Tag Archives: Rant

Team TBR Challenge Review/Rant: 暴君请放手 by 一抹初晴

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暴君请放手 by 一抹初晴
(Tyrant, Please Let Go aka “Beauty’s Fault“) by Yi Mo Chu Qing
Beauty's Fault Hoopla Audiobook Cover

他擁有絕美的容顏，卻因此淪爲仇人的玩物；她爲報救母之恩，替他承歡於他的仇人身下。終有一天，她助他得以飛出囚籠，重獲新生。本以爲可以從此自由，誰料他殘忍下手，揮劍刺向她的胸膛。“怎麼，想離開我，回到他的身邊去？”他絕美的脣角掛着陰鷙的冷笑，長劍的劍尖上還淌着殷紅的血。他的劍，怎會刺進她的胸膛？這樣的結局，是她始料未及。他冷冷地指着她：“你逃不了！我不會放過他，也不會放過你！”
He has a beautiful face, but because of this he becomes the plaything of his enemies; in order to repay the favor to her mother, she acts his body double and makes nice with his captor on his behalf. One day, she helped him fly out of the cage and regain his life. She thought she could be free from now on, but who would have expected him to be so cruel that he stabbed her in the chest with his sword. “Why, do you want to leave me and go back to him?” There was a sinister sneer on the corner of his beautiful lips, and the tip of the long sword was dripping with red blood. How could his sword pierce her chest? This ending was something she had never expected. He pointed at her coldly: “You can’t escape! I won’t let him go, and I won’t let you go!”

First of all … I spent too much time hunting down the actual book blurb, and “translating” it – TBH I obviously used google translated and edited what it spit out … What it says in Hoopla is this:

“Canon grave” is based on Jiang Feng as the main line, wrote about the jiangs pawnshop in three hundred years throughout the country. The story took place in different times. The Jiangjia Pawnshop before liberation and the Jiangjia Pawnshop after liberation were staggered.

… which is obviously fucking wrong. Also I started listening to the book in my car so it’s not as if I could’ve tried to find the source material and plug it into a translator. Anyway I’m salty AF. Especially since all the [Chinese] sites I’ve found it on label it as a romance. A ROMANCE! NO!

While the prompt for the TBR challenge this month was “furry friends” I’m ignoring it because I need to rant. (Also I considered writing a review of a book I enjoyed that had a dog, but look … I need to talk about this goddamn book more.) Calling the … I don’t even want to call him a “male lead” – even in my notes I just called him “dude” other than my descriptive “13 year old shitprince” … anyway, calling him a dog would be an insult to dogs. And not just because I LOVE dogs. I felt insane while I was listening to this book. I didn’t DNF it because I’d DNF’d like eight books over the weekend – so many that I didn’t even bother putting them all into GR. I kept listening because the first part was ok, and more I kept hoping it’d get better. I kept thinking, “it has to get better, right? Everything is going to turn around.” Well, I WAS WRONG. I think this might be the most “what in the goddamn fuck” book I’ve ever read in my life. Continue reading →

Condoms Don’t Like Teeth (Guest Katie Porter Vents)

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Condoms Don’t Like Teeth
By Katie Porter

It really seems like this should be a fairly straight forward concept. Condoms are thin. Super, duper thin, and we all know why—to increase the sexy times fun feelings, of course. Hell, Trojan condoms were sold by the tag line “Feels like nothing is there!” Of course that calls to mind plenty of other…shortcomings? Shall we say?

But we get the point. (Omg. Unintentional pun, I swear.)

Now. What do we need to keep away from condoms? Sharp things. Just like a balloon, condoms are poppable. And what’s at the front of our mouths? Sharp implements designed for cutting bites of meat off your food. Your teeth.

So why in the name of god would you rip open a condom wrapper with your teeth? Do you really want to put a microscopic hole in something that’s protecting your sexual health?

