Review: Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood

I didn't utterly hate it, so there's that. If there is a literary equivalent of easy listening, this book is it. Snoozey McSnoozerson with a side of sleepytime. The writing is simplistic, the characters defy belief, the twists and turns of the plot are nonexistent. This is a bad guy. This is a bad guy too. Here's another bad guy over here. Here they are, all caught. Wait, that bad guy as well. You know what would have rocked this book and set the plot on fire? If our heroine Olivia had actually been wrong about something. Preferably the Ponzi scheme she was chasing down, but really, anything.

Olivia has cancer as a kid and meets three other girls in an experimental drug program that.... doesn't matter at all to any other aspect of the plot. The cancer exists just to show that her family is a bunch of bad guys except for the ones that aren't. Olivia is convinced, without any evidence, that her father runs a massive Ponzi scheme. She's rerouted her career into a field she thinks will help bring him down. Her aunt is convinced as well and urges Olivia forward as the Only One Who Can Do It. (Olivia has serious martyr issues.) Ok, what if Olivia had been wrong? What if Grayson (our hero) proved that Olivia's father was innocent and Olivia had simply transposed her justifiable resentment into criminal conspiracy? It's absolutely ok to despise parents that don't turn out to be mastermind criminals. Really.

But whatever, Olivia is never wrong. She's working on her dad's case, her day job at the FBI, and as an attorney for children caught up in the court system (although she doesn't go to court, she seems to mostly drive them to safe houses.) She gets shot three times and has sex a few days later, even though the surgery is touch and go. She taunts men with popsicles like she's a sexually abused tween and buys groceries for her shut in neighbors. She's rich as hell, so when she gets shot her aunt's staff comes to clean and restock her home while a personal chef caters weekly. Yet at the start of the book she's pinching pennies, skipping meals and worrying about her income. Olivia likes her men temporary and her sex whenever it's offered. Don't call her for a month? We're cool. Two weeks? Why worry about it. Olivia has no emotional needs at all. She's a giver, a pleaser, a servant to her serfs. I was really hoping they'd shoot Olivia in the head so a second heroine would appear. Look, she steps in to handle her lover's nephew's school bullying problem in a completely illegal and unlikely manner for no plot reason other than yet another example of her goodness. Come on. I don't care how many kids she works with in court, you don't walk into someone else's life and stitch their problems up in twenty seconds.

Grayson isn't much better. He's an FBI agent, single parent, home remodeling landlord, investor, investment type who is well known in the socialite circles. When it's revealed early on that Grayson knows Olivia's aunt no one asks how. Her aunt is surprised, she didn't know they were acquainted - and that's it. Olivia doesn't ask questions. The aunt doesn't ask questions. Grayson acts like a teenager with his first erection through most of the book, not the seasoned adult he's presented as. He does a lot of Ricky Ricardo posturing and has a miracle life where there is no paperwork involved. Grayson foils an attempted kidnapping and murder? It's all good. Let's hand the bad guys off to the team and hit the sheets. His work consists of taking a few phone calls and slapping the occasional cuff on. Wait, he can also engage in some low level police brutality with no complaints from any law enforcement and shoot people dead without having his gun held for an investigation period. Grayson is Olivia's perfect match in doing what he wants and being The Only One Who Can. Serving a time critical search in another state? Local can't get through those tricky old locks, but Grayson and his partner enjoy a good night's sleep then fly in to save the day in seconds!

Look, there's nothing objectionable about Sweet Talk. I didn't really want to DNF it at any point. It's a great read for a day you're sedated on cold meds and can't follow anything complicated. Turn the brain off and enjoy. It's unoffensive and smooth but it isn't good.

Review: Lord of Temptation by Lorraine Heath

Hated it. Hated it so much I had to stop 75 pages in and rant. Hated, hated, hated it. And I love Lorraine Heath. From any other author, Lord of Temptation would have hit the DNF pile without regret. From Lorraine Heath I had to struggle on in the belief that surely it would get better.

It did not.

Lord of Temptation is full of weary shortcuts that sketch in concepts  rather than paint portraits of real people. I didn't believe in any of these characters. Our hero is well detailed in my prior rant. He's a pirate captain and a lost lord and the sort of man who thinks of women as prey. Heath attempts to counter balance his creeptastic ways by having him passively take a few beatings and spend a lot of time thinking about what a creepier creep he'd be if not for our heroine's magically attracting ways. Our heroine is 85% social convention adherent and 15% sex positive adventurer. She's the sort of girl who can say things like "Look, I know I agreed to marry you, but five minutes ago I was banging that guy I told you I wasn't into like a shutter in a storm. Let's still get hitched, okay?" After she and her fiance work through that epic moment of truth and arrive on the morning of their wedding she asks him to stand up for her while she marries someone else.  Because it would be good for her reputation. Since I was desperate to like anyone in this novel, her refusal to be a consistent character (unless stunningly self absorbed was the object) irked me. Granted, her fiance doesn't love her but it's still all kinds of tacky from a woman who has already embarrassed the man half a dozen other ways.

My nickname for the hero, The Pirate Stalker, was more apt than I could have predicted when I first applied it. He spends more time thinking about how he usually leaves women, how when he is done with them he just disposes of them, than he does the heroine. Sleeping with the heroine is high on his list. Not having the heroine change him is right up there too. This was the sort of book where the hero spends 90% of his time whining about how the heroine is trapping him with her magic vagina. She wants things he doesn't. In real life we call that irreconcilable differences. In Romanceland it often means they haven't sexxed their problems away yet. So they have at until they do. Compounding my inability to care about this shallow pond is the unrealistic sibling relationship. In the prior book three young boys escape certain death and vow to return for their revenge. They plan their return for ten years out (legally dead at seven, but never mind that). This book resumes events two years after the return. The three brothers are still emotionally estranged, if cordial. This leads Heath to write some truly ridiculous scenes. Tristan (the hero) barges into his brother's Rafe's office (after a two year gap) to demand information on the heroine. Rafe tells him he has a nephew and Tristan is like, ok, cool, so about my question? These men are so far apart that even the news of a child isn't transmitted between them but they can barge in and out of each other's homes without challenge? Later Tristan does almost the exact same thing to his other brother. "Hi, give me what I want. Ok, bye." Whose life works like that?

You can't even cheer on the side characters. The Pirate Stalker has his own stalker, a deluded young woman determined to chain him to her side on the basis of nothing. He refuses her to her face and continually shows preference to another. Of course she steps forward and claims he is her lover. Then, scant pages later, she sits in public, in society, openly, at his surprise wedding where she is easily subdued by a whisper. Her eyes open and she realizes she's been ignoring the man for her all along. Since said man is willing to move past years of deluded thinking and a false accusation of seduction, I suppose she's right. Mental, but right. This is the sort of shortcut plotting that passes for depth in Lord of Temptation. I'm fighting to give the book two stars when I do my Amazon review because there are truly worse books out there, I just don't think Lorraine Heath wrote them. If you're looking for escapist sexxy times 1978 flashback pirate pages, Lord of Temptation is for you. It was absolutely not for me.

On Disappearing Bloggers

Much like this macabre garden decoration from the local elementary school, I feel quite separated from reading lately.  Last week, I didn't read a single page. It's not reviewing I've lost interest in. This month I've talked elsewhere about handbags, kitchen items, food, music and furniture. I've spoken about politics, social issues, popular television and my neighborhood. Shutting up isn't what happened. I even panned the most recent Bob Dylan album. If you know anything about reviewing music you know that Bob Dylan fans are super extra fervent and crazy. We will argue the most minute points until all semblance of sanity is lost. Saint Bob produces works of brilliance not fit for the likes of humanity and anything suggested to the contrary produces shaking tears of rage. It's kind of like, our thing. So this isn't about fear of reader response. 

