featured a short-term storyline of two people being brought together by Hale, and the series, as long as it lasted anyway, dealt with the attraction between Hale and Allen. Oh holy moly did I love this show. I wish it was out on DVD. Maybe I should stop doing all this blogging and just write letters to CBS all day.

Movies:

The Butchers’ Wife: Does anyone remember this? Demi Moore starred as some wackass chick from a rural island who interprets signs from above that a butcher who washes up on the shore of her island is her dream man, and marries him and follows him home to New York. And of course, they aren’t entirely meant to be, but once she’s in Manhattan, she meets the man who is her other half, and hilarity ensues. I don’t know why I love this movie, as it’s not spectacularly good, but I do.

Bull Durham: is this movie about sports, about sex or about love? I’d argue that it’s a romance, though it takes it’s sweet time getting there, and the lead characters are all over other people aside from each other. But the sparks between Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon - boo yah.

Sleepless in Seattle : OK, I know it’s hokey. But gosh I love this movie, specifically for the moment when Meg Ryan gets off the plane in Seattle, about to track Tom Hanks down, and he’s there in the airport dropping someone off, and sees her and looks like lightning hit him smack on the schnoz. Bam. Love it.

When Harry Met Sally: It’s not that I have a thing for Meg Ryan. She more than annoys me. But this movie also charms me to no end, particularly because each character is so completely blind and oblivious to how they really feel, but still manage to have a fantastic friendship in spite of it. And there’s also that scene with the wagon wheel.

Then one day she gets a bad feeling about Ginger. So bad, that merely trying to call her on the phone fills her with dread. Always one to obey her instincts, she leaves for Atlanta immediately.

What she finds is a mess indeed: her sister is nine months pregnant, her shady boyfriend, Malik, has gone missing with a huge amount of money and the thug he stole the money from just got out of jail. As Malik’s girl, she’s a prime candidate for some not-so-gentle interrogation about his whereabouts and where he stashed the money.

Enter Malik’s brother, Rick, and woo damn, does Bless receive the shock of her life when she meets him. He’s the dark, handsome stranger in her dreams. He’s also a cop, and he’s determined to protect Ginger and the foetus. Even more shocking, however, is another realization that shoots through Bless: Ginger’s unborn child is going to be a key leader and savior when Armageddon arrives, and Ginger is just as determined to kill the baby one way or another. She’s so determined that she has enlisted assistance from various demons, who proceed to make Bless’s life very interesting indeed. Between finding love with Rick, protecting the baby from Ginger and fighting off demons, there’s more than enough to occupy Bless (and the reader) in this slim 250-page novel.

And really, the biggest peeve I have with the book is how it needs another hundred pages, easy, to do the story justice. I mean, there’s some kind of crazy apocalyptic fight going on between people of Light and these wack-ass demons, and it’s driving me crazy because the supernatural aspects that don’t involve actual demon fight scenes are almost completely glossed over. For example, Bless can heal, cleanse the spiritual atmosphere and all that good stuff. Do we get details on what this process involves, or even what it feels like to channel energy? Nope. There are some very vague descriptions of seeing auras, of pushing out the darkness, and that’s it—nothing about the sensations that go through Bless as she draws on the healing power and then guides it into someone else. Not even something basic like “There was a sense of pressure on her neck, then a warm tingle in her palms and stomach as she drew the bla bla bla from the bla bla bla and oh behold the dying child healeth etc. etc.”

Bless also has to be skooled in the ancient art of demon asskicking. Do we get details on that? Nope, just some rather vague descriptions like “She blasted some light from her palms, the demon burst into flame, then she woke up sweating and sore because she learned how to ‘splode some demon butt in her dreams.” I’m dying here. I want MORE. I want to know what it feels like to kick demon ass. Again: what does it feel like to channel psychic energy like that? Even the most basic of sensory descriptions would’ve helped: cold, hot, painful, pleasant, tingly, shocking.

So in short, I can see the action, but I can’t feel it down in my bones the way I want to. I spend much of the book feeling as if I’m floating above the characters, completely removed from them, instead of living their lives, breathing their air, feeling their pain and happiness. It wasn’t until the last few chapters of the book, when Bless really starts whupping some serious demon patoot and the action sequences become more detailed, that I felt truly engaged.

There’s also a truly complex, fascinating backstory going on that’s more-or-less ignored. See, Bless, Maris and Ginger are part of an ongoing cycle of three souls who are doomed to re-live the same pattern over and over until somebody breaks the cycle. We get the barest hint of how the cycle got started, but that tantalizing taste is all we get. MORE, DAMMIT, I WANT MORE. That’s the refrain that ran in my head as I read through the book.

The love story itself was all right. Bless and Rick are extremely nice people, but I think of this book as another Soulmates Gone Wild story. Wendy the Super Librarian covered this recently in her Romancing the Blog column, and while the book conveyed very strongly how Bless and Rick are Meant To Be, the actual chemistry between them is no better than luke-warm. I, for one, would’ve liked more scenes from Rick’s point of view. I know why Bless is attracted to Rick; I mean, hell, the man’s been sexing her six ways to Sunday for years in her dreams. I’m just not quite sure why Rick is attracted to Bless. I’m told “she feels right” and that he likes curvy women who know how to cook, but something about the attraction just didn’t ring true. I don’t want just to be told that she feels right, I want to be shown it. The book’s breakneck pacing doesn’t allow this, however, which is a shame.

