Lady Luck by Kristen Ashley

Skeptic scale: ♥


Wait. Before I begin the calm and reasonable part of the review, I NEED to first tell y'all this about this one scene in the book. It's a total non sequitur, because, of course, you may not have read the thing yet. But it is IMPERATIVE that you know it. Had I known this scene existed I would have hired a humvee just so I could run over this madness a thousand times until all that was left was a mangled fistful of tattered detritus.

So. Man and woman are living together and she's taking care of home and hearth and he's out earning the cheese (and by that I mean he's working in an auto shop). We know that so far he's not sure that he LOVES, loves her, but he likes her. And obviously he likes having sex with her. So he comes home one day and we see him sliding towards the realization that he's got it GOOD, son. He maybe, probably, definitely DOES love her. Aw. So sweet. But HOW does he come to this realization, you ask?

Well, he's back from the gym and he dumps his gym bag on the floor and then just gets this swell of manly joy - you know, because he knows she's gonna sort through his crud and take care of it.  

Dude. WTF? I'm old enough to know this for the garbage it is, but I fear, I TREMBLE, that some poor girl will be reading this and believing that is actually how she needs to operate to gain the love of a man. Listen little girl, no really, LISTEN TO ME. A man who thinks he can get away with that crap is NOT HOT. He's a baboon. A fuchsia-arsed BABOON. I think in 2013 we have come far enough to negotiate a SLIGHTLY fairer deal - say, him agreeing to dump his stinky gym clothes in the laundry hamper? Have we come THIS far at least? I like to think so, but then I read about goons like this and my world comes crumbling down again...

Oh, Mother Demeter. I think that must have been one of the most revolting scenes I have EVER read in a romance novel. Any novel maybe. And I've read some sick stuff.

And ANOTHER thing. I fully realize, I'm going on and on and everyone gets it, but here's one more thing about that whole stinky gym clothes bull that got me. These romance novels are fantasy. No man's abs are ever "as tight as a drum" unless he's an anorexic underwear model. Or Tom Brady. No man's buns are tight enough to bounce a quarter off of unless he's Michael Phelps training for the Olympics, alright. So yeah. It's all a great big fantasy. And I love that. BUT. If you get to build your FANTASY MAN - why, oh whyyyyyy, would you make him be a dude who thinks it's his woman's job to deal with his stink-ass piggishness? C'MON, sisters. We're better than that.

That is all. End of rant.

Resume in inside voice:

Lady Luck by Kristen Ashley is the most fascinating romance novel I have read in a long time. Not because the story was particularly interesting or original. But because it slapped me in the face with its sheer aggressiveness and swagger - drug-dealers, pimps, ex-cons, serial abusers of the English language. It has it all!

I was riveted - partly with horror and partly with an amused confusion that these words have been read (and seem to have been thoroughly enjoyed) by so many devoted fans of the author. Even though I doubt I will ever pick up anything else Kristen Ashley has written, I am sort of weirdly glad I got through it. Just because it made me think and analyze what it was that made me so uncomfortable.

Plot:
This is the story of a man who gets out of jail after being framed for a crime he didn't commit. He and the heroine, for reasons still slightly confusing to me, need to get married in order for him to put in motion a grand Plan o' Vengeance in order to clear his name and begin his life anew.

The hero and heroine spend the majority of the book having athletic sex all over the house and engaging in frequent misunderstandings with one another due mainly to the fact that the hero is unable to speak in full, coherent sentences. Everyone seems to be born of substance-addicted and/or abusive families and this can explain the cavalier attitude towards death and danger as well as the characters' generally poor language abilities. 

The hero does have some smokin' hot and also romantic lines and we know he is definitely alpha-dog extraordinaire. So, that was fun. But! I couldn't really fall for someone who refers to his wife as "his p*ssy" <wince> so all the alpha domination stuff just came across as cheesy and gorilla-like.

Relationship with money:
All the characters in the book have a strange relationship with money. Most of the characters are working class people. Some have done well for themselves running businesses. None of them seem wildly successful or able to earn a great deal through legal means but there's a lot of emphasis on buying "nice stuff". The money they talk of is of the duffel-bag-full-of-cash variety, not the steadily (and boringly?) accumulated weath you usually associate with rich individuals. And when people do have money they seem to be off buying bling for their "p*ssies" <CRINGE>, fancy cars and house stuff. How about a 401k, huh guys? For example, before his incarceration, the hero was working in an auto shop. That seemed to have paid well enough for him able to have purchased several luxury cars and a nice house chock full of fancy trimmings. Oh wait, he's a crack poker player. So when he needs some nice sh!t I guess he just trundles off to Vegas and earns him some Cash Money. Doesn't really make a lot of sense, but I guess it is fantasy. 

