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

These are allegedly educated adult women with jobs, and many of them seem to demonstrate quite a bit of wit, but… God, they just seem so DUMB. Oftentimes in petty little ways that drive me up the wall. Like, for instance, I have Beth Kendrick’s Exes and Ohs on my TBR pile, and I picked it up the other day and started browsing through it. And before 20 pages have gone by, Our Intrepid Yet Extremely Broke Heroine has thrown her cellphone into the road with great vigor, breaking it into teeny smithereens the way fragile plastic doodads tend to do when you hurl them to the ground. Why did she do this? Because its batteries had died while she was trying to call her best friend to recount her encounter with her ex-fiance.

Big old “What. the. fuck” from this corner of the room, folks. The phone was in perfect working order, she can’t afford a new one, and the only crime the poor thing committed wasn’t even its own fault--unless cellphones can magically recharge their own batteries nowadays. I had to set the book down. See, that didn’t make the heroine sympathetic or cute or whatever to me. That branded the heroine as a Big Old Dumb Bitch, and on one hand she might outgrow her dumb bitchery, but on the other hand, maybe not, and do I really want to invest the time and mental energy to read about and root for a character I already dislike?

Another point of contention is the preoccupation many (though not by an means all) of these books have with conspicuous consumption. I mean, I’ve touched on this subject tangentially before in a post I only half-jokingly called “Filthy Lucre.” Political and economic leanings aside, my personal experiences have also predisposed me to grit my teeth when I read about broke heroines obsessed with expensive shoes and designer clothing. See, my fourth brother, whom I used to live with (hell, whom I used to speak to), was unemployed for many years, and I was far too stupid and softhearted to kick him out after the first year. After paying all the rent and many of the utilities by myself, I had about $150 a month to cover a bus pass, feed myself and take care of other necessities. I went for years without new clothing, new shoes, new music, new books. I stopped eating out, and I cut way, way, WAY down on my concert-going schedule (and let me tell you, that last really rankled). This didn’t bug me too much, initially, because I don’t NEED new, pretty things, and hell, the Portland public library is pretty damn awesome and it was past time I learned how to how to cook properly and affordably anyway. In short, I tightened my belt because I knew I had to, like how I assumed most sane people would act in a similar situation.

My brother, however, didn’t stop his spending.  Literally every month he’d come back with a cute new outfit or hot new pair of shoes from Banana Republic, Kenneth Cole, Diesel. Expensive shit. He got some under-the-table freelance design work, but he was still allegedly so broke he couldn’t even pay his $45 share for the internet/telephone bill. Despite that, his wardrobe kept expanding by leaps and bounds--he had a walk-in closet that was overflowing, three giant storage tubs full of seasonal clothing and his bedroom floor was literally covered in clothing and shoes. And there I was in my dirty-ass sneakers and mary janes with holes worn in the soles, getting madder and madder but constrained by a lifetime of Good Chinese Daughter upbringing from just tossing him out on his ear because oh God, what would my parents think? (And mind you, I’m the youngest in my family--my brother is 7 years older than me, and trust me, the irony of a 22-year-old just out of college having to be the caretaker for a man almost hitting 30 did not escape me.)

So because of this personal experience and the very, very deep anger I still harbor against my brother, the specific kind of chick lit that features impecunious heroines who are all ga-ga about designer brands makes me want to hurt somebody. In fact, it’s a measure of how very likeable I found Betsy of the Undead series that I didn’t immediately chuck the book when she spent most of her first Macy’s paycheck on Manolo Blahniks. I’ve had to live with someone like that, and that sort of irresponsibility gets old REAL quick.

So as with Indian romances, any sort of love story involving slaves and slave owners and tales of divorced couples reuniting, this is one particular fantasy I can’t really buy into. I’m sure there are chick lit books out there that aren’t arch and precious and all about conspicuous consumption; it’s just that the ones I’ve encountered seem to follow a pattern I’m not too fond of.

Sarah chimes in: ME TOO! Me me me, too too too! I cannot tell you how many women I see on the trains in the morning, reading chick lit. You can tell them by their size, right (the books, not the women)? Larger than a traditional paperback, skinnier than a romance, and with some sort of girly-colored graphical cartoon on the front? They all look the same, and to me, they all taste the same, too. Harumph.

They even get their own section at the drugstore - down on an aisle endcap, there’s a whole rack of chicklit, while the romances, mysteries, and standard issue bestsellers for people getting on the train are over near magazines. Chick lit, it has its own rack(et). It’s very special, and certainly different from the other mainstream paperback pieces of fiction. Harumph, indeed.

The same things that bug Candy about ChickLit are the same things that bother me. Most of them are broke for stupid reasons. (Candy, for the love of all that is holy and good, I implore you, do not go NEAR the Shopoholic series. Trust me on this. I read the first one.) And yet, most of them have jobs, jobs that seem to pay well, at least, that what the lead character says when she takes a moment to feel guilty for slacking off yet again at their job.

