Anyway, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman are platonic BFFs. They’ve been friends for a very long time, but Jennifer Aniston is not attracted to Jason Bateman because he’s nebbish, neurotic, and would probably make a terrible boyfriend. He can’t ever make up his mind, is allergic to many things, and worries about the most inconsequential things. Jason Bateman decides he is in love with Jennifer Aniston right around the same time Jennifer Aniston thinks it’s about damn time she considers having a child: she’s successful at work, has a great apartment (don’t they all), and doesn’t need a man to make a baby… that is, she’ll need a man, but only for his biological contribution. In a cup. Jason Bateman goes, “Wait, wait, is this something you really want to do? Kids are too much trouble. They’re germ bombs and will take all your money and make you get fat. And also, do you really want to be a single mom?” Jennifer Aniston brushes off all of Jason Bateman’s nebbish worrying and decides she will have a child, damn it. She finds a perfect donor in Patrick Wilson, who is good-looking, smart, athletic, and has good teeth. She even throws a party where she invites all of her friends along with Patrick Wilson and his perfectly adorable wife, who is totally okay with Patrick Wilson’s genetic contribution because they need the money and both think there should be a lot more little Patrick Wilsons running around.

(That is Jason Bateman sneering at a cup of JIZZ on the movie poster, by the way)

Jason Bateman is very upset at this turn of events. His neurotic, nebbish worrying did nothing to dissuade Jennifer Aniston out of her mission to impregnate herself with a turkey baster and now he’s in full-blown freak-out mode that only Michael Bluth can fully execute.

Which brings me to this question: Is it REALLY that easy? Can a guy really just… um… spill himself into a cup which a woman seeking to get pregnant can just suck up with a turkey baster and inject into her… erm… well of femininity? You don’t need a doctor or anything?

Anyway, Michael Bluth goes into the bathroom very drunk and upset and finds the warm cup of jizz just sittin’ there at the edge of the sink WHERE PEOPLE WHO HAD JUST GONE #2 MAY WASH THEIR HANDS, which he immediately picks up. Of course. Did I mention he’s very, very drunk? He pops the thing open, maybe sniffs it, makes a face, and proceeds to play with it. Not in that way, you pervs. It’s not like he sticks his finger in it and smears the goo all over his face or anything. He plays the “ooh… I’m gonna drop it, I’m gonna drop it…” game and then he does drop it. He may have been on something like cough syrup or Xanax as well as really drunk, ’cause seriously, who does that shit?! He decides right then and there that he’s going to… erm… replace it.

Oh, hey, do you guys remember that movie with Ellen Barkin and Jimmy Smits where a guy is killed by a bunch of his girlfriends (one of whom is JoBeth Williams, who was the mom from Poltergeist) for being a sexist, cheating, lying scumbag and wakes up in the hot, blond body of Ellen Barkin. Ellen Barkin does an awesome job portraying a swaggering, smirking, sexist ape, only to get date-raped by Jimmy Smits for her trouble. I don’t know what it is about Jimmy Smits, but I really hate his face. Anyway, I’m kidding about the date-rape part. One night, they get really, really drunk and they sleep together and Ellen Barkin gets pregnant. By the way, they apparently get so drunk that neither of them remember anything from the previous night; Ellen Barkin only realizes they had sex when she gets up to go to the bathroom and realizes her chonies are missing. She gets pregnant, like I mentioned, and Jimmy Smits insists they get married so the baby is not born a bastard because no one wants Jimmy Smits’ bastard, does one?

I really, REALLY thought this movie was a remake of that movie. That would have been awesome.

Where were we? Michael Bluth has replaced Patrick Wilson’s genetic contribution with his own and Rachel from Friends is now pregnant. Michael Bluth has no recollection whatsoever of that night and Rachel from Friends has since moved far, far away because she doesn’t want to raise her child in The City. Fast-forward seven years later, Rachel from Friends is back due to a job offer and has brought her child with her. Michael Bluth gets a call from Rachel from Friends and she wants to have dinner to catch up and rehash the old times. Michael Bluth, of course, is still in love with Rachel from Friends, so he goes to meet her, all excited and squirmy and neurotic. He meets the son of Rachel from Friends and is struck by how nebbish, neurotic, and awkward the kid is. Hmmmm…

Meanwhile, Patrick Wilson has divorced from his all-too-understanding wife and wants to become a real family with Rachel from Friends. After all, they already have a kid together. Patrick Wilson and Rachel from Friends go on dates while Michael Bluth babysits Neurotico and wonders about the many, many similarities he seems to have with the little boy. He is horrified when it dawns on him that FOR SOME UNGODLY REASON, Neurotico– how did it happen? how??– is the fruit of his loins. He figures out that on the night Rachel from Friends threw her I’m-impregnating-myself-with-a-turkey-baster party, he must have gotten really drunk, spilled (snerk!) the jizz, and replaced it with his own. Quelle horreur! How does one arrive at that conclusion?

Patrick Wilson, on the other hand, is convinced he’s supposed to form a family unit with Rachel from Friends and Little Bluth and will do anything to make that happen. To wit, for Little Bluth’s birthday, he takes them indoor mountain climbing when it’s very obvious that Little Bluth is the child in your PE class who makes everyone late for fourth period because the PE teacher made everyone stay to do fifty sit-ups because Little Bluth couldn’t run a mile in 15 minutes. Little Bluth CANNOT climb and becomes hysterical when Patrick Wilson makes him do so. Patrick Wilson is bemused because no child of his could be a wussy wimp. He is furthermore confuzzled when Little Bluth seeks comfort from Michael Bluth as Rachel from Friends looks on with equal parts worry and befuddlement. Seeing Little Bluth becoming too attached to Michael Bluth and Rachel from Friends seeming to follow suit, Patrick Wilson decides to up the ante: he asks Rachel from Friends to marry him in a surprise engagement party in front of his friends and family. Convinced that Rachel from Friends will marry Patrick Wilson and he will never see her or Little Bluth ever again, Michael Bluth decides to spring a plan into action: He has to tell Rachel from Friends the truth! But will she hate him forever for his perfidy and turn away from him forever? Pffft, girl, you crazy.

I do have to thank this movie for introducing me to the Eels. This song is awesome.

I swear to God, I’ve read a Harlequin romance novel with this plot before. Help a sister out? Can anyone think of a Harlequin story that resembles this?

Oh my word: I liked this movie. It’s over-baked, contrived, and couldn’t be more silly even if tried, but I really enjoyed the chemistry between Michael Bluth and Rachel from Friends. They’re just both really likable people. The kid who plays Little Bluth a.k.a. Neurotico is spot-on, even though he does take it to Precocious Adult-Sounding Child Alert Level 5 a few times. Patrick Wilson was great as the arrogant jock-strap who can’t believe that Rachel from Friends would choose Michael Bluth over him and he’s not TOO big of a jerk, just desperate to have his own family because he believes that’s the way it’s supposed to be: a man has to have a wife and children. I like the way the movie plays out the whole OH-MY-GOD-YOU-DID-WHAT scene. It was sufficiently mortifying for everyone involved and the resolution and mopiness that follows said reveal doesn’t drag on and on. There are a few eye-rolling moments and there’s nothing to see here, but otherwise a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. It’s worth Netflixing or catching on TBS or USA where it will inevitably show up in a couple of years.