Gender roles:
I guess it's sort of implied that the characters' view of men and women's roles is somewhat traditional (Byzantine). 

Man - protect woman, make money, buy woman things so she's happy

Woman - do whatever man says, do his laundry and make his protein shake when he comes back from the gym, put flowers and sh!t everywhere, keep it tight. Keep your sass under wraps until someone bad mouths Your Man, in which case, Let 'er Rip, girls!

Profanity:
I actually went to goodreads and amazon to look what other reviewers were saying about the luxuriant use of colorful language, but shockingly, I seem to be the only one thus affected. I thought that was really interesting and have been doing all sorts of introspection to figure out the cause of all the discomfort I am experiencing.

Also, here's the thing about the sex scenes. I have read, and appreciated, enough risque fiction where characters say all sorts of saucy and explicit things to one another that I was kind of let down by the scenes in this book. And there are MANY scenes. Maybe that was part of the problem. I had to digest a new (kind of repetitive) sex scene every chapter or so, and because I had been reading all sorts of interesting language in the character's regular day affairs, by the time it comes to the bedroom, those words simply don't pack the same punch.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE a well-placed expletive. I find that swearing, when used skillfully, can be used to create humor, express passion, anger, sorrow, and even happiness. But here, the characters seem to use the words all jumbled together in a way that just seems unnecessary. They all just seem to come across as uneducated and crass, and, forgive me, somewhat dumb.

Ultimately, I couldn't really understand the point. 

For instance
This is the hero talking to the heroine about how a man should love his woman:

"Now, I got a dick and I assume he had a dick so, seein’ as he and I have that in common, I’ll tell you, your pussy was my pussy I would not be sellin’ pussy, not that I’d do that shit anyway. I would not be sellin’ dope and I wouldn’t do that shit either. What I would do is make fuckin’ coffee drinks if it meant you could wear your heels and feel good about sleepin’ in my bed."

Here was my immediate reaction to THAT little delight:

Seriously. Try reading this bit out loud. Without laughing, please. It can't be done because the slang is being used awkwardly and there really isn't the need for that many extraneous expletives to make the words impactful. Here's where I began to squirm when I realized the hero was a little.. simple, maybe? 

Let's end with the numbers*, because as we all know, the numbers don't lie. 

# of F-bombs: 840 (this is an exceptionally LONG book, but still guys, that's almost 2-3 per page)

# of other swears (incl. ones starting with S, D and A): 622

# of times the C*** word is used: 9

# of times a woman is referred to as a


: 65







# of times a woman is referred to as a


:70






*For comparison Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence which was the first book where the F word was published legally, and a novel that met with a great big scandalous brouhaha, had 30 instances of the word and 7 instances of the C*** word. The books are of slightly differing lengths, sure, and Lady Chatterley's Lover was published in 1928 and things have become more racy here in 2013, but the order to magnitude difference in the numbers gave me pause. 

Candy Store by Bella Andre

Skeptic scale: ♥

Suspension of disbelief sends local Romantical Skeptic into anaphylactic shock. "I saw a tunnel," said the exhausted woman, "the light at the end of it grew larger and larger and then, all of a sudden, I saw a man standing there. That man was 50 cent."

Part 1 - Introduction
Before I begin, allow me to remind you of another candy store immortalized by the great, and simply charming, 50 Cent.

I'll take you to the candy shop
I'll let you lick the lollipop
Go ahead girl, don't you stop
Keep going til you hit the spot, whoaa

I'll take you to the candy shop (yea)
Boy, wanna taste what I got (uh huh)
I'll have you spending all you got (c'mon)
Keep going til you hit the spot, whoaa

You could have it your way
How do you want it?
You gonna back that thing up or should I push up on it?
Temperature rising, ok
Let's go to the next level
Dance floor jam packed, hot as a tea kettle
I break it down for you now, baby it's simple
If you be a nympho, I be a nympho
In the hotel or in the back of the rental
On the beach or in the park, it's whatever you into
Got the magic stick, I'm the love doctor
Have your friends teaching you about how sprung I got you
When you show me what you working baby, No problem
Get on top, get your bounce around like a low rider
I'm a seasoned vet, when it come to this shit
After you work up a sweat, you could play with the stick
I'm trying to explain baby, the best way I can
I melt in your mouth girl, not in your hand (uh huh)

You're welcome.

