CW/TW: This is a horror movie about cannibalism and terrible dates. So be ye warned. We are recapping The Whole Meal Film here so get ready. Maya and I share an interest in horror, and goodness knows the Pink Palace of Bitches is full of people with an interest in Sebastian Stan. Accordingly, we took a break from romance (this movie is NOT A ROMANCE!) and watched a movie that says that dating is Hell, … Continue reading Movie Review: Fresh
Nnedi Okorafor is here and she is not here to play. Remote Control is the African futurist story of Sankofa, a young girl in Ghana in the near future who wanders from town to town in search of a lost treasure from the skies, accompanied by a fox and a cat. People call her the Adopted Daughter of Death for her ability to cause the death of anyone in her vicinity through seemingly supernatural powers. … Continue reading Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
Trigger warning for on-page suicide attempt Claudia and I (CarrieS) are suckers for good historical fiction, good historical romance, and Beauty and the Beast retellings. So we were excited about At Summer’s End, in which an artist (Bertie, short for Alberta) takes a job at an English estate following WWI and meets an isolated, traumatized, and scarred survivor named Julian. While this book did a decent job with the tricky themes of PTSD and disfigurement … Continue reading At Summer’s End by Courtney Ellis
Shana and I both read While We Were Dating by Jasmine Guillory and we had thoughts! Anna Gardiner is an actress who is going to appear in an advertisement campaign for a new mobile phone. Ben Stephens designed the campaign and will be working closely with Anna during filming. Ben is a self-admitted playboy who is open that he’s only looking for fun, nothing serious. Anna is focused intensely on the next phase of her … Continue reading While We Were Dating by Jasmine Guillory
CW/TW: reference to a historical hate crime against LGBTQ people One Last Stop is the tale of August, a young woman who has recently moved to New York City, and Jane, the mysterious woman that August meets on the subway. When August moves to New York, she intends to do what she’s done her whole life, namely, keep to herself. However, her apartment roommates and neighbors are clearly not going to stand for that. Meanwhile, … Continue reading One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
WHY, YOU ASK, would I review this mass of TWs on a romance book website? It’s because I know a subset of our readers are all about embracing the “Bitch” in Smart Bitches, and this is a story about women who band together for physical and emotional survival and find ways to claim their stories in a world that does not support them. Unfortunately, Maya and I were disappointed by the presence of harmful stereotypes … Continue reading The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
Shana: When Tara showed me the blurb for an opposites-attract rom-com set in a sex toy store, I jumped on the chance to read it together. I’m glad I did, because Satisfaction Guaranteed is my first official Squee of 2021. Tara: Isn’t it the freaking cutest? This book made me laugh out loud and gave me so many happy sighs. But let’s start by telling everyone what it’s about. When Cade’s aunt Ruth dies, she … Continue reading Satisfaction Guaranteed by Karelia Stetz-Waters
Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake is a fun rom-com in which a single mom enters a baking contest (a fictional version of The Great British Bake Off) and finds true love. The question is not “will she find true love” but “with whom will she find it?” Readers should expect to be very hungry while reading this book, as well as by turns amused, infuriated, and delighted. They should also expect to be really moved … Continue reading Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall
Tara: When I’m looking up f/f titles for Hide Your Wallet posts, I occasionally come across a blurb that sounds so full of crazysauce, I immediately show Shana. The latest was for Queen of Humboldt. Check this out: Marisol Soltero’s life is built on big scores and fast women. From her nightclub she rules over the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago with ruthless calculation. Though everyone knows her as the Queen of Humboldt, Marisol lives … Continue reading Queen of Humboldt by Tagan Shepard
Many of The Bitches were ardent fans of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, an Australian show which ran from 2012 – 2015. We loved it for the clothes, the characters, the clever writing, and the chemistry. Maya, Aarya, and I (CarrieS) waited for the movie Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears with great excitement, only to find that it was simply awful. The clothes, the characters, the chemistry, the humor – all vanished. Seldom has … Continue reading Movie Review: Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears
Queerleaders is a romantic comedy set in a Catholic high school. Mackenzie (Mack) has always known that she is a lesbian, but she is only out to her best friend, Lila. Mack has a huge crush on a cheerleader. When Mack is outed at school and bullied by the cheerleader’s football-player boyfriend, Chad, Mack rashly declares that she can steal ALL of the football player’s girlfriends — or, at least, get them to kiss her. … Continue reading Queerleaders by M.B. Guel
