By Jude Deveraux
Attempted to Read: January 2010
Rating: AUGH
Wot the shit is this?! Today, RB stands for RIDICULOUSLY BAD.
Hey Jude don’t make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her under your skin
Then you’ll begin to make it better
Better, better, better, better, better, Yeah,Yeah,YeahNa Na Na Na Na Na Na
Na Na Na [...]

By Victoria Holt
Read: January 2010
Rating: Not Bad
I don’t remember where it came from, but I wound up with a paperback of this out-of-print book. I can’t see a reason for it to be. It’s not a romance novel–it’s a novel with romance in it. So there.
Caroline Tressidor is the second daughter of a wealthy, upstanding [...]

By Allan Appel
Read: August 2009
Rating: Disappointing
The back copy for The Hebrew Tutor paints a picture that is enticing:
Under threat of nuclear war and the gorgeous California sun, the two [Norman and Bayla] forge a tentative truce. They may not be learning Hebrew, but through the miracle of motorcycles and the epiphanies of the road, Bayla [...]

By Lauren Lipton
Read: June 2009
Rating: Urgh?
For the Feminist Review
At its core, Mating Rituals of the North American WASP is wholly typical. Girl goes to Vegas. Girl gets drunk. Girl wakes up to find she married some stranger. Girl flees back to New York. Boy calls her up to tell her that, yes, they’re legally married. [...]

By Sharon Shinn
Read : June 2009
Rating: Ho hum?
Well, it wasn’t terrible. There were some good points, but it certainly wasn’t Shinn’s best. (It’s feeling a little redundant saying that…)
Essentially, it’s a story of imperialism, told for a young adult audience with a penchant for romance. Averie’s father is a general in what is a (thinly [...]

By Margaret George
Read: May 2009, approx. 240 pages.
Rating: Sigh.
I get very disappointed when books I want to be good… aren’t. It comes particularly hard on the heels of a riveting series, like the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And I just gave up on The Mermaid Chair, so it’s doubly depressing to give up on this as [...]

By Sue Monk Kidd
Read: Attempted May 2009
Rating: Disappointing.
I really, really liked The Secret Life of Bees. I was happy to see Kidd had another book, but I held off on getting it. My mom and I watched the Lifetime version of Mermaid Chair a while back and it didn’t strike me as particularly good–but that [...]

By Emily Bronte
Read: March 2009
Rating: Poison
I give up. I quit. I want nothing more to do with this torturous mess. I decided it was time to try Wuthering Heights because my TiVo had picked up a documentary on the Bronte sisters, which was of course full of people who think they’re the most brilliant [...]

By George W. M. Reynolds
Attempted Read: Feb 2009
Rating: Goddamn.
Just… goddamn.  I saw this at Strand Books and spent MONTHS hemming and hawing over whether or not I should put my money toward it.
Pro: It’s a book from the 1800s about a werewolf in the 1500s. HOT DAMN it’s historical fiction^2 with a shot of supernatural!
Con: [...]

by Kobo Abe
Read: May/June 2008
Rating: UGH
This was recommended to me for my senior capstone project. I dutifully made it to the end, but gawd was it painful. Exemplifies all that I hate in a certain kind of writing, usually seen in short stories. Only this was longer. Unjustifiably so, in my opinion.
Junpei (sadly, not the [...]

By Diane Johnson
Read: November 2008
Rating: Mmph.
Right, so. I saw the movie ages back and don’t remember much about it except that I liked it more than my mother did, and she thought it was very disappointing.
The book is… strange. I wish we’d read it in one of my writing classes because it pulls all kinds [...]

By Tracy Chevalier
Read: October 2008
Rating: Mwah!
I really like Tracy Chevalier. Like so many people, I began with Girl With a Pearl Earring, and loved it. I think I love this even more, though.
Based off the tapestries by the same name, the book follows the people engaged in its making in the 14/1500s. We begin with [...]

