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

Because her family, it is The Suck. Her elder sister, Justine, is an egomaniac ball buster who was all set to marry the man of her dreams when the youngest sister, Mica, ran off with him the morning of their wedding. Several years later, Justine is an exec in a makeup company who busts balls and is a general beeyotch to everyone who works with her, until one day the disgruntled wife of one of the (many) married men she sleeps with bursts into her staff meeting and threatens to kill off the employees one by one unless Justine proves that she was or wasn’t with the woman’s husband that afternoon. I won’t go into the manner in which Justine has to prove said activity, but it is quite a scene. Justine barely escapes with her life, and after dealing with the immediate repurcussions of her behavior both in and out of the office, decides on the advice of a kind police officer to head home to North Carolina to see her family, hide out from the yet-uncaptured disgruntled wife, and recuperate.

Mica, meanwhile, ran off to LA with the fiance, Dean, and is now a contracted hair model and minor celebrity, living a very wild and exhausting life. She finds herself confronted with the mess her career and health have become due to Dean’s over-involvement, and her agent, a sensitive man named Everett, directs her to leave Dean, go to the doctor, and take better care of herself, as she is in danger of losing her contract with the hair care company. She decides also to head home to hide from Dean and further heal herself.

The family reunion is set against the backdrop of an unsolved murder that the three sisters witnessed when they were much younger, as the accused and convicted murderer manages to secure a hearing to determine if a conspiracy or inept police work caused his conviction. Ultimately, the sisters have to come forward with what they saw, which further implicates them and damages their already fragile relationships with one another.

So, hello, the Malfunction Sisters are converging on Monroeville, North Carolina, and Regina has to referee the ongoing battles between Mica and Justine, mediate the dissolving partnership and business interests of her parents, assist a hunka-hunka-burnin’ love named Mitchell with the itemization and appraisal of the value of her parents’ antiques store for liquidation purposes, figure out who committed the murder she and her sisters witnessed 20 years prior, and manage to find her own way to happiness.

Regina rules. Loved her. Loved how she learned to ignore her sisters when they were being childish brats - which was far too freaking often - and loved how she learned to appreciate herself even though she felt like no one in her family appreciated her. Loved how she began to appreciate her own value, and recognize her own talents. In short, love how she began to love herself.

I loved the romance between Regina and Mitchell, though I wish he were as full fleshed a character as Regina was, but since this book danced the line between women’s fiction, suspense, and romance so many times I began to accept that he was partly a hero and partly a catalyst for her developing character. Mitchell has his own backstory, and since just about every character is a suspect in the suspense plot woven through the book, his history is a slowly revealed puzzle, which allowed him to be slightly suspicious, even though I knew I could count on his innocence since he was the hero to Regina’s heroine.

But more than anything: I loved the dog. Mitchell has a dog, Sam, who is the best part of the book. While he doesn’t have wild antics and a subtle personality like a Crusie or a Donovan animal sidekick, Sam is a constant and adorable character, lending empathy when needed and serving as an emotional barometer to various scenes.

I read this book straight through in about 24 hours, from two bus rides in and out of Manhattan and an evening on the sofa, and I have to say what hooked me most was Bond’s skill with dialogue. Much of the book is dialogue, and very little description outside of setting the mood of the scene by decribing the environment the characters were in - and more often than not one of the characters did the describing. Bond is skilled with the clever conversation and since I tend to skim paragraphs of exposition in favor of the dialogue when I read, I ended up reading just about every word on the page. 

My problems with this book rest mostly on the development of Justine and Mica. Mica, the youngest, ran off with her sister’s fiance and ended up in a horrible, addictive and abusive relationship with him. Her decision ultimately became her own punishment, so in my eyes she started off even - she’s living the atonement for her major infraction.

