Grab a flask and play along: it’s time to get head-weaving drunk with “Someone Without A Clue Reviews Romance: the Drinking Game!”
While multiple-mullet salutes have been found with increasing frequency, it’s still cheap and easy humor, akin to blonde jokes and snide comments about overweight people, to slap at romance novels, and of course the women who read them. So let’s see how many lame and tired points of insult Kimya Kavehkar comes up with before she runs out of column inches: Judging Romance Novels By Their Steamy Covers!
Comment about the covers: DRINK!
We’re going to judge the book by its cover! Because the covers are SO lame (yes, sometimes they are) and it’s SO funny how they’re all SO LAME.
Except for the part where you’ve already outed yourself as being a steaming pile of imaginationless dookie. Judge books by their covers. Wow. Will wonders never cease.
I need another drink. Hang on.
Ok: let’s read on past the headline, which someone spent copious hours on, I’m sure. It’s a clusterfuck of cliche up in here, up in here.
Reviews that aren’t really reviews but instead plot summaries of dubious grammatical construction: DRINK!
Did you know that any book, regardless of it’s social status and intellectual cache, can be reduced to fascination levels previously achieved only by lukewarm yogurt? So true: just summarize the plot points badly. For example:
Jesus’ half-baked buddy gets all asshurt when he’s forced to live in a motel and write his memoirs.
Three women living in the rural South explore the many layers of life women face living in the rural South.
I think my kid killed someone.
Some guy dies in a cave.
So yeah, doing the same to romances? First, not a review. I don’t think you’ve read the books in question past the back cover copy. Poor dear, was that all you could manage?
Second, still not funny.
Third, that’s the best you got? Come on, I got half a flask left here.
Tangent Question: which is easier to mock, NASCAR or romance? I think it may be a close tie, but both parties are going to laugh all the way to the bank so you have fun with your flaccid humor.
NASCAR and romance have a lot in common, though: dismissed by outsiders as dreck for the unintelligent, yet made up of fascinatingly brilliant people with incredible intellect and creativity.
Reference to nausea as appropriate response to happiness: DRINK!
Yes. Because happiness is, like, so lame. Too easy a target – next!
Obligatory reference to romance readers as lonely, boring women: DRINK!
Equally important depiction of romance readers as women who have many, many cats: DRINK MORE!
Required snide mention of Nora Roberts: DRINK MORE!
This one is just pure chortling gold: Author Nora Roberts is known for her grocery store check-out aisle fame, her books typically picked up by single ladies and accompanied by nine tins of cat food.
WOW. I think Nora’s got some hot marketing potential here: “Nora Roberts: Bigger Than Tic Tacs.”
(I’m going to need some Tic Tacs after all this drinking.)
SWEET DELICIOUS IRONY: this article is from the Berkeley Beacon, the newspaper of the Emerson College, where they’re “Bringing innovation to Communication and the Arts.”
Yes. Because nothing says “innovation” like being uninformed, ignorant and lame! Ms. or Mr. Kavehkar, let me know when you’re ready to bring it, because then I’ll be ready to take you seriously.
Tune in next time for another round of, How many tired cliches of romance snippery can you fit in one lame article? with your host, “Whomever thinks they’ve got a clue about romance but knows jackall about it.
Sassy Irish girl, Adelia Cunnane, immigrates from Ireland to America to live with her Uncle Paddy at Royal Meadows
Um. Shouldn’t that be emigrate? The way the sentence is structured implies departure from, not arrival to. Immigrate would be correct if Adelia immigrated to the United States from Ireland.
I guess eschewing romance does not automatically elevate one’s use of the English language.
I wrote a scathing email to the newspaper and warned them that this was now being past from reader blog to reader blog and that authors and yes even those in the publishing world read what is being said on the reader blogs. I then posted it on my blog. I did love what Cheryl St.John had to say on the article though.
Nora is one of my literary heros, and I am proud to say that I own almost all of her books, think I am missing 4, and have read all of them.
I googled the author and the only link took me to her Facebook page – it includes a photo of three female friends (I assume she is one of them). The photo appears to be taken by a cell phone during a pub crawl. Perhaps the pub crawl contributed to her lack of judgment in posting something for which she did not research. No doubt that Kimya will, later in life, cringe when she remembers that she took on a million romance readers (and Nora Roberts fans).