I did quit GoodReads, and I did so with no regret at all. I don't want to be one of the reviewers who quits reading. (BTDT in the last massive wave of Be Nice and Sock Puppets for Everyone.) On the other hand, the climate right now sucks. It's not fun to talk about books and therefore it's not fun to buy them. I'm spending less. I'm accepting fewer ARCs. My book consumption is in free fall. I hesitate to review other items here very often because most people who read this blog (as opposed to half a dozen other blogs o'me) read it to talk about books. My narrow interest in film or music is something I can slip in here or there, not dump on you constantly. I get that. You get that. In each blog, it's place. Or something. We're losing focus.

First, there was The Book Of Shame. Then there was The Shameful Blog followed quickly by the Sicko Authors and the Lying Authors and the Authors of Malice Without Glee. The intent was to kill all reviews that weren't happy little Saint Bob fangirl moments of unsupported devotion. The side effect is I don't want to read anybody's effing book. It's silencing the 5 star reviews as much as it is the 1 star reviews. The Good Authors, the Careful Authors, the Hardworking Responsible Authors all get shafted while the Sockpuppets create frenzies of yarn across the internet. I need to figure out how to reattach my arms and do some work on the TBR.

Just to get it out of my system, the new Dylan album is going to go down as one of his worst. Tempest is self indulgent (even for Saint Bob) and tedious. It's Muddy Waters reduced to the lowest common denominator and speechified upon. It's not good. It's 13 minutes about the sinking of the fictionalized Titanic complete with love for Leo. (Yes, I get the whole allegorical nature of the piece. It's still a murky and numbing slog.) There are some truly wonderful lyrics hidden in the depths but you have to kill yourself to find them and I'm not willing to die for Saint Bob. I just don't think he'd come save me. 

Review: Midnight Scandals by Carolyn Jewel, Courtney Milan and Sherry Thomas

I don't love this cover. The model's expression is a little angry, a little vacant. I don't know why she's leaning against a wall. Her head being slightly lopped while her skirt is artificially extended reads awkwardly. I like the teal and orange combination. I like the bolding of author names over title. Visually it works in Milan's brand, but I don't love it.

That concludes at least three quarters of my objections to Midnight Scandals, which I hereby rename Doyle's Grange for the BBC miniseries that absolutely must happen. (Someone Kickstater that for me.) Midnight Scandals absolutely begs to be a BBC costume drama. Each of the three stories takes place around a small home (cue Doyle's Grange) on a larger estate. As one era passes into the next the elderly couple from the former generation brush paths with the young couple of the next. How is that not prime time catnip? As a well executed concept the home bridges the gaps between the tales, making them stronger collectively than they are alone. As the authors involved in Midnight Scandals are some of the genre's strongest, this takes us pretty close to perfection.

First up is Carolyn Jewel. Her story of lovers with two unforgivable secrets made me realize I don't read Carolyn Jewel often enough. (Why don't I read more Carolyn Jewel? I'm going to buy her backlist.) Reunited as teens after a disastrous affair with long reaching consequences for them both, her couple have to learn to forgive themselves as easily as they've forgiven each other. I adored the risk Jewel took with her secrets almost as much as the heroine's sister in law. I know that woman. I deal with that woman. Like Portia, I would chew my own arm off to escape her. She does not mean well, she is a toxic bundle of manipulation. 

Picking up the narrative is Courtney Milan. Her couple have only been apart a short period of time, but that time has transformed the heroine. Thrust out of a comfortable life, Mary has grown up quickly. As with all of Milan's tales the challenge is to discuss the dynamics without revealing the plot. I found the situation Mary escapes (or rather, situations) very well drawn. Each had that essential feeling of truth while allowing for the fictional solutions to play out. All of my issues with Mary and John occur in the wrapping up of loose ends but her benevolent villain was perfectly done.

Closing the door is Sherry Thomas. I've really missed her since I switched away from price fixing in e-books and I'm sorry she's caught up in the publisher fight. I look forward to catching up on her backlist when it's properly priced. (I could pirate them, yes. Please don't message me about it. I don't lean that way.) Because I'm not familiar with her most recent books, the characters from them felt like an annoyance instead of an enhancement. This is obviously a story meant to resolve a character from a full length book but without knowing more about them I was waiting for an explanation that never came. Thomas has a great set up in her tale of mistaken identity and second chances. Buying in required accepting that two people could look completely alike (easy) while being unrelated (no problem, happened to me) and sharing very similar names (um, not so much but ok). Her hero and heroine have nothing to forgive each other and little to forgive themselves. While I admired aspects of the other works more the romantic element felt the strongest here. Her couple fell in love in front of the reader, while the others repaired an existing love. 

If the authors want to work off brand, I would love to see a sequel to Midnight Scandals taking Doyle's Grange through the World Wars and into the London Scene. Maybe in reverse order. I think I'd give WW1 to Thomas, WW2 to Milan and the 60's to Jewel. You know, because I'm bossy like that. 

Review: The Kid by Charles Chaplin

Unlike most silent films, The Kid is intact. Chaplin restored and personally scored it. It absolutely benefits from this care.

The Kid was a phenomenon, with far reaching implications not only for the industry but for the lives of those involved. Silent films have a lot in common with category romance. In silent films the characters were often unnamed. The audience knew there would be The Boy and The Girl, a name for either was beside the point. The Boy is almost always of a different economic status than The Girl. True Love was at first sight, with the plot hinging on misunderstanding, class conflict, and external forces. The audience expected The Boy and The Girl to overcome all of this on their path to happiness. This deceptively simple framework offered limitless variations. Chaplin's first full length film was The Kid. He had appeared in six reels for other directors but here he had full creative control as actor, producer and director. Everything hinged on this one. I think it's his finest film. While emotional, it's not as manipulative as City Lights. It has statements about class, but they are subtle.

The Kid subverts many conventions of the orphan story. In The Kid Edna Purviance was given a very feminist role. She does not suffer spiritually from her out of wedlock child. She is presented as a respected, talented, admirable woman. The Girl is not brought down by her out of wedlock child. Instead she thrives in life, becoming wealthy and famous. Given a chance to reunite with her child she eagerly takes it. Through the entire film The Kid is presented as a person, not an object. His wishes and capabilities are given as much weight as The Tramp and The Girl. Set aside is The Boy. By his failure to support The Girl he becomes a footnote to her life and his son's. If this were a Harlequin romance, The Girl would be The Boy and The Tramp would be a friend or sister of The Girl who steps up to mother the orphan in her place. It is odd to consider a 1921 film more modern than many 2012 books. I often wonder how the angel sequence played to contemporary audiences. Occurring in the final seven minutes of the film it seems out of place to modern eyes. Did contemporary audiences expect The Tramp to quietly die in the doorway? It's also difficult to put aside the knowledge that the flirtatious angel is 12. (Several scholars have effectively argued Lita Grey's real life relationship with Chaplin inspired Nabakov to write Lolita.) The absolute star of the film is Jackie Coogan. His story is heartbreaking. In fiction, The Kid was abandoned only to find himself continually beloved. In life, Jackie Coogan was at the mercy of those who exploited him. Even during the film he made (as the co star) half the salary of his bit player father and realized none of it.

Silent films are invaluable resources for anyone interested in the history of their time. Aside from showing off different norms of attire they portray what would be acceptable realities to a contemporary viewer. Slanted for humor or effect, they still contain truth. The pay to sleep homeless shelter, The Girl passing out toys and apples to children in the slums. America fell in love with The Kid because Jackie Coogan was heartbreaking and his reality plausible to them. They wanted The Tramp to have his happy ending and they wanted The Girl to get her son back. When I watch The Kid, I do too.