But Justine is just horrid. She’s a downright nasty person and has a long, long way to go back to redemption in my eyes, and even as she dances around changing the parts of herself that were so inherently unlikeable, she would still backslide into further sticky territory as a character, forcing me to wonder if she would ever truly be redeemed in my eyes. In the end, I’d have to say she wasn’t, because she managed to make every situation about her, and in the end committed a horrible assault on Mica that seemed, to me, to be far too easily forgiven. Her realization of how shitty her behavior had been throughout the story was not nearly as wrenching as I thought she deserved. She was a witch and I wanted her to pay.

Lastly, still on the “just desserts” topic, while she is a fascinating character and well worth reading about as the middle sister who realizes her own worth is something that she herself has to define, Regina never fully received any real acknowledgement or apology from anyone in her family, from the parents who take her for granted to the sisters who band together despite their own issues to heap abuse on her as if she weren’t really a person worth their consideration. However, Regina’s increased strength and resolve to take care of herself and to not allow her family to hurt her anymore is a much more realistic resolution than to have her family come on bended knee pleading for forgiveness. Family doesn’t change easily, and you can’t really expect a family member to wake up one Afterschool-Special later and realize, “Oh, I’ve been horrible! I must change my wicked ways!” While the part of me that empathized with and rooted for Regina wanted some serious groveling, I have to admit that the novel’s ending did ring true to how real families move past their discord.

This is the first Stephanie Bond book I’ve read, and if they are all like this I’ve got me some glomming to do. I don’t often encounter authors who can effortlessly blend suspense, mystery, romance, women’s fiction, and family drama in a novel that still manages to be somewhat light and certainly funny. I Think I Love You deals with some real issues, and while the romance sometimes takes a backseat to the murder and the family mishegas, the happily ever after is more than satisfying.

Focused on straight romance? Conservative? Where did you get that idea, the video presentation at the RITA/Golden Heart Award ceremony?

I think it’s damn awesome that RWA accepts a gay romance author whose books are attracting a great deal of attention even as their board tries to limit the definition of romance and what constitues an appropriate cover. However, the membership guidelines that RWA itself requires allow plenty of room for romance writers of any genre: “General membership shall be open to all persons seriously pursuing a romance fiction writing career.”

Well, now, that leaves plenty of room for gays, lesbians, transsexuals, bisexuals, transgendered individuals, sheepherders, chupacabras, centaurs, aliens, shape shifters… pretty much anyone. So on one hand you have a board ostensibly trying to restrict the graphic design, content, and definition of romance; on the other hand, you have an admissions requirement that broadly invites anyone who writes romantic fiction to join an organization that was created to compensate for romance writers’ frustration “with writing conferences that seemed to ignore romance writers, and [remaining] individually voiceless against daunting New York publishers.”

However, I do take one exception to Scott’s press release: not all romances are of the Harlequin variety, and to describe heroines in those terms limits the range of heroines that exist in other romantic genres, from erotica to historical to futuristic.  RWA members don’t write only “Harlequin-style” romances, though that is often the response when non-romance readers are asked what a romance novel is.

But as a member of that wild wooly organization, I do have to say, “Welcome Scott!” and I SO hope I see you and other gay romance authors in Atlanta in 2006. 

Sarah says:

The weekend I moved, you could have visibly seen the yanking grin on one side of my face from where the plot and the character of this book hooked me. This book arrived the day I moved, and I had it sitting in the window seat of my house, literally the only thing unpacked in a house full of boxes. I kept hiding behind the boxes to keep reading it - this book seriously hooks you so bad you’ll have a rictus curl in the side of your face.

Tara is spunky, snarly, sexy and fabulous, and since the book is written in the first-person, you spend a lot of time in her head. I didn’t mind in the slightest being there, as Tara has both a fascinating way of looking at the wack-ass events in her life, and at people’s behavior in general. She’s judgmental and doesn’t pull any punches, and just wants to be left alone. However, the prose, as it is first person, jumps from subject to subject rapidly, much like your brain does when it’s sparking, and sometimes it’s hard to tell ruminations from plot developments. I suppose this is one of the perils of writing in the 1st person.

