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WHERE'D YOU GO DAMMIT. YOU'RE SO FRICKIN' FUNNY - WTH. YOU CAN'T JUST ABANDON YOUR TUMBLR LIKE THAT.

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 20:23:51 -0600

I’m flattered! Thank you! Unfortunately there are two things competing for real estate in my brain right now:

-work (I got a new job last year and it’s way harder, but in a good way. I might even get a sweet promotion!)

-I’m seriously pregnant and while obviously that has not taken over my whole life I still have to do SOMETHING to get ready for a tiny needy human and while I am definitely still reading (rn it’s Thea Harrison’s Elder Races series), I am zooooonked and reading at like 1/10 of my regular speed. Someday I will return, but I can make no promises at the moment.

Meanwhile, feel free to peruse the archives, submit your own reviews, or … I don’t know, do something else. I’m not your mom.

Thanks for reading!

Once Burned: a Night Prince Novel, by Jeaniene Frost I will...

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 08:29:56 -0500

Once Burned: a Night Prince Novel, by Jeaniene Frost

I will forgive the wonky Photoshop on that cover because guess what! That guy actually looks like the main character is described! Awesome, right?

Also awesome: that guy that you’re looking at up there? He’s Vlad Tepesh. Aka Vlad the Impaler. AKA DRACULA. THAT GUY IS DRACULA!!!!! Depending on how much you like Dracula stories or how many times you’ve read The Historian even though it’s not that great or how much you dig Gary Oldman swanning around as the Foxy Prince Vlad with the Blue Glasses (among other Draculas) in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you will be either fucking psyched about this book or you will immediately know that this is not the book for you.

Targeted advertising works, because as soon as this book was released I saw ads for it on just about every website I visited, and it only took three or four views before I caved and bought this book. I was fucking psyched.

Jeaniene Frost is a great paranormal romance writer, and I was delighted to see that this new series will also be a part of her Night Huntress universe. I was also pleased that the heroine, Leila, was an ass-kicking take-no-shit supergirl, in the same vein as our beloved Cat. The hero, Vlad, has shown up a few times in the Night Huntress series, and has always been a delightful side character and he is an EXCELLENT romantic lead. But like I said, either the Dracula bit works for you or it doesn’t.

Leila has a spooky power over electricity and also some psychic abilities, which brings her to Vlad, and together they have to solve a mystery and find a guy who wants to kill Vlad, which doesn’t really narrow it down too much when about 50% of the vampire world wants to off him for one reason or another. Most of the book takes place in VLAD’S CASTLE, and if you’re like me, you’re freaking out a bit because OHMYGOD CASTLES, HOW COOL. The romance is fierce and exciting from the minute Vlad and Leila meet, and even though it shares some of the imbalances that the Cat/Bones relationship did, it works decently well. Most of the time. At least 60% of the time.

One complaint: this is obviously the first book in the series, and it feels like Frost cut it off in the middle of the story. I KNOOWWWWW that that’s the point of a series, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Like many of the Night Huntress books, this does not feel like a complete story. The ending felt very, very rushed to me, and while I’ll pick up the next book in the series, this one went out with a fizzle rather than a Dracula-sized clap of thunder or rushing mist or chase to beat the sunrise.

Recommended for: come on. For Dracula fans. For Jeaniene Frost fans. For people who don’t like their vampires to sparkle.

Scandal Wears Satin, by Loretta Chase A NEW CHASE! A NEW CHASE!...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 08:25:01 -0500

Scandal Wears Satin, by Loretta Chase

A NEW CHASE! A NEW CHASE! SING PRAISE TO THE HEAVENS, THERE IS A NEW CHASE!

Not only that, it is a continuation of her fabulously fabulous dressmaker series, which began last year with Silk is for Seduction. Are you ready for dress porn? Are you ready to read about sleeve puffs and chemises and luxurious materials and colors and the mechanics of dressmaking? ME TOO.

Well, okay, one thing I should tell you is that since this book doesn’t star Marcelline, the design queen of London’s most faaaabulous dress shop, Maison Noirot, we’re not going to get as much dress porn. Yeah, I’m sad too. And there’s a cute kid, but he’s not as great as Marcelline’s daughter, and not as prominently featured. So there’s all of that!

But, if we’re going to talk about old Chases, it must be said that Harry, the Earl of Longmore, definitely resembles everybody’s all-time favorite brawler, RUPERT CARSINGTON. I know, I was delighted.

However, in the midst of being delighted, I was a bit less-than-delighted to realize that much of the plot and many of the characters seemed a bit - and it pains me to say this about La Chase - recycled. I’m sorry. I have to be honest.

Sophy Noirot is the scheming sister of the Noirot trio, and if you read and enjoyed Last Night’s Scandal, you might find echoes of Olivia Wingate-Carsington. Sophy and Olivia are distantly related, as a matter of fact, but that’s not quite a great reason to have so many similarities between the two. Like Olivia, Sophy is a skilled deceiver and an unparalleled trickster, and she’s always Up to No Good.