Review: Chaplin by Richard Attenborough

The reading slump returned as I tried to slog my way through The Pirate Stalker (not it's real title). As a result, I find myself revisiting some older films. Watching Robert Downey Jr  play Chaplin, I'm struck by how The Tramp is as much a part of our culture as Uncle Sam or Mom's Apple Pie and yet Chaplin himself was a British immigrant exiled from America. He spent much of his life in Switzerland. Chaplin's numerous children and grandchildren live across the world with some choosing English as their third language. There is nothing American about the Chaplin dynasty but our sentimental embrace of a family we cast out. Which is a great segue to the film.

Chaplin the biopic is a mess. It's romanticized, sanitized and fawning. Hallmark would blush at it's naked sentimentality. There are serious inaccuracies and oversights. It's still a fantastic film due largely to the impeccable casting. The focus on RDJ's lead is understandable and well deserved. RDJ so fully inhabits The Tramp that Chaplin himself no longer looks properly like Chaplin. One expects him to resemble RDJ more. It is perhaps the best performance of an actual person ever filmed. It's that good. RDJ encompasses both the mannerisms of Chaplin and our perception of Chaplin into the perfect blend. (Until the last bits of the film. Chaplin in old age is painful. RDJ is hampered by excessive prosthetics and a section of script that's barely watchable.) Because RDJ is so good, the other actors tend to get overlooked.

Just as perfect is Dan Akroyd as Mack Sennett. He captures not only Sennett's seat of his pants opportunism, but also his Canadian-ness, if such a thing can be. He's a genial cutthroat. Paul Rhys is perfection playing Chaplin's brother (and manager) Sydney. Geraldine Chaplin turns in a perfectly heartbreaking interpretation of her own grandmother, frantically crumbling food in an effort to protect herself from a life that's already happened. Maria Pitillo's Mary Pickford shows the sharp mind inside America's Sweetheart and made me long for a Nick and Nora remake putting her opposite RDJ. The film is perfectly cast with actors disappearing into their roles. And yet.

In Attenborough's film Chaplin's affinity for young teens is romanticized. By casting Moira Kelly to play both Hetty Kelly and Oona O'Neill he does a disservice to both women. (The entire presentation of the Hetty Kelly story is problematic when compared to reality.) At it's heart, Chaplin has only two categories for women, mythically pure or deeply damaged. Only Paulette Goddard (wonderfully presented by Diane Lane) escapes this division. The film has Chaplin tricked by a deceitful first wife (Milla Jovovich is appropriately vacant as Mildred Harris). Urged to consider disposing of her pregnancy our fictional Chaplin manfully declares that in his world, you marry the girl. Actually, in Chaplin's world you married the underage girl or charges would be brought. In the film, the blame is on Mildred. So too is blame placed on second wife Lita Grey (the barely seen Deborah Moore). Attenborough prefers to gloss over Lita's falling into Chaplin's world at the age of 12 (or possibly younger) after he cast her as his love interest (the flirtatious angel) in The Kid. Although Grey's version of events has changed several times over the years she is consistent in saying Chaplin urged her to abort and resented their forced marriage. Chaplin's twin problems of avoiding birth control and seducing teens is swept to a mild allusion on the side. It conflicts with the film's narrative of a noble and wounded soul.

As frustrated as I was with the film and as desperately as I wanted to cut both it's last act and it's unneeded fictional narrator (Hopkins) the overall look at Chaplin's world was brilliant. RDJ inspired me to revisit Chaplin after decades spent avoiding his work in favor of lesser known stars. In the brilliance of RDJ (himself a flawed and human man) the brilliance of Charles Chaplin is restored. I went on a week long binge of his work, then his imitators (looking at you, Billy West!) then his contemporaries, only to find myself wishing there were more. Which is sort of like saying Harlequin doesn't publish enough titles.

Dude Looks Like A Stalker

"Don't ask me what I think of you / I might not give the answer that you want me to." - Peter Green 

Just a few chapters into a highly anticipated new book I find myself wanting to abandon it. A major issue I have with The Numeric Book and The Series That Inspired It is the toxic power dynamic of the lead couples. Many years ago (when I was reviewing erotica) I realized that reality has no place in getting your freak on. If something is possible, if something is plausible, if something is healthy is irrelevant. Humans are aroused by things that would be toxic to their daily life. I get that. Much like science fiction and fantasy, erotica has it's own physics. Popular literary fiction thrives on dysfunction. The sicker the better. (Raped by your dad? Add a dead cousin and a teen pregnancy! It's all so meaningful!) I've been around a few blocks. Each has it's customs. Which is why this book is making me so sad.

It's all 1978 up in here. Our heroine has a dead fiance. She wants to go cry at his grave because she didn't give it up before he left. She asks around for a fairly safe ship to travel on, seeing as her plan involves boarding it with only her maid for protection. (She's not even planning on a passenger ship. Her faith in her fellow man is really touching.) The ship she's chosen refuses her. The captain tells her he'd like to have sex with her. So she runs off to try every other ship in port. All of them refuse her because the captain has offered double her cash to anyone who does. Since there could be hundreds of ships in port, he could (in theory) have pledged 40,000 pounds to keep her on shore. That's like, 100 million dollars. Ok, so already we're in unreasonable territory. Even if there were only a handful of ships in port, it is insane that our hero would offer up a ton of cash to thwart the travel plans of a women he spoke to for less than five minutes. In that five minute conversation she told him she wanted to go see her fiance and he decided he had to bang her. At this point our hero is an unbalanced rapist creep. Our heroine never gives him her name. He has her followed. He approaches people for information about her. He sneaks into her bedroom to confront her. Her reaction to a man who has stalked her and invaded her home is not fear. She's angry. How dare he thwart her plans! So she's either equally insane or just too stupid to live. If the guy at Hertz refused to rent you a car unless you rocked his world then let himself into your house without so much as knowing your name, I don't think you'd cozy up for a chat. I don't care how great the TripAdvisor reviews for Hertz were, that shit is scary.

Our hero tells the heroine that he wants to bang her omgsobad. However! He will settle for a kiss at his time of choosing on said voyage. But she will be sleeping in his room, of course. Our heroine says "That's a deal, sir." and off to sea she goes. (She thinks only ugly guys rape women.)  Can we back it up a second? A guy she has barely spoken to tracked down her identity, invaded her privacy, restricted her options, showed no respect for her choices and demonstrated serious control issues but he offers her his word and she's good to go? What? In the real world she gets raped and tossed to the fishes without anyone ever being the wiser. In fact, in the real world she disappears from her bedroom then and there. Creepy Stalker Dude is Creepy Stalker Dude in any time period. Instead she slaps him and he sorrowfully takes it. Which proves he's ok. (Oh hi, abuse dynamics. I knew you weren't far behind. What took you so long? The hero and heroine have exchanged at least twelve sentences by now.) Everyone knows a real creepy abusive stalker rapist dude would never tolerate a slap to the face or express conditional remorse. We're all good now!