For me, “Sleepless in Seattle” is one of the last great romantic American movies that hearkens back to films such as “It Happened One Night,” “An Affair to Remember” (which happens to be the favorite movie of ALL the women in this movie), “The Philadelphia Story,” “Roman Holiday,” “Starman,” (yes, shut up, Starman), and the classic Meg Ryan-Billy Crystal vehicle, “When Harry Met Sally.” I hate to sound like a curmudgeon or one of the olds, but I gotta say that they just don’t make romantic comedies like they used to (the latest cinematic abortion being this Natalie Portman-Ashton Kutcher travesty where they’re fuck buddies who swear they’ll never fall in love with each other and somehow, the “film” is transcended to the heights of wit and sophistication that before now only Oscar Wilde has ever experienced, just because the two romantic leads say “fuck” a lot. When will Hollywood realize that Kelso will never ever make a convincing leading man? Don’t even talk to me about the Mila Kunis-Justin Timberlake abomination that’s basically the same damn movie, only with a different title. Who will win? I’ll tell you who won’t. The viewers! I’ve seen the trailers for both and both made me want to poke my eyes and eardrums out). When was the last time you saw a romantic comedy film that made you go, “Aww… I want that” or “Aww… I want a man like Tom Hanks and a golden retriever… but mostly a golden retriever”? Can you honestly tell me you thought that when you saw:

1) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
2) All About Steve (update: I did see this movie and hang me, but I thought it was kind of sweet and ends with Sandra Bullock being happy with herself, boyfriend or no boyfriend)
3) The Sweetest Thing
4) The Ugly Truth
5) Valentine’s Day?

Ugh, with the glut of terrible romcoms featuring Kate Hudson, Katherine Heigl, Jennifer Aniston, and Cameron Diaz these days that focus more on slapstick and gross-out gags in an effort to appeal also to male viewers, the romance part of the “rom-com” is sadly neglected. I want a movie that’ll make me go “awww” or get misty-eyed and have my throat tighten up on me upon which I would lie and blame my darn allergies.

The plot of Sleepless in Seattle is this: Meg Ryan’s Annie works as a journalist in a newspaper and is about to marry Bill Pullman who is a nice guy who seems to adore her and indulge her quirks (she has many– this is a Meg Ryan character, after all). They are similar and share many common values, which is displayed in the scene where they are shopping for wedding china and discussing how many place settings per table. They simultaneously decide on ten because “Eight is too few and twelve is… too many.” Annie’s boss is Rosie O’Donnell who is also her best friend. The two of them often talk about how nice, responsible, and dependable Walter (Bill Pullman) is and how lucky Annie is to have him, but it’s obvious she’s yearning for something more, like a grand romance. One night, while Annie is driving home by herself from a family Christmas party that she attended with Walter, she turns on the radio and comes across a call-in show featuring a little boy caller talking about his widower father who is lonely and “Sleepless in Seattle” and Jonah (the little boy) wants to find him a girlfriend. Annie’s initial reaction is to scoff cynically, but when Sam (Tom Hanks) grabs the phone from his son and reluctantly starts to talk about his dead wife and how much he loved her (the dead wife was played by Carey Lowell of Law & Order, dudes!), Annie melts and gets teary-eyed. When she comes in to work, she talks about the show with Rosie O’Donnell and they both agree that it is the sweetest thing ever. Annie resolves to find out for herself if Sam is for real and in the course of her investigation, finds herself falling for him, putting her relationship with Walter in jeopardy. Will Annie risk her sure-thing with Walter in order to pursue a possible relationship with a guy she hears talking on the radio and subsequently stalks using her newspaper job’s resources? Duh.

On paper, it’s a pretty silly premise. Thirtysomething woman with pre-wedding jitters hears a man talking on the radio about being a widower and how much he loved his dead wife, goes “awwww,” and finds herself yearning for the same kind of devotion and love even though it’s something she already gets from her fiance. She stalks him, hires a private investigator to check him out and take photos of him, flies across the country herself to see him (they have a meet-cute in the middle of a busy road where they stare at each other in awe and say, “Hello” dazedly at each other) only to wuss out and not even really talk to him, jilts her fiance, and agrees to meet the stranger on top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day like in An Affair to Remember (without knowing that it was actually his pre-adolescent son who set up the meeting). WHO DOES THAT?! How and where does it happen outside of a rom-com, right? It’s crazy! We don’t see what happens to Sam and Annie after they meet up on top of the Empire State Building and smile at each other and decide to hang out, but how do you think Sam would have reacted after finding out that Annie stalked him for months before meeting up with him?

Oddly enough, this movie really worked for me. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks have awesome chemistry and the dialogue is quick and witty. By the time You’ve Got Mail came around, the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks pairing was a little more than nauseating and headache inducing for me, but in Sleepless in Seattle, they were a brilliant team. The soundtrack is great, the acting was wonderful, and Bill Pullman’s character Walter is thankfully gracious and still adorable even when Annie is dumping him for another guy. I was so happy that he doesn’t turn out to be an 80’s Movie Sociopathic Douchebro who promises retaliation for being dumped, but instead wishes Annie to be happy. When Annie tells him over a romantic dinner with a view of the Empire State Building that she is in love with someone else and about to meet up with this guy at the Empire State Building, Walter just says, “So he could be waiting for you… right now… on top of the Empire State Building?” and Annie says, “I don’t know… maybe. Probably not. But I have to know.” Walter tells her, “Look, Annie, I love you. Let’s leave that out of it. I don’t want to be someone you’re settling for. I don’t want to be someone anyone settles for. […] Marriage is hard enough without bringing such low expectations into it, isn’t it?” Awwww, Walter. Sure, he’s allergic to wheat, strawberries, penicillin, pollen, nuts and wool, but does that preclude him from being deserving of a grand romance? Stupid Annie. It’s a good thing Sam is a great guy– great father (sure, his 8-year-old son gets on a plane and flies 3,000 miles away to meet a strange woman in a strange city he’s never been in the off-chance she could make a good wife for his father — and SAM DOESN’T FIND OUT ABOUT IT IMMEDIATELY AND LOCKS UP THE LITTLE BASTARD IN HIS ROOM TILL HE’S 18 — seriously, WHAT?!?!), good brother, and apparently, a good husband, plus he’s got a water-front home in the Pacific Northwest, so you know he’s probably got money, but seriously?!?

And this is why you shouldn’t over-think your favorite rom-coms and ruin it for yourself forever. Anyway, Sleepless in Seattle is a great movie to watch when you can’t sleep (snerk!) at 1am and you’re feeling lonely and wanting something to cheer you up while you stuff your gullet with Ritz crackers over-loaded with canned cheese. Verdict: Classic and fun, just don’t think about it too much or it’ll piss you off.

Ryan’s cowboy boyfriend from preliminary auditions was executed, which made Timmy sigh with relief as he watched the show last night, wrapped in a fur shawl and nothing else, drinking gin and lemon juice. (Ryan worries about his increased drinking, but figures it’s just nerves, just the painful fraughtness of being in love.)

Don’t you? Don’t you feel it?” Ryan says as he strokes Tim’s hair, Tim who is looking away, lost in a fog of booze and tiredness, Tim who hasn’t left the house in days. “Don’t you feel that I love you?” Tim laughs, a sort of froggy throaty chuckle that’s new for him, it seems old and weary in a way that Tim shouldn’t seem old and weary. “I don’t know. The cowboy’s gone, I guess. That helps. Who knows.” He wanders out to the balcony and stares off into the valley. Ryan looks at him, silhouetted in the doorway, and he wonders. He wonders how something can suddenly be going so wrong when everything else is going so right. It’s just the pain and weight of years, he guesses. Just that. Just that he’s starting something new and here Tim is, just frozen in time. Ryan sees the orange flicker and glow of Tim lighting a cigarette, another new habit, one that Ryan actually likes a bit, makes Tim seem a little more… French, but still one that worries him. But oh well. He’s tired. And there’s always tomorrow. Tomorrow, he thinks. Tomorrow belongs to them.

He’s just a brilliant writer, that’s all.

Dionne asked me to talk about being an indie author. I’m pretty much off the indie rah rah train for the most part, except when someone specifically asks me to talk about it, then I can be persuaded.