So of course Sophy Noirot and the rakish Earl of Longmore (I have to admit the schemer-brawler pairing was a new one for me) have to get together to save one thing or another and help the Earl’s sister, the recently-spurned Clara, ditch her grody fiancee and save the shop and whatever else needs saving in this particular novel.

To repeat a tired simile (and repetition seems to be the theme of this review), Loretta Chase is a lot like pizza - even when she’s not great, she’s still pretty damn good. This is not her best work. It’s not as good as Silk is for Seduction. But it’s fun! There’s enough wonderful dress descriptions to keep you from side-eyeing too hard. It’s not exactly a sturdy, filling romance, but it’s a perfect beach read (or at least it’s what a hastily-researched magazine blurb would call “a perfect beach read”). Worth it, but it’s because Loretta Chase always is.

A Week to be Wicked, by Tessa Dare YOU WERE RIGHT, I WAS WRONG....

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:23:00 -0500

A Week to be Wicked, by Tessa Dare

YOU WERE RIGHT, I WAS WRONG. This was a lovely book A wonderful book. Funny and charming and a total blast to read. All I had to do was get past the first quarter of the book.

You see, it starts off being like EVERY OTHER ROMANCE NOVEL EVER, in which Minerva (Greek name, take a drink!), the bookish bespectacled spinster (another drink!) comes up with a preposterous plan to pretend to elope with the rakish and womanizing (take a sip) Lord Payne (PAYNE? finish your drink) so that her sister won’t be ruined and also so she can attend a … geology conference.

Yeah, I know. Like I said, I really had a hard time getting through the first quarter of the book, where Minerva was all bookish and practical and having convenient little asides with Lord Payne (UGH THE NAME), but once they hit the road it became an excellent romance novel buddy comedy adventure story.

The thing that made this book special is, to me, the very natural and sly humor in the interchanges between Min and Lord Pay—let’s just call him Colin. Minerva is an academic spinster, but she manages to loosen up enough to trade barbs with Colin, and it’s never in a “oh look how clever I am” kind of way. The dialogue between them is organically funny and sweet.

Long journeys up to Scotland are pretty common in romance novels - you have to get the hero and heroine together in a confined room SOMEHOW, and it’s easier to be bad in the midst of strangers - and I personally think it’s difficult to pull off this plot device without the story becoming overly episodic or repetitive. To be fair, it is true that Minerva and Colin find themselves running in and out of various wild scenarios, characters we meet on one leg of the journey show up later to be a punchline, etc. With a weaker writer, it wouldn’t work, but it was seamlessly comedic and entertaining to me. Min and Colin’s relationship develops naturally (I keep going back to planty adjectives, sorry) and believably.

A Week to Be Wicked was an unexpected treat for me, and totally deserving of the lavish praise that has been heaped upon it. Strongly recommended!

Note: it’s been hard for me to consistently review the books I’ve been reading lately, but I have finally caught up with every other book enthusiast in the world and joined Goodreads. I’ll keep it updated with everything I’m reading currently. I’ll keep reviewing books here, of course, but reviews might be a little slower.

Dark Prince by Christine Feehan (audio version) WHAT THE FUCK IS...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:03:00 -0500

Dark Prince by Christine Feehan (audio version)

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BOOK AND WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE IT?

I mean, hello. It’s been a while. In the time since I last posted, I’ve been busy, but still reading. Middlesex was fantastic, as you could have predicted. I finally got into A Week to be Wicked, and I’m sorry about those mean things I said before - it is turning out to be a completely wonderful book and I adore it.

I also started a new job with an hour-each-way driving commute. So. I strolled down to my local library (I literally live close enough to stroll down there, isn’t that great) and demanded the longest, trashiest-looking audiobook they had. Behold, DARK PRINCE, the author’s cut, in 16 (!!!) CD’s.

On the way home today, I was listening to CD 11. And girl, I am fucking DONE. Done done done done done with this whole ridiculous book and this series and this author and I am just going to up and quit. SBTB has a pretty good takedown of why these books can get repetitive and annoying, but I have one question: WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP CALLING THEM ADDICTIVE AND READ 18954879 BOOKS BEFORE QUITTING? You don’t have to do this to yourselves! There’s good paranormal romance series out there! Read those instead!

Here’s the plot. I will describe it briefly, you can just pretend I spent 1200 pages telling you about it because this shit is LONG:

Raven Whitney is a psychic girl who helps detectives find serial killers (in an unofficial capacity - this part is not really explained well. Do they know she’s psychic? Why do they know to come to her in the first place? It’s just as well this plot device is abandoned halfway through, because you never get any juicy procedural information). She just finished tracking a particularly nasty killer and is in the Carpathian mountains to recuperate.

