Girly Pursuits

09Apr09

I haven’t really finished any books in the last month.  I mean, I’ve started tons of them, only to be distracted by another I find at the library and, well, what do you know they’re all due back and I’m only seven chapters into any given book.

I’m even still reading Peep Show, mostly because whenever I get bored with something I turn back to it, or read it on the bus, or use it as a conversation starter at the plasma center — where I’ve learned, I cannot read paperbacks, since I have only one hand available and I don’t want to break the spines.  But oh lord, I love this book so much.  I’m not sure if it qualifies as a romance novel as much as fun, girly smut.  I’m not complaining in the least; it’s what I was expecting and I adore it.

A Facebook friend informed me tonight that Harlequin Spice, a line I just discovered this year, has a line of e-books as well.  This has been a dangerous discovery.  It’s quickly becoming my go-to line for quick, fun reads.  If not for Caps Files, I wouldn’t really need LiveJournal anymore, since I don’t hunt down fanfiction like I used to.  Does this mean I’m growing up?  I’ve even got myself a Nice Paying Job in a library now.
New Job has provided lots of knitting time, as I have to bus there and back, so I’ve been putting my Kool Aid-dyed yarn to good use for a couple of weeks.  I lost a sock tonight to K and A’s new ferret (named Yuki, but I call him Ferret), who pulled the needles out of the stitches.  Can’t wait to get some Options, so I can do my socks on circs and not have to worry about losing stitches and frogging entire projects.

I’ve also been writing like crazy lately.  Why didn’t I have this motivation in November?

ETA: Finished Peep Show during my disaster of a plasma donation this afternoon.

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50 Books: There is a ray of sunshine at the very end of this list.

09Mar09

05] Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin D:

When I first saw this at the library ages ago, I was excited. A diet book that doesn’t put up with your whiny, lazy ass.

That much is true, yes, but it wasn’t so much a diet plan as much as it was a manifesto on how to be a self-righteous vegan. An entire chapter was nothing but lifted quotes from another book about animal abuse in a factory, and another chapter was all about why we’re not meant to be omnivores.

Sure there was advice on what foods are rich in essential vitamins that you may not know you need, and there was a mention of exercising, but it felt like offhand comments in the middle of all the meta bullshit. Okay, I get it. Killing animals is really mean and only jerkfaces do it. But the best (and only) argument against the common knowledge that our ancestors ate lotsa meat was that cavemen were fugly.

I read that with my jaw dropped before putting it back on the shelf with the same amazed look that I get when I read anything by Ann Coulter.

06] Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter

Speaking of dear old Ann. This definitely was not Ann at her best. Guilty didn’t blow my mind nearly as much as Godless, and it wasn’t as funny either. There were long passages about how fabulous Sarah Palin is and how the liberal media loved to cry sexism when people slammed Hilary but then acted sexist toward Sarah Palin, and it got a little old.

I like to open to random pages of Ann Coulter books at work and read passages aloud, just to keep the new kids on their toes, but there wasn’t anything really worthy of doing this in Guilty. Maybe I’m desensitized to her, but I wasn’t shocked by anything she said in this one. I didn’t get my usual scaredy-face when I read Guilty. And the library only ordered two copies of it, so maybe the whole world is done with Ann.

07] Lady of Conquest by Teresa Medieros

This was the first romance novel I ever read. I was maybe twelve years old? I got it at a garage sale along with a Penelope Neri romo, a novel by Tabitha King, and a western romo I can’t remember enough of to call upon the powers of Help A Bitch Out.

I’m not sure why I loved it so much when I was twelve, but I loved a lot of things that were pretty lame at that age, like Sailor Moon fanfiction and The Thong Song. I wasn’t at the age to appreciate campy romance, I just read what I could get my hands on and hide from my parents, and I remember eating this one up.

It is quite campy and tropey. It’s also one of the breeds of romance that I detest now. It’s got characters who have an inexplicable attraction to one another, but they hate each other’s guts and fight until almost the end. Really. Just when you think they’ll admit their feelings for each other (their feelings of lust), they have a huge fight and one or both of them run off and eventually have to hunt the other down. This happens several times.

