November, 2014 | The Plaid Pladd Blog

Archive for November, 2014

Hate Book Club: Grinding in Greenville

November 29th, 2014 by pladd

This was probably my favorite edition of Hate Book Club yet! I challenged Brian to read a romance novel set in Texas, while I had to read one set in North Carolina. He definitely got the better end of this deal as far as choice is concerned (Here’s his review!). There is really no end to the amount of torrid cowboy romance even in my local branch library. Meanwhile, most of the choices I found involved divorced women going to the Outer Banks to learn how to love again from humble fishermen. Pffffff no. So for the first time I turned to Amazon instead of the library, and actually paid $0.99 for this sucker.

The cover lets you know exactly what you’re getting into

As always with Hate Book Club, I was forced to think of three good things to say about this book. They are:

1. I learned where Greenville, NC is

It’s only an hour and a half from me

2. This book is hella short

It’s only 182 pages, which is like a third of the length of Brian’s. He tried to make me feel guilty about this but we picked our own books, Brian, it’s not my fault you’re bad at it

3. The really problematic attitude towards rape is after most people have probably given up

Even though the book is short, I would guess that most readers would give up before page 156, when the most disturbing scene takes place, which basically says that rape is okay as long as you have an orgasm. Romance novels glorifying sexual abuse is sadly nothing new, but I was surprised this one decided to go that extra step and address the rarely-talked-about fact that some women experience arousal or orgasm during sexual assault. Although this is actually a common experience, it’s often ignored because it makes victims ashamed and can (stupidly) cloud issues of consent in a society that already victim blames too much. THE FACT THAT BODIES RESPOND A CERTAIN WAY DOES NOT MAKE THIS LESS OF A CRIME. Since that apparently needs to be said. I remain hopeful that other people were turned away by the multiple grammatical errors and terrible writing way before encountering this horrible message.

The Plot

Grinding in Greenville follows three BFFs: Marley, Tori, and Hayley through their love/sex adventures, especially centered around a romance novel convention in Greenville. These book conventions (the book opens at another one in Raleigh) sound kind of insane:

The Readers Romp in Raleigh was an author signing hosted by a book blog that apparently read, reviewed, and pimped out authors they loved… Bloggers (fan girls, as some called themselves) were the worst mothers-of-the-bride on the planet. They didn’t want to be next to the author they were originally beside because ‘she stole my storyline,’ or the’bitch copied my cover,’ or ‘that whore stole my model.’ (1)

Besides crazy authors, they are full of ridiculous fans:

“Name is Red, can you guess why?… Red room. Christian Grey is mine and no other bitch around here can have him!” (17)

And also the male models from the cover art for the fans to hit on all weekend.

Marley grew up on a hippie sex commune, and after catching her first One True Love getting it on with her mom, has sworn off love to protect her heart. But after a one-night stand with a hot male model at a Raleigh book convention… is she ready for SOMETHING MORE? Nope, because facebook stalking him reveals that he has a kid, which apparently is a total turn-off:

Apparently he was recently divorced and had a kid?… Now as big Daddy was licking the meat taco I would be thinking about him wiping some snot nosed kid’s little snotty nose. (48)

“Cute kid and all but I’m not banging a daddy.” (136)

Sorry, single dads. Marley cannot touch a hand that has also touched child snot. Because germs.

Tori/Victoria has the perfect rich sorority girl life until her ONE NIGHT of partying gets her pregnant, because of course. This plot point is, of course, treated with 19th century levels of drama:

I have brought shame to my family (41)

GASP AN UNWED MOTHER HOW SCANDALOUS! Luckily, the frat guy knows he must “do the right thing” and fake an ongoing relationship with her before quickly getting engaged and married. He decides this is going to happen without giving her a choice, and seems completely annoyed when she doesn’t immediately start acting like his fiance should:

“I have expectations, needs, that my wife will be expected to fulfill.” (43)

I mean, I already knocked you up, what else could go wrong? Tragically, right after asking her father’s permission to marry her, her parents are killed in a sudden car accident! So she marries him and spends the rest of their marriage till the book starts feeling that she killed her parents with premartial sex. They almost divorce, but then find love together through a boring Internet catfishing scheme.

Finally, there’s Hayley. She grew up in a trailer with a literal crackwhore mother (where have I heard that tragic backstory before?) and a little brother who manages to hang himself from a tree outside at nine years old. Luckily, she is able to use the power of education (with the help of an inspiring English teacher, of course) to hoist herself out of poverty and into college… where she drops out senior year to marry a rich, older lawyer to live off of?? And is shocked when this ends terribly??

