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

Edit: Assume, for this article, that I’m talking in particular about well-written, entertaining reviews by people with a better-than-tenuous grasp on English and logic, and not poorly-written hack reviews, either positive or negative.

Via Paperback Writer, Cynthia Harrison quotes author and literary critic James Atlas on why we love negative reviews.

“Why is a stern critical denunciation so invigorating? It appeals, I think, to the punitive, grudging, envious impulses we generally suppress in our daily social transactions, gives expression to hostile, aggressive instincts through a sanctioned mode of discourse.”

I think the dude is reading just a bit too much into it. Oh, make no mistake, my sense of schadenfreude is very well-developed, as are my usual stand-bys, Bitchery, Hateration and pure, good-old fashioned Malice. But let’s face it, it’s not as if I suppress my punitive, grudging and otherwise eeeville impulses a whole lot. If I’m pissed at someone or think they’re a raging moron, they generally know, either because I tell them so, or I give them The Look--you know, the one that says “Wow, I didn’t know the extensive excision of so much matter from the prefrontal cortex would allow a person to walk and breathe as efficiently as you seem to.” (I think of The Look as self-defense, because before I developed it, someone would, without fail, come whining to me about the color printer being broken WITHOUT READING THE ERROR MESSAGE THAT’S DISPLAYED ON THE HUGE FUCKING LCD SCREEN. After the development of The Look, people actually come to me only when the printer is about to blow up, and not because friggin’ Tray One is out of paper.)

Ahem, where was I? So, I don’t love reading negative reviews because I can’t vent often enough. I love reading negative reviews because they’re usually funny as hell. There are few who can write a positive review and still keep it hilarious. One of them is Bam--just read her Linda Howard reviews. She almost (almost!) makes me want to pick up a Linda Howard, even the novels I’d read in the past that sent my blood pressure skyrocketing because I wanted to drown the hero and heroine in concentrated hydrochloric acid, but couldn’t, and instead I had to content myself with gnashing my teeth in the knowledge that an HEA awaited the protagonists instead of a slow and painful death. Mrs. Giggles does a pretty creditable job, too--of writing entertaining positive reviews, that is, not gnashing her teeth. I don’t know her well enough to judge her teeth-gnashing abilities.

Why are negative reviews so funny? Because comedy, my friends, is predicated on pain. Watching the crip-fight between Timmy and Jimmy on South Park is hysterically funny, even if it makes you feel dirty and wrong for laughing. Having Timmy and Jimmy set aside their differences and become friends? Not funny, even if it’s uplifting and positive and all that shit.

Think of all the jokes you know and love. The really, really good ones that make you howl with laughter. I guarantee you, almost all of them, from “Dopey fucked a penguin, Dopey fucked a penguin!” to “Did you really think I asked for a twelve-inch pianist?” are based on somebody’s pain, suffering and/or humiliation.

Even the fluffiest, most friendly and toothless Meg Ryan romantic comedies *crosses self for invoking the Name of Evil* base their humor on pain.

So in summary:

Pain = teh funney

Good things and fluffy kittens = adorable, sweet, uplifting, etc. but not really funny

And I have to admit, I like writing negative reviews better than I do positive reviews. The eeeville reviews are cathartic. The book has made me suffer through yea these many hours of horrendous prose. I can only dream of returning the favor. Positive reviews of books I really like are fun to write too; the snark is toned down considerably, but the excitement of “HolyshitthisbookisawesomeIneedtotellotherpeople NOWNOWNOW!” carries me through. The hardest reviews to write are usually the “meh” reviews--the B minuses, the Cs. Lukewarm feelings for lukewarm books tend to make for lukewarm prose.

So let’s hear it: do any of you love reading negative reviews as much as I do, even when it’s savaging a book you actually like? Why do you like it? Do you think my assertion that comedy = pain is full of shit? Have any evil, evil jokes to share? Have at it in the comments.

Edited to Add:

Here’s a perfect demonstration of what makes something funny:

This Craigslist rant? Not funny.

This reply? AWESOMELY FUNNY.

The Very Tall Husband made this banner a while back as a sig file for the Something Awful forums. Since we were talking so much about Thundercats earlier, I thought I’d share the love.

The gay inter-species love.

FEEL IT.

First, check out this fine piece of cover art for Rick Moody’s new book. It’s a popup, but go on, it’s worth it.

Would you look at that cover and think, ‘Oh! Yes! A satire on Hollywood’s independent film industry!”

Of course you would...not!

Noble and clever Ron Hogan forwarded us this article about how the cover is turning women off to the point where the publisher has redesigned it (warning: NY Times requires registration after the dateline of the article) to reflect more of the book’s content.

Oh, if only the same were true for most romance authors. Can you imagine - “No, you will NOT have big man-titty on my book cover!”

Candy asked for dissent and commentary, and one of the requests, made by more than a few people, was for a link to comments that would display the newest comments first, as opposed to having to scrooooooll down to the bottom to see the most recent comments.

So, behold. You see below each entry a “comments” link, which displays oldest to newest as you scroll down, and a “new comments first” link, which displays new comments at the top of each window.

Enjoy! 

From Kate Rothwell’s blog cometh this very interesting tidbit concerning Medallion Press’ status as an RWA-approved publisher:

From Wendy Burbank of Medallion with permission to forward: “Medallion Press has received a letter from the Executive Director of RWA stating that our status as a publisher was revoked in error.”

Man, I’m just sooo freakin’ curious about what went on over here. For a while there it sounded as if Medallion had kinda dropped the ball, but now… Huh.