There was a time when I had the plan to get a “real publisher”. It was the proper and respectable way, and I took my writing very seriously. I’ve been writing since at least junior high and I wanted to be a published author. I wanted to be “validated”.

I wrote a lot of books I’ll never publish and did not submit because I knew they weren’t ready. This wasn’t a fear of rejection. I’d submitted short stories before and gotten rejections. Some of them form letters, some of them nice. I’d never understood the whole “crying over a rejection letter” thing. The most I’d felt was a little bummed/disappointed. I knew it was just part of the process.

As I got closer to having a novel that I thought might be ready for publication, something funky happened with my writing. I stopped doing as much of it. Because now it meant I had to submit stuff to agents. And then after that I had to get a publisher. And then I had to lose control of everything from my title to the way editing was done, to my cover art. Then I would live in this mystery land where I had no idea about my sales for months and months at a time. And I’d have to deliver books on someone else’s deadlines. And if I someday started writing fast, I’d have people trying to “slow me down” due to their publishing schedules.

The more I learned about the publishing process for “real publishing” the less I wanted to do it. The whole thing just started to sound so unappealing, I could barely make myself write. Lingering in the back of my mind was the idea of self-publishing. I’d accumulated over $200 in self-publishing books and had educated myself on most aspects of the process. The idea really appealed to me, but I was still a little stuck on this: “Oh God, people will think I’m not serious about my work, and that I’m a little idiot who doesn’t understand how books are published.”

In 2008, I submitted Kept to a publisher. The novella had originally been intended as a contest entry for a popular epublisher. But it wasn’t ready in time, and I wasn’t willing to submit subpar work. Interestingly, while Kept was out with the publisher, I finally got through my pro/con list and decided I was going to do it. I was going to self-publish.

After all, if nothing else, I needed a platform. I was hearing about people losing their publishing contracts left and right and how hard it was to KEEP a contract. So I was in this weird position where I kind of wanted the publisher to reject Kept because I wanted to see what I could do on my own and didn’t want to be faced with a “hard decision”. Had it been happening right now, it wouldn’t have been a hard decision at all, but back then I thought it could incite the raining toads apocalypse.

Kept was rejected, very politely, with a page-long letter with suggestions on how to improve the work. I took most of those suggestions, polished it up some more, and self-published it. Once I got into “being indie”, I really started to love it as much as I thought I would, maybe more. I got so into it, in fact, that I couldn’t seem to stop arguing about it with people who thought it was stupid or I was stupid.

The thing that pissed me off the most was how people would insist I HAD to have a “real publisher” or I wasn’t a “real author” so neener. But the problem was, I didn’t WANT a “real publisher”. It wasn’t like I was standing outside with my nose pressed up against the glass longingly lusting after one of the big six. I just wanted people to stop telling me what I “had” to do to be respected as an author.

I think my protests sometimes came off like the title of this blog… like I was this poor, distraught, rejected, sad little writer who self-published as a last resort and hated it and secretly wanted a NY publisher to come rescue her. Some couldn’t conceptualize someone genuinely wanting to self-publish. I guess it was too weird a concept or something.

No, I actually meant it.

I’ve just released a new book in my series, called: Save My Soul.

The coolest things about it?

I got to pick that title. No one’s marketing department got to give the book a stupid, gimmicky name that has nothing to do with the book. Don’t get me started on series books that all have one word the same in all the titles. It’s so confusing. Why not give each book it’s own title identity and have a series subtitle like… “The Preternaturals Book Two”? (for example)

I get to pick my own editors. I don’t have to deal with someone who has a different vision for my work than I do. I also get to control the interior layout, which I’m bizarrely anal about especially for the print release.

Another cool thing: I get full say in cover art.

I don’t need any permission for any kind of marketing materials I make, beyond normal licensing of stock images and music. Here’s the book trailer for Save My Soul:

Book Trailer: Save My Soul by: Zoe Winters from Zoe Winters on Vimeo.

Self-publishing doesn’t have to be amateur hour. Just like indie film and music, there is a place for indie books. You can produce good stuff this way. I love doing it, and I really can’t see myself publishing any other way.

If you’d like to check out my latest release, Save My Soul, please go here for further details and buy links. It’s the second book of the series, but it also stands alone so you can start with this one if you haven’t read Blood Lust yet.

Thanks for reading!

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me,
all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Here’s the original Spanish version:

Tengo hambre de tu boca, de tu voz, de tu pelo
y por las calles voy sin nutrirme, callado,
no me sostiene el pan, el alba me desquicia,
busco el sonido líquido de tus pies en el día.

y hambriento vengo y voy olfateando el crepúsculo
buscándote, buscando tu corazón caliente
como un puma en la soledad de Quitratúe.

“I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.” Beautiful. No one can describe obsessive lust quite like Pablo Neruda. I bet he wouldn’t mind sniffing your morning breath in the morning, either. Heck, he’d probably even write an ode to it. Oda al olor fétido que es tu respiración.

Kenya McQueen (Sanaa Lathan) is a successful, elegant, beautiful African-American accountant who is about to make partner at the mostly white firm she works for. Her family is part of the cream of the crop of African-American high society and her best friends are as successful as she is: one is a doctor, one is a federal judge, and I forget what the other one does. At the high point of her career, Kenya wants to settle down with the IBM: Ideal Black Male. She has a list of very specific qualities she wants in a man as well as a list of what she doesn’t want. No dogs, no louder color than beige… no white dudes. While out with her girlfriends one night, one friend implores Kenya to “let go and let flow,” and explore her options. When a friend at work mentions she has a friend named Brian (Simon Baker) who runs his own business, is good-looking and smart, and would be perfect for Kenya, Kenya reluctantly goes for it. She enters the Starbucks where her friend had set up the meeting looking around for a hot black guy, but doesn’t find anyone that her friend might have set her up with. A handsome white guy introduces himself to her as her blind date and she is visibly dismayed. While awkwardly looking for somewhere to sit with him, Kenya goes out of her way to talk to the African-Americans in the establishment, even commenting on a sister’s weave. Brian notes her discomfort and correctly surmises that Kenya wants to prove she is “down” and hip with the community even though she’s about to have coffee with a white dude. Kenya tells Brian straight-out she doesn’t date white dudes and leaves.

When Kenya attends her friend Lia’s engagement party held at Lia’s mother’s garden, she marvels at the beautiful landscape and praises the design to Lia’s mother who says she owes it all to her absolutely brilliant landscape architect. Kenya had recently purchased a house and hasn’t had time to work on her overgrown backyard. Lia’s mom says Kenya must ABSOLUTELY meet her landscaper and who else would it be but Brian Kelly (gulp). Kenya’s all, “Nah-uh, no way, I don’t think so,” but Brian tells her it wouldn’t hurt if he just checked out the yard, give her an estimate, see if she likes his ideas. Brian goes over to Kenya’s house in his raggedy Jeep with his big golden retriever in tow and Kenya freaks out. This dude could NOT be more wrong for her even if he tried. But her yard is nasty-looking and Brian says he could take care of her garden (heh-heh-heh). Kenya decides to hire him for his landscaping services because he seems to be very good at what he does and soon realizes that this dude is… hawt. While watching him till her soil (heh-heh-heh), Kenya gets all hot and bothered, even as she insists to herself that he is so not her type. Soon she is making coffee for him, eating Chinese take-out in her living room with him, going out for walks with him, kissing him in the rain, allowing him rock her world in the foyer… and letting him paint her toenails scarlet (ooh baby).