Hayley’s story is definitely the worst/best. Despite her husband’s condescending objections, she opens a coffee shop, mostly run by a long-suffering woman who is clearly underpaid:

She was an amazing pastry chef, never formally trained so she worked for just above minimum wage. (29)

I dont’ know why the book adds these details, while still wanting me to sympathize with Hayley? Oh, you pay your chef $8 an hour instead of $7.25, what a generous employer?? Go away.

After her husband cheats on her, Hayley goes on a sexual odyssey to finally discover what she has been missing. This involves (1) a hot lawyer who OH NO has the smallest penis ever, in a scene that is condescending to both men and women equally, and then (2) a sketchy alley encounter with a stranger who immediately forces himself on her with no prior discussion. But it’s okay, because apparently she’s cool with it?

I should be screaming, telling him to stop, he was being extremely rough with me, but I couldn’t because the pull of desire between my legs far exceeded my ability to react the way I knew I should. (157)

Despite orgasming from the experience, Hayley is naturally upset after it’s over. Marley counsels her that it’s fine because “Most people go a lifetime without ever having the kind of sex that rocks them so hard the aftershock rapes their emotions” (160).

The Writing

I mean, yeah, this book could have used some copy editing. But that didn’t take away from the central ridiculousness that is language use in a romance novel. You’ve got your basic hilarious (and sometimes incorrect) word choice:

His hand moved up under my skirt as his baby blues blazed… Our tongues fought for control and he growled into my mouth. (18)

His rock hard rod was perfect. (19)

I awoke to his hand cascading down my stomach (21)

And sometimes the oddly clinical:

…and then heat accumulate in my vaginal area. (64)

The North Carolinaness

If I had to rate this book on my arbitrary Scale of North Carolinaness, it would look something like this:

Right around our award for “Most Puppy Mills in the US”

Because it sure does have our name all over it, but we don’t really want to claim it.

The Terrible Life Examples

Besides the most egregious crimes listed above, we’ve also got:

“We could always become lesbians. I’m hot, you’re hot.” (74)

Because sexual identity is a choice you make. When you’re disappointed with someone, you should probably just boycott their whole gender and switch.

“It means if I can’t have you, I want to destroy all those who took my place… I want to crush the people you care for.” (89)

This is healthy and romantic, not terrifying.

What a selfish bitch I am. A selfish, drunk bitch who was gonna be raped and murdered. I hated wine! (125)

This is the perfect quote to leave you with. And the perfect gif for this book:

Don’t forget to read Brian’s review of his Texas romance novel!

Previously:
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

Tagged: book review, brian is a weather witch

Posted in Hate Book Club |

All Star Thanksgiving 2014

November 29th, 2014 by pladd

Despite my being three different kinds of sick this week, Steven and I still managed to have a delicious Thanksgiving! This is almost entirely due to Steven’s skillz.

As usual, we bypassed the usual subpar Thanksgiving fare and each chose 2 favorite foods to cook. This year’s lineup:

Me: Biryani and peach smoothies
Steven: Spinach pomegranate salad and cherry pie

Success!!!

I’ve chosen biryani before, but I can’t help it–it’s one of my favorite things Steven makes. And it’s so warm and filling once it gets cold outside! See his recipe after the cut.

The spinach pomegranate salad also had pear, pecan, and feta. A really easy (and Christmas colored!) salad that tastes delicious. I modified it from the one found here.

I’d never made a cherry pie before, and Steven had never had one made with fresh cherries instead of that questionable filling from a can. But I’m not going to dump can filling into my beautiful crust, so I had to try it! We used this recipe for the filling, and both agreed that it was pretty good, but needed something to combat the intense cherriness. Cinnamon? Vanilla ice cream? Steven will have to perform experiments to find out. My easy-awesome crust tutorial can be found here. Steven helped roll it out! Like a pro, of course.

Smoothies don’t need recipes, they are delicious no matter what!!!! This one had frozen peaches, frozen mangoes, peach nectar, vanilla yogurt, honey, and almond meal.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: recipes, Thanksgiving

Posted in Food, Things I've Made |

Hate Book Club: Men are from mars, Women are from Venus

November 12th, 2014 by pladd

Yay Hate Book club! Where Brian and I read the same book we think we’re going to hate!! Read his review here!