So at this point in the book we know these things. The heroine finds the hero trustworthy, based on nothing. She's already thinking about how she didn't give it up to her dead fiance so she sure as hell isn't giving it up to this guy, unless she maybe does, but she won't because dead fiance is dead! The hero is thinking he has to bang her like he's never banged anything so he better keep her penned in and get it fast - after she hooks up with fiance guy she's going to cool down and be sexually unavailable. Who wouldn't want to read more? (THIS GIRL!) Ok, I'm not being fair. We also know that the hero has brothers with whom he has a completely inexplicable relationship. The interactions between the hero and his brothers make as little sense as the relationship between the hero and heroine. There is a lot going on in the author's head, but it isn't making it's way to the page. So I'm sad. I'm sad because this favorite author is turning in a wallbanger of a book. I'm sad that the rapetastic stalker hero of the 1970's is back. I'm sad that this romance isn't between two flawed people but between the pheromones of a Magic Vagina and a Conquering Dick. I'm sad because there are days I feel like the only reader who wants my romance to be romantic instead of training wheels for erotica. I'm sad because I'm going to have to slam this book when I rate it and the ensuing outrage is going to annoy me.

Here's the thing about reviewers. We want to like your book. We try to like your book. If you promise me Super Emo Guy but deliver Crazy Eyed Date Rapist, we can't be friends. I have to love myself before I can love your book. Ok then. I'm glad we talked.  I'm going to go finish it before the TruFans realize which title I'm talking about.

Review: The Way To A Duke's Heart by Caroline Linden

Yea, go ahead and buy it.

I love almost everything about this book. I like everything on the cover from the color balance to the "Bitch, please" stare of the heroine. Linden finishes her The Truth About The Duke series with the best of the three. (I admit I had my concerns about this one.) Having reviewed both the prior books I decided to finish the series out. I'm so glad I stuck with Linden. In fact, I liked The Way To A Duke's Heart so much I think you should go ahead and start there. Nothing really happens in the prior books that is vital to the third. Look, I'll get you ready. There's this Duke In Waiting named Charlie. He's got two brothers and an inheritance issue. His brothers have tried to help but both of them wised up and dumped the ball back where it belongs. Charlie has had enough time to feel sorry for himself and work on his Daddy Issues. It's crunch time. (That's it. You're good to go.)

Our heroine is an awkward businesswoman on a mission. With her brother considering investment in the latest canal scheme Tessa is off to investigate the legitimacy of this enterprise. Trusted by her family, unable to trust those outside it, Tessa doesn't want to suck up to a charmer in the hotel lobby. Since Tessa might hold the key to Charlie's dilemma, he charms her elderly companion instead. Tessa says ok, whatever, that's cool. I've got books to audit and swamps to slog. You do you, Charlie. I'm busy doing me. Which she does. Sadly for Tessa, Charlie is trying to do her too. (But not that way.) He pretends an interest in the canal investment as a pretext for investigating Tessa's involvement in his dilemma. Continuing Linden's tradition of bucking some time honored Regency conventions it turns out that Tessa is a completely disinterested bystander. She has nothing at all to do with the mysterious blackmailer that's been mucking up Charlie's life. Nor is she willing to be a diversion while Charlie evades his responsibilities.

The evolution of Charlie from sulky party boy to Duke Of Tessa's Dreams is very well done. Both characters know who they are and (more importantly) why they are. Tessa and Charlie offer each other the same thing - someone to take them seriously and hold them accountable. Charlie respects Tessa's intelligence. As a man well aware of his own shortcomings he can easily see the strength in hers. For her part, Tessa has no experience of him. She sees a man well positioned to make changes in people's lives so she expects him to do so. While she guides him toward responsibility he leads her into frivolity. They are well suited to each other and to the plot. It's a nice balance Linden maintains for almost the whole of the book. My only complaint about The Way To A Duke's Heart arrives shortly after The Truth About The Duke is revealed. The truth itself is satisfying in content and execution. The events just following that are a failure for me. In exploring his past Charlie falls into one of my genre pet peeves. "If I had sex with you and you're not the hero / heroine, you completely suck." Yes, Charlie has a Crazy Bitch Ex in his past (as does Tessa) and the CBE briefly becomes the books focus. Handled just a little differently the CBE would have lifted the book from very good to possibly brilliant. As it stands the CBE bogs us down before being swept to the side as Tessa and Charlie get on with the getting on.

If you've been following the series or not, The Way To A Duke's Heart is a fun read. I like Linden's way with characterization. With this book the author moves off my TBR and onto my auto-buy list. (If nothing else, her strong voice knocked Charlie Sheen out of my mind for the entire read. I didn't think that was going to be possible.)

Review: Right State by Mat Johnson and Andrea Mutti

Political commentary is hard to do correctly. I'd love to tell you that Mat Johnson has pulled it off but he falls into a familiar pitfall. There is no one human in Right State. These are puppets we've played with before. While obviously coming in from a liberal viewpoint, Johnson isn't that far from Frank Miller's recent conservative ravings. Johnson is gentler and less bigoted but still delivers a book without any relatable characters. There is no one for the reader to walk beside in  Right State. The most sympathetic character is a heavy handed stand in for a point of view. I leave Right State unsure of it's agenda. Nothing here is likely to shed light to anyone else. If you are a conservative Right State will feed your belief that liberals consider you ill educated at best and a racist head case at worst. If you are a liberal it oversimplifies the appeal of the far right political movement. There is a danger in assuming your idealogical opponent to be fundamentally different from yourself.

Ted Akers is a pundit. He speaks passionately for money without deeply believing his own words. He is rhetoric in a suit spreading a toxic point of view for profit. He is, of course, a good guy. No one ever thinks they are the problem. Right State has a strong set up here. Several far right pundits have recanted their past beliefs. Discovering you are part of the problem is not a simple journey to take. Instead of a gradual discovery of his own blindness, Akers is quickly immersed in a full fledged conspiracy. Reluctantly drafted to thwart a death threat against America's second black liberal president (no, Right State is not a futuristic thriller) Akers finds himself surrounded by extras from Deliverance. These undereducated militants consider Ted Akers a national hero.

I want to pause here to refute the easy assumption that the patriot / militia movement is made up of cult leaders and dim thinkers. The election of President Obama may have galvanized them, but it did not create them. I have known sophisticated, intelligent, articulate people who have moved deeper and deeper into these movements over the last fifteen years. To conflate an extreme far right belief with insanity is to underestimate the attraction of this movement. What the KKK was to the 1960's, they are to us today. A plot on the level that Akers is sent to unravel would not consist of one crazed cult figure and dozens of dimwitted followers. While crazed cult figures and dimwitted followers can certainly exist in any party it lessons the impact of Akers awakening to have it precipitated by such a group. It also relegates Right State into a preach-to-the-choir stance. This book will no more reach across the divide than Miller's Holy Terror. This is a shame.

Akers, of course, discovers there is more at work behind the scenes than he realized. The militants are being manipulated by forces high in the opposition party, the party Akers once defended. His disillusionment is as swift as it is brutal. For the reader, it's a bit of a yawn. How much more compelling  would Akers awakening in place have been? How much could Johnson have said about our broken system of shouting if Akers awoke after a successful plot? If the catalyst was not being tossed down the rabbit hole but awakening in Wonderland and realizing the cost? What if the revelations in Akers came from the implementation of the change he advocated for? Right State is a lost opportunity. Johnson tells the story of a man confronting the crazy fringe he inspired. It may be the tale Johnson set out to tell but it is a well worn and cliched one. The fish in this barrel have already been shot. Johnson is better than this material and I hope he takes another shot at our great divide. Right State was all wrong for me.

How To Spend Your Money: Waring Pro CC150 Cotton Candy Machine

I don't understand the Ladies Who Refuse Lunch. Why do people eat 100 calorie chemical snack packs when they could have 40 calories of sweet sugary goodness on a stick? I'm sure there's a reason that has to do with blood sugar crashes and refined carbs. Tell me all about it later. Right now I am excited about my latest kitchen toy. After a No Good Terrible week full of Problems I Can't Solve I found myself at Sur La Table. Some people drown their sorrows in sex with strangers. I buy a new spatula. Or a cotton candy machine. You know, like you do.