There are other oddities harbored in the ChickLit genre that I don’t get, either. For some reason they are often British and somewhat overweight with self-image problems, and, as Candy said, think nothing of destroying perfectly good appliances even though they can’t afford new ones. And they’re obsessed with attaining the right men while working those jobs that just fill time and create a paycheck - that they can then overspend on shoes and scarves. They don’t really take care of themselves; they wait for someone to take care of them.

I think one of the things that bothers me about ChickLit is that it is permissable reading material. It’s ok to be seen reading Shopoholic Has an Enema and Pass the Chocolate, I’m Having a Meltdown in public. These are books marketed openly to women. The authors often enjoy some degree of celebrity for having authored these works, these books that take the pulse of the modern working woman. It’s cool to be seen reading them.

What absolute horse pucky. I have a theory that the reason ChickLit experienced the advent that it has is due to the publishing world’s noticing the number of young women entering the workforce who need (a) books to read on their public transit commutes, and (b) heroines to read about that have something in common with them - entry level jobs, figuring out the world, annoying parents, weight concerns, etc. And what irritates the shit out of me is that these characters, they let you look down on them. They exist to make you feel better about yourself. And not only that, things happen to them because they are “nice” or “good” or “kind” and they aren’t complete bitchasses, and so they earn their happily ever after, and maybe it’s with the rich executive guy who just got his MBA and a promotion by age 24, and all is right with the world because suddenly, Dippi McHeroine can afford a new cell phone, now that hers is in pieces on the street. Or Jemima J-heroine loses weight after seeing herself photoshopped into slender glory, and ends up with a hot job, a new sense of self-worth, and a hot, hot man she’s lusted for all along. Or maybe Frumpi L’Heroine figures out all by herself a way to deal with her annoying evil boss and her annoying evil stepmother and finds a modicum of personal happiness - and of course a guy figures into the story most of the time somehow. But isn’t this genre often inculcating among young women the idea that fulfillment isn’t to be had professionally? That true fulfillment is money, goods acquisition, and a hot, hunky man? How is that addressing the needs to the young, female workforce, except using common rhetoric to slide the idea into their heads that the workplace isn’t really where they want to be, and reinforcing old, dangerous standards of what modern femininity is?

A vast number of these novels also take place within publishing as a career, and that I don’t understand. Most of the women who are in entry level publishing careers are trying desperately to get into the field and will take any job just as a foot in the door. Are there that many people who are just cruising along in the publishing industry as admins and assistants just for the paycheck and the comfy chair? I don’t know any of those people, if so.

Most of all, Chick Lit also doesn’t do it for me because the heroines never do anything, aside from make big messes. Stuff happens to them. Then, when they happen to do something, it’s a catastrophe. They aren’t often autonomous and they don’t make decisions to better themselves after they’ve had a three-martini lunch with their shallow friends about how much things suck. That’s not inspiring, and it’s not interesting. It’s dumb and I get irritated with people like that in real life. I don’t care about shoes and handbags to the exclusion of your having a brain. And I surely do not care about this that or the other hot guy, and it’s not because I’m married. I have single friends, but they are not weight-obsessed slackasses who stick their heads up their asses then complain about the view. I can’t handle people like that with a great degree of patience. I’m not friends with them. They annoy me. And I hate spending my leisure time with them.

Fast forward a few years, and we meet our statuesque heroine and orgasmless widow, Kate Abbot. To her credit, Kate loved her husband, even if he was weedy and bespectacled and lousy in bed and womanish enough to die of consumption. (Side note: my personal experience has been that weedy, bespectacled boys tend to be good in the sack because they KNOW they have to compensate for their lack of studly good looks. Also: they’re usually very, very happy to get a girl and tend to be, well, accommodating, shall we say… Anyway, enough TMI, back to reviewing.)

Kate moved to Barbados following her husband’s death to be with her brother, who’s a commodore. One day, while accompanying her brother on parade inspection duties on a military compound, she notices a prison warden brutally beating a chained prisoner with a riding quirt. What does a gently-reared, recently widowed Englishwoman do?

The only thing she could do, of course. Run over (with skirts hitched up to her knees, no less), wrench the quirt from the warden and start beating the everloving snot out of him, while the prisoners watch on, appropriately speechless.

Naturally, she feels indignant when her brother tells her off for being a crazy-ass bitch. Now, I’m fairly used to feisty romance heroines, but this woman deserves a whole new category. Like, a “Tonya Harding On Altruistic Crack” category. OK, I’ll admit I enjoyed how the prison warden got his ass handed to him, because I generally enjoy watching and reading about women kicking patoot, but there was a definite “Oh are you SHITTING me?” feeling to the whole scene.

Anyway, one of the prisoners immediately decides to take advantage of the proximity of convenient hostage material and nabs our winsome Kate. This man is, of course, no other than Colin Wyndham, scheduled to hang for the crimes of patricide and piracy in just a few days. Using Kate as his bargaining chip, he manages to free his fellow prisoners (including the members of his crew who were captured with him) and scarper back to his ship, the Blackbird, conveniently anchored, unguarded and fully-manned, in a nearby cove. Which, again, are you SHITTING me? The pirate captain and key members of the crew are caught, but the military made no effort to find and secure the ship when it’s just minutes away?