But all is not well in paradise. Kenya is visibly uncomfortable whenever Brian kisses her or shows affection for her in front of her friends and family. She freaks out on Brian when he tells her to take out her weave and show off her natural hair (you gonna tell a black woman how to deal with her hair, Brian? REEEEALLLY???) Kenya’s brother (Donald Faison) is rude to him, slaps his hand away when Brian tries to shake hands with him, and tells Kenya that he doesn’t have to be nice to the “help” (dick). At a party, Kenya’s mother (Alfre Woodard) openly talks to Kenya about an IBM (Blair Underwood) in front of Brian. When Kenya tells Brian about a client at work who doesn’t seem to trust her skills because she’s black and tells him about “black tax” (working twice as hard but getting less money, less recognition than their white counterparts), Brian asks her if she’s just being paranoid. Not everything’s so great on Brian’s end, either. When he tries to talk to the African-American boyfriends of Kenya’s friends and brings up “black tax,” they all make fun of him and make him feel unwelcome. The two of them eventually get into a big fight at the grocery store when Kenya starts talking about the racist client she has at work, Brian dismisses her concerns with a “Not now, babe,” and asks for a day-off from the “black and white thing.” Kenya is rightfully upset because Brian doesn’t seem to understand that she can’t take a day-off from being black. Brian says maybe it’s not going to work, Kenya spitefully agrees, and the two break up. Two weeks later, when Brian realizes that he might have been an insensitive tool, he goes to Kenya’s house and says he loves her, but Kenya steels herself against his charm and all-together hotness and says, “Nope, already moved on to Blair Underwood, sucka.”

Even though it’s a “fluffy” romantic movie, it really made me think about race issues when it comes to romantic relationships (I know, right?). On one hand, I see Brian’s point when he tells Kenya that they don’t have to talk about race all the time, but I’m also with Kenya when she points out that Brian is a white dude and he doesn’t ever have to talk about being white because the only time he might be aware of his skin color is he if were the only white face in a sea of black faces. Kenya, on the other hand, has to contend with being black AND a woman in what is essentially a white man’s world all the time. Being black is not a switch that she can flip. Brian doesn’t seem to understand that even though Kenya is “well-spoken,” beautiful, and well-educated, she has to deal with prejudice and discrimination day in and day out because she is black. I don’t know why I was put off when Brian asks Kenya to take off her weave (I saw Good Hair a documentary by Chris Rock specifically about the “black” hair). I think it’s meant to illustrate that Brian wants Kenya to embrace who she is, but who she is is a woman of color and yet when she starts talking about the issues she encounters as a black woman, he’s all, “Pffft… I don’t want to hear it.” I also wasn’t very comfortable with the fact that Blair Underwood’s character Mark was portrayed as a slick, yet controlling douchebag just so to hammer the point that Brian is supposed to be the one for Kenya. “Yeah, the black guy sucks, go with the white guy!” Like I’m pretty sure Mark could have been shown as a nice, handsome, perfect guy and Kenya would still choose Brian, not because Mark sucks but because she loves Brian, you know?

The character of Kenya is pretty fleshed out. She’s beautiful and successful, yet she yearns for the approval of her family and friends, as well as colleagues. She’s uptight and careful about her image because she wants to be seen as an intelligent, capable career woman and not just a black woman. She has insecurities. She has fears. She has neuroses. Brian Kelly, on the other hand, is pretty much a stock character from the Romance Hero Factory. He’s good-looking, kind, tolerant, successful, hard-working, charming, and has a beautiful smile. Oh, and he has an adorable golden retriever named Max. We don’t know his fears, his insecurities, or his idiosyncrasies. We see a couple of scenes from his point of view, which is when he is alone with Mike Epps (the boyfriend of the federal judge character) and Mike Epps basically threatens to kick his ass because he’s a white guy who might hurt his beautiful black sista, then another scene where he goes up to Mike Epps and his friends and they laugh at him and make him feel like he’ll never fit in. But come on, is he so socially retarded that he thinks he can go up to a bunch of dudes he’s never met before and just blurt out “black tax” and they wouldn’t want to kick his ass? Other than that, all the scenes in the movie are from Kenya’s point of view. We don’t see where Brian lives, who his friends are (at the wedding scene, we see Cliff from Cheers and he may or may not be Brian’s father), and what he likes to do when he’s not hard at work. When Kenya seeks out Brian to talk him at the end of the movie, she goes to this place of work; she doesn’t call him on the phone to find out where he is or anything. Does she NOT know where he lives or his cell phone number? Throughout the movie, we see that she dates him long enough that he’s sleeping at her house, they’re throwing a party together, they’re going grocery shopping together, he’s calling her “babe,” and yet SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHERE HE LIVES? Or how else to contact him but to go to his place of work? REALLY?!?! What do you really know about Brian, Kenya? I know he’s Simon Baker and all, but REALLY?! You don’t know where he lives? REALLY?!?

Before I wrote this review, I never really thought about the movie that much, which is why I guess I liked it so much. I just thought it was a nice, cutesy, romantic movie about a hot white dude and a hot black chick getting together. Then I saw it again today and I was like, “wait, what?!” I still like the movie a lot and think Simon Baker is the hawtness, but while watching the movie again today when I could pause and rewind and pay more attention to it, I realized that there are a lot of things about it that were not so great, as I enumerated above. Anyway, it’s a fun movie to watch if you’re a Simon Baker and Sanaa Lathan fan and they really do have awesome chemistry together and you’d probably enjoy it a lot more if you didn’t think about it so much, like I did just now. I’m gonna have to give this one a B-.

(Lost in Austen was a 4-part mini-series originally broadcasted in September of 2008 on ITV.)

I love Jane Austen. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve devoured her books from Northanger Abbey to Mansfield Park to Sense and Sensibility. I love getting lost in the world of manners and propriety and terribly clever dialogue, where the women are headstrong but not precocious and the men are so dashing and handsome and swoon-worthy. But my favorite and probably the most well-known of Jane Austen’s heroes is Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, played to perfection by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (Jennifer Ehle, who plays Elizabeth Bennet is equally perfect). Mr. Darcy is the ultimate in British propriety: he is an intelligent, wealthy aristocrat known for his principles and the rigid standard of behavior that he imposes upon himself. He is also an unbearable snob. When he encounters the feisty, mouthy, headstrong Elizabeth Bennet, he finds himself rather discomfited for the first time in his life. She is not at all like the proper, biddable girls he had known in the past. She is a pain in the ass and a baggage. On top of that, she belongs to a loud, boisterous family led by an anxious, nagging mother desperate to marry off her five daughters and her feisty attitude is not only tolerated by her fond father, but often times encouraged. Naturally, Darcy soon finds himself bewildered and madly in love with her.

There might be spoilers if you haven’t already read the book.

Everyone knows the story: Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five daughters: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. Mrs. Bennett desires an advantageous match for all of her daughters because she is afraid that the family will not be able to sustain itself if Mr. Bennett were to die and his heir Mr. Collins kicks them out of the house, since the property is entailed (which means only the male heir can inherit). Mr. Bennet, much to Mrs. Bennet’s dismay, doesn’t seem to care. When she hears news of a wealthy, landed gentleman named Mr. Charles Bingley has moved into Netherfield, a country estate near their house, she pesters her husband to find a way to introduce their daughters to him. At a local assembly, the Bennet girls meet Mr. Bingley and his good friend, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. While Jane and Bingley immediately hit it off, Elizabeth and Darcy instantly clash and hate each other when Elizabeth hears Darcy speaking poorly of her. Bingley confesses to Darcy that he is in love with Jane, but Darcy dissuades him of the notion because he doesn’t think that Jane Bennet is good enough for Bingley and Bingley rejects Jane. Because of this, Elizabeth and Darcy fight a little bit more each time they are thrown together, but as it turns out, love and attraction is brewing underneath all that enmity and they fall in love. Things work out for Jane and Bingley as well and everyone lives happily ever after. This is the PRIDE AND PREJUDICE that our intrepid heroine Amanda Price knows by heart and loves.