If you’re gonna break up, break up. Don’t keep going back and breaking up again. Seriously, guys. That’s not love. Add to that a scene of rape (but she really wants it in the end!), it’s a historical, and it has a Bella-like heroine: she’s described as independent and badass, but nothing she does corroborates this claim.  And she’s his foster daughter!  Talk about abuse of power — he admits to abusing his power as a King, and how it’s kinda gross that she’s his ward but he still wants to do her.  What was up with the romance genre’s obsession with pseudo-incest rape back in the day?  It’s not sexy at all.  It’s gross.

08] Darkest Hour by J W McKenna D:

It took a lot for me to finish this one. I’d hit and run past my Rape Quota when I read Lady of Conquest, and this book steamrolled right through it. If not for the hint of HEA halfway through, I would have stopped. Independent Badass heroine is kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery — but deep down, she really wants it.  It was a 150 page long rape fantasy until the end.

How do I keep finding these?

09] Passion by Lisa Valdez D:

I saw this on the shelf at the library immediately after reading the review on Dear Author and had to read it just to see how spunky the hero really was.

DA wasn’t kidding. The sex is messy and gross. It goes beyond moist to saturating. I felt queasy at some of the descriptions, and I started keeping a running count of how many times I saw the word penis, which has to be one of the least erotic words you could use in a romance novel.

I’m actually not quite done with this one. I’ve been reading it on and off for a couple of days, on my lunch breaks.  I’m so bored with it I don’t really want to finish it.

10] Peep Show by Mathilde Madden

Well, I’d told myself I was only going to read things I was reasonably certain I would enjoy, and look: every book on this list is something I’ve disliked if I wasn’t horrified by it. So for some strange reason, I was expecting to be disappointed by Peep Show. The cover copy alone seemed too good to be true.

But ten pages in, it was already climbing up my list of favorites.

There are parts where it feels like a how-to guide to voyeurism, or a girl’s really naughty blog, which isn’t so bad, but the writing is a little clunky and too explanatory, like she’s trying to justify her desire. It feels really exaggeratedly narrated. But when it’s not awkward exposition, it’s gorgeous. The smut in this is hot. It’s not scripted or monotonous; it’s complicated and sometimes awkward, and spontaneous, and there is variety. It’s not just magical throbbing member that provides multiple orgasms just through missionary style. And there are no mentions of throbbing members or excessive penises, hurrah!

I’m not finished with this one yet, either. The sex is so frequent and so good, that I feel like I should pace myself with it, because it gets a little overwhelming.

So far there’s nothing that really bothers me with this book. There are some plotty moments that are fairly predictable and lead straight to porn, but it flows well and works for the story.

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50 Books: Jennifer Crusie and Thoughts on Yaoi

01Mar09

I’ve been spending so much time reading knitting patterns that I haven’t gotten around to reading much of anything else lately. I have hundreds of ebooks and boxes of romos — my romo bookcase is in pieces in the yard — and I work in a library, so I really should get cracking if I’m going to hit the 50 Book Challenge this year.

01] Anyone But You by Jennifer Crusie

I found the review on Smart Bitches and grabbed the book at the library the next day and ate it up while donating plasma. I’m a sucker for friends-to-lovers plots, and Crusie worked this really well. The friendly banter and gradual release of sexual tension was done really well. I’m probably one of the few readers who didn’t go gaga over the dog, but I’m not really a dog person.

02] Dark Designs by Madelynne Ellis D:

This book and I were not meant to be from the beginning. I bought a stack of books for my birthday this year — see the Shopping Online tutorial on LJ — and this was the one I was hoping to find but had difficulty acquiring. And when I got it, it was not at all how the seller described. “Like New” does not typically include cracked, ripped, and warped spines, worn pages, and a giant Goodwill dollar sticker on the cover. It also took almost a month to get it, so my interest was waning by the time I opened the package.