The rest of the story involves the chase as the Blackbird tries to make its way to the relative safety of Tortuga, and Kate’s seduction by Colin, who is, as Kate’s brother noted, “ever popular among the strumpets” (hee!). Oh, and then there’s a plot twist, which I won’t give away—no, not even with the turn-text-to-white spoiler thing I do every now and then—but trust me: out of all the hostages in all of Barbados, Colin is lucky indeed to have nabbed this particular chippy because she’s the key to saving his ass and proving his innocence.

Overall, Draven’s writing style isn’t too bad. It does verge towards lilac in spots, especially the love scenes, but I’ve read a lot worse. The use of some standard romance cliches (the orgasmless widow, the feisty heroine who’s willing to take on all comers and come on all takers [no, wait, I only WISHED Kate had come on all takers] despite what one presumes is a sheltered upbringing, the emasculation of the first husband) didn’t thrill me, either, but at least Draven didn’t take it all the way and make, say, the husband abusive on top of being sexually ineffective.

The story does suffer from significant pacing problems, though. The novella starts in a very leisurely fashion, as if it were a full-length novel. The set up is quite good as a whole, aside from Kate’s impression of a certain batshit insane figure-skater-turned-pugilist, but it’s not suited to a 54-page story. As a consequence, the last few bits are incredibly rushed, and Kate happily tumbles into bed with her captor after only a few days at sea and a really good dinner conversation. It’s not that I don’t think this sort of thing can happen; I just didn’t buy into it in this particular instance because I didn’t get to see Kate interact all that much with Colin, and what little interaction there is, is antagonistic up until the dinner and the performance of the humpty dance. And as I noted before, I didn’t know this wasn’t a stand-alone story, and the ending perplexed me until I e-mailed Draven for confirmation that yes, there WILL be a sequel.

In short: this novella would’ve been a lot better if it had been much more even in tone and pacing, instead of being crispy on the outside and doughy and unset in the middle. And not in a good way, like a chocolate lava cake. More like a chiffon cake that hadn’t been baked long enough.

Sarah:

We need to make a category for “erotica/romantica” on our site because Candy and I both like us some romantic nookie action. That being said, there was not nearly enough erotic action for this to be an historical erotica novella. There was a hot, descriptive, cock-laden love scene, but there wasn’t a powder-keg build-up of tension or any other sexual interaction, just a minor spat over dinner that led to some in-and-out sex.

The other element that I felt was missing was a full twist on the established cliches. Draven already made her heroine tall, and curvy, and buxom, and contrasting her with the dainty and petite sister in law made it clear to me she wasn’t the average romance heroine. Add to that her incredibly short-sighted assing of the prison guard and I get it loud and clear: she is not average.

But then, to make her an orgasmless widow, it’s like when a figure skater (to keep up with the Tonya-Harding-on-Altruistic-Crack analogy) goes up in the air to spin four times before landing, and her leg pops out and she manages just one half of a twist before landing. Making Kate an Orgasmless Widow is the author’s leg popping out of her midair twist-on-cliche. Candy is right: the nerdy guys learn fast how to get it on. So why not have her a multi-orgasm widow? Why not have her hungering for some man action as she sits in her black dresses unable to really socialize with anyone aside from family? The restrictions of mourning on women at that time were pretty daunting; granted there was tremendous freedom once one came out of mourning, but still, being able to take a lover and finding that same companionship as she had with her husband would be very difficult. To make Kate this tall, strong, powerfully tempered woman, then to sell her short in the sex department, left me with a, “Darn it, why not go all the way, here?” feeling. And really, it’s an erotic novella; it should go all the way, circle around, come back, and go all the way again.

Now, I feel like a right heel for doing this, because I’m second guessing the author’s decisions, but I have to say it. Suppose for a moment that she was a multi-orgasmed widow, desperate for action. And she gets herself kidnapped and held on board a pirate ship with a hot, manly captain who has been in prison for quite awhile, and prior to that on a ship full of men. Now thems is some sex-crazed individuals, and a ripe scenario for an erotic novella. As it is in present form, the orgasmless widow and the well-sexed-but-not-recently hero who just got sprung from prison, is a solid thump back into cliche-land. While I am shamed to find myself being something of a backseat writer in this review, I have to point out that this particular cliche was surprising to find in an erotica novel, many of which exist to twist cliches of romance and sexuality on their ears and spin them around some more.

Aside from the TPS report Candy sent from the Too Much Reality Suspended Department, from the eagerly awaiting pirate ship, to the fierce attack on the guard, my disappointment in this novella rests mainly in the lack of action - nookee action. I have no problem suspending reality, and really, sometimes some over-the-top fantasy in a romance makes me very happy to leave my own reality and live in such a completely convenient world. But leaving me with an, “Oh, but...” feeling is not enough of a reality suspension.

However, that all being said, the writing style is snappy - there were parts of description that could have been explicated, but Draven does have an ear for language that depicts an engrossing image, and her dialogue, particularly between Colin and Kate, is snappy enough to keep me reading. Even if the cliches piled too high for my liking, good dialogue will redeem a story with me any time. Arrrrgh.