Commercial cotton candy machines? I've run them, disassembled them, cleaned them, and patronized them. I've never thought a home unit could do more than produce a token puff. The kind (and by kind I mean evil) people at Sur La Table invited me to play around with one of their units. Dude. DUDE! Look at that photo! I used half a tablespoon of sugar! I totally bought it. I also bought a jar of classic pink vanilla spinning sugar by Hammonds. At $9 for a small jar it's 32 cents a serving. The floss sugar Gold Medal puts out is less than 11. On the other hand, you have to store that sugar nice and dry until you've eaten 90 odd sticks of cotton candy. It seems sensible to pay a little more to eat a little less.

I've been playing with the machine a few days running. It's quick to clean and much more fun than most kitchen toys. A cup of table sugar mixed with 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon made a delicious cotton candy but only produced half the fluff of sugar alone. When the flavor mix gets too heavy the sugar builds up in crisp little sticks on the side of the bowl. A good person would crunch it up and respin it, but I have to be honest. I just eat the cinnamon shards outright. (Waring suggests mixing Kool Aid with table sugar. Um. No. Super nasty.) I think later this week I'll mix up a cocoa / sugar base or a ginger / sugar base for some other interesting flavors. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with vanilla. Nothing at all. (If you're going to throw a carnival in your kitchen I suggest starting with a reversed chopstick. Those paper cones aren't meant for home units. They only pack them in because you've been programmed to think cotton candy belongs there.)

Review: The Ugly Duchess by Eloisa James

I suppose instantly forgettable isn't the best way to describe a book I plan to recommend. Here's the difficulty. I read The Ugly Duchess a week ago and had some fourth act problems with it. I decided to wait a few days before writing the review. In the interim I completely forgot what my problems were. I also forgot everything about the book itself. Scanning early reviews didn't trigger any recollections so I read the darn thing again. I still like it and I still have issues with the fourth act.

The Ugly Duchess is a forced marriage of deception tale. Theo is the sort of gawky and insecure young heroine romance loves. She's smart and ready to rebel. Her mother dresses her inappropriately, her guardian taps into her funds. In an effort to impress a young man she admires Theo reveals a caustic way with words. Of course this will (eventually) lead to her finding out the price of those words as she earns her own moniker (and the book gains it's title). Remember ladies, be nice or be silent.

Theo's bank account has been raided by her guardian, the father of our soon to be Duke, James. James must marry Theo to obscure his father's crime. As it happens, James and Theo are already in love yet unaware of it. I'll give Eloisa James that because the portrait of our hero and heroine as young teens is so pitch perfect. Everything is emotional. Everything is unforgivable. Everything is the most important thing to happen to anyone ever. They romp about like the puppies they are, reveling in their new freedom from their parents, eager to grab the reins of their lives. Everything will be different now. Of course, parents are not so easily dismissed. The reins of life can be hard to control. Soon the bubble bursts. Theo is left abandoned, alone but for her mother (she apparently had no friends but James) and her money. She sets herself to rebuilding his estates and repressing everything about herself that James loved. (It defies logic, but there it is.)

James falls in with pirates. At first it's just for the thrill of it but later (when he needs to make things right with Theo) he reveals his true calling was freeing slaves. Because of course it would be. Never mind that when he decides to embark on piracy it's nothing at all to do with slavery. Both Theo and James are afraid to face their true selves, afraid to demand their true lives because of the self inflicted shame they carry. A major theme of The Ugly Duchess is life after parents. Who are you without your parents to appreciate? Who are you without your parents to defy? Who are you when death removes the mirror you've viewed yourself in? For both James and Theo death has been a major force for personal reinvention. We rejoin James and Theo as a couple when seven years have passed. Theo is preparing for her new life as a legal widow. James has had a sudden revelation and returned. Instead of the warm and passionate woman he left, James finds a repressed woman who finds the idea of sex unpleasant.

Here we fall into the fourth quarter abyss. I feel as though Eloisa James loses interest in her books at the close. They either dip into the farcical or speed to the end. Here, when James and Theo reunite as different people with an ocean of life experience and pain between them, is where the story should begin. Here, with no desire for sex or children, with no true excuses for abandonment, in the ashes of their youth, is the meat of the tale. Except it isn't. Theo goes from frigid to fire with haste. It's a high school reunion. The star couple has an Appletini or six and shack up for the rest of the event. The love they had for each other as children is pasted onto the adults they became then used as an excuse to wipe away the intervening years. One moment a character doesn't ever want children, the next they adore babies. One moment the thought of sex inspires self contempt, the next it's bloomers in the bushes. Add to that a closing chapter with the requisite show of brute force in defense of Theo's honor (violence - so hot and manly) and it's like a hundred other books.  Which is a shame. The first 2/3 of The Ugly Duchess is wonderful enough to still make this a four star read for me.

Flawed And Fallen Women

I just finished a book I really enjoyed. It was a top read in all respects except one. Almost as unwelcome as the Hermetically Sealed Heroine is the Crazy Bitch Ex. Why can't relationships just not work out? Why does the genre insist that our heroine is special and unique to the hero (or vice versa) while all past relationships were a narrow escape from the cauldron of hell? Shelve your divorce issues, people. Sometimes you don't get married. It's why we have friends we used to fuck instead of shallow graves in the backyard. Sex is not a sacred event that can only be correctly bestowed upon one person. In the case of this book I was really into the hero. His evolution from sulky arrested adolescent to leading man was skillfully done and fully realized. Then his ex shows up. Suddenly, I hate both of them. If you've ever spent time on a legal aid board, poverty skills forum or any other place second, third or fourth wives hang out you know exactly what I am talking about. The current relationship is pure and magical. The past relationship is a succubus draining the life from their innocent and trusting spouse.

In this case, our hero rides off to apologize for a one night stand several years past, thankfully leaving the heroine out of it. The CBE is in an insanely dysfunctional marriage she entered a scant two months after rejecting the hero on grounds of potential poverty. Her parents may have forced her into the relationship and since then she's rarely seen in public. On a trip to London our hero was drunk as a Duke and spent a weepy evening reliving past glories. Along comes the harsh light of dawn and he realizes he just wanted to bang her once. He's out of there and she's on her own. CBE heads back to her husband, never to cross Drunky McDuke's mind again. 

On the other side of the marriage, CBE's husband is wicked crazy. He engages in a three book arc of revenge culminating in a promise to kill the hero if he so much as glances at the husband's prized tea kettle. He's angry, unreasonable, and obsessively focused on his wife (the aforementioned CBE) and Drunky. Our hero has been a pretty stand up guy to this point. He's all about women's rights. He's discovered his own father had a potential CBE that turns out just to be a nice dead lady. (See? Relationships CAN just not work out!) So to this point we're ok. Then it all goes Jerry Springer. Drunky may (or may not) have fathered a child with CBE and CBE has informed her husband of this either to torment him or because she's honest. CBE is sobbingly grateful that Drunky has finally come to rescue her from an (allegedly) abusive husband she fears will kill her. At this point Drunky has had his own life threatened (and certainly turned upside down) by CBE's husband. He's afraid of the guy himself. So he sneers down at her for making her husband the mess he is. How dare she complain when she has a wealthy, titled husband who adores her. She's a celebrated (if rarely seen) beauty with four children. Tend to them and bother him no more. Later Drunky takes a moment to wonder if CBE's husband might really kill her. He thinks it sucks the kid might suffer, especially if it's his, but what can he do? He's famous Drunky McDuke and that other guy is Reclusive Lord Crazy. How can Drunky McDuke do anything for his potential child or baby mama? And why should he? She's obviously a head case who has driven Reclusive Lord Crazy mad with her bitchy ways. Thank god he didn't marry her! 