I disliked the book almost as soon as I started reading it.  And my list of dislikes?  At least a mile long.

Can I just say that if I was buying $60 comic books and someone steals them as I’m walking out the door, I would not A) race after them B) into a park Men’s room C) and permit them to assume I have rape fantasies D) and proceed to let them act out said fantasies.

I liked the premise of the novel when I read the blurb: underground fashion designer likes pretty men, especially if the pretty men are making out. I can dig that. But I didn’t relate to or like a single character in the book. I felt like their quirks were solely to make them look like Unique Snowflakes. If not for the Ooh, I Make Goth Clothing, the heroine was boring and flat. If not for the Ooh, I Want to Sleep With Pretty Boys, the hero was an asshole.  And there really wasn’t anything desirable in the man-whore they both fawn over.

I also disliked how jumpy and inconsistent the point of view was. The focus is obviously on Remy and her desire to watch Takeshi — who the back blurb calls her boyfriend but is actually the guy who accosted her in a toilet — make out with Silk, a guy she meets while photographing a wedding. Silk is a man-whore who likes Remy in a way he’s never liked a woman before, of course. And he resists his spontaneous feelings of homosexual lust for Takeshi by sulking and acting like a child who’s been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. He’s never had feelings like this before! But he’s not gay, no way! But a threesome wouldn’t hurt!

I was bored with how irrational some of the characters were and how almost every decision they made was motivated by sex. Granted, the sex was pretty fantastic, but it did get old after a while. Pirates had more plot than this book. I know this is an erotic romance and all, but there was no romance. There was an ai shiteru halfway through the book from Takeshi, but it had no feeling behind it because they’d known each other all of two days and two fucks.

Speaking of the ai shiteru, which is Japanese for I love you, there was a sprinkling of Japanese words throughout the book, and a lot of references to yaoi (gay comics, typically smutty). Even when I was 14 and into reading anime fanfiction, the unnecessary inclusion of completely random Japanese words bothered me. There was no point to it. It wasn’t a character speaking Japanese to another character or a type of clothing that doesn’t have a direct English translation. It had no point. And it was inconsistent. And the allure of yaoi wore off fairly quickly for me. There’s only so much dark-haired buffman dominating fair-haired pretty boy plottage that I can take these days. That is my thought on yaoi.

Maybe it would have been better if my reading playlists were more goth-oriented instead of being made of froofy hipster music.  I bought a bunch of books from this publisher, it’s sad that the first one was so awful, but I have hopes that the others will be more satisfying.

03] For Her Pleasure by Evangeline Anderson

This is an Ellora’s Cave I’ve had in a folder since… well, my laptop says January, but I’ve had a folder of EC books for at least a year without touching them.

Girl scientist lives on spaceship with pet alien cat, orders a Real Doll (of the boy variety) and instead receives a Real Dude who pretends to be the sexbot for her. Sex and misunderstandings ensue, and a someone interesting plot twist. I don’t really have any complaints. It wasn’t the best EC but wasn’t the worst, by far, although the portrayal of Dominant-submissive relationships was inaccurate.

04] Pretty Man by Ryan Field

I received a gift certificate for Ravenous Romance for my birthday and bought a handful of their ebooks. I was under the impression there’d be lots of bookshop shenanigans in it, and I was really excited, but there wasn’t. I did really like the way the bookshop’s subplot was resolved in the end.

When Roland Marcus decided to return New York for the first time in more than a year, he had no idea his entire life would change in less than one week.

Although the opening line nearly made me close the window, the rest of the book wasn’t awful. Some of the sentence structure was awkward, but after reading Dark Designs, it was refreshing to read characters who weren’t assholes and plot that was written just to get to the next bit of porn. There wasn’t a whole lot of plot between the porn, though. I didn’t have any strong feelings about this book, good or bad, it was just a nice quick read.