…

Yes, her relaxing dream vacation is apparently in the Carpathian mountains. Forget Bali or Tahiti or St. Lucia, Raven Whitney wants complete and total isolation, which means that she’ll fork over her hard-earned money (Do they even pay her to catch serial killers? This is of course never mentioned.) and head straight into the middle of vampire country. Except she has no interest in vampire myths. I really can’t commend her enough on her vacation choice here.

Anyways, she meets Mikhail, who is a big sexy Dark Prince and he sees her and knows she is his “lifemate” and he begins to feel emotions and see in color again. I’m not kidding, that actually happens.

Mikhail and Raven hook it up, despite Raven having 100 existential crises, Mikhail using his magical vampire* juju to send her to sleep 100 times, and Mikhail using his magical vampire dick to sex her up a lot more times. You guys, I actually got BORED with the constant sex. I don’t even know myself anymore.

*technically, Mikhail is not actually a vampire, but if it looks like a vampire and drinks blood like a vampire and is overprotective and broody and exchanges blood during sex like a vampire in a paranormal romance novel, it’s a vampire.

Raven is a total Bellaand even though she nominally opposes Mikhail and stands up for herself, she is weak and boring. She also has long legs despite being impossible small, and of course she has “full breasts” and a tiny waist. Those things are described a lot. Her family, her interests besides vacationing in the Carpathians and sexing vampires, her preferences, and her history are not described at all. At all. Her past is dismissed with “She had no real family back in the States” so … she might as well just hang out with a vampire prince?

It could just be that the audiobook made the repetitiveness of the book more evident, or perhaps I didn’t really like the reader (I didn’t), but today something in me snapped and I decided that if I heard “But Raven … you are my lifemate” one more time I was going to run my car off the road.

Read it if Twilight wasn’t sexy enough, or if Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress series wasn’t boring enough.

The Demon’s Librarian by Lilith Saintcrow GOOD LORD is...

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:41:43 -0500

The Demon’s Librarian by Lilith Saintcrow

GOOD LORD is that an awful cover.

I got this book because I still don’t want to read A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare. Sorry.

Most of you will only have to take a look at the title to see why this book instantly appealed to me. And many of you will be delighted to hear that the main character, Chess, is really a librarian. She has an advanced degree and everything! Whether or not the lead guy, Ryan (or Orion, in case you thought you’d escaped from Paranormal Nameville) is ACTUALLY a demon is up for debate. He is half demon, or DRAKUL. If you’ve seen Bram Stoker’s Dracula 187 times like I have, this name will be familiar. If not, don’t worry. Lilith Saintcrow (don’t you LOVE that name?) packs a lot of exposition into this book.

Unfortunately, said exposition is not exactly seamless. This is one of the few (only?) paranormal romances I’ve read recently that’s not part of a series, and Lilith Saintcrow (I’m just going to type that as many times as possible) has pretty lofty ambitions for a standalone book. There is an Order (there’s always an Order), and different kinds and classes of demons, and people called Maliks who are humans, and Maliks are protected by Drakul. Chess does not QUITE fit into the scheme of things. She discovered a ~*~SECRET LABORATORY~*~ in her library and is doing her best as an amateur demon hunter on her own.

Can you believe how many parenthesis are in this review? I predict more.

I don’t have all that much to say about this book. My two main complaints are that the exposition is a bit clunky, and also this is a romance that’s pretty lacking on the romance. They kiss. That’s it. You will probably find yourself saying “That’s IT?” I’ve read YA books that are more explicit.

All in all, this was not a bad use of my epic train commute, and it’s pretty good if you like books and wish Buffy had read more. I’d be willing to check out more Lilith Saintcrow on the basis of her name alone, but she seems like a decent writer and I’ll keep an eye out for more.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore Oh this is such a lovely book in...

Sun, 13 May 2012 14:03:00 -0500

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Oh this is such a lovely book in so many ways. To start, there’s this cover with the attractive keys on it. There’s also an appendix filled with wonderful illustrations and a list of characters by the castle librarian, who basically the best character ever. There’s love, there’s mystery, there’s intrigue, and there’s a big fucking castle where it all takes place.

Kristin Cashore’s first book, Graceling, is one of my favorite YA novels EVER, and it introduced the character of Bitterblue, who at nine years old becomes the queen of her country (Monsea) when SPOILER ALERT: her insane sadistic father is killed.

Bitterblue follows the now-18-year-old queen through the challenges of trying to be a good monarch to a broken (and barely healing) country, in the midst of lies and deception and mysteries and a past that never really goes away. At night, Bitterblue escapes the drudgery of day-to-day queening (and really, there is a LOT of paperwork involved) by sneaking out and seeing the streets of her city. She meets a boy with purple eyes. He’s pretty awesome.