Our hero rides off to apologize to his family for Reclusive Lord Crazy stalking them after his failure to keep it zipped. Later in the book Drunky stares down at his first (second?) born son with awe and hopes all sons are so beloved. As a reader we are supposed to share Drunky's revulsion for his CBE and Reclusive Lord Crazy. As well, we are supposed to share the hope that Lord Crazy's son is his own. As a person familiar with domestic violence and the ease with which people turn away from it's pleading victims I had a hard time looking at Drunky after that. I'm pretty sure CBE quickly took a header down the stairs leaving Bastardish Son to grow up with a hot and cold father he can never satisfy. Eventually BS will meet a Hermetically Sealed Heroine and the two will go off to their own HEA. That's how things go in Romancelandia. 

I would have thought a hell of a lot more of Drunky if he'd taken the words of a women he once loved (enough to marry) seriously. If he had investigated her safety as carefully as he did his own paternity before coming to a ruling of CBE I'd have forgiven him. The Crazy's may be in a hell of their own making, one they enjoy in the manner of those drawn to these relationships, but she could also be in serious danger. I find it hard to take a man seriously when the life of his former lover and possible child are something to shrug over and walk away from. Maybe that's just me. 

Return Of The Hermetically Sealed Heroine

Who started the hymen fetish? Is it the same person who decided all women in a romance who are not the heroine must be subordinate or murdered or evil? Why do we who love books about women hate women so much? (I know, I know, we're all full to the gills with preprogrammed cultural messages. I get it. Still.) I'm having a hard time reconciling a book I recently loved and a book I'm struggling to read  with my love of the genre. I don't know why I am drawn to the authors or stories I am. Why do I read about endless Dukes when I cannot stand the multi generational rich? Why am I forever sympathetic to a parade of doe eyed damsels in my fiction when I don't tolerate them in my own life?

I'm a total hypocrite. I get that. So's my genre.

In the case of the book I am loathing the early set up is a Hermetically Sealed Heroine. The book takes place in Romancelandia with a number of improbable events in a row. I am uncertain if I will read Chapter Two given the events of the Prologue and Chapter One. Our heroine is a former spy chosen from the gallows and trained to perform any action necessary, including whoring for her country. Now discharged, our heroine has been seen with a number of rich men in a number of scandalous costumes. She is considered to be a woman for hire. She wanders into White's, climbs upon a table, partially disrobes, declares herself a virgin, and offers her hymen to the highest bidder. Then she calmly leaves. There are so many things wrong with this. This is so far into Fantasy Land that Romancelandia hardly seems an adequate description of the world this heroine lives in. There is, based on the opening pages, no sexual violence in her world. Women are not raped to know their place, raped to respect their betters, or raped just because they can be. Our heroine is not only Hermetically Sealed (allowing her to cash in her hymen like a lottery ticket) she's also loaded with Magic Rape Repellent.

Think about it. She's been in prison on death row. She's been in war. She's been intimate (but not vaginally) with rich men who are either paying for or believe they can pay for her body. She's infiltrated a zone forbidden to women and offered sex in a group setting of powerful men, yet she has no fear at all of sexual violence. No hesitation. Who is this woman? Where would she come from? How can she even exist? Setting all of that aside she's decided to offer her hymen up for auction in a bid for financial freedom. Who is going to buy that? Unless you're trying to cure yourself of a sexually transmitted disease are you really part of the hymen cult? Who, beyond pedophiles, really belongs to this organization? What kind of man checks a woman out and thinks "Man, she'd be so much hotter with an intact hymen" and in what world is he also unlikely to enforce the social order through sexual violence? Why is the Virgin Whore still a thing? One of the men surrounding her asks why she'd auction it off instead of marry. Who in that room is going to marry her? How does that work in this bizarro world?

She walks out of White's unmolested and I have to decide if I'm going to read on. Genre books have had women in and out of White's like crazy lately. Sometimes they're standing in the rain getting their Lloyd Dobler on, sometimes they're eating in the kitchen as a special I Value Your Feminist Ways treat from the hero. Occasionally they push in the front doors as though they have every right to bring an errant brother / husband / lover/ random man home. They are never met with violence. Because they are the heroine and bad things cannot happen to women endowed with Magic Rape Repellent. Now ex-lovers of the hero? Oh, that is a different story indeed. Since this is long enough, it's a tale for tomorrow. Bring your blankie.

Review: I'd Like To Apologize To Every Teacher I Ever Had By Tony Danza

First, the title. This thing is Fiona Apple long. I'd Like To Apologize To Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year As A Rookie Teacher At Northeast High. That's like, 19 words. Let's just call it My Bad and move on. You know, the way one of Danza's students tells him her name and he thinks "Oh, I'll just call her Nick." (But Black Nick cause we already have White Nick.) My Bad is kind of awesome. It sidesteps most of the Rich Man Teaching pitfalls to deliver a straightforward look at what standardized testing has done to American's teachers and students. Of course Danza's students need more resources, better home lives and a more supportive system. But Danza doesn't condescend. When he encourages his kids to grab the opportunities they do have he never comes off as above them. Danza speaks to the students and the reader directly, as an imperfect man in an imperfect world.

In doing so he does the teaching memoir a great service. People who would never read a book about schools (unless it had recently been made into an uplifting Oscar film) will read My Bad because Tony Danza wrote it. His celebrity will illustrate that the grades given your child's school are not an indication of the passion or performances within it. His writing style is open and engaging. While nothing in the book is particularly surprising, the journey is pleasant. Danza admits that he struggled greatly with 20% of the average teacher workload and far more resources. He illustrates how the tasks we are asking our teachers to perform are impossible. As well, he doesn't fall for the One Teacher Who Cares myth that many teaching memoirs do. He recognizes that the teachers care. It is our society that does not.

My Bad is imperfect, like the subject it covers. Danza is a product of his times. While he works to keep race out of the book there are times he slips. Faced with a racist parent he blames "the culture" of the other children. A student on a downward slide demonstrates her unhappiness through the "extreme hairstyles" of an afro or cornrows. His good old days are of a certain tiny slice of American life. These things appear to be based more in ignorance than bias, as Danza otherwise presents himself as an open and rational man. Danza admits his imperfections to the reader, often harsher on himself than we would be. As a result he comes across as sincere and charismatic. Working in the story of a failed reality series (the excuse for his year at Northeast) Danza is desperate not to fail his students. He certainly doesn't fail the reader. My Bad is well worth checking out.

Review: Are You My Mother by Alison Bechdel

DNF books rarely get a review from me. If I didn't finish it, I can't really assess how it all comes together. I've read books that made choices I found inexplicable at page 50 which made perfect sense by page 350. In the case of Are You My Mother nothing could happen in the remaining pages to overcome the first 143. I don't even know how to talk about Are You My Mother without committing class warfare. Bechdel is not really talking about her mother in Are You My Mother, she is talking about herself.

The first 143 pages deal almost exclusively with Bechdel's emotional turmoil over writing. Her thoughts on therapy are covered extensively as are her therapy sessions. Theories are trotted out and highlighted as though Bechdel is taking notes for a midterm. In the world of Are You My Mother everything is required to hold deeper meaning. I once had a relative say to me, completely serious, that my cousin's headaches were caused by his mother hitting the brakes too hard in the car while pregnant. If (he went on at length) she had been a softer and more cautious driver then her son wouldn't have headaches. Bechdel's book is exactly like that. (In the case of my relative, I thought his son's headaches were probably due to an excessive intake of beer.)  Bechdel considers every injury, every thought, every dream to have a message from the universe inside. This is not terribly far from tin foil hat territory for me and this is where the class warfare comes in. Bechdel doesn't just seek a therapist. Once committed to therapy she embarks on a study of the field. She transfers into analysis. Therapy (and her therapists) become the security blanket she clutches against the rest of her life. Nothing, judging by the first 143 pages of Are You My Mother, could ever be as fascinating to Bechdel as thinking about herself is. The luxury of this both in terms of time and energy is staggering.