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Scammity and Holmes

19Feb09

Since leaving the laboratory (part of my change-my-life plan, more on that later), I get to sleep in past 8 most days (and sleep in past 10 on others!). I even have a few days off here and there. It’s lovely, except that lately I can’t sleep in because I’m being constantly harassed by telemarketers a la “This is Heather with Account Services…”

“This is the second (or last) warning that your factory warranty is about to expire!”

Factory warranty on what? My invisible car? I don’t even have a driver’s license!

“Press one to speak with a representative or press two to be removed from our call list.”

I pressed two, and what do you know, six hours later they call again. How about that!

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BRB

05Feb09

Changing my life.  Back when I figure out where I’m going.

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I know you don’t like heaving bosoms, but…

22Jan09

Wow, long time no blog, right? I invited a discussion of romance novels in my LJ (which is udpated more frequently but not with much substance), and of course have to put in my own two cents’ worth.

This is my list of things I don’t really dig in romance novels.

I love and hate some things at the same time. They are cheesy, predictable, and usually poorly written. Some of them, the really terrible ones like Johanna Lindsey or Kathleen Woodiwiss are my book equivalent to hipsters making playlists with a Britney Spears song. (What a ridiculous metaphor, right? I just mean that sometimes I read the really terrible ones to be ironic, or to make the good ones better.)

Things I love and hate in romance novels: how fucking cheesy they are, how predictable they are (HEA, every time), the poorly-paced sexual tension, counting how many tropes one author can include in 200 pages, the genre being a trope in itself, the BFF being the more interesting character.

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YES WE CAN HAS

05Nov08

Yes. This.

I added a page with my Doctor Who Scarf pattern edits.

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Jawdrop

21Sep08

Here comes November again!  For the first year, I’m really not excited for NaNoWriMo.  With the new job (phlebotomist clerk at a small hospital), and the shop and all the knitting I’ve been asked to do, I don’t know if I’ll have time to write anything.  My first NaNovel has been swimming around in my head in its fifth rewrite for the last two months and I really want to start hammering out A+ and my library sitcom.  But it looks like I’ll be MLing again, so if anyone has any ideas on where to do write-ins that is not my house, feel free to let me know.

Lots of exciting news to come later, re: knitting and new pets.  Two fandomy patterns (Harry Potter Weasley Sleeves and Questionable Content’s Worry Hat) and one that for CoMo’s Magic Pickup Hat.

I bought my first skein of Malabrigo yesterday because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and now I understand.  This is the easiest yarn to knit with.  Ever.  I just don’t know what I’m going to make with it.  It’s pink, and it goes with everything but my fabulous new olive green trenchcoat.  I think Home Ec could stay in business on my shopping sprees alone.

Does anyone know how to get the wireless working on a Hackintosh?  My life would be so much easier if I just had wireless at home.  And if my boss would tell me when I need to work ahead of time.

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WALL-E

07Jul08

Go see WALL-E.  Go see it now.  Best Pixar ever, and possibly best Disney ever (coming from a hardcore Little Mermaid fan).

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“But Mulder, there don’t have to be aliens! It’s just a tornado!”

09Jun08

At an X-Files shindig last night, we got wind (har) that a huge storm would be coming through and we were under a Tornado Watch.  The sirens never went off, but we saw the rain blowing in at least three different directions at once, and some almost funnel clouds.  So, even after shouting, “No, you never go out into the storm/woods/field at night, Mulder!” for six hours, we ventured downstairs and into the street.

We all sat at the door for a few minutes before daring M to go out.  And then we all decided to go out.

The streets were filled with a good six inches of standing water.  We went back inside to the kittens and finished up our marathon.

After a weekend marathon of X-Files, we all wanted Mulder and Scully to come by and investigate.  Rumor has it the dam in the next town over is going to burst.  Tomorrow.  The river already flooded the highway (which is now closed off).  Everyone keeps saying ‘Oh, it’s gonna be like 1993 all over again!’  I really hope they’re wrong because even though I live on a hill and was raised on the coast, DO NOT WANT!

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