“I’m not hung up about Darcy. I do not sit at home with the pause button on Colin Firth in clingy pants, okay? I love the love story. I love Elizabeth. I love the manners and language and the courtesy. It’s become part of who I am and what I want. I’m saying that I have standards.” - Amanda Price, Lost in Austen

Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper) is a twenty-something Londoner with a job she doesn’t love, a boor of a boyfriend who proposes to her with the tab of a beer can, and an apartment she shares with her roommate Piranha (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Every time Amanda experiences a particularly harrowing day, she winds down with a glass of wine and her well-read copy of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, which she has read and re-read many times. One night, after fighting with a boyfriend Michael who passes out on her couch, she goes into the bathroom and finds none other than Elizabeth Bennett (Gemma Arterton) standing in the bathtub. Elizabeth explains to a bewildered Amanda, who is convinced she is losing her mind, that there is a portal in the attic of their house which leads to a hidden cupboard in Amanda’s bathroom and it is through this portal that Elizabeth has managed to cross over to Amanda’s world. When Amanda goes in through the cupboard to check it out for herself, the door shuts and Amanda is suddenly trapped in the Bennets’ attic with Elizabeth Bennet on the other side of the door. Amanda soon meets Mr. Bennett to whom she introduces herself as a very good friend of Elizabeth visiting from Hammersmith. Elizabeth, she explains, has decided to hie herself off to Hammersmith on a sabbatical to write a novel and Amanda has come to stay with the Bennets in her stead. Mr. Bennet accepts this explanation without qualm as it is seemingly something the impetuous Elizabeth would do and introduces her to the family. Lydia, Kitty, and Mary are fascinated with Amanda who is dressed in a leather-jacket and a curious-looking “tunic,” that must be all the rage in Hammersmith, a place quite alien to them, while Mrs. Bennet (the formidable Alex Kingston), sensing a potential threat in Amanda for the affections of the eligible gentlemen in town that her daughters might otherwise receive, is distant and snippy. Jane (Morven Christie), the eldest and has a close relationship with Elizabeth, is initially wary of Amanda because she had never heard Elizabeth mention her before, but soon warms up to her when she realizes that Amanda shares many of Elizabeth’s quirks and attitude.

Amanda slowly acclimates herself to her new, foreign surroundings and just in time for the assembly where the Bennets originally meet Bingley (the super handsome Tom Mison) and Darcy (the drool-worthy Elliot Cowan). When they are introduced to Bingley, Amanda finds herself in a pickle when she realizes that Bingley is attracted to her, earning herself Mrs. Bennet’s enmity. Jane is happy for her new friend and tells her that Bingley is an incredible match, but Amanda quickly points out that Jane is the one who is supposed to be with Bingley. Jane is reluctant to believe her, but secretly hopeful. Amanda soon meets Darcy who is as handsome and snobbish and priggish and kind of a dick as he is in the book and while Amanda is reluctantly attracted to him, she dismisses him as a “miserable sod,” and tells herself that he is destined to be with Elizabeth Bennet. Bingley, however, is persistent in his pursuit of Amanda, especially after Amanda, convinced that she has mucked everything up beyond fixing, drinks a little too much at the assembly and in her distressed state makes out with Bingley. Her attempted rejection of Bingley later on leads to this hilarious exchange:

Bingley: I’m drawn to you! I’m a man.
Amanda: And I’m a woman… and I’m drawn to… other women!
Bingley: You mean there really are ladies who… steer the punt from the Cambridge end?

In an effort to get the novel back on track, Amanda talks Jane into visiting Bingley at Netherfield telling her that the Bingleys had invited her even though Jane fears that with the bad weather, it wouldn’t be a good idea to ride there. When Mary tells Amanda that Jane almost died from a bout with grippe last time, she follows Jane there and mucks things up a little bit more. Upon being insulted by Caroline, Amanda quips that she is worth “£27,000 a year.” When the odious Mr. Collins shows up, she manages to get herself engaged with him (he breaks off the engagement when Wickham, playing a mean trick on Amanda, tells everyone that her “fortune” is from fishmongering), which pushes Elizabeth’s good friend Charlotte Lucas (who originally marries Collins in the book) to become a missionary and go to Africa to avoid a life of lonely spinsterhood. The consequences of Amanda invading this literary world gets progressively worse: Jane marries Mr. Collins in order to save Longbourne; Bingley becomes a drunk and elopes with Lydia, which forces Mr. Bennet to challenge Bingley to a duel and results in a cracked skull for Mr. Bennet; and Darcy gets engaged with Caroline Bingley. Oddly enough, Amanda’s one ally in all of this is Wickham who, as it turned out, received a bum rap in the book. Meanwhile, Amanda has taken to going up to the attic at Longbourne and pleading with Elizabeth to open the portal door and come back. But Elizabeth doesn’t answer. How the hell will a London girl from 2008 fix the mess she has created in Georgian England when all she has on hand are a tube of lip gloss, one cigarette, and some paracetamols?

Jemima Rooper is a delight as Amanda Price and carries the film rather well. She’s spunky, unafraid, and refuses to be cowed. She is a good replacement Elizabeth (oddly enough, Gemma Arterton and Jemima Rooper looked eerily alike) and made me realize that even though the character of Elizabeth Bennet was written by Austen 200 years ago, she is really surprisingly modern in both attitude and behavior. We only see a little bit of how Elizabeth handles being stuck in 2008, but it is believable that she will easily acclimate to her surroundings and fit in. Elliot Cowan as Mr. Darcy is very handsome and quite good at portraying a man with a permanent stick up his butt. When he starts to thaw and slowly becomes charming, I just about got light-headed enough to swoon. Even more yummy is the actor who plays Bingley, Tom Mison. When I first started watching, I wondered if there was going to be a clever twist where Amanda ends up with Bingley; he was that cute. The dialogue was quick and clever; the twists and turns were fun and unexpected; the cast was just perfect. I have to give props to Alex Kingston who totally nailed the role of Mrs. Bennet; she was neurotic and whiny and an anxious wreck, but somehow, the portrayal of Kingston made the character sympathetic. Mrs. Bennet really is just a concerned mother who wants to make sure that all her daughters are married well and taken care of. You could see that she takes on the Herculean task of getting all of her five daughters married because Mr. Bennet (Hugh Bonneville) doesn’t seem to care at all and would rather bury his head in a book than worry about his wife and daughters being kicked out of Longbourne if he died and Mr. Collins decided to kick them all out of the house.

I’m giving this mini-series a A- because I was really disappointed that we don’t get to see scenes of Amanda adjusting to the little inconveniences of Georgian England. For one thing, there’s no electricity, running water, toothbrushes, and other things that a modern girl might take for granted. SPOILER: There are a couple of clever little scenes that make fun of this. For example, when Amanda returns to her world, the first thing she does is brush her teeth; Michael, her boyfriend, tells her that Elizabeth, who has become a nanny, keeps trying to brush her charges’ teeth with powder. I also found it hard to believe that everyone was just so accepting that Elizabeth would just disappear WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE and hardly anyone blinks an eye when a strange woman claiming to be Elizabeth’s dear friend even though Elizabeth has never mentioned her before, could just show up and start getting into everybody’s business. But then again, I’m talking about a movie whose main conceit is Elizabeth Bennet showing up in a bathroom through a magical portal in modern-day London, so really, who am I to nitpick? Other than that, this movie is delightful, hilarious, and witty. It’ll make you laugh out loud, cringe in embarrassment for Amanda in parts, cry a little bit, but you’ll have a lot of fun. Check it out.