Not finding Bechdel's time on the couch as fascinating as she does made me think I was not the market for this book. Are You My Mother could have strong appeal to women of a certain income level and assumptive entitlement. Bechdel's issues with her upbringing are her own. Whatever works for her in her life is her business. As a reader I needed a narrative to carry me through Are You My Mother that simply didn't exist. Certainly I sympathize with Bechdel seeking enlightenment in the great works of philosophy and literature. So do we all. The fact that her deepest revelations come from The Drama of the Gifted Child (a book I loathe) and Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book is telling. After six weeks struggling to finish Are You My Mother I have to walk away. My relationship with the book is probably toxic for us both. I don't wonder what God is trying to tell me when I scratch my arm. I get a band-aid and keep pruning the hedge.

Review: The Rose of Fire by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Having two TBR piles is a quirk of mine. The first one is books I bought, or mean to read, or read a review of and purchased but might never actually get around to reading. When they were in paper, if they overflowed the shelf I'd bundle them up and ship them off to the library because life is short and obviously I wasn't going to read them. The other is books I have agreed to review various places via promises or promo copies. That I have hard and fast rules about. If I get 20 books in that pile No Books May Arrive Until Finished. We are so underwater right now in review land. I keep reading books from the other TBR pile and ignoring the Pile Of Doom. It's saving me money but I do need to catch up. So when Harper Collins asked me if I would review The Prisoner of Heaven, I had to say no. After all, we are in NBMAUF territory. Harper Collins, being the sneaky mofos that they are, said ok thanks, but there is a free short if you want to read it. Technically a short is not a book. Nor does an ebook have to arrive. So I decided in the middle of the night that Rose Of Fire was totally not a violation of the NBMAUF law and downloaded that bad boy.

I tell you that to tell you this. Now I want to read The Prisoner Of Heaven. It is a slippery slope, these free shorts. They sew the seeds from which massive TBR piles grow. On it's own, Rose of Fire didn't do much for me. It's a little bombastic, a little overblown. I cared exactly not at all for it's main characters. This is probably because I don't read the series. I love Barcelona, I love (in a totally not really love but am obsessed with) the Spanish Inquisition, and hey, a dragon? What! But it was a bit Umberto Eco for me. You know, it feels good for you instead of just good. I ended the short feeling absolutely fantastic about passing up The Prisoner Of Heaven. I decided to just go ahead and read the enclosed excerpt, to see if it continued the events of Rose of Fire or if it was it's own thing.

Dude.

Dude!

It totally sucked me in. I had to stop myself from hitting Kindle's-Buy-This-Right-Now-And-Stay-Up-All-Night-OMG button. Because that would be a blatant violation of the NBMAUF rule and my personal ethics. (Like I have them. Hah! I laugh at myself a little. Ok, lots.) The style was different, the pacing was different, it didn't feel good for me at all. It just felt good. That way lies infidelity. I have pledged allegiance to the TBR Review pile and all it holds dear, Amen. But I did click to add The Prisoner Of Heaven to my list of books to buy when NBMAUF is lifted. Because that's an opening few chapters, that is. It even overcame two of my biggest biases - no longwinded series and no books with bookstore owners. Guilt over cheating on my NBMAUF makes me come here and tell you that Rose of Fire is a free download just about everywhere right now. Be careful about that sample though. It's hard to walk away.

Review: Rape Girl by Alina Klein

Rape Girl is a young adult novel actually intended for tweens and teens.  With so many adults reading YA these days it can be challenging to find books thematically appropriate for actual 10 to 14 year olds. I was given an advance copy of Rape Girl to review but it took it's time getting to the top of my TBR pile. I find it difficult to read about rape, especially date rape or the abuse of a child. I shouldn't have worried. Rape Girl is not really about rape. While the description of what occurs during a rape kit is somewhat detailed, it is not graphic. The rape itself occurs largely off the page. Rape Girl is concerned with what happens after you speak up. I would love to see Rape Girl adopted as a discussion book for groups of both genders. Valerie's experience is not limited to girls who report their attacker. When Adam (Valerie's rapist) explains himself he speaks words that have been spoken to many girls in many places. Overall, Rape Girl gets the details right and deserves to find a wide audience.

As a young tween and teen I went to many of the parents-out-of-town parties that Valerie throws at the beginning of the book. I was never invited to the all ages block party she experiences later, although I throw them myself. The drunken party gone wrong is rooted in truth but still a cliche. Rape Girl neatly sidesteps this pitfall. In a sense, the party is the roller coaster ride and the rape occurs when the reader thinks Valerie has safely navigated the turns. Details are revealed in a bit of a haze. This makes sense for Valerie's state of mind. She is a pitch perfect teen, confrontational, reclusive, resentful. Because is the victim of a non-violent rape, she has trouble articulating her own feelings about what has happened to her. While she did not consent, does she have a prosecutable case? Is a failure to physically fight a type of consent? If Adam considers it consensual sex does she have the right to call it rape? These are things young date rape victims struggle with for years.

While Rape Girl gets the big details right, there are some smaller details that don't come together. For a young reader unfamiliar with Utah or Mormons, the setting will be lost. An adult reader will understand the importance of Adam becoming a missionary, but a tween or teen might not know what a religious mission is. Valerie's father is dead. His death seems irrelevant to their lives. Valerie doesn't reflect on him being gone in the context of what has happened to her.  In a very strong scene Valerie's mother gives her a car, but afterward Valerie is primarily driven by her mother. Valerie's time was slightly off for me too. I am not sure, for example, that waterbeds are still prevalent. In my part of the country they were once commonplace but currently unheard of. She checks Facebook from her shared family computer instead of her iPod or smart phone. These are minor  (and possibly regional) things but they gave Rape Girl a hybrid 90/10's feel. The small disconnects kept Rape Girl from being a truly exceptional book and placed it firmly in the good category.

For a young adult reader, none of these details may matter. I hope Rape Girl is adopted as a summer read for many girls. Beyond the rape itself Valerie's commitment to standing up for herself is a valuable example. The social price she pays (and the unexpected allies she finds) reach beyond her specific events. There is a universal appeal to Rape Girl that will allow young readers to easily identify with Valerie's struggle.

Review: Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story by Raymond De Felitta and Yvette Johnson

Booker Wright was a man.

I don't know if he was a perfect man. I doubt he was. From my own life I know that overcoming obstacles and perfection rarely walk hand in hand. Booker Wright was a man who kept his eye on the prize. Work hard. Save up. Build something better. Then NBC came to town. What do you do if you've been silent your whole life and someone asks you to speak? A man speaks. So Booker Wright did. To modern ears what he said may not seem very strong. His short speech is available on the internet and was recently featured in various stories about this film. The important part of Booker Wright's story is that he waited. He waited until his speech would be documented, until his speech could endure. Booker's words were a pebble in his own life, a pebble in the lives of those who heard him on the night his words aired. The ripples slowly faded.