Because if you are in the mood to read something fun and raunchy, you may as well read the lyrics to this song, because Candy Store, the book, is just so far beyond absurd that you might end up with an aneurysm. I can't even review this. I am without speech. But you need to know so I will summarize the story in one breath so I don't waste a second Oxygen/CO2 cycle on this. 

Part 2 - Snapshot summary
Here goes:

Callie's beloved candy store is going to have to close because she has put all her energy into making orgasmic truffles and none into learning how to do the books but that's ok because it turns out Derek (Derek!?) who she hooks up randomly with at her friend's wedding is the Candy King, the man who Fixes Things for the candy industry (I know, WTF?) and can help her fix her business by making her a website (because the Internet is SO hard, you guys) and advising her to sell hot chocolate to ice skaters and while doing all this they hook up multiple times in uncomfortably icy places (an industrial refrigerator (!?), by the side of a frozen-over lake, in a supply closet) which they are apparently unconcerned with because their passion keeps them toasty.

I think you may as well stop reading right here. I mean, the dude's name is DEREK and he's the CANDY KING. The profession of being a Candy King, apparently pays well enough to let him drive a Ferrari. Apart from a general curiosity about what type of emergency fix-it man is needed at the Hershey's and Jelly Belly plants, you already have all the information you need to make a decision about whether or not this story is to your taste. You should probably all just move on and save yourselves.

Unfortunately for me, I'm sunk. I can't let it go and I will move on to Part 3 of my rant. I advise you not to join me there because it'll seriously bring you down. The negativity, the harshness. You'll be miserable.

Part 3 - Chapter breakdown
I'm going to practically have to go line by line from beginning to end and make my comments because I won't be able to sleep ever again until I purge everything from my system. Let's begin.

Chap 1&2: H & h meet at the bar at the wedding of mutual friends. He's having a drink, she asks for "anything strong". He instructs the bartender to give her a tequila shot (rude, you can't just barge in and force someone to drink nasty hard alcohol). He then proceeds to teach her how to drink a tequila. The sexy way, obviously. By licking the salt off the other person and then sucking the lime off of the wedge in the other person's mouth. Yeah, ok I get how this can be hot on a sultry night in Tijuana. But we're at a wedding in Saratoga guys. Pack it in. 

Also, how come she didn't learn how to do tequila shots from watching The Cutting Edge (that movie about a US Olympic ice skating double) like everyone else? I watched that when I was 15 and although I didn't actually get to drink a shot till I was legal, I knew the mechanics. 

Chap 3&4: While the are doing their inappropriate little public tequila seduction, the H is called away to make his best man speech and she runs off to hide because she is so embarrassed. Where does she run off to? Not out the door into the parking lot or anything. But into the kitchen and into one of the big refrigerators. Recall that these are places where the mob stores their fresh kills or locks people in to die of cold and fright. He follows and finds her - the creepiness of this stalkerish action gave me chills down my back - and they proceed to do it against one of the shelves. 

Several points to make here: 1) George Costanza gets "shrinkage" from a few minutes in the pool and this guy can get it up in an icy fridge against a cold metal shelf? What a stud. 2) Why don't they arrange to meet in warmer climes (a bedroom, perhaps) in an hour or so when the wedding is over and they are not standing in a place that houses meat and dairy. They had one lousy tequila shot - they were hardly drunk enough engage in this level of nonsensical behavior.

Chap 5-12: They meet again when both learn that that he is, in fact, the Candy King and she has hired him to save her business by making innovative suggestions like having her build an e-commerce website. They manage to hook up again in several awkward and horribly cold places (e.g. outdoors next to a public ice skating rink in winter) while her business and their romance begin to thrive. 

I take a moment here to mention Derek's backstory. He has been hurt, terribly hurt, before by a money-grubbing fiancee who wanted him to be more than the Candy King (more? the man has a Ferrari for God's sake!). In fact, the ex-fiancee would have definitely approved of Derek's brother's insistence that Derek join his boring but successful accounting firm. But Callie is different. She loves him for him, not his Kingdom of Confection. Or so he thought. At a family dinner, he overhears Callie compliment his brother on his successful accounting practice and Derek construes this to mean that she too is a money-crazed b*-atch who wants him to sell out and be a boring old accountant. 

