My Bad, Guys

I try to make a point of being right most of the time.

...

Okay, all of the time.

It's a quality that sounds good in theory -- maybe something you'd whip out in a job interview -- but in practice is pretty annoying to everyone but me. Pair that with the inability to admit when I'm wrong, and we've got an obvious recipe for social success.

Having established that, I'm going to be frank and say that perhaps I was a bit quick to judge Christine Feehan's credibility in this post. No, I don't personally understand the appeal of a book trailer, but maybe that's just because I'm unfamiliar with the commercial aspect of being an author. That doesn't mean I think the whole thing is a good idea. I don't. It seems strange to me, and feels really inorganic and un-booklike -- especially the use of random pictures to portray the main characters. It's like the author is pushing us to have a set image of what each character should look like, pre-reading, and I'm not okay with that. Books are always described as "better than the movie" because they're so open to ambiguity. If you ruin that with a trailer beforehand, you're closing off gateways that could have made the novel so much more enjoyable to its prospective reader. Or so I thought, anyway. I suppose some people like to be fed ideas rather than go through the bother of creating them themselves.

All in all, though, I understand the perceived need for a book trailer. You want sales, I know! That's something fundamental to being a romance author! Christine, I apologize. It can't be easy to sell the caliber of work you're creating, and I suppose you've gotta do what you've gotta do. Godspeed. Just...in the future, try to be a little more discriminant in your tastes in trailers. They're not my thing, but maybe you can make them yours.

Am I saying this simply because I discovered that my professor has one too? Possibly. I'll leave that up to you to decide.

I Know Too Much

I thought this might offer some deeper insight into the person behind the blog. Excuse me while I toot my own horn:

One of my exes sent me this video yesterday, with the simple disclaimer of "this is exatcly how i feel about u" (spelling errors are his). We're friends, but somehow I don't think this was intended to be a compliment. Still, I was flattered. The literary references were gimmes, but it was the nod to Sophie Scholl and other mentionings of the Third Reich that really made it relevant to my interests.

Also, for the record, I don't know algebra. In fact, I can barely count above ten. Nor do I speak Japanese beyond understanding the words "Mitsubishi," "Toyota," "ramen," and "bukkake" (don't Google that).

Something Is Fundamentally Wrong with Me

Often, I wonder how and why I turned out the way I did. What exactly made me so full of rage? For a while, I'll pretend as though I don't know the answer. Then, I'll watch this video from my childhood. I subsequently realize that I've been this way all my life, and I sit back and accept it.

The Walmart Novels

For the sake of this blog, I have assumed a monumental task: to read one terribly-written romance novel a week, each plucked in its prime and ripened state from the shelves of Walmart's well-respected romance section.

With the sacrifice of a mere $4.47 and a few brain cells a week, I'll be able to weigh in on breakthrough pieces in the field of literature (such as Christine Feehan's Burning Wild, which tells the tale of a leopard shape-shifter looking for love), and let you fine people know whether or not these books are actually worth reading (spoiler: they're not).