Just as Booker's life collided with filmmaker Frank De Felitta's, so Booker's granddaughter collides with Frank's son Raymond. The resulting film, Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story gives voice to the hundreds of Bookers that America held in the recent past. There were Booker Wrights standing up across the south and refusing to Yassir another day. We are taught about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King not because these men were alone in their work, but because they were the most recorded, the most organized, the most eloquent. The black men of America are not made up of the nightly news. The black men of America are Booker Wright. If you ask them to speak, they will.

Booker knew there was a price to his words and he paid it. While he survived the initial attack, he was later murdered. The film, like the family, have their own suspicious about the event. I don't know if I agree. It is tempting to believe in something grand conspiring to put Booker back in his place. It's even reasonable. But sometimes the greatest story can end for senseless reasons. Someone gets drunk. Someone gets even. There may be a broader narrative at work but there doesn't have to be. Booker Wright is enough. We don't need more. The film, however, does. Using the scant source material of Booker Wright available to them the filmmakers rely on a repetition of key scenes or phrases to drive various points home. It's both effective and off-putting. While it doesn't damage the viewing experience it does make the film seem lighter in content than it is. De Felitta interviews many principals of the time and of his father's earlier NBC documentary.

For all that has changed, not much has. Faced with black pain, the white response is still a bewildered "Ain't I been good to you?" One white man stands to talk about that old canard, the black mother. Faced with a black perspective he becomes very emotional. He says he wouldn't have given up that relationship for anything, that he was equally important to the black woman, that he treated her well and she loved him. This is America in a nutshell. Faced with the reality of black life, white America won't give up it's privileges for anything. We are still, in so very many ways, the plantation owner of the 1966 film. And Booker Wright's words are as brave and important now as they were then.

Yvette Johnson, the granddaughter in the film, has collected her blog posts about Booker and Booker's Place into an ebook. I scanned her blog after writing this review and I may cover the book at a later time. As well, there is an excellent review of Booker's Place from the Chicago Sun-Times blog. I don't usually do links, but these are worth a glance.

Notes From The Road.....

I am in transit, with an Internet connection too unreliable for image uploading or post formatting. This happens more than you'd expect. Making notes for a review it occurred to me that my review notes rarely line up with the actual review. I don't write in drafts. Since this isn't a paying gig it is a one and done transaction. Sure, I hope the review is useful or entertaining or not a complete waste of our collective time, but I save the sweat and tears. I need that for profitable endeavors. Back to my point. In situations like this I often make a few notes in case I've forgotten what I wanted to say about the just finished book by the time I get around to the review. Enjoy this look at how little those notes translate into a finished product. In this case the notes were for Milan's The Governess Affair,I believe.

TGA Who he is vs who he is in response,  parent hopes,  his hopes.  Her mother? Her astute assessment of soap market. Identifying with a mother procuring education for a son. Consent,  shades of. Unhappy ending. Crazy people think they're sane. Robert is the villain. Dealing with Richard via Robert? Jobs that just are not worth it. Past cannot be preserved, broken glass jar. Letting things go, Hugo vs Serena's sister.

Back when my brain worked all of that would have been five words, tops. I have pages of notes I no longer understand. Back in the day I could recreate five pages of thoughts from less than five words. I miss that!

Review: The Last Victim by Karen Robards

Let's get the petty complaint out of the way quickly. In the opening pages of The Last Victim our heroine, Charlie Stone, is regretting drinking the booze laden "Goofy Grape Kool-Aid". Ok, two points. Maybe three. Goofy Grape was a Funny Face flavor that ended production in 1983. The events are taking place in 1997. Our heroine was born in 1980. It is possible she was so fond of Goofy Grape at the age of three that she adopted it as her generic name for grape flavored drink mixes, but it bugged me. Like I said, petty. Fast forward 15 years and I've got some issues with The Last Victim that are far from petty. I'm writing this in early June, so my entry into the book was cold, not an advance review in sight. If you go into the book knowing the basic plot you may enjoy it far more than I did. Robards has good pacing, she has distinct characters, their actions are consistent and logical to who they are. Unfortunately there is one element of The Last Victim I couldn't get past for all the Goofy Grape in the world.

Charlie Stone  is about the dumbest heroine I've ever read. (I know Robards likes the name, she's used it before, but if you're going to write a series about a woman who sees dead people the names Charley and Harper are taken.) Charlie Stone is self destructive in a completely new and original way for me. She is sexually attracted to serial killers. Ok, that might not be fair to Charlie. She is sexually attracted to a dead serial killer. Our supposed love triangle is between Mr. Great On Paper who leaves her unaffected and Mr. Rocking Body Dead Guy who killed seven women before he was placed on Death Row. Charlie muses to herself that the attraction is sick (YES) and unwise (YES) and maybe even a bad idea (DO YOU THINK?) yet finds herself unable to resist his rock hard abs. Because if a man is hot, even if you know he is evil, sex is what you can't stop thinking about (NO). This aspect of the book is so problematic that the rest of it doesn't even matter. If you can get past the hero being a serial killer, if inmate fantasy is your thing, The Last Victim is going to rock your world. If you think a woman who survived a serial killer, studies serial killers and is trying to save a young girl from a serial killer overlooking a serial killer's crimes for his hot body is reasonable, have I got a book for you. We've seen this dynamic before. Let's do a quick compare and contrast between Robard's Charlie and Darynda Jones' Charley. For Robards, we will use CS, for Jones we will use CD. Ready?

Sees dead people. CS / CD
Is the Grim Reaper. CD
Has super hot physical encounters when asleep. CS / CD
Is normal human who should know better. CS
Boyfriend has been in jail. CS / CD
Boyfriend killed or tried to kill parent. CS / CD
Boyfriend pursued by apparent demons from hell CD / CS
Boyfriend appears to protect her when needed, even against own will. CD / CS
Boyfriend admits to having done great evil. CD / CS
Boyfriend claims innocence of murder. CS

So yea, the paranormal girl and the super bad boy from hell is a thing, apparently. It's better than Charlaine Harris and her incest-lite sibling couple... ok it's not. I am more comfortable with the high ick factor in the Grave Sight series than I am with Charlie Stone and her boy toy. I completely get that Robards is going to pull a switcheroo in the second book and reveal that Garland is not a serial killer. (He hints at it enough.) But you have to go with what is on the page. On the page Garland is a man being drawn into Hell who threatens, who intimidates, who admits to having done very bad things and who has been convicted by DNA and other evidence. Charlie actually wonders, while getting frisky, if sexual gratification is what flips his psycho switch. The reader may suspect Garland will turn out to just be an average criminal, but Charlie believes him to be otherwise and there lies a very dangerous thing indeed. A serial killer is not a child who went wrong one day. They are not a misunderstood person in need of compassion. A serial killer is a predator who sees other humans as prey. A love affair between Charlie and Garland is like a chicken loving Colonel Sanders. How can a reader buy into that?

Garland is shown to have an explosive temper and a bad past. But he watches ESPN! And he is physically attractive! He can't be so evil as that, can he? Look! He engages in grooming behavior with Charlie! He protects her and berates her! He compliments her! He's a good guy gone wrong! He can be saved, right? No! It doesn't matter if Garland turns out to be innocent in a later book. We are in this book. And in The Last Victim he is the last person I'd consider a hero. That Charlie, with the information she has at hand, falls for him makes her impossible to root for. She can never overcome my personal judgement of Dumber Than A Rock by a later revelation of innocence. It's like the old Regencies where the girl dresses up as a guy so the hero can run around saying NoHomoTho while checking out her ass. I'm not interested in any trend that requires me to go NoPsychoTho.

All of that said, this book is going to have devoted fans. I think it will spark a lot of conversation in romance about where the boundaries of mainstream couples are and what leeway we will and won't give an author in telling her story. I know what side I'm on.