Which brings me to my point: I am SO VERY sick of reading this action in contemporary romance novels. In my head, they get five points for mentioning condoms—and then fifty bajillion points taken away for “ripping the condom open with his teeth.” I would personally rather have no mention of condoms. In that case, I can fill in the blanks just like I fill in heroines stopping to pee and brush their teeth in the morning. Maybe that level doesn’t need to be on the page, that’s fine.

But please God, don’t show me the characters being stupid about it! I get it’s supposed to indicate eagerness. The hero’s really into her, I understand that. I probably also understood it when he was walking about the pages with permanent priapism and when h thinks of naughty things whenever he looks at the heroine, but I liked that part. It’s lusty, not stupid. (Well, maybe a wee bit stupid too. But not all.) I mean, didn’t these characters have ninth grade sex ed? Maybe they were too busy gathering up a tragic back-story to go to boring ole’ sex education.

Now, in closing, I’m going to leave you with a spectacularly cringe inducing example. It’s not from a romance novel (thank the sweet baby jebus) but I’m hoping it’ll…stick around in your head a little while. A what-not-to-do, shall we say?

When he ripped the condom packet open with his slightly snaggled teeth and rolled the latex onto his birthmarked penis.

Leah from Hold ’Em never chews on her condom packets. Nor does she truck with snaggled teeth or imperfect penises.  Of course she whacks Captain Michael Templeton, her hero, with a flogger, a cane and a paddle, but that’s an entirely different blog post. Neither do Ryan nor Jon, the heroes from the first two Vegas Top Guns ever rip a condom open with their teeth, either. (See what I did there? So pluggy. It’s a failing of mine.) No condoms will ever be hurt in the writing of Katie Porter books, this I swear!

***

Up next for Katie Porter, the co-writing team of Carrie Lofty and Lorelie Brown:

Now that the first three of the RT BookReviews 4½ Star Top Pick “Vegas Top Guns” series have been released, readers can anticipate the final two installments, Hard Way and Bare Knuckle, in 2013.

November brings the m/m Christmas-themed Came Upon a Midnight Clear, described as “masterful” by Publishers Weekly. In January, Lead and Follow  will launch the five-part “Club Devant” series of erotic multi-partner romances set in a hot New York City burlesque club.

Where to find us: website, Twitter: @MsKatiePorter, or individually: @carrielofty and @LorelieBrown

We’d like to give away a copy of Double Down, Inside Bet or Hold ‘Em (winner’s choice) in any format. Just answer the question: Did you know it’s a bad thing to nibble on condoms?

Thanks again to Limecello for letting me vent!

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So… today we were actually supposed to have an author spotlight from Jeaniene Frost. I’m not quite sure what happened, because I’ve been emailing her assistant for a while, and we scheduled the guest date months ago – we’d even been in contact recently… but … then radio silence.

Of course, that’s kind of how things have been going.

You’ll notice I didn’t post winners last Saturday. I didn’t get to touch my computer for ~2+ days. Which is why the review actually went up later than normal yesterday, if anyone noticed.

I wanted to apologize for things not going up according to the normal schedule. (Did anyone notice?)

Also… I don’t know. I don’t think I talk about the “back end” of things much… and anyone please let me know if I’m wrong or misjudging that… but they just haven’t been going so smoothly lately. Frankly, I’ve been having more and more thoughts about just shutting down.

There’s drama and bad behavior and stress and it’s just… it’s been disappointing and discouraging lately/for a while now. I don’t need … well best to stop while ahead.

Then again, every so often there are awesome people. And awesomely generous people. [Although none of that benefits me. Ahem ;)] But you know how bad experiences always seem to outweigh the good… like studies have shown. A bad experience with a person/store/company takes multiples longer to get over or forget than a good experience.

Anyway… I hope to have things more settled down and more regularity soon. I also hope to win the lottery and to sweat diamonds. (I don’t know – I had to come up with something ridiculous. It would be pretty awesome though. And would make sweating worth it. I’d also be worth billions, considering the heat of this summer…)

And, if/when I get the post from Jinger/Jeaniene Frost, of course I’ll post it. To this date. Just wanted to let you all know what’s been going on. And specifically today. In a vague, slightly whiny way.