There are bright spots in the book. Some parts are laugh-out-loud funny, often in a rather dark way. For example, Ginger describing how the Universe tried everything to stop her from having an abortion, up to and including having birds spray her with avian bombs from the air as she’s walking to the clinic, is almost worth the price of admission. And the fight scenes, especially the ones at the end, are really, truly fun to read.

When it comes down to it, I would’ve enjoyed the book so much more if it had much more detail than it did, and if it had engaged in more showing, less telling. I think the concept and characters held a whole lot of promise, they just needed fleshing out—especially the supernatural backstory. But then looking at the other reviews for this book, some people were freaked out by the supernatural bits and thought the book was way too graphic. Shit, I thought it wasn’t nearly graphic enough. Which just goes to show: you can’t please everyone all of the time. The only logical conclusion to this is: screw everyone else, Monica. Write books that will please me. I’m all that matters, because dammit, my taste is impeccable and I’m AWESOME.

It didn’t help that the very first romance novel I cared to try was Desire’s Blossom by Cassie Edwards. Ugh, blech, shudder, etc. Even at the tender age of 10 I knew it was easily one of the worst books I’d ever read.

But this didn’t stop me from going through my sister’s extensive collection of romance novels. I was a bookworm, my book-buying budget was limited, and during Christmas vacation I’d run out of reading material right quick, and I could re-read Roald Dahl, the Three Investigators, the Chronicles of Narnia and Hercule Poirot mysteries only so many times before I went barking mad for something new.

(Aside: in Malaysia, the Christmas break is the longest since it signifies the end of the school year--see, our school years coincide with the calendar year, which is why the American system confused the hell out of me when I first moved here.)

Anyway, this desperation for new reading material meant I kept mining my sister’s romance novels for books to read. Read some Laurie McBain novels, HATED them but finished them anyway because I was so desperate. Ditto Barbara Cartland. Read several other historicals by authors whose names I’ve forgotten, and didn’t like them either. Read more than my fair share of old Mills and Boon novels by Penny Jordan, Charlotte Lamb, Carole Mortimer and the like, most of which I detested as well, though a few were tolerable.

These books did not help my impression of romance novels; I hated the prose style, I hated how stupid the heroines were, and most of all, I hated how badly the heroes treated the heroines. I’d oftentimes skip through the book, trying to look for the sexy parts, but alas these were few and far between. For about six years I thought of romance novels as the bottom of the barrell, since the the ones I’d read easily represented some of the most consistently bad writing I’d encountered in my short life.

The first romance novel I liked (but didn’t love) was Special Gifts by Anne Stuart. My dad’s secretary bought me several category romances for my birthday, most of which were incredibly bad, but Special Gifts gave me pause. The writing wasn’t too bad, the heroine didn’t annoy me (though even back then I snorted at the idea of a 29-year-old virgin), the hero was kind of yummy, the suspense side-plot didn’t insult me, and dude, the people engaged in ORAL SEX. Whoo! I re-read this book several times, and each time it actually got a bit better. And I’m not just talking about the bit featuring the oral sex.

When I was 16 years old, Judith McNaught showed me the light. Judith and Something Wonderful. (I’m very, very glad I didn’t pick up Whitney, My Love first.) Judith showed me that asshole heroes are palatable to me as long as they grovel at the end, and that sex in historical romances wasn’t always rape. I haven’t looked back since; in quick succession I found Lisa Kleypas, Patricia Gaffney, Laura Kinsale, Loretta Chase, Mary Jo Putney, Barbara Samuel, Teresa Medeiros, Jo Beverley and Sharon and Tom Curtis, among others. McNaught got me started, but these other authors were what moved me well and truly into the Dark Side. Other authors I tried in this same time period (Linda Howard, Johanna Lindsey, Iris Johansen, Linda Howard, and Linda Howard--OK, there were a few others but I can’t remember their names) reinforced my old opinion that romance novels embodied some craptastically awful writing, but since I was finding more authors I enjoyed reading than not, my opinion of romance novels was completely changed.

Which brings me to these questions Angie asked on her blog:

“Here’s my question for readers: Are there any authors that you think every romance reader should have at least tried to read? Any authors that instill such a sense of nostalgia in you, that you can’t imagine anyone having NOT read them?”

I don’t think there’s an author that every reader should have tried at least once. Personally, I love Laura Kinsale, but I certainly don’t think everyone needs to have read at least one of her books, though I certainly have her name right on top of my list of highly-recommended romance authors. I do think people should check out new authors regularly, unless she specializes in a sub-genre that you KNOW you won’t be able to enjoy. (I’m staying well clear of Danielle Steele, and I don’t care how much of an uninformed snob that makes me.) There aren’t any authors who instill nostalgia in me that I’d actually recommend, because in my opinion, these nostalgic authors almost without exception produced bad, bad, bad, BAD books. But there are authors who are so ubiquitous, so incredibly famous that I have a hard time believing somebody who’s been reading romances for more than a couple of years haven’t tried them yet. Nora Roberts is one, and Linda Howard is another. Hell, I don’t even like Linda Howard novels and I ended up reading about ten of them. Desperation for new reading material is an ugly, ugly thing.

Not that I have that problem now, heh.