I do offer her a quote from Percy Bysshe Shelley, “All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth. “
Hmn… I was going to re-look at one of her quotes, but now it looks like they want us to register to see the article. Apparently the webmasters (or whever) are taking the standpoint that more interest must be a good thing, and possibly capitalizing on our outrage to garner further interest in their itty bitty bit of verbiage. So I don’t need to see it… no more hits on that page from me. I’ve often thought the most effective way to punish spoiled children, if you can’t just pop ‘em upside the head, is to ignore them and reinforce how unimportant they really are.
Diane :oP
no pets at the moment but would have a dog if I could, single by choice, and not inclined to justify my reading preferences to a spoiled, insecure little child.
Please add me to the list of those clamoring for the SBTB flask. It would be the ultimate accessory for carrying Edradour to my next MaltCon.
How “raunchy” can a 1981 Nora Roberts cover be?! It shows two people and a horse running in the background. Good grief, if this person thinks that’s raunchy, I don’t even want to know what they think about the Victoria Secrets Christmas shows….
I actually don’t get it. What is the article author trying to accomplish, here? It just looks like a bunch of plot summaries with one or two put-downs tossed in, like SB Sarah says above. What’s the point?
Also, I LOVE being a single lady who buys food for her cats, like a responsible pet owner. Joining in with all the other out and proud pet owners.
Yeesh.
Has anyone checked to see if Sarah is okay?
Or sent aspirin?
I’m not reading the article because I’m All Done giving my time to people who want to get their 15 minutes in the (very) dim spotlight writing about the same old tired crap on a subject they know nothing about.
So my usual response to columnist like Mr/Ms Kavehkar: Shut Up
I don’t comprehend what is wrong with the fact that a) I love romance novels and b) I’m single. I choose to be single. Even if I didn’t choose and hadn’t found anyone, there’s nothing awful about that either. I’d rather be single (or divorced, considering today’s society) and happy than married to the wrong person. Maybe that’s me being overly romantic.
Ok, boring, yeah, hard to defend myself against that one.
Too many cats, yep, that’s me. (But in my own defense, I also have 2 dogs, 2 birds, 27 tropical fish and a pet snake that compete for my attention with the 4 cats. Never marry a veterinarian.) My pets, however, eat better than I do, and I never get their food at the supermarket.
Lonely? Ya gotta be kidding, if I get 10 minutes alone, all by myself in a week, I consider it a blessing.
Nora Roberts fan, yep, guilty.
But if she’s only 19, I recall making many foolish statements at that age. (But at least I never published anything at all to come back to haunt me.)
So the world might be ready for Smart Bitch flasks? HA! I will see what I can do to Make It So.
Would make for most EXCELLENT parties!
First of all, what is wrong with being single and a cat owner? Cat people of the world unite against romance hating, cat hating people. 😉
Secondly, to Laurel who just discovered the In Death series. My condolences. I did that a few years ago and spent a couple hundred dollars IN A MONTH catching up. #30 is coming out next month.
I read this post this morning, before the link to the article. And I was kind of let down by the article, which was much less awesome then I would have expected due to the amazingness of this review of the review. Honestly, when I read the synopsis, I kept waiting for something interesting.
@ Laurel
Ironically, my library system does have romance genre stickers on several Dean Koontz books. I’ve not read any of them, but I’ve asked several patrons if they consider them romance. Our genre stickers are all over the place, which I kind of like because it means you can’t rely on them. I like romance novels, but I like it when people can find books and not be put off because they are not in the “genre” they prefer. I’ve recommended J.D. Robb to mystery fans, and Sherrilyn Kenyon to fantasy fans because even though the authors are “romance novelists” the books are more than one thing.
@Sarah: Oh, yes. SB Flasks. Please!
@SandyO: LOL! If it gets too out of hand I might engage the library and pick up the books a few at a time. I don’t spend much money on anything besides kids and groceries (cough, beer, cough) so I figure books are my vice. Better than compulsive gambling, at any rate.
I’m stuck on the fact that she thought chess pieces were steamy. I couldn’t get beyond that, tbh.
