Book and Bombs and Bombing Books

The "bombs"

marketing signage up well before Halloween *sigh*

Yesterday, while out in search of bath bombs, I stopped at Barnes and Noble. Of course I did! I had a 20% off coupon AND I’d just finished what I’d hoped would be an engrossing, ripping yarn (it wasn't) and needed a new escape vehicle.

About that doorstop I’d just testily tossed in a corner – despite being well aware that Laurel Hamilton’s fabulous, gripping preternatural crime/mystery novels had, loooong ago, devolved into Story-of-O-with-a-Twist type sex romps (with miniature, fleeting nods to the crimes being committed and solved), I’d bought one for the plane ride. Why? I remembered her early, can’t-put-em-down books and was hopeful. Silly me.

While there were fewer creepily tedious group S&M/B&D sex scenes in this offering, there were endless, irritatingly dull convos where our “hero,” Anita Blake, attempts to sort out, with her myriad sex partners, which new boy/girl toy to add to their various menage ménage à foules. This, naturally, was at the expense of the very interesting crime to be solved.

Zzzzzzzzzzz. I flipped past the countless tiresome bits which brought this 598 page tome down to, mebbe,  a quick150 page read.

Yeah, once again I’ve sworn never to waste buckos on one of her books again.

*Ahem* back to the bookstore though. One of the first things I spied was this hot pink eye grabber:
How to Win at Feminism: The Definitive Guide to Having It All—And Then Some! I picked it up – wanted to scan the jacket, don'cha know.

Feminism is all about demanding equality and learning to love yourself. But not too much – men hate that! With empowering beauty tips….

“ empowering beauty tips?” I thought they've lost me right here and then I saw the teaser line:
“How to Be Sex-Positive Even When You’re Bloated.”

What the fuck is this – Cosmo?

TOO soon!!!

I’ve been known to miss the BIG snark on occasion so I thought, before I pass judgement and go all ranty on the writers for being total tools of the fashion and cosmetics industry, mebbe I should employ some Google-Fu. I did and found the AV Club’s review. A snippet:

It’s fantastic, at times cathartic, at times exhaustingly spot-on. How To Win At Feminism assumes a high level of feminist knowledge—it doesn’t teach feminism so much as it relentlessly, ruthlessly critiques the specifically 2016 ways that sexism wears the mask of feminism, online and in commercials, in pop songs and at work. This isn’t Feminism 101, but it’s not trying to be. For women tired of seeing the same old beauty standards reinforced in Dove commercials that pretend to be empowering, Reductress is a godsend.

Ya know, this other teaser line – How to Do More with 33 Cents Less – should’ve been a stone clue that this’d be snarkarific but, ah, no.

So this is a big, acerbically funny harsh-a-thon. Cool. When the price comes down (post Xmas of course) I’ll def pick it up – it’ll join Caitlin Moran’s How To Be A Woman  and Our Bodies Ourselves on the Books My Grands MUST Read shelf.

So what did I end up with after my Xmas decoration ducking excursion? I hit the used book emporium and found Bikini Planet by David S. Garnett.

In the swinging sixties, Las vegas rookie cop Wayne Norton was a straight arrow - though not exactly the sharpest one in the quiver. Then his girlfriend's mafioso father threw him into an experimental cryogenic sleep chamber - and forgot to leave a wake-up call. Wayne is revived 300 years later, in a world where nothing is as it seems, everyone treats him like an incompetent dolt, and he's very, very confused. All in all, not much has changed.

So far so funny and engaging. Just what I needed.