By Lynn A. Coleman & Rachel Hauck
Available most cheaply @Heartsong Presents
Read: November 2006
Rating: WEAK.
Welcome to another edition of “I had to read it for school!” Tonight we delve into the perplexing realm of “Inspirational” (ie, Christian) romance novels. Yes, it’s true–religious fundamentalists are now publishing whole lines of romance novels featuring a menage a trois [...]

By Euripides. Translated by W. S. Merwin & George E. Dimock.
Read: October 2006
Rating: Mixed.
This is the Oxford University Press edition, with both a scholar and a poet working on the translation. The play itself is only, say, 1/3 of the book itself. (Brings back memories of Ayn Rand’s Anthem.) This was a blessing, as I’m [...]

By Donna Jo Napoli
Read: August 2006
Rating: Charming
I love retellings of fairy tales. My mother built me a collection of really gorgeously illustrated books when I was very young, and my edition of Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorites. Of course I had to read this rendition by Donna Jo Napoli, which begins [...]

By Indu Sundaresan
Read: August 2006
Rating: Lackluster.
I love historical fiction. I love romance. And I love Philippa Gregory, despite not always liking what her characters do. So I should be able to get through a book like this, right? I’m still barely a quarter of the way through, and I’m putting it down. I [...]

By Marc Levy
Rating: Disappointing
Read: June 2006
A quaint little bestseller from 2001 about love that transcends (near) death. A 2005 chick flick starring Reese Witherspoon.
The movie was better. It was much more real. That says a lot about the book.
It was passed on to me by mother, who got it from a family friend. They [...]

By George Orwell
Rating: Phwoar
Read: April 2006
I read this once before, in junior year of high school. I didn’t like it so much then. But now I’m in awe, sort of like the JK Rowling phenomenon. I really like it this time. And I’m amazed by the theory and complexity. It is so COOL.
I still hate [...]

By Terry Goodkind
Darest thou to try for it @Amazon.com?
Rating: CEE-RAP.
Read: Yonk ago, during high school.
This is the worst first novel attempt I have ever had the misfortune of trying to read. No, seriously. Terry Goodkind gets his name up all over the place but I don’t care. I have a serious aversion to him after [...]

Christina Dodd
Rating: Hmm
Read: Feb 2006
Ok, so. Here’s how my week has been. Couldn’t take Claritin cuz I have an allergist appointment later. Thought that was why I was stuffy on Tuesday. Turned into a horrific, raging cold thing on Wednesday. So I went to the drug store on 13th for Day/NyQuil, Gatorade, and… reading material. [...]

By Margaret Atwood
Rating: Hmn?
Read: Dec 31st ‘05-Jan 21st ‘06

Look at how specific that timeframe is! I bought the book after years of oggling it on New Year’s Eve as something to read on the train ride home. My friends stayed for Times Square but I skipped out and got home perdy much at midnight exactly.
I [...]

By Candace Bushnell

Cheaper than the DVDs: Amazon.com
Rating: Typical
Read: July 2005
I adore the show to BITS. But, I read Bushnell’s 4 Blondes perhaps two years ago and was thoroughly unimpressed. She’s the Fitzgerald of her generation in that she writes about the American ‘aristocracy’, which is a thoroughly jaded, degernate, and utterly BORING set of people. [...]

By Sharon Shinn (WHY, Sharon, WHY!?)
Rating: Poor.
Read: 2003/2004ish
I had high expectations for Shape Changer’s Wife, since I began with Shinn’s Castle Auburn and the Archangel/Samaria series- all of which are stellar.
Unfortunately, SCW fell very, very short of what I had hoped for. There simply is not enough action to justify 200+ pages- it felt like [...]

By F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rating: One big fat middle finger up Fitzgerald’s arsehole.
Read: Over the summer between my freshman and sophomore years, 2001.
Frankly, the most self-indulgent piece of tripe I’ve ever been forced to read. It was a summer reading assignment, and one of two terrible books I brought on a visit to my grandmother’s. I [...]