This is a stand-alone novel, but I think it is best enjoyed if you read Graceling first, because Po and Katsa are back in a MAJOR way, and you won’t feel the ~*~*~ if you don’t already know them. That said, as much as I loved Graceling, I think Bitterblue is a better book. Bitterblue is far more complex, the writing is stronger (in my opinion - I prefer the florid descriptions of castle life and art to the very sparse and simple style of Graceling, but your mileage may vary). It’s also a pretty long book, which I really appreciated - I waited for over a year to read this book, and I was glad to be able to spend a long time in Bitterblue’s castle, and to visit a lot of new and old characters.

This book deals a lot with truths and secrets. Cyphers, codes, and keys are all integral to the story. These are all plusses for me, since there’s nothing I love more than a good mystery, particularly if I get to hear the full story in the end. I would be the tuning in every Friday night to watch a Robert Stack in a show called Solved Mysteries. Don’t get me wrong - not everything in this book wraps up neatly or is perfectly resolved, but the big questions are answered.

Recommended for any and all fans of YA, fantasy, strong female characters, good books.

The Pleasures Trilogy is not Eloisa James at her best. While...

Thu, 03 May 2012 11:07:05 -0500

The Pleasures Trilogy is not Eloisa James at her best. While they have a certain amount of charm, all three books suffer from that most dreaded of romance tropes: a misunderstanding between the couple that comes about because they are too dumb to talk to each other.

Also, these covers. Good Lord.

So, Potent Pleasures features Charlotte Daicheston. A friend convinces her to sneak out and go to a reputation ruining lower class dance, in disguise of course. Charlotte meets a masked stranger and proceeds to be so overcome by pleasure that she has sex with him. It ends abruptly when he realizes she’s a virgin. Her debaucher is Alex Foakes, the oldest of twins and an earl of some such. He and his brother, Patrick, are a bit wild, so they are sent abroad. Alex to the Continent; Patrick to India. Of course, Alex and Charlotte come thisclose to meeting in society before he leaves.

Years pass, Charlotte is now friends with Sophie York. She spends her days painting and her nights reluctantly attending balls. Then she gets Eloisa’s favorite Regency make over: empire waist dresses and short hair. And wouldn’t you know, Alex is back from his travels. Needless to say, Charlotte and Alex reconnect, sparks fly, and there is pleasure aplenty. Charlotte realizes Alex was the masked stranger, but he assumes that she has gotten him mixed up with Patrick. Charlotte does not do much to contradict his belief. Alex behaves like a complete ass, which does not stop him from sexing up Charlotte six ways from Sunday. They have a couple rough patches that could easily be resolved if they would just fracking communicate! Ultimately, it takes Patrick smacking Alex upside the head and Charlotte’s near death to right things.

Patrick and Sophie take center stage in Midnight Pleasures. Sophie makes the most of being single, collecting a slew of admirers. Thanks to her parents’ disastrous marriage, she determines to marry the dullest peer available. She is smart as a whip and has a knack for languages, which her awful mother tells her to conceal from the world. For his part, Patrick kissed her once and hasn’t stopped thinking of her since. He spent his time abroad working for the foreign office and is roped into a sensitive mission back at home.

Eloisa teases us and makes it seem like they are going to have a grand adventure in Turkey. Sadly, that is not to be. Patrick steals Sophie from her dull fiance and thanks to her mother’s bad advice they have nothing but misunderstanding after misunderstanding. Which of course means minimal sexy times. Boo. Again, open communication would have helped.

I couldn’t really get into this one, but even so, I found myself genuinely moved and teary eyed when tragedy befalls Patrick and Sophie. They work things out and are closer for it. There is also a sweet B plot with Sophie’s jilted fiance.

Book three brings a secondary character to the fore. Quill Dewland was injured in a riding accident. Although recovered, he is unable to ride horses or ladies without getting the worst migraine ever. So, his father arranges for his younger brother, Peter, to marry the daughter of a man that has leant him money over the years. Quill is immediately taken with clumsy plumb Gabby. Peter not so much. Gabby grew up in India with her eccentric father and is lacking in many of the refinements expected of English ladies.

Obviously, Quill swoops in and marries Gabby with the expected result: one awesome night followed by three days of hell. Quill refuses to talk about the issue resulting in a ~misunderstanding~ a-freaking-gain. Somehow, Gabby and Quill get roped into some foreign office affair having to do with a missing Indian prince to pass the time since they aren’t constantly pleasuring each other. Gabby finds the time to summon a doctor she knew in India to help her with Quill’s issue. She must resort to subterfuge to help him and nearly ends up dead for her trouble. Quill finally learns to communicate and all is well.

I like Eloisa James enough to give these books a 3 out of 5. They are fun and light for the most part with a few touching moments. They also drive home how important it is to talk to your partner. Plus, the pleasure parts are quite…hot.

Thank you, lobstie!

That, dear friends, is the steampunk vampire hero who manages a...

Wed, 02 May 2012 20:05:17 -0500

That, dear friends, is the steampunk vampire hero who manages a traveling circus in a fantasy world.

He is the hero of this paranormal romance novel.

His name is Criminy Stain.

Criminy Stain.