Possession in Death by J.D. Robb. I don’t know why, but ever since I started reading the Eve Dallas books, I’ve always pictured Jennifer Esposito in the Eve Dallas role. Does anyone else agree with this? At the start of the story, Eve Dallas is trying to enjoy a post-case wrap-up barbecue party with her ever growing posse of consultants and cop buddies, but can’t quite relax. The last case was particularly brutal and she can’t make with the good times because she is severely bothered by it. When Father Lopez, who I think we first encounter either in Promises in Death or Salvation in Death, begs off from the party early because he has a mass to conduct, Eve volunteers to drive him to church so she can get away and take a breather. The two of them encounter an elderly woman staggering and bloody in the street, so Eve rushes into action and holds the woman as she lays dying in Eve’s arms. The woman starts gibbering something about a warrior and implores Eve to accept and to find some woman named Beata by walking through a red door and Eve just nods and agrees, dismissing it as a dying woman’s delirium. And then… Eve starts seeing dead people. And speaking Russian. And Roarke has no problem whatsoever boning Eve even though there’s a tiny 90-year-old Romanian woman hitch-hiking in her body, that crazy Irish bastard. I love him. It turns out Beata, the granddaughter of the old Romanian woman and a classically trained ballet dancer, has been missing for quite some time and Gizi, the old Romanian woman, may have known or figured out what happened to her, which was why she was murdered. Eve goes into her Avenging Angel Battle Mode and kicks major ass. I was amused by how completely unimpressed Roarke was about Eve confessing that she was possessed by a geriatric gypsy and could see dead people. But then again, it’s probably not something Eve would even joke about. A very different sort of Eve Dallas story, but a recognizable Eve Dallas nevertheless. Grade: A

The Other Side of the Coin by Mary Blayney is the Freaky Friday story. Set in Regency England, Bettina is convinced that her husband Harry, Earl of Fellsborough, is having an affair because even though they were hot and heavy when they first got married, Harry hasn’t given her a good rogering ever since she gave birth to the heir Cameron six months ago. Harry is insistent he is not having an affair and doesn’t want to have an affair, but hasn’t really done much to assuage his wife’s fears and in fact, has been an insensitive boob. Seemingly oblivious that his wife is feeling hurt and insecure, Harry off-handedly remarks that Bettina’s dress was made of the same fabric as a woman at the party they had just attended.

“Oh no!” Bettina’s cheeks burned at the thought, and she vowed to give her maid the dress the very next day.

Laughing, Harry continued, apparently unaware of his wife’s dismay. “I doubt anyone remarked on it. Her décolletage had every man there watching her breasts. If the material slipped just one more inch, we all would have had an eyeful.”

“You are an idiot, Harry.” His countess grabbed the glass from his hand and put it on the table with enough force to draw his attention if her words did not.

“What? What did I say?” His humor disappeared. “I didn’t do anything!”

In the middle of the argument, Bettina is distracted by the glitter of a coin on a nearby table (SQUIRREL!!!) and picks it up. She asks Harry what it is and Harry demands if it’s REALLY the coin she wants to argue about. Coin in hand, Bettina goes berserker and yells, “I just wish you could be in my shoes. Then you would not be so patronizing.” Then throws the coin at him, which Harry unthinkingly catches and says, “And I wish you would trust me.” BOOM! Presto Change-O, they’re in each other’s bodies. Since they can’t figure out how to switch their bodies back, H & B have to spend the next few days as each other, while trying to figure out how the switch happened in the first place. Harry gets to experience how hard it is to run a lord’s household, while Bettina learns how to handle unexpected erections and the consequences of running one’s mouth when one is unable to hide behind the cover of “But I’m just a girl!” She inadvertently gets Harry into trouble with an evil, despicable lord and puts his political career as well as his life in danger. I know what you’re thinking, pervs: Do Bettina and Harry have sex while they’re in each other’s bodies? Heh-heh-heh. There is a mysterious nanny figure who “oversteps [her] bounds” and might or might not have something to do with the coin, but unless I missed something, I don’t think this thread went anywhere. Anyway, this novella is fun to read and a bit different, but I wish it had been longer. As it is, it’s an amusing look at what happens after your usual Regency romance epilogue of the lord and the lady lounging together cuddling a fat little baby. Grade: B

The Dancing Ghost by Patricia Gaffney is my favorite. It’s just… romantic and witty and funny and makes you go “awwww.” The novella starts out with a correspondence between a Miss Angiolina Darlington and a Mr. Henry Cleland in 1895. Mr. Cleland is a highly sought-after paranormal investigator and Miss Darlington is a poor country miss whose grandparents left her a supposedly haunted house but no money for upkeep. Mr. Cleland commands a pretty stiff sum for his services, but Miss Darlington cannot afford to pay him much. Or at all. They haggle over the fee in correspondence until Mr. Cleland succumbs and agrees to provide his services for free. When Henry arrives in the picturesque little town, he is expecting Ms. Darlington to be a little old lady, but she is not. Abby is expecting Mr. Cleland to be an old, staid, scholarly-looking fellow, but he is not. They are both attractive people who instantly connect and fall in luuurve. Abby wants Henry to “investigate” the house as a delaying tactic so she can come up with the money to keep it. They join forces and plot against a dastardly uncle who owns the town bank and wants to foreclose on the property. They’re both so clever and everything is going according to plan and they’re having so much fun together… But Henry is not exactly who he says he is. And the house? Most probably haunted. And the uncle? Oh, don’t count him out yet. This novella? So good. I can totally see it turned into a movie where Abby is played by Rachel McAdams, Henry by Ryan Gosling, ( “Hey girl, I can’t wait to get home and give you a foot massage”), and the dastardly uncle by Oliver Platt. How come Patricia Gaffney no longer writes romance novels that make you sigh and shiver and take a delighted sip of your hot cocoa? Grade: A

Almost Heaven by Ruth Ryan Langan, while charming in its cheesiness, was definitely not my favorite. This one is a little old school featuring rich people, rich people who call each other “darling,” a villain so immersed in his own douchebaggery that he steeples his fingers while plotting villainy and laughs “chillingly,” and a “special” little boy who’s supposed to make you go “awww.” Ted and Vanessa Crenshaw are dead. They died on the night of their only daughter’s engagement party in a car accident because the dastardly villain paid some people to cut their brakes and they plunged off a cliff. Ted and Vanessa think they’re going to heaven since they’re secure in the knowledge that their beautiful only daughter Christina has found the love of her life and this man will take care of Christina and their “special” little angel. But the pearly gates don’t part, there are no angels to sing a welcoming chorus, and they’re not going anywhere. Ted and Vanessa have unfinished business. Dun-dun-duh. I knew from the first page that this novella and I were not going to get along because the first page describing the daughter and her fiance reads like a profile ripped out of some hoity-toity society page:

Mark Deering, charming owner of a successful Internet software company, had long headed the list of California’s most eligible bachelors. No one was suprised that he had finally lost his heart to a woman like Christina Crenshaw. She was her parents’ pride and joy. A brilliant student while at Harvard, with an MBA from Wharton, she had taken over an executive position at her father’s company, one of the most solid agencies on the West Coast. Under her leadership the company managed to land Lyon Entertainment, an account they’d been coveting for years. The future of Crenshaw Advertising looked even brighter with Christina leading the way.

From whose point of view was this story being told? Cindy Adams, maybe? Anyway, the “charming,” handsome Mark Deering is not the kind, gallant, perfect man Ted and Vanessa thought he was and the beautiful Christina Crenshaw is in danger of falling into the arms of this dastardly evil douchebag of a man. Oh noes. Heaven help us. Ted and Vanessa figure the only way they can save poor beautiful Christina is if they can find an even more handsome, noble, kind, gallant paragon of manhood who is not secretly an evil scheming douchebag and throw him and Christina together so they can fall in lurrrrrve and Christina and their “special” little boy will be saved! So they find such a man and oh noes, his name is Mark too… or is it?