Obviously the poor dear hasn’t seen the cover of “Big Spankable Asses,” or anything at Ellora’s Cave Taboo.
“Irish Thoroughbred?” Come ON.
@Sarah W
The Borders that I shopped at when I lived in NYC actually included a lot of romance novels in the literature section. Among them were Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele. It took me awhile to realize this, though because there was a separate “romance” section,” so i was constantly in search of the books I wanted.
I wonder what the romance-haters have to say about that.
My new goal in life is to be bigger than tic-tacs.
i’ve been wasting time reading this girl’s blog (she shares it with her equally arrogant boyfriend), and dear God she needs an editor STAT (and some taste in fashion—her bf could use some help with music history too, although he is a hell of a lot better writer than she is).
My favorite sentence so far:
Another good one (this one shows that she has no problem talking about things she doesn’t know about:
How can you say something is good without having watched it? God to be 19 and stupid again…then again, no, i don’t want to be 19 and stupid.
When I went back to school in the 80s, one of the things that blew me away was the crap that got printed in the campus (not Emerson) newspaper under the supposed banner of free speech. This type of unbridled content was still getting published when my daughter went to the same school just after the turn of the century. There were both opinion pieces and “news” articles that made Rush Limbaugh and his ilk sound like Miss Manners. I vaguely remember an article justifying rape that was supposed to be humorous, and I used to wonder whether the paper had any editorial policy beyond maximizing shock value. It seems to me that this review falls into the same category—some uninformed twerp using the school newspaper as a stage to parade their faux cleverness. To Kimya, I can only say, enjoy the tons of rotten fruit flying your way. You earned it.
I also vote for the SB flask! Would order STAT! Great snark. Would also want Sarah to watch my six in any fight.
I always find the Nora goes better with icecream.
Not everyone likes romances. Is most of her stuff ignorant and hateful sounding? Yes. But she doesn’t have to like them. I hate mysteries (I’m not really sure why… probably because I picture that guy Periot with the skinny mustache and I have flash backs to boring TV) but I don’t go writing nasty blogs calling people names and insulting those who enjoy the genre.
It’s not like romance readers are out there screaming that ALL ROMANCE IS THE BESTEST WRITTEN THING SINCE SHAKESPEARE OMG SEXY SHAKESPEARE *pantyshiver*
Even here, there is honesty in what is good and discussion on what makes a story good and what makes it “HOLY HELL THAT’S A TRAIN WRECK I CANNOT TURN AWAY FROM!” bad.
To me this smacks of ignorance and a whole lotta hate. Or perhaps a closet love of bic flicking material if you catch my crude drift.
Oh, my. Oh, my.
*pantyshiver*
THAT IS MY NEW FAVORITE WORD.
Well, at least there is the Yale article to balance out that Emerson crap.
ok. ok. It was a dumb blog post, but let’s take it a little easy girls. This isn’t some great literary critic. It was some kid. I’m assuming this is some 19-20ish year old college kid. We were all pretty full of our own sass back then.
I AM a 19-20 year old college kid and even I think this “review” is dreck. For one thing, as many of you have pointed out, it is not, in fact, a review. It has neither originality or a point. The most (only) interesting part was the angry comments from people better informed than the “reviewer.”
I suppose all I want to say is, youth is not an excuse. If you haven’t actually read something, you can’t review it. If you haven’t even read something from the GENRE, you really can’t review it. And, as anyone who reads knows, those back covers frequently don’t actually tell you what happens in the book.
Because nearly everything has already been said about this review, I just wanted to point out something I noticed reading these comments: Why are you making fun of the author’s name? The name has nothing to do with the person. You’re not elevating your argument by adding a snide remark about the gender or strangeness of this name. I agree that the article is utter shlock, but if your best argument against it is “at least Nora Roberts doesn’t have a weird name!!”, it’s not a credit to yourself or other readers. please don’t be petty.
to clarify, the comments I was talking about are those on the actual page of the article
@ ashley: Thanks for clarifying. As to your intitial comment, let me guess:
You are friends with Ms. Kavehkar, who is taken aback at the violent response to her “review.”
You responded to some of the comments posted on the original article, not here, based upon the realization that her “review” had achieved a higher profile than the undergraduate bunch who normally frequent such musings and the volume of said response may well have originated here.