CRIMINY STAIN.

On the Way to the Wedding by Julia Quinn You guys probably know...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:53:00 -0500

On the Way to the Wedding by Julia Quinn

You guys probably know that I think Julia Quinn is totally overrated. If you didn’t know that, then I have a newsflash: I think that Julia Quinn is totally overrated. Or at least I DID. My change of heart came about after my friend Ali badgered me to read this book, which I did. Then I had several glasses of wine to drown out the horrid baby epilogue. Then I came here. You see, I reserve my best self for you guys.

Hold on, I’m going to get some ice cream.

I got some.

Okay, so the guy in this picture is Gregory Bridgerton. There are a whole lot of Bridgertons, and they go in alphabetical order from Anthony, the oldest, down to Hyacinth, the youngest, and this is the very last book. Since it is the last book, there are a lot of appearances from all the other siblings (although I can’t remember anything about Eustace or Freud or whoever E and F are). But the one we care about is Gregory. Got it?

The lady is Lady Lucinda Abernathy, and her best friend is the epically hot Hermione ~~Granger~~ Watson. Hermione gets all the dudes. INCLUDING our own Mr. Bridgerton. What a twist, right?

Lucy decides to help Gregory flirt, since she is already “practically engaged” and you know what I am totally bored with plot summary, let’s move on.

So my problem with Julia Quinn before was that her romances (okay, let’s be real, I only read one) were totally standard, you know? They (it) weren’t really that funny. I was not impressed. HOWEVER: this book had all the wit and charm I had been expecting. I quite enjoyed it! And, at the end (and this is totally rare): I DID NOT KNOW HOW IT WAS GOING TO RESOLVE ITSELF. It was not immediately obvious! So I quite enjoyed that.

WARNING: This a book that is more sweet than sexy. There’s totally sex, but not a lot of it.

Side Note: DO ANY OF YOU READ TESSA DARE? I tried to read A Week to be Wicked but I got through literally three pages before I put the book down in disgust. I will try again but I promise nothing.

I also reread this but have not reviewed it, yet: Sloppy Firsts

Next up: MOTHERFUCKING BITTERBLUE IS OUT TOMORROW, Y’ALL!!!!

Apology: sorry, I wrote this under the influence and it’s totally half-assed.

White Oleander, by Janet Fitch I picked up White Oleander during...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:23:59 -0500

White Oleander, by Janet Fitch

I picked up White Oleander during my first trip to LA last month. One of the friends I was visiting was reading it at the time, and she said “Yeah it’s kind of a bummer but I really enjoy reading it.” And if I had to sum up my whole experience of reading White Oleander, I would probably say that exact thing. Janet Fitch writes beautiful, lyrical prose, but jeeeeeeeeeeesus chips was this a depressing book. Not quite in a “I am going to spend the next three days sobbing” kind of way like Where the Red Fern Grows, or in a “Mankind is utterly doomed” kind of way like 1984, or even a “What the fuck is wrong with this author and why does everybody LIKE this” kind of way like The Velveteen Rabbit. White Oleander is pervasively sad, and there are many times when we are given hope that we know is going to be miserably crushed in the next chapter. However, it ends on a neutral (if not slightly positive) note.

So, now that you know very specifically how depressing this book is or is not, we can get to a bit of plot summary: Astrid’s mother, Ingrid, is a frighteningly intense poet who goes to prison after murdering her former lover with the poison of the white oleander flower. Like I said, INTENSE. Astrid is bounced through a series of foster homes (all varying levels of depressing) from the time she is 12 until she turns 18.

This is a coming-of-age novel, and one that focuses on the relationships between mothers and daughters, and more specifically on how men ruin the mother-daughter relationship. I think Janet Fitch must have had serious issues with her own father, because male characters with any redeeming qualities are few and far between. In White Oleander, men are cause for obsession, irredeemable selfishness, and almost always betrayal. At one point, Ingrid calls fatherhood a “social construct,” which is a really interesting (but, you know, hideously depressing idea) and there are not many examples in the book that prove her wrong.

That said, the real villain in the story here is Ingrid, and one of my favorite things about the novel is how Fitch just lets Ingrid be terrifying and evil. She’s brilliant, sure, but you also get the impression that if this were a different kind of book she’d fly around on a broomstick and turn young princes into beasts and throw people off bridges if they didn’t answer her riddle correctly. She’s Medusa and Medea, the best and the worst example of a woman. She’s brilliant, she’s hilarious, and she’s eerily charming and you might want to watch out because she might kill you just because she’s bored and she thinks it might make great material for a poem later.

Her daughter has a bit of a Bella Swann complex, in that she’s a blank slate and generally mirrors whichever woman happens to be passing through her life at the moment, but it is so, so, sosososososo great to watch her go from being a terrified pre-teen to naive teenager to hardened street rat to survivor to artist. Astrid makes a lot of terrible decisions in the book because of her need for love and acceptance, and each mistake leaves it share of mental (and physical) scars, but she grows. She also doesn’t spend a lot of time beating herself up with regret, which I appreciate.