He drives off in his Ferrari (Wait! I mentioned that the automobile he drives is a luxury sports car, right? Because you should know that despite how it sounds, being a Candy King is a huge alpha dog characteristic) and throws a hissy fit at her apparent duplicity. She decides to go after him but chooses to wander around in the freezing rain and cold and ends up shivering in a ball at his doorstep. He picks her up and tenderly cares for her because she's a cold, helpless lamb who doesn't own proper winter gear. He now realizes he's been an ass and apologizes by sending her dozens of bouquets of flowers (oh, brother) and hires a string quartet (gag) and proposes to her in her candy store (barf). On Valentines Day (Sweet Merciful Zeus, there's no room left in the puke bucket!)

The end.

I'm feeling a little better now. Thanks, Skeptics. Sharing really does help.

Love Story by Erich Segal

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥

Allow me to transcribe the note I had scrawled as a young Skeptic in 1996 into the front cover of my ratty old copy of this book.

"ONLY READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO CRY UNCONTROLLABLY FOR MANY DAYS. DON'T DO IT. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. TOO MANY DAYS HAVE BEEN LOST MOPING AROUND AFTER READING THIS GDAMN BOOK. IT'S TOO MUCH. 

ARE YOU LISTENING????" 

But I never listen to good advice, even my own, and I have read this thing maybe once a year for the past 17 years. Why? Because I am a sucker and a huge, pathetic sap.

From the first line ("What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.") to the last ("And then I did what I had never done in [my father's] presence, much less in his arms. I cried.") I am a sniveling, wet chump who has the inglorious distinction of falling for the same sh*t again - like that girlfriend you have who has daddy-issues and who Just Never Learns.

It's the old story of young lovers from two different worlds who give up everything to be with each other only for everything to be ripped away from them by death. Death, you miserable b@stard.

I know this is an old book, and everyone has probably already read it. But I saw it on the shelf this morning and I felt that familiar punch in my tummy and sat down to read the bits that I had underlined. Turned out that I had underlined stuff on almost every page so I ended up spending a couple hours zipping through the whole thing. Needless to say, my productivity levels today are shot. 

It's beautiful and brilliant and even when I read it as a young sapling at 15, I knew that THIS was love. ES is funny, clever and heartbreaking and even though I am going to feel like cr@p all day now, I'm glad I knew this book.

Greetings

The book that started it all

Hello and welcome to the home of romantical skeptics and skeptical romantics! 

First off, I need to get something out there - I love romance novels, I do, but I must confess that I begin each and every one with a feeling of disbelief and incredulity. I mean, I believe in great relationships and emotional attachment and love, obviously, or I may as well be dead inside. But even though I don’t doubt the existence of True Love, I find myself picking up each book with an unspoken challenge to its writer – ok sister, convince me.  Make me believe the Happily Ever After and why these two clowns should get to have it.

An early fave

If my approach sounds obnoxious and disrespectful to those valiant scribes who labor ceaselessly to bring us stories of love – it’s only because I care so dang much. I want to believe, Skeptics! I want the Him & her to have their HEA and to go sailing off into the sunset or at least fog up their sex toy-rigged penthouse making sweet, sweet love atop a piano. A believable HEA is all I pray for when I read these things. Most of the time though, I come away feeling like I just watched an episode of Friends – something of familiar and obvious, kind of enjoyable but ultimately, rather forgettable. Other times I read something so monumentally idiotic that I want to fall to my knees and scream like a 14^th century washer woman who’s just lost her child to the Black Death. Am I too invested? Possibly. This is what I am trying to tell you. It is literally my greatest weakness (one that I frequently mention in job interviews) – I care too much.

Good example of hot pink 

But. Once in a very great while I will chance upon a story so sweet, so incredibly precious that my faith is restored; birds sing once more and the blackness in my heart turns for a moment to a vibrant pink*, and it pulses with new life. This is what I live for, dearest Skeptics, and why I risk bitter heartbreak every time I read a new romance novel. Because when the magic does happen…well, it is effing glorious.

*Not a pretty rose shade but the serious, hot pink that marketers love to use to represent girl-power. You know the one – they use it on everything – tampon boxes, chick lit novel covers, barbie's lipstick. Hot pink, it would appear, has been re-appropriated to represent some sort of post-post-modern female empowerment thing. Not saying I hate it. But it’s just painful to look after a while.