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Category Archives: Book Reviews

A Rant on Bodice Rippers/Smut

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by talianyx in Author Blog, Book Reviews

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bodice rippers, English language, genitalia, not-words, R18, rant, sex, smut

**R18 warning!

Let me begin by saying I like a good bodice ripper or smutty novella. The keyword there is good… which in this genre means:

  • Edited.
  • Not written as though the author was an over-sexed two year old.

When most people think of a bodice ripper, the first things that come to mind are Fabio, and Mills and Boon. That’s fine. It’s not great literature, but it’s not trying to be.

To anyone who reads a great many books (regardless of genre) the fact that I think anything which has been published should be edited – even if only once as is often the case with bodice rippers – will not come as a surprise.

However, I have just finished another ARC (Advanced Review Copy) in which the editor – assuming the manuscript ever saw one – should probably be fired. Which brings me to the second bullet point above. No self-respecting editor should ever allow a manuscript that appears to have been written by an over-sexed two year old go to press!

To clarify what I mean: the English language is always changing and evolving, but there are some words that, well only appear in this genre, and they aren’t words. See it’s cute when toddlers modify words so they can physically say them, but the more they listen to adults use their words properly, the more they learn how to say them properly.
So when writers of bodice rippers and smut use “words” like:

  • cunny, cuny.
  • va-jay-jay
  • meat stick, meat pop
  • kitty

I find it very difficult to take them seriously at all, never mind within the confines of the genre. Granted, the last two bullet points are actually words, but they are not words that should ever be used in reference to genitalia. Frankly, I’m not even a huge fan of the word ‘pussy’ in reference to female genitals; but I seem to be more than a little out voted on this one.

The people who are writing (and god-forbid publishing) bodice rippers and smut using the above “words”, are apparently adults. Predominantly adult women. And the next generation are learning from what is available now, I’m seeing more and more of this coming through the manuscripts that I read which are written by teenagers, who don’t know better, yet. However, there are more than a few teenagers whose manuscripts are already so much better than this – so what does that say about these so called bodice rippers?

Is this trend of using ‘not-words’ to describe genitalia a case of not growing up, or is it a case of puritanical sexual repression resulting in shame-filled acting out? Or rather, in this case writing out.

See, we know that when they use ‘not-words’ like “cunny” that they mean ‘cunt’, and are either unwilling to stand by this ‘dirty’ word. But at least it is a word. Yes, I even understand that ‘dirty’ words like: shit, fuck, and cunt; can make a piece less attractive to publishers – regardless of the context. If that is the case, and you feel yourself drawn to a ‘not-word’, or replacing the vowel with an asterisk, please, please, please, just invest in (or google) a thesaurus!

Please don’t use ‘not-words’ to describe genitalia, or sex. To do so, is disrespecting your audience. In five minutes of googling I have discovered: “The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries.”
It is quick and dirty research (not university calibre at all), but if you can’t find real words in a language of nearly 200,000 words, maybe you shouldn’t be a writer.

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Let’s get down to business!

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by talianyx in Author Blog, Book Reviews, Life

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anniversary, Home, Homeless, House, Podcast, Table manners

Did you know that today is my four year anniversary with WordPress.com? I had no clue until my notifications told me.

Wow, four years of boring you all to tears with my incessant rambling…

Episode 2 of my Podcast went live five or ten minutes ago, so here is the link to that. Give it a listen – and do let me know what you think of it. I can’t improve it if I don’t know what y’all love and hate about it. This month I reviewed the first book in Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series, setting the tone for the next five months as well. By all means do send me content to review – websites, movies, YouTube channels or videos, articles… you get the idea. And if you have something for me to snark/rip to pieces that I can handle reading more of a paragraph of before I run away and hide (or worse detour to Rant Town), that would save us all from my continued reading of My Immortal which is apparently the worst fan-fiction in the world. And I can’t say that I disagree after reading the first chapter/paragraph.