This is definitely a book-club type book, in that there’s a lot of heavy ~*~symbolism~*~ and there’s a lot you can talk about in a way that will make you feel very literary and smart. It does indeed have very lush and descriptive writing (think Francesca Lia Block for adults), and some pretty raw emotional depths. Thankfully, it never gets overly sentimental, and those looking for a Big Redemption or a Grand Emotional Speech will be disappointed. It is an excellent read, and I would highly recommend it to any other woman. Even the sad parts are good, I promise.

The Bride, by Julie Garwood Some of you may remember that I had...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:15:00 -0500

The Bride, by Julie Garwood

Some of you may remember that I had an ambitious (for me) TBR list that included two SRS books, and The Hunger Games. It will surprise none of you that I made it through The Hunger Games before I decided that was enough heavy shit and people dying. I decided it was time for some lighter fare, or at least a book that didn’t prominently involve death. Enter The Bride by Julie Garwood and its 172 5-star reviews on Amazon. Because apparently the fanatically positive reviews for Sherrilyn Kenyon have taught me nothing.

The Bride is a Highlander romance, in which a bonny and spirited English lass is wed to a menacing Highland laird and they learn to love each other in spite of their cultural differences, usually through nonstop newlywed fucking. Handy that kilts provide such easy access! That reminds me - there will be at least one joke about Scottish lairds being naked under their kilts.

So anyways, the Bonny and Spirited English Lass (TM) in this situation is Jamie. Oh, we’re going to have a little chat about Jamie. Garwood apparently couldn’t settle for just one Spirited English Lass (TM) cliche, so she went for them all. Here’s a list of facts about Jamie:

She can read and write
She speaks perfect Gaelic
She is an expert physician (the kind who can heal otherwise-fatal wounds with a few crushed leaves and a tincture)
She can shoot a bow and arrow with incredible accuracy
She can throw a knife with incredible accuracy
She rides her spirited horse bareback, with incredible skill
Her riding skills are so incredible that she frequently stands up while riding her spirited horse bareback
She can instantly charm even the most stubborn Scottish soldier
She is constantly saving small children
She is constantly being saved by her laird husband
She is flawlessly beautiful (violet eyes, streaming raven hair, etc)
She single-handedly unites the Highland clans
I kind of want to punch Jamie by now, don’t you?

She has a couple of token flaws: she has a poor sense of direction, and she’s an insufferable know-it-all (Garwood may not have intended that reaction, now that I think about it). Still, she’s doing pretty good for a woman in 1100! I know suspension of disbelief is important for all novels, but at this point I think the time-traveling nurse from Outlander is a more realistic.

Her Highland Laird is Alec. Here’s a few facts about Alec:

He is very big
He wears kilts
He gets angry a lot

In the beginning, I was having a lot of fun. Alec and Jamie meet and get married and journey to Scotland, and it’s pretty good! The sex gets going early in the book (Alec sees Jamie bathing, which happens so frequently in romance novels I’m starting to think authors have Frequent Plot Device cards and are cashing in on hotels stays and discounted flights somewhere), and their sparring is fun, if not terribly inventive.

Then they get to Scotland, and the whole book turns into a mess. I should have known it was coming. It was like going out on a bad date. You know the signs. The dude might order a Zima, or casually mention Ayn Rand. But you don’t REALLY know what you’ve gotten yourself into until you find yourself listening to him tell an obviously-exaggerated story about his spring break trip to Gulf Shores with his main brahs.

The story gets to be episodic and kind of boring. In one day, Jamie is chased down by a wild boar, saves a small child, is almost burned alive in a cottage (somebody wants her dead or something I don’t even care at this point), and she probably starts a war or whatever (she’s always starting wars). And yeah, that’s STILL boring. There’s too many characters, I kept losing track of the action, and by the end, I started flirting with the other books on my Kindle.

I have to say, it wasn’t unpleasant. There were a lot of redeeming moments throughout the book, and I even laughed out loud a few times. That said, there are so many talented romance novelists writing great books right now, and you don’t have to spend your time and money on a book that’s “not unpleasant.”

Go check out Braveheart or Outlander if you need a kilt fix. I’d skip this.

Forever Young Adult on the Jessica Darling Series, Which Is Just an Excuse to Say How Much I Loved This Series

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:21:15 -0500

Forever Young Adult on the Jessica Darling Series, Which Is Just an Excuse to Say How Much I Loved This Series:

So who read Sloppy Firsts? And the rest of the series? It’s been YEARS for me, but I remember reading it and thinking it was one of the best YA novels I’ve ever read. EVER.

Since I’ve only read the first book, and I just realized there are FOUR more I can read, you guys might be in for a Jessica Darling marathon over here. There is a totally awesome YA-style romance, so it counts.

