This is a tiny independent movie that explores the messy, glorious, horrific, and amazing inner life of a teenage girl and how the world is utterly unprepared to allow girls to be girls. It marks the sexual coming-of-age of a 15 year old, Minnie, in 1976 San Francisco, which begins when she enters into a sexual relationship with her mother’s boyfriend. It’s based on a critically-acclaimed graphic novel by Phoebe Glockner. This movie touches on … Continue reading Movie Review: The Diary of a Teenage Girl →
Steampunk fans, nerds, comic book fans, and history fans rejoice, for all these things come gloriously together in The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. Author Sidney Padua combines a non-fiction comic, a fiction comic, and non-fiction prose for your delight and edification. Here’s the deal: The first section of the book tells the real-life story of Victorian Mad Scientists Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace (commonly referred to as history’s first computer designer and computer … Continue reading The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sidney Padua →
Sometimes, I see my job as going through a vast collection of books that are clearly labeled as “ROMANCE” and telling you what I think of them. But at other times, I venture into the basement with a malfunctioning flashlight so I can let you know whether that noise we heard was a serial killer or a fluffy kitty cat. This is a convoluted way of saying that I heard some buzz about RASL having … Continue reading Review: RASL by Jeff Smith →
A Boy And A Girl is a funny, thoughtful, touching, futuristic, romantic graphic novel that takes an deeply unsettling turn near the end. It is romantic, but it is not a romance novel, which is very important to know. It’s hard to review this book because it’s full of twists that I don’t want to spoil. It’s also hard to review because the ending threw me off so completely in the last 12 pages that … Continue reading Review: A Boy and a Girl, by Jamie S. Rich and Natalie Nourigat →
Check out the cover on this Pride and Prejudice graphic novel – is it not the coolest? My cousin, who I adore, gave me this Pride and Prejudice graphic novel, and when I told SBSarah about it she requested a review. Since my daughter also read it, at least part of it, you get two mini reviews instead of one long one. I'll go first: I have to say that the cover is the best … Continue reading Pride and Prejudice: The Graphic Novel, A Guest Review by CarrieS →
This guest review is by Carrie S. Sometimes I define my role with Smart Bitches as that person who says, “What ever could that strange noise be! You wait here – I'll go into the basement with a malfunctioning flashlight to check it out.” What I mean by that is that I investigate a lot of books that look romantic but aren't on the “romance” shelves of the bookstore, and I report back to you … Continue reading Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love & Fallout by Lauren Redniss - A Guest Review →
Mmmmm, Dwight. Damaged, borderline-psychotic Dwight. Bam was right: he’s nummy. Buy this book. Read it. Fall in dirty, dirty lust with Dwight. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Ahem. Let me try again: Dwight, like just about every Sin City character you’d care to name, has problems. The love of his life left him years ago for a rich man, he lost his job as an award-winning photographer for Alcohol-Related Reasons that aren’t elaborated in … Continue reading A Dame to Kill For: Sin City Book 2 by Frank Miller →
I made the mistake of reading this on Tuesday night. It was late for me—about 11 p.m.—and I was dog-tired, but I’m the kind of girl who needs a book to lull her to sleep. This book did not lull me to sleep. Despite knowing everything that happens, courtesy of the movie, the book firmly attached itself to my fingers and refused to let go until I turned the last page. Even then, I started … Continue reading The Hard Goodbye: Sin City Book 1 by Frank Miller →