No, it totally isn’t. His name is Jake Ridgeway! But of course it is. Did you really think the hero was going to be someone called “Mark Deering”? Pleeeaze. That’s not a romance novel name at all. I think Ms. Ruth Ryan-Langan made the same mistake I did once when I called my new boyfriend by my old boyfriend’s name. Oh, he was not happy. He was all, “How would you like it if I called you by [his ex-girlfriend]’s name?” I would not have liked it. My name is so much cooler. Anyway, you know Jake Ridgeway is a good guy because he rolls up his sleeves and has muscles and a “handsome poet’s face.” We find out nothing about Christina except her parents apparently don’t trust her to live her life without the guidance of a man (though they’re totally okay with leaving the company to her)… and she’s attracted to good-looking men who carry power tools and measuring devices. You know those stories where there are meddling ghosts and you wish the meddling ghosts would just go away so that the love story can be told? This one is ALL about the meddling ghosts. Darling. Grade: C

Never Too Late for Love by Mary Kay McComas is ALSO about meddling ghosts, but one of them is crrrrrazy. Like scary-crazy. Our heroine M.J. Biderman (Maribelle Joy, much to her dismay) is trying to demolish the house left to her by her recently departed mother so she can sell the lot to a restaurant chain and get on with her life. But the house won’t budge. Not against bulldozers, not against explosives. And the doors and windows won’t open. M.J. takes the time out of her busy life and decides to check out the house herself and find out what kind of funny stuff the foreman has been smoking. M.J. walks into her childhood home and finds the ghost of her dead mother hanging out in the kitchen while the ghosts of her equally dead sisters, Imogene and Odelia, are chatting and chopping up apples for pie. M.J. implores her mother and aunts to go away so she can mow the house down and sell the lot, but the women are staying put. They have an “unresolved business” they need to take care of, but are not quite sure what it is. To make the situation worse, the neighbor next door is a “scrumptious,” “mouthwatering” man named Ryan Doyle who has an imaginative young son who sees dead people. Ryan wants Maribelle Joy to tell his young son that there is no such thing as ghosts, but that’s a little hard for M.J. to do when her Aunt Imogen won’t stop going to the backyard to pick apples for her pies and her Aunt Imogen is one of those annoying crying ghosts. I actually really enjoyed this one. M.J. has mommy issues that she’s never quite resolved, Ryan is at a loss about what to do with a son who sees dead people, and they just… click. The so-called meddling ghosts are not annoying for once and I was actually curious as to why they can’t quite move on. I thought the dynamic and relationship of the ghostly sisters was actually essential to the plot and I enjoyed reading about them as much as I enjoyed the h/h. Grade: B

This was a pretty solid anthology and an easy read. There are gems to be found here if you’re an Eve Dallas fan or old-school Patricia Gaffney. Check it out.

In Mary Anne + Too Many Babies, Mary Anne has gone baby-crazy. She and her step-sister Dawn are convinced their parents Sharon and Richard need to have a baby, so they can have a little brother or sister to play with. They spend their free time looking through a mail-order magazine for baby furniture and clothes; they doodle baby names on their notebooks and pester their poor, beleaguered parents about getting it on and producing a child for them to treat as a living doll. When a new client the Salems calls for a babysitter for fraternal twin babies, Mary Anne practically jumps all over the opportunity. She dresses them up in cute little matching outfits before taking them out for walks, baby-talks and coos to them while they’re feeding, and inhales the sweet, sweet baby essence from their heads like it’s crack (Mary Anne lurves the baby smell). Mary Anne gets the chance to prove her love for babies when a class at school, Modern Living, gives her and her classmates a special project: after they fake-marry a classmate, they will each be given an egg that they will treat as their own child; at the end of the project, the couple must write a paper together detailing and analyzing the experience. Mary Anne pairs up with Logan Bruno, her steady boyfriend, of course. At first she believes everything will be perfect: her partner is her real boyfriend, she’s an experienced babysitter so taking care of the egg baby should be a breeze, and she’s very organized. But all of a sudden, everything begins to feel too real and Logan seems to be exhibiting the “control freak” tendency that made Mary Ann break up with him in Mary Ann v.s. Logan (they get back together in Mary Anne Misses Logan, five books later). Can Mary Anne handle her egg-baby, her babysitting charges, and her seemingly deteriorating relationship with Logan? Or will Mary Ann take her ten-speed to a nearby lake, drown her egg-baby, and go back into town, crying hysterically that a black man bike-jacked her 10-speed and took her egg-baby with him?

[Special side-note: When we did this project in the 8th grade, we were given a “real-fake” baby which was programmed to cry, coo, burp, pee, and poop at random times. If you dropped it or neglected it too long, it records that. It was an awful, awful thing. It even recorded when you yelled at it. It was heavy as hell, too. You even had to change the diaper. They gave you a bracelet that was coded to the baby to make sure you’re not too far away from it at all times.]

The Heroine If you are familiar with the BSC books, you already know that Mary Anne’s defining characteristic is her timidity. Before Mary Anne Saves the Day, Mary Ann was content standing in her best friend Kristy’s shadow, unable to speak up for herself, and easily pushed around. When Claudia convinced her that it was time to ditch the Oshkosh for more fashionable clothing, Mary Anne discovered the “softer side of Sears,” much to Kristy’s dismay. In book #10, Mary Likes Logan, we see Mary Anne starting to grow into her own, blossoming and desiring a boy with a Kentuckian accent and incidentally, a dead ringer for her favorite country singer, Cam Geary. But the Old Mary Anne is not all the way gone. When Logan implies she is a bad mother and yells at her during a movie date, Mary Anne cries and storms out. She is flabbergasted when Logan tells her that he doesn’t trust her enough to leave her alone with the egg-baby, but does not fight back. She can be quickly overwhelmed, rattles easily, and as soon as she gets in trouble, she’s on the horn with Dawn, demanding help. And she’s definitely still too sensitive.

“You still don’t trust me, do you? Just because I lost her for five seconds. Logan, accidents happen.”

“I know.” Logan didn’t let go of Sammie, though.

My eyes filled with tears. “I’ll see you later,” I whispered, and ran out of the room without Sammie.

“Mary Anne!” called Logan.

I didn’t answer.

Logan and I had a long way to go before we reconciled our differences.

You should have belted him in the stomach, grabbed Sammie, and THEN stormed out, Mary Anne.

The Hero The trouble between Logan and Mary Anne began in Mary Anne + Too Many Boys. Mary Anne, while on vacation/babysitting gig in Sea City with the Pikes, finds herself attracted to Alex, a boy she had met the previous summer. This makes Mary Anne wonder about her feelings for Logan. After all, she’s only thirteen, has only had one steady boyfriend, and believes herself to be too young to settle down. In Mary Anne v.s. Logan, Mary Anne realizes that Logan is just too controlling; he steam-rolls over her, doesn’t ask for her opinions about anything, and has been known to order for her at dinner. In this book, it seems Logan might be the same domineering jerk he used to be. He doesn’t trust Mary Anne to care for their stupid egg-baby (on one instance, he actually calls Mary Anne not to see how she’s doing, but to check on the egg), makes decisions without consulting her, (i.e. “We’ll just have to live with your parents, then”), and when Mary Anne accidentally loses the egg-baby in the movie theater, Logan almost loses it. Mary Anne is a fragile, soft-spoken, sensitive creature. She doesn’t need a brute like Logan Bruno pushing her around, especially since he doesn’t trust her. A Kentuckian accent will only take you so far; you’ll need kindness, manners, and sensitivity… Logan.