I am still looking for a home, so if anyone feels like donating a house I would be super appreciative. In other news on the home front… I am trying to get myself into an organised frame of mind. Let’s just say that moving was a nightmare (but really when isn’t it), but I am attempting to make a schedule of when I move the furniture to clean under and behind it.

The school holidays are nearly over (Southern Hemisphere, so it’s summer now), and honestly school can’t come soon enough. I love my kid, but we are starting to really annoy each other.
On the plus side, I have taught him to eat like a civilised human being (read that as proper table manners, and correct cutlery use). He is now learning how to behave when eating in restaurants, to practice I took him to the local La Porchetta. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Until next time.

Compare and Contrast

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by talianyx in Book Reviews, Life, Uncategorized

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Fifty Shades of Grey, Film, influences, intertextuality, literature, novel, Thomas Crown, Thomas Crown Affair, Thomas Crown Affair and Fifty Shades of Grey

You know I see a lot of complaints about Fifty Shades of Grey. Often in reference to how it’s start in life was as a Twilight fan-fiction. But I gotta tell you, I’m watching The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) and you would not believe the cut and paste references in Fifty Shades. It’s been a great many of the 18 years since it’s release since I watched good old Thomas Crown, but I always wondered why even the brightest of 22 year old literature students (and I know a few) would use the term “foregone conclusion”, or why the imagery of the glider was so much clearer to me than it ought to be, even with the description James gives us. It’s not like I’ve seen one up close and personal. The perfectly sized wardrobe when they have a post-gliding getaway. Even the way they fight is reflected in Ana and Christian.

So I get that the movie is nearly 20 years old, but how is it that NO ONE has ever noticed this tie-in before? This little, though fairly significant, influence.
Thank goodness for Netflix or I may not have noticed, as all of our VHS tapes have gone the way of the dodo.

Intertextuality, it’s out there folks.

Easter Egg

21 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by talianyx in Author Blog, Book Reviews, Life

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2700 pages, Easter Egg, reread

I found an Easter egg earlier today. Not the scrumptious chocolate kind, I fear it’s a bit early in the year for that. I found a little nugget of gold that I had somehow missed in a book that I have read at least once a year since I was 17. To be clear, the sentence itself was familiar to me, in fact it’s one of my favourites. But the fact is that it’s playing on a moment that happened 2 books earlier, and is also foreshadowing events to come… and then the sudden realisation that the foreshadowing began in book 1.

It has taken me nearly 13 years to notice this tiny nugget in 2,700 pages (all up); and I’m not concerned by it. There are layers and subtleties to truly good stories, and what you take away from any of them at any time is governed by your mood, your environment, what you’ve learned, what you are capable of understanding, and why you are reading (or rereading it).

Who knows what I’ll take away from this series next year.

Read on.

Emotional Trauma at the Hands of a Paperback

08 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by talianyx in Book Reviews, Life

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I need some comedy, Sara Donati, Wilderness Series finally at an end

I have just finished reading The Endless Forest by Sara Donati, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t regret reading the epilogue… even if only because it’s really, really the end. I know there is another book, about Bonner great grandchildren – of Savard extraction according to the blurb – a book that is the start of a whole new series, The Gilded Hour. 

Despite the emotional trauma I have just suffered, it was a truly wonderful book. The fact that it was capable of such an impact is a credit to Ms Donati.

If you’ll excuse me, I have a book borrowed from Peach that I must read to allow some recovery from all the tears.

Wish Me Luck

18 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by talianyx in Author Blog, Book Reviews

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Narrative Non-fiction, nz book council, UPDATE

I’m about to write a proper book review, which is to say it’s for the New Zealand Book Council. And it’s under my real name. Unfortunately I won’t be sharing it here as well, but I’ll knock one up for you guys at some point too.

Just know that Narrative Non-fiction (aka Biography of a Thing) is very much not my genre. I’m an escapist, or fiction all the way kind of gal.

Wish me luck!

Review: Witchin’ in the Kitchen

07 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by talianyx in Book Reviews

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comedy, Kris Calvert, review, shapeshifter, supernatural, two thumbs up, witch, Witchin' in the Kitchen

I have no idea whether any of you have ever heard of Kris Calvert before, but if you like a supernatural comedy… this book is for you. To be honest I don’t even remember where I got it.