Additional note – a lot of you talk about how I rant all the time. Frankly… I haven’t ranted in a really long time. If/when I post a rant, I hope you’ll see the difference. [Read: Am getting annoyed at stuff. It’s freaking me out – and not exactly pleasant – for things that aren’t rants to be called rants. As in – haha, “Lime! You’re such a bitch!!!” – Not so great. And… why do some people call EVERYTHING an interview?  That’s my other blog pet peeve. I’m about to issue demerits to future comments of “enter me! Loved this interview!” when it’s obviously not one.]

… See? That last part? That was a rant. In case you were unclear. [And in case it wasn’t clear until now – I’m stressed out. Which is making me especially short tempered.]

To balance it out I might make an honor roll of excellent guest bloggers and authors. Don’t worry though – I won’t call out the diva/ABB ones.

… So that’s all.

Special Guest: Stacie! (Oh No They Didn’t!)

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It’s the third Saturday of the month! And that means we have a special reader guest, here to share her (or his, if/when that happens) thoughts about romance novels, or anything. Stacie’s here with a really interesting topic, so stick around! (Oh also? Stacie is freaking awesome she sent me this post way back in April. April 11, to be exact. We also scheduled this post in like :X January or February of 2011. I had to convince her to be a guest blogger. 😉 Although you might remember her from her 2011 RT Recap!)

Also, both Stacie and I would like to note, that the covers shared here are romances that don’t have thin bashing. They’re books Stacie enjoyed.

Oh No They Didn’t!

THUNK!

That was the sound of a trade paperback being thrown across the room. I don’t think I had ever done such a thing before. After all, a trade paperback isn’t cheap. But I did just that a few months ago.

Why would I do this?

Buckle up, Buttercup. I’m about to rant your pants off.

It is no secret that romances have historically had a problem with body shaming female characters. The majority of that body shaming has been targeted at overweight heroines. During the course of the story the unhappy/unloved/virgin character sheds her shameful pounds and ends up falling madly in love with her hero. Yes, she had to change her appearance to be worthy of the hero. This was very common in older romances.

In the past several years there have been many authors that wrote curvy heroines who were happy with themselves. The heroes who fell for these strong women loved them for their curves. This has been a wonderful way to empower a body type that had been vilified in the past.

Unfortunately, some authors emphasize the hero’s love for the voluptuous heroine by mentioning how disgusted he is by thin women. The words used to describe the thinner body type are almost always negative. Skinny, bony, anorexic (don’t get me started) are some of the adjectives used. The book that I launched across the room had a secondary hero that described thin women as “skeletons with skin.”

Full disclosure time. I am thin. VERY thin. I have body issues like any other woman. Probably more. Paying $15 for a romance that basically tells me I’m disgusting does not make me a happy camper. This isn’t the first time an author has made a crack about my body type but this instance was the most shocking.  It took several days before I could start reading the rest of the book (which I ended up enjoying BTW).

Thin shaming has become more common as the popularity of curvy heroines has grown.  Is it necessary? Do authors need to put thin women down in order to make curvy women better? Why can’t it be okay to be one or the other? Why is one good and the other bad? Authors, if you wouldn’t describe your curvy heroine as portly or rotund then why is it okay to describe the thin character as skinny or bony? All of those adjectives are insulting. You do realize that thin women read romance too, right? Why alienate part of your audience? Why not celebrate all body types?

I had an epiphany about a month ago. I had been on an m/m romance binge and I finally figured out why. I could read an m/m romance without having to keep my guard up. I wasn’t worried that I was going to read something hurtful.  How sad is that?

This is one of my pet peeves in romance lately. What are yours? What would make you so mad that you would turn your book into a projectile? Is there a topic that pushes your buttons?