For the second round of Hate Book Club, Brian and I decided to read the famous 90s bestseller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray, which is the name a particularly unimaginative serial killer on the lam would choose to try to start a new life as a relationship counselor. I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but I’m not NOT saying it either.

This cover is the perfect blend of pandering and stereotypes

The book offers some pretty basic relationship advice, under the premise that men and women are actually aliens from completely different planets, and need to learn to understand each other’s language and values as such.

One rule of Hate Book Club is that we say three nice things about the book, and I like to get that over with right away so that I can forget it ever happened:

1. John Gray is super repetitive and fond of lists, which makes his chapters easy to skim.
2. Talking about “Martians” and “Venusians” instead of men and women does a little to hide the offensiveness of a lot of his blanket assertions.
3. I like that he generally encourages empathy, which I think is the key to being a good person.

In general, I think the advice to try to see things from someone else’s point of view is excellent. Everyone has different ways of coping, thinking, and communicating, and many disagreements can be prevented by trying to determine the reasons behind someone’s action or reaction rather than just getting mad because it doesn’t conform to your own expectations. Of course, I completely disagree that these differences are based on gender, and think stressing the supposed dichotomy between men and women sets relations back further than this book helps.

Men and women seldom mean the same things even when they use the same words. (61)

This is the kind of attitude Cosmo has all the time (“Decode his man brain!”), and I hate the assumption that men and women are polar opposites with no hope of ever understanding each other without the “professional” help of John Gray or magazines. This attitude tries to force the spectrum of human behavior into a strict binary that doesn’t exist. Plus, usually it is based on ridiculous outdated stereotypes:

To fully express their feelings, women assume poetic license and use various superlatives, metaphors, and generalizations. Men mistakenly take these expressions literally. (61)

Remembering that within every man is a knight in shining armor is a powerful metaphor to help you remember a man’s primary needs. Although a man may appreciate caring and assistance sometimes, too much of it will lessen his confidence or turn him off. (152)

The strange and beautiful Venusians were a mysterious attraction to the Martians. Where the Martians were hard, the Venusians were soft. Where the Martians were angular, the Venusians were round. Where the Martians were cool, the Venusians were warm. In a magical and perfect way their differences seemed to complement each other. (43)

No mention is ever made of same sex couples, of course. The main difference between men and women, as reiterated over and over, was that women show love by trying to help and men show love by fixing things without assistance. If you offer to help a man, you are basically calling him a woman! ULTIMATE INSULT

To honor him by not offering advice would have been a gift equivalent to his buying her a beautiful bouquet of flowers or writing her a love note… The next time he was lost, instead of offering “help” she restrained herself form offering any advice, took a deep relaxing breath, and appreciated in her heart what Tom was trying to do for her. Tom greatly appreciated her warm acceptance and trust. (15)

When a woman in a similar caring and concerned way says to a man “What’s the matter, honey?” he may feel insulted or repulsed. (86)

How dare you try to help me? I am insulted and repulsed! Similarly, women need men to take care of them. Otherwise they get all depressed and emotional, as women do:

To deal with their depression (without men) the Venusians were busy sharing their feelings and talking about their problems. As they talked they discovered the cause of their depression. They were tired of giving so much all the time. They resented always feeling responsible for one another. They wanted to relax and just be taken care of for a while. (47)

People like me, who have trouble envisioning themselves in the narrow stereotype he defines as “woman”, just have some weird hormone problem, probably:

Generally speaking, about 10 percent of women will relate more to being from Mars. This is often simply a result of being born with higher testosterone levels than most other women. (xix)

He doesn’t mention what it means if men identify with the women stereotypes. John Gray often reminds me of Mark Driscoll, author of the last book we read for Hate Book Club, in that a lot of the advice seems to set the bar really low. For instance, from a list of “Ways to score points with a woman”:

77. When listening to her talk, use eye contact
…
87. Verbally say thank you when she does things for you(208)

Does John Gray envision all men as socially inept cave people who have never interacted with another human or learned some basic manners? From the same list:

33. Wash before having sex or put on cologne if she likes that. (205)

Women love some basic hygiene.

Just like Mark Driscoll wanted us to think he was superior because he decided not to cheat on his wife (“become the adultery guy”), John Gray explains what a great guy he is when he decides not to “head for the door” (xxvi) after getting into an argument with his sick wife after she’s taken care of their newborn all day. You didn’t leave your wife and child to fend for themselves while still weak and semi-helpless? Good for you, John Gray, someone give this man a medal. Clearly he is a more empathetic human than the rest of us. We have much to learn from his wisdom.