You are defensive of your friend.
Good on you. Seriously. I’m totally the same way.
If I am correct, your reasoning is not faulty but you should have read the comments first.
In addition, Ms. Kavehkar is a journalism major. Clearly, she has some interest in publishing or writing. She needs to do her homework.
That being said, she is an undergraduate. Everybody gets it. We were all nineteen-twenty year olds once and back then, we knew everything there was to be known, too. This is a mild episode in her career towards working in publication and it will pass, but hopefully with a couple of lessons learned. One, the internet is anonymous and extremely public at the same time and two, it can follow you forever. One snarky review of the entire romance ouevre won’t hurt her but an ongoing disrespect of the power of the almighty internet might.
It’s not a big deal. It will pass. I made sweeping, uniformed generalizations when I was that age, too. I was just lucky that Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet quite yet.
Cheers and best of luck. Really and truly. It’s a fun and hard age to be. That’s why so many romance writers pick MCs around the same age…easy conflict!
Nora Roberts and cat food? Now that’s just silly. Everyone knows she would have a line of cat food, puppy food, baby rattles and wine.
Actually, those would be pretty kick-ass!
Ok, now I want some Nora Roberts wine to put in my SBTB flask. Please?
Ms. Kavehkar, please do your research as a journalism major. Nora Roberts is the second best selling author to JK Rowling. She’s obviously better known than for her “check out line” romances. And my cat does enjoy her books as much as I do.
Also, Ms. Kavehkar, as a reviewer, you may not enjoy everything you review. Gene Siskel even admits some of the movies he didn’t enjoy when he reviews them. I subscribe to World Magazine, a Christian publication, and they have given better reviews to Nora’s books than you did. The reviewer even took the time to read them. I suggest you do the same before writing a review.
If you’re going to review a book based on the cover, then just confine your comments to the cover please.
Okay, I get the outrage and the defensiveness for the genre, but the cracks about Kavehkar’s “strange” name are really uncalled for. The entry could’ve been written by someone named Jane Smith and it would still be a poor showing.
@Laurel
Oh my GAWD! I nearly wet myself.
You know, my real problem with her article is that it’s NOT an article. There’s no lead in, no questions answered. This could be a good article that the Bitchery would have loved. IF….. she read the books.
I personally would have loved to read an introduction paragraph telling me “Hey I read a couple of these romances and guess what… they’re raunchy and the covers are even worse. Let’s review a couple.” That I could have stood behind and disagreed with but still respected. To me this smacks of high school jounalism. Not something that someone is paying years of parental salary to acheive.
(forgive spelling errors, I’m not a journalism major) *snork*
I’ll also raise my hand for a Flask, that is awesome!
I’m going to assume Kimya did read the books.
Was it a case of she was expecting to hate romance and it turned out she did?
The books she chose spanned a wide variety of sub-genres and time periods. A nice spread in the romance genre and that was a great start.
Did she find the plots silly? Was it the geographic regions or the time periods she found unappetizing? Were the heroines un-relateable? I would have loved to hear more about why and what specifically she did or didn’t like rather than a generalized snark.
I’ll be the first to admit there are some romance plots and sub-genres that I say waaaay far away from! But I’ll tell you why.
I would wager if we knew more about Kimya we could recommend a romance novel that she would might think did not suck like a hoover and maybe even enjoy.
Doc Turtle’s experience comes to mind.
Hey! Kimya! What do you usually enjoy reading? I’ll bet we could match you up with a romance novel that you’d like! Who doesn’t like a story that has a happy ending. C’mon sweetie drink the koolaid!
Really, Ms. Mala? I don’t know what comments you were reading, but here at the Bitchery we respect ourselves and others more than that. A mention that an unusual name made people unsure of said person’s gender does NOT equal making fun of it. Please get off your moral high-horse when there’s not even a reason for it.
Maisey Yates wrote:
That’s at the heart of the matter. Taking on the likes of megablockbuster authors Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele while still an apprentice is akin to shooting yourself in the foot before even getting said foot in the door. Instead of snarking romance novels, figure out what magic these two stars create with their romance novels that makes something so easily snarkable so likeabe, so marketable, so profitable. Now, that would be a worthy journalism undergraduate thesis.