Oh my word: As far as Mary Anne-centric BSC offerings go, this really isn’t my favorite. Like may Mary Anne-centric books, Mary Anne got lost in the shuffle. Too much emphasis was placed on explaining how the Modern Living class worked, as well as the “egg project,” that at times it felt repetitive. I think the chapter with Dawn and Mallory babysitting with the Pike children could have been excised because it serves only to explain how the “egg project” worked and that had already been taken care of in the previous chapters; Stacey’s chapter detailing her new babysitting charges the Gianellis were adorable, however (Stacey’s egg baby’s name is Bobby and the little boy she’s babysitting is named Bobby, so I have to say that the little “who’s on first” routine made me chuckle a little bit). I would have really liked to have seen Mary Anne telling off Logan. He is just too arrogant and presumptuous for his own good. If Mary Anne doesn’t watch herself with him, she’ll end up in a loveless marriage with Logan immediately after high school, stuck at home taking care of the kids while Logan worked at his construction job. I was, to say the least, a little relieved when Mary Anne reveals that she would like to move to New York someday and have a career there (the epilogue of her egg-baby Sammie: she moves to New York to become an editorial assistant for a major publishing company, which I think is Mary Anne’s secret desire). I think Mary Anne will be all right as long as she dumps Logan, which she might, once she sees what Stoneybrook High School has to offer. All and all, a “meh” grade because for a Mary Anne-centric book, we didn’t really get a “feel” for Mary Anne. We also didn’t get a lot of Claudia, my favorite BSC member, so boooo. And I wish the kids didn’t take the “egg project” so seriously; it was ridiculous. At one point, while Mary Ann was babysitting the Salem twins, she actually hesitated to go upstairs and tend to the real live baby because she was reluctant to leave her egg-baby alone. It’s just an EGG, Mary Anne!

What Was The Book’s After-School Special Lesson? Wait till you’re graduated from college and have a career of your own before getting married and having children, kids. Otherwise, you’ll end up living with your husband in your old bedroom in your parents’ house, miserable and broke, crying over the cold oatmeal that the baby won’t eat, and wondering how your step-sister Dawn is doing out in California. And wishing you hadn’t listened to your high school boyfriend when he said you didn’t have to go to NYU like you wanted when Stoneybrook Community College would serve just as well. You’ve never been really good at school, anyway. Not like your friend Stacey McGill. Or Kristy Thomas.

I also like to think that this particular BSC book deals with the issue of young girls wanting to have babies, just so they can have someone to love and for someone to love them in return. I believe Sally Jesse Raphael or Maury Povich have dealt with these issues sometime in the past in the vein of, “You can’t stop me! I’m a woman grown. I can do whatever I want!” OH HELPZ, MY TEEN IS OUT OF CONTROL!!

“You guys? What’s being married like?” asked Jessie.

“Yeah, what’s it like?” echoed Mal.

“Well,” Stacey began after a moment. “I don’t know what to compare it to. But a lot of it is communicating. With your husband or wife. You have to be able to talk about who’s going to watch the baby when, and who has to remember to do which things with the baby.”

“And you have to agree on stuff,” added Kristy. “And trust your husband. That’s important. You have to trust him.”

“Being married is expensive,” I added.

“Nobody has said anything about love,” pointed out Jessie.

The room grew silent.

“Yeah, aren’t you supposed to be in love?” asked Mal.

So What Was Claudia Wearing? There wasn’t much focus on Claudia or Claudia’s outfit this time around, I’m afraid. All we got is this: “A typical Claudia outfit might include a sequined shirt, stirrup pants (maybe black), low black boots, dangly turquoise earrings, and ribbons woven through tiny braids in her hair. And she wouldn’t forget sparkly nail polish.” Wow, that sounds pretty tame compared to what Claudia usually wears. I can actually see the outfit happening in my head.

In this movie, a bunch of young Americans led by their goober coach are in some wrestling competition somewhere in Eastern Europe. Played by Thora Birch, Alex (oh “androgynous name associated with the final girl trope” yes!) loses her match because she panics whenever she is pinned, but her hot boyfriend whose name I don’t bother to find out, wins his and congratulates his opponent who gives him a flyer to a wild party. The coach, who is disappointed in his team’s lackluster performance, reprimands them, orders them to their hotel rooms, and tells them to go straight to bed, “no bullshit.” Alex and Girl #2 are sent to one room, Hot Boyfriend and Boy #2 are sent to another; as soon as the chaperones are gone, Alex and Boy #2 switch rooms so Alex can be with her boyfriend. Alex and Hot Boyfriend don’t do the nasty; instead they sit in the bathtub and talk about Alex’s loss and what she can do to improve her chances next time. LOL WUT?!? Afterwards, they wrestle a bit on the bed… literally. (There is a gay joke that is niggling at the back of my mind right now, but I can’t seem to put it into words) He shows her a couple of moves which you just know will come in handy later. Later that night, the foursome sneak out of their hotel so they can go to the wild party they were invited to, but are caught by Hot Assistant Coach who is smoking a doobie on the front stoop. He threatens to turn them in to Goober Coach, but Alex counters with a threat to tell Goober Coach about the doobie. Hot Assistant Coach relents and lets them go with the condition that they let him tag along. They get to the party which turns out to be an orgy featuring hot Eastern Europeans on drugs making out on dirty mattresses and rolling around. Instead of turning around and marching back to the hotel like good Americans should have done, they decide to hang out for a bit and check things out. One of the dudes get into a fight with a Party Drunk because he wouldn’t let go of Girl #2 and this is about the time I went to the bathroom for a couple of minutes, so I’m not sure what happened or if the fight meant anything to the plot, but the next thing I saw was the group getting reamed by Goober Coach at the train station. It turned out that the rest of the team had already gone ahead to Odessa and Goober Coach waited for them and boy, was he pissed. Naturally, he starts yelling at the ticket agent who doesn’t understand a lick of English (English, motherfucker, do you speak it?) and attracts the attention of an ice-blond supermodel type who looks like Amber Valletta. She tells him they can just catch the next train which will take them to Odessa and she’ll bring them on-board with her.

As soon as they get on the train, the group is immediately split up into cabins: the two girls, the two coaches, the two boys. They are led to their cabins by a couple of dirty, toothless inbred-looking yokels wearing overalls—obviously not train officials, but the coach sees nothing odd with this—who asks all of them to surrender this passports so they can put them away for safe-keeping. WTF?!? I wouldn’t trust a dirty diaper to these two for safe-keeping, but apparently, no alarms go off in their heads and the silly Americans hand over their passports. IDIOTS.

Soon enough, the killers start cold-slaughterin’ the geniuses one by one and it was done in a way that someone off screen might as well have been pulling them off with a hook like they did in those old-timey laff-in variety shows when somebody was bombing really badly on stage. The first one to go is the coach. TSTL TIP: If you are a homely, middle-aged, paunchy guy with no money and absolutely no chance with somebody who looks like Amber Valletta in real life, the supermodel look-alike who comes on to you heavily and suggests you two go off to her room IS A KILLER. TSTL TIP #2: If you’re dared to run naked down the length of a moving train in a foreign country where you are unaware of its people and customs, it’s okay to say no even if it will make you look like a pussy. It’s better to be a wuss than not to be at all. TSTL TIP #3: If two members of your party are missing and you’re starting to suspect foul play, do NOT turn to your other remaining team members and say, “Let’s split up. We’ll cover more ground that way.” You NEVER EVER split up. TSTL TIP #4: When you stumble upon the mangled, mostly-dead carcasses of your friends, you should never insist on dragging them along with you even when they cough blood on your face and implore you to leave them with their dying breath. You cannot drag a two-hundred pound dead-weight with you while attempting to navigate through a terrain that is totally foreign to you. You’ll end up making too much noise when you stumble, bringing upon a world of hurt on both your heads. Leave your friend, find a US embassy, and bring all the back-up you can find.

Let me warn you if you’re planning on picking up this movie: it is gory as all hell. There is one scene where one of the killers cuts open a dude’