As for Howard, the reader has to rely on Tara’s impressions of him to get a sense of his character, and this is difficult, since the reader has a much better sense of her friends since she’s known them longer. You know she thinks he’s hot, and you know that he’s persistent, almost to the point of creepyness. But because all the development takes place from her perspective, you aren’t really sure if he’s a character worth trusting or if you can blithely rely on him as the “hero” of the novel.

His character, particularly in the beginning, comes across as a rather weird dude, and my understanding of his personality isn’t quite as developed as I’d like when he starts spilling his guts about his emotional past. What’s supposed to be an personal moment early on between Tara and Howard leaves me feeling like I do when I encounter people who engage too quickly emotionally and tell me things I feel are none of my business. If I had a better idea of him, a more-developed sense of his character and who he is or at least what he looked like, other than that he was hotty mcmuffinstud, the true-confessions moment would have inspired a lot more pity. As it was, he had to fight his way back, in my estimation, from creepy over-divulging guy, to adorably hot man who wants to take care of prickly Tara and her crazy ass universe.

I am, however, glad this is a series because I wasn’t tired of Tara, Howard, or any of the auxilliary characters by the time the book ended. I wanted to know more about them, and about Tara. But more importantly, I wanted to know more about the day to day life Tara leads, especially when someone isn’t trying to throw a curse on her. She runs a revenge website, and sells fascinating products. The reader learns the history of one or two, but not all, or how she came up with the idea in the first place.

The thing about the Keys that makes the story both believable and a total escape is the residents’ acceptance of events, people, and attitudes that are really fucking bizarre. From Miss Good Voodoo to this dark silhouette that watches Tara’s window at night, to the cook at Crusty’s who hates her for reasons relating to ceviche, there are some funky ass people in this story, but Tara isn’t fazed by them at all, or, if she is, she gets over it fast.

To evaluate this book, I have to ask myself, did I like it? I sure did. But is this a romance? Or a ghost story? Or a paranormal mystery series? I don’t honestly know. There’s definitely a breaking-through-the-armor moment with Tara, and there’s definitely some romance going on, but unlike many a romance I’ve read, aside from admitting that she checks out his buns, there’s no internal ruminations as to how Tara feels about Howard. I don’t honestly know that it is part of her character - she’s more of a “he’s got to prove he’s worth my time before I go pondering the fineness of his eyebrows” kinda gal - or if romance is meant to be the main element of the story.

I look at this novel as the pilot episode of a really fucking awesome tv series, where there’s a lot of initial construction to do, and after you’ve watched awhile, you realize the pilot doesn’t necessarily reflect the entirety of the series’ tone and style. However, if the series goes where I hope it will, the pilot will have launched something very interesting.

Sarah’s Grade: B-

Candy Says:

Hey, if Chuck Palahniuk can do it in Haunted, then Cindy Cruciger can do it in Revenge Gifts, too.

What am I talking about?

Tense changes, people.

The books switches dizzyingly from past to present and back to past again. The tense changes oftentimes happen within the same paragraph, and in at least one spectacular instance, within the same sentence. And there’s no discernible reason nor pattern to these tense changes. Tara walks into the sushi restaurant in present tense, sees Howard in the past tense, eats lunch with him in the past, then leaves the restaurant in the present.

I know. I have the same problem too. Takes one to know one, right? But oh my, reading it was exhausting because every time the tense changed, I mentally switched gears. By the end of the book, I felt kind of numb.

Distracting tense changes aside, however, I agree with a lot of what Sarah says: this book is pretty entertaining, and the narrator, Tara, is truly refreshing, especially for a romance heroine. She’s no shrinking violet, that’s fer damn sure, and lord knows I’m tired of shrinking violets in romance novels.

But. Butbutbut. She hasn’t had an orgasm before.

No, she’s no virgin, but apparently she’s had nothing but lousy lovers all her her life.

With Howard, though? Screaming bliss within minutes. I shit you not. Sigh. This romance stereotype seriously needs to die, die, die.

But here’s a puzzling thing: Tara, while basking in the afterglow, muses on how much she misses ruthlessly using a man’s body for her selfish pleasure, which leads one to the bizarre conclusion that orgasmless, unfulfilling sex with clueless lovers is selfishly pleasurable for Tara Cole.

---Please note, there’s been a bit of debate about how accurate the paragraph below is. Check the comments for more details---
That’s not the only inconsistency, either. One of her friends, Sam, is gay (or at least presented as such) in the beginning of the book. Some time later, and without any explanation or signs of bewilderment on the part of the narrator, Sam is straight and seriously hitting on Tara. Perhaps this can be attributed to an unreliable narrator, but even unreliable narrators are surprised, and Sam’s sudden orientation switch doesn’t give Tara pause. Me? I paused, actually said out loud “Hang on minute, I thought the dude was gay!” and spent five minutes riffling through the first 100 pages of the book looking for references to Sam’s homogaiety.

And while the narrative voice is fresh, different, quirky and very, very entertaining, the non-stop vignettes and snarky remarks eventually wear thin. Yes, I get that Tara is cynical. Yes, I get that she has an evil sense of humor. I like her for that. WHY is she constantly pointing this out to me, though? The story and her actions already show this to me in ample detail, and the endless internal quipping slows the pace of the story quite significantly in some spots.

I’m also not sure I buy into the love story. I’m with Sarah on that, too: Howard is very attractive, but other than that, he’s a cipher, and the speed with which the romance happens can give you whiplash if you’re not careful. Part of this is because of the amount of space taken up by the snarking; instead of viewing the relationship develop in more detail, you’re treated to yet another off-center observation from Tara, which, by the end of the book, tends to be a variant on previous observations she’s made earlier in the story.

The pacing overall is uneven. The book starts out at a fairly leisurely pace, with weirdness building on weirdness. The last 70-80 pages of the book, though… Woo damn. The book isn’t so much kicked into high gear as launched into Mach 3 with no warning. Characters who were peripheral to the story are all of a sudden introduced willy-nilly, mayhem and magic galore happen, and the resolution of the story? Fun, but a bit too pat and convenient for my tastes, especially after all the build-up in the first parts of the book.

One last nitpick: There are snippets of Javascript code in the book, all part of the script that generates a quote of the day for revengegifts.com.  That’s all well and good, since Tara’s a computer geek, which is something else I like about her--convincing computer geeks in general are in short supply in Romancelandia, and female computer geeks? Shit, I think Tara’s the first I’ve encountered. The big problem though? The script cannot work as written. (Feel free to skip this whole paragraph if you’re not interested in reading me blather on about Javascript, by the way.) So for one thing, the one curly bracket in the script is left open, which, in my experience, does not make for Happy Code. For another, if Monday == 1, then it follows that Sunday can’t also == 1. Not to mention the wrong comment tags are used in the wrong spots; Javascript comment tags are two slashes (//) and they should be used within the <script> tag, whereas HTML comment tags look like this: <!-- --> and should appear outside of the <script> tag. The exact reverse happens in Tara’s Javascript. The lack of formatting tags in the Javascript are also puzzling; as with HTML, carriage returns do jack shit in the script--you need to code in the paragraph and line breaks. I know, petty nitpicking, but hey, if you want to include computer code in a book to show what a 1337 haxx0r the heroine is, then by crackey do it RIGHT, or at least fake it convincingly enough so that a ‘tard like me (trust me, I ain’t no great shakes with Javascript) can’t look at the script and go “Huh. Wait a minute, there’s a buncha weird things going on here....”

Despite all these issues, though, Revenge Gifts is still worth checking out. Tara is a fun alternative to the usual romance heroine (orgasmless state notwithstanding), and I’d wager I’m one of the few people here who’s really, really bothered by constant tense changes and broken Javascript. The story is definitely not run-of-the-mill, and the humor is pretty damn black in spots--something sorely lacking in most romance novels.

Candy’s Grade: C