Brainscrub, please.

[wednesday_10_00]

A few weeks ago, when I ordered the new Nightrunner book, Amazon, in its infinite wisdom, started recommending other gay fiction to me. I'm pretty starved for BL lately, as my monthly manga order just hasn't been lasting long enough, so I cautiously tested the waters with some of the offerings from Blind Eye Books. I found the water very fine indeed (I will totally pimp these books later, I've been meaning to for a while now), so I waded a little deeper, ordering what I thought was a gay Regency romance, Standish. Alas for me, I can honestly say right now that I can't remember the last time I read a book this bad. I mean, it is seriously, horrendously, BAD. The writing (one of the 17 Amazon reviewers to give this book 5 stars describes it as "beautifully written," which makes me wonder what in god's name this person has been reading in the past) is reminiscent of bad fanfic, with what I found to be a jarring and disorienting third-person voice (Switching POV mid-paragraph? Really?), and chock-full of garbage like "All the while he spoke the traitorous words, his own heart was stabbed through and through, and his member throbbed beyond anything he had felt before." The descriptive passages ("the man stretched on his back like a sensuous, oblivious lily") reminded me of that old list of bad high school essay analogies that used to float around in e-mail forwards. The story...*shudder* What can I say? The first half of the book is so full of romance novel cliches it's almost like a parody, and the second half (which admittedly, I did not read most of) is melodramatic angsty garbage that made me want to throw myself in front of a bus.

...In a nutshell, this is one of those books that makes you want back the hours you wasted reading it. I'm going to go attempt to purge it from my brain now. >.<

ETA: From another Amazon review: "Very well-written in the style of the period, too--no anachronisms like you so often see." Yes, yes, it was so authentic of the author to include the 19th century style of ending sentences with "you know?"

Son of ETA: Scrubbed brain with new short story by Ginn Hale (conveniently available for free on her website), which was so freaking adorable it hurt. The only bad thing I have to say about it was that it was too short.

Comments

[collarnojutsu.livejournal.com]

Naturally I called my bookstore immediately to see if I could order these (Go Summertime Novel Kick Powers!), but they aren't available thru regular (and by that I mean where *I* get swanky discounts) channels. Foooooooooo. Maybe later. Or maybe just one. Did you read Wicked Gentlemen? That one sounds interesting.

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

I did, and I loved it. I would offer to lend it to you, except I already lent it to spacealien_vamp. I could lend you Tangle (the anthology), if you'd like.

[collarnojutsu.livejournal.com]

I could lend you Tangle
If you want to send it, sure, I'll read it. :) I'll probably go ahead and order Wicked Gentlemen for myself, but I think I'll check at the store myself first just to be sure (sometimes other people don't.. you know... know how to manipulate systems as well).

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

Will do. :) And I think Wicked Gentlemen is well worth the money, even if you have to order without a discount.

[collarnojutsu.livejournal.com]

Cool. Look forward to it. And yeah, I do occasionally buy books without discount, but I won't say it doesn't hurt a little...I mean that IS why I give up my free time to work in a bookstore. ;) Besides, come September, I will have markedly less money coming in every month, so.... need to sort of quell the mega book buying while I can, so I can get used to it. (sob?) ha ha.....

PS

[collarnojutsu.livejournal.com]

I never saw that list of analogies before... forward-heaven after my time I think. Funny stuff tho, thanks for the link. X>

Re: PS

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the original e-mail was longer, because I remember my mom printed it out to show it to me and it was like two pages, and there are a couple on the list I linked to that weren't even on that version. But all my favorites (the hummingbirds that never met, the bowling ball on the pond, eerie Jeopardy) are there, so whatever.