In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday...

OK.  This is what we're going to do.

For the rest of the summer, I am going to post as much as I can, and if (read: when) I am late, I'm not going to apologize.  It's going to keep happening, and the constant contrition is going to get old for all of us.  So let's just go with it.

And now, obsessive links!

From the *HeadDesk* department of WTF-ery, comes SB Sarah's remarkable response to a remarkably horrific article about the effect of romance articles on female perceptions and sexuality.  Let's just say that you learn research techniques in middle school that are better than those used to write this annoying piece of drivel (To clarify: the article is drivel.  SB Sarah's response is badass).

From the *This Might Have to Be My New Cult Favorite* department of Awesomesauce comes this critique and clip of the upcoming show Once Upon a Time.  Does the premise sound awkward and ill-thought-out?   Perhaps.  But then there's the fact that it comes from the writers of Lost.  There's also the fact that the clip is... awesome.  Go to there.

Also, those just catching up to the UK phone hacking scandal should check out this article from the June issue of Vanity Fair.  We could be witnessing their Watergate.

And finally, from the *Start Lining Up Already* department of GAH! comes the news that the Arrested Development feature film is alive and well.  And anything George Bluth says must be... exaggerated for the manipulation of his stockholders.  Nonetheless.  This time next year, people!!

Have a lovely weekend.

In Which There is Hiatus

It's big-time season-finales week, which means one thing for a lot of people who make television shows: hiatus.

The next two weeks are insane for me.  Like, two-weddings-on-two-continents-within-six-days insane.  I plan to do a lot of reading.  But I do not plan on having the mental capacity to write about it coherently.

Also, I just started a new diet (ugh, I can't believe I just wrote that) and I need some time to get going before I completely re-vamp Menu Mayhem.

THUSLY, I hiat.  Or something like that.  When I come back there will be the new Monday Menu Mayhem I spoke of, at least three new book reviews (Providing I don't get hugely distracted by the Virgin Atlantic onboard entertainment... Hello, all of the movies I've been dying to see...), and I will be coherent once more.  Maybe.

Have a glorious two weeks, friends, and enjoy the May/June transition.

Discussion- The Heroine Lameness Factor

And thusly begins our first discussion post.

I don't know exactly how this is going to work between the two of us, but I'm going to start in one color, and then Wendy Pan will respond in another color. Or something.

Let the Great Experiment Begin!

To open, I give a little background: This blog is largely inspired by another, more famous blog, nd the genius creators/writers of said blog recently published a book, from which our beginning discussions will originate.

So, one of the major breakdown/critical assaults (with love!) is about Trashy Romance Heroines, their archetypes, and how generally helpless they can be (except for a select few of our more mod ladies).

That said, here I am opening the discussion. Ready, steady, GO!

KATE:

I have two current paranormal series obsessions, one of them the aforementioned Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward, the other the Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole. Ward's prose is more heavy, the characters better developed, the drama more wraught. Cole's is lighter, fluffier, and just plain more fun. But I digress.

I prefer Cole's series for a number of reasons, the most important of which being that the women kick ass. Like, seriously. Kaderin the Cold Hearted is a badass warlord who collects the teeth of all the vampires she's killed. Mariketa the Awaited is the most powerful witch in a millenia who manages to fend of otherworldly threats just fine before her lykae shows up, thank you very much. Sabine the Sorceress of Illusions is a tormentor and torturer of epic proportions, and continues to be even after she is comfortably mated to the King of the Rage Demons.

By contrast Ward's heroines are always the secondary members of the book, they have identities of their own, but they don't really do anything... they have their moments of glory and then very quickly fade into the background at the Brotherhood takes precedence.

Now there is a time and a place for a complacent heroine (mostly in historicals), but if I'm talking about personal preference, I want my ass-kicking heroes to have ass-kicking femmes. Who's with me?

How This Is Going to Go Down: A Post

So, to be clear, there are actually TWO people writing this blog, although one of them has chosen to be MIA until sometime next week. In the meantime, here's how this SHOULD work on a week-to-week basis.

Wendy Pan and I will each post a review of a book, either that we have just finished, or that we finished a decade ago and want to write about, or that we are currently reading and are extremely in love/annoyed with.**

Then once a week we will have a "discussion" in which we pass a given topic back and forth like a beach ball. Only it probably will not go on that long, since neither of us is very coordinated.

So I'm going to hold up my end of the deal and write another review for this week, and then hopefully we'll start writing right along next week. Or in July. But we'll see.




**A minor disclaimer: If we are that in love with the book, we might not want to put it down long enough to write about. Sorry.

The Grading System. How it Works, What it Means

Here's how this is going to work.
At the end of each review, we are going to grade each book based in five areas.

1. Plot- Feasibility within the book's own mythology, whether it made sense, etc.
2. Characters- No idiots/helpless heroines welcome.
3. Sex- It better be worth it.
4. Style- Appropriate to what the author was aiming for... or what we think the author was aiming for.
5. Ease of Consumption- How much fun was this to read? Or wasn't it?

BONUS POINTS: Only our favorite authors can get bonus points. They are our faves, and we will follow them to the ends of the earth... but they can also lose extra points for copping out and not living up to their full potential.

Each of the above is worth 1 point. The best a book can do is 5 plus Bonus Points. Worst is -1. Yes, -1... you can lose points for being that bad.