The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Fifty Shades of Grey

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:01:32 -0500

The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Fifty Shades of Grey:

This is the most entertaining thing I’ve ever read about Fifty Shades of Grey, certainly far more entertaining than the short bit of the book itself that I managed to read before I turned my Kindle off and threw it across the room. My favorite lines:

“That dry, skittering sound you heard is your fallopian tubes curling like party ribbon.”

“A passage where we find out what Anastasia Steele looks like via girl-frowning-at-her-appearance-in-a-mirror exposition should be punishment for vehicular manslaughter in some states.”

“When Christian Grey “rips through” Anastasia’s virginity, she actually says “Argh!” like Jon finding out that Garfield has once again shredded the curtains.”

“I get that this is supposed to be BDSM Lite for people with Aztec-pattern Kindle Fire covers …”

“I’ve seen better storytelling in an evening news segment about a raccoon who got a peanut butter jar stuck on his head in a Wendy’s parking lot.”

The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins Well, you’ve...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:44:00 -0500

The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins

Well, you’ve already got an impression of how I feel about the first book. Since then, I’ve read the other two books and seen the movie, and I feel like we have to get a couple of things out of the way if we’re going to talk about this together:

Peeta Mellark gives me swoony butterflies
Since I assume that 99% of you have read these books, I’m not going to really bother so much with the plot description and you can expect mild to heavy spoiler pods throughout. Proceed will caution.

Let’s start with The Hunger Games itself. It was an amazing read. The writing felt very tight and crisp and there were a few moments, such as when Peeta makes his Big Declaration in the interview and when Katniss steps on the platform to be raised into the arena, that I will never forget. There were wonderful little touches of humor, like Peeta’s bread jokes, and even the stretches where basically nothing happens (you seriously cannot convince me that Katniss nearly dying of dehydration in the arena over many, many pages were necessary) were still tense and exciting.

Katniss herself reminded me a lot of my two other favorite K-named kick-ass YA heroines: Katsa from Graceling and Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone. All three of these girls are tough, they’re smart, and above all, they’re survivors. I want them to start a K-Name Action Girl Club and drive around in a van solving mysteries and fighting crime.

Peeta’s Everlasting Love for Katniss came across as a bit schlocky, sure. But since I feel that way myself about Peeta, I’m not going to judge him. I know what it’s like to be held in the thrall of a charismatic fictional character.

Eh, we can talk about Gale later. Let’s talk about Catching Fire.

Here’s where I felt like we started to get in trouble. It became evident to me that Suzanne Collins had a great (if not necessarily original) premise, she wrote it brilliantly, and then … tried to do the same thing for Catching Fire. When we get to the Big Twist in the middle of the second book, that (AND THIS IS A BIG SPOILER) Katniss is going back to the arena, I actually groaned and rolled my eyes. Seriously? That smacks of Plot Device.

That said, since Collins is so good at writing Hunger Games, the second book was still pretty exciting. The clock arena was fascinating. There was more Peeta. We got to know some of the victors from previous Hunger Games, and that ended up being really satisfying.

And then came Mockingjay. Oh dear.

It was a clusterfuck, to say the least. It was bloated out with too many characters. Katniss basically threw a series of fits until the end, I got REALLY tired of the “Katniss thinks she fucked up but ACTUALLY, she really impressed everybody,” and the big speeches were totally hokey and occurred about once a chapter. Collins started to get pretty heavy-handed with the Goosebumps-style cliffhanger chapter endings, and I started rolling my eyes at each one.

Collin’s writing, in addition to getting sloppy, gets to be tiresome and obvious. Someday, in the future, seventh graders of The Republic of New Breadia will have a field day dissecting Collin’s obvious symbolic names. Katniss is a hardy tuber, Primrose is decorative and useless (you will not convince me otherwise), Gale is enigmatic like the wind, Rue is symbolic of regret, Peeta is warm and delicious and will envelop you like pita bread, President Snow is chilling, and by the time we get to Coin, I’m just like, I GET IT. YOU CAN STOP NOW. There are exhaustive passages that reiterate that Katniss is the Girl on Fire, from the Coal District, which causes a Spark of Hope, which cases a Wave of Fire, which is symbolic of hope, and also she has wings like a bird, and must fly but cannot risk being shot down and seriously, can we fast-forward to more Peeta?

Okay, that was a lot of bitching. I still liked a few things about Mockingjay, and The Hunger Games as a series, and I will put them in a convenient bullet list for you.

The relationship between observers and the observed, and the manipluation of media, is obviously a theme through the whole series, but I liked seeing how it worked (and spectacularly failed) on the rebel side.
There was no Good Side and Bad Side. The Capitol has some really good people, and the rebels have some really bad people. That’s what life is like!
Big Ol’ Spoiler: Katniss ends up with Peeta. Gale guessed that Katniss would end up with “whoever she can’t survive without,” and I think her choice was in no small part motivated by a survival instinct. I think that Collins sort of shortchanges Gale’s character in the end, to give us an easy reason to dismiss him, but he was never a real contender in my mind.
Katniss spends most of the books trying to save the world and doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on boy trouble.
People are profoundly affected by trauma and are never the same afterwards, particularly the Hunger Games victors. You don’t just get over that shit.

So that’s it. TL;DR: The Hunger Games is a fantastic book. The series starts a steep decline in quality after that, but who are we kidding, you’re going to read them all anyways and probably in record time.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins It’s crack. I’m...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:04:42 -0500

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

It’s crack. I’m a goner. Send help.

Coming Attractions: Not Romance

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 23:16:36 -0500

I’ve been flitting from book to book and I haven’t really been able to finish anything for quite a while now. It’s kind of a bummer. That said, I’m pretty stoked about some non-romance books I’ve got queued up:

White Oleander - I just went to LA for the first time, and I was reeeeally feeling an LA book
The Hunger Games - I was waiting to be the last person in the country to read these books, and I think I’m about it.
Middlesex - Sometimes I read books that win Pulitzers!

Anyways! I was planning to review these for RC (at least The Hunger Games), but I can probably rustle up some old romances to review if you guys aren’t feeling it.

In the meantime, what romances are you guys reading? What’s in your TBR pile? Does anybody have anything original to say about 50 Shades of Grey? Because seriously, I am NOT going to read that shit.

Hi I just followed you, your blog is great! I was wondering if you could recommend any other blogs that are similar to yours, I would really appreciate it. I want to follow more blogs that review or just talk about romance books, but they are proving hard to find lol.

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:40:00 -0500

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is the authority for romance blogs, and Sarah often posts thoughtful articles in addition to hilarious reviews. Her friends over at Dear Author are also pretty great.

Also, they’re not strictly romance as their name implies, they’re YA), but Forever Young Adult is absolutely hilarious. I often look at their reviews and wonder, “How can I be more like FYA?”

Thanks for following, and sorry for the late response! I’ve been out of town.

Great Moments in Commuting

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:42:01 -0500

Noticing that the lady next to you on the train is reading the latest Alpha and Omega book, starting a conversation, and getting a ton of paranormal romance recommendations. Even (especially) if the other passengers heard us talk about cat shapeshifters and vampires vs fae romance.

She said she was so captivated by the last book in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series that she missed her stop.

A Few Words on the Alpha and Omega Series, by Patricia Briggs...

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:51:33 -0500

A Few Words on the Alpha and Omega Series, by Patricia Briggs

This is a werewolf romance series. There is basically no new ground to cover in a werewolf romance series, but Patricia Briggs does a pretty good job of refreshing the genre enough to make this worth reading. I waited for probably a year for the third book in the series to come out, if that says anything. You probably know Ms. Briggs from her Mercy Thompson series, who if I remember correctly is a coyote shifter somewhere in the Pacific Northwest and I read the first book of that series and was like, yeah okay whatever, and I didn’t feel the need to continue (though the Alpha and Omega books have a bit of overlap and the latest book indicated that Mercy hooked up with someone verrry interesting).

The Alpha and Omega series is a lot more appealing to me personally, since I’m a sucker for alpha heroes, and the dude in this series, Charles, is basically one of the highest alphas to ever alpha. He’s half Native American and half Welsh, and his father is the leader of all North American werewolves. Charles himself is the pack’s executioner and justice dealer. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast, and he’s almost unbeatable.

So, as it always goes in these kinds of books, he’s paired with his opposite. Charles finds Anna, a newly-changed werewolf, after she calls for help. Her pack alpha has gone insane, the rest of the pack has not fared much better. Anna, considered the most submissive wolf of the pack, has been horribly abused by her leaders. So she’s mistrustful of all people, not to mention men, double not to mention scary men like Charles.

Charles meets Anna, and he pretty quickly figures out that she’s not a submissive wolf, she’s actually something called an Omega wolf. In Briggs’ universe, Omega wolves are the counterpoint to the Alpha wolves. They are neither dominant nor submissive and they’re a sort of soothing emotional presence for all other wolves. It’s hard to explain, and I’m not doing a very good job, but it makes sense the way Briggs presents it.

Series that follow one couple through multiple books obviously hinge on the strength of that couple, and in my mind, Anna and Charles get a solid A. They’re very different (… obviously), but their pairing is very sweet and steamy enough to keep it interesting but slow enough that it’s believable, particularly given Anna’s past.

The books all involve a standalone mystery of some kind, and this is another aspect that I really enjoy. I looove a good procedural, and the fact that there’s a romance involved makes these books a rich treat for me.

The third book, Fair Game, came out last week, and admittedly it was not as strong as the first two. I’m starting to wonder if one SHOULD read the Mercy Thompson series to fully appreciate the Alpha and Omega series, and the ending was rather rushed and was sort of clumsily paving the way for another book.

That said, I guess I’ll be waiting however long it takes to read the next one.