The other day I was scrolling through my eReader app looking for a book to read, preferably one that I hadn’t already read (I love rereading, but sometimes you want something new), and I found Witchin’ in the Kitchen by Kris Calvert, it had a wonderful cover.

witchin kitchen

And I thought, that it was about time I read a comedy.

It is beautifully written, the characters are masterfully lifelike. Deliverance Parker is a 325 year old witch and has been blowing around the U.S. with the storms since she was 16 and survived the Salem Witch Trials. When the story really starts we meet her just as she has blown into yet another town, and just as things are getting really interesting.

Along the way we meet the love of Deliverance’s life – a bobcat shifter, his identical twin, Baba Yaga, Deliverance’s familiar… a mouse, and the Reverend John Hale who has been living (poorly) on the same curse as Deliverance, and who had her mother and sister hung in the Trials and is out to get Deliverance if it’s the last thing he does.

At 88 pages it’s by no means a long read, and it’s probably better for it. A nice little pick me up in the afternoon over a pot of tea and a Kissy Cake with Sexual Sugar might be just what the doctor ordered.

I don’t often give a five star review to such a short book, but this one had me in proverbial stitches. A well deserved 5 stars *****

P.S. the recipe for Deliverance’s magical Kissy Cakes with Sexual Sugar is at the end of the book, I might have to give it a go and see what happens.

Review: Once Were Warriors

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by talianyx in Book Reviews

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Book Review

Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff

A startling tale of a Maori family in the 1980s told by the family in an intriguing mix of internal monologue and stream of consciousness. It is hard to read if your life has been effortlessly more prosperous than the Heke’s; and the prose style can be almost physically hard to read if you aren’t familiar with the undereducated New Zealand English dialect.

The Heke family are lost, it is in part the effect of colonisation; so much of their own culture and heritage has been lost, and they lost themselves along the way. Beth Heke has the unfortunate realisation of this loss, but she too is lost and stuck in a cycle of neglect and benign abuse. Until her daughter Grace takes her own life, and Beth starts to look for a better way.

It is a heartbreaking tale that is all too familiar, and relatable across the globe; though with a unique kiwi feel. Best read aloud (even just to yourself) because some of the dialect is phonetic and makes no sense until you do read aloud. But well worth the 5 stars I am giving it.

For my Birthday…

29 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by talianyx in Book Reviews, Life

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Birthday Book, Book Review, Orphan #8, Reading, review

I had my birthday this month, I’m 29 now, and my dear friend Megan (from Literary Food 3.0 in December last year) gave me Orphan #8 by Kim van Alkemade.

I read it in 2 days (between other birthday celebrations and studying).

It is indescribable! But definitely worth 5 stars and a You Need to Read this Book!

There were one or two moments where she slipped into ‘academic’, usually while explaining things – and while those little moments didn’t add to the story they sure as hell didn’t detract. What made it that much better in fact was the birth of Orphan #8 in the back… which is my creepy and kinda gross way of saying that she tells you the true stories that went into making Orphan #8. Those were my favourite parts, reading the little stories that range from heartwarming to heartbreaking and how seeing the story unfold again, seeing how they influenced the fiction. I don’t often like ‘behind the scenes stuff’, I usually find it trite; but there is so much going on in this book that it was a wonderful and welcome addition.

I can only hope that you all race out and find a copy to read, it really was a 5 star production.

Check out this review of Against Her Will

16 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by talianyx in Book Reviews

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Against Her Will, Nicole Sturgill, review

Once again I could wax lyrical, and once again I say that I simply won’t do that much typing on so small a device. Nicole Sturgill is an author with whom I work on Wattpad, she is one of my favourite little known authors. Sure, you could read my underwhelming (though positive) review… Or you could read her novels. If you can’t find them at your favourite online retailer check her out on Big Dream Publishing. Even if you don’t like all of her stories, Sturgill has something for everybody. Here is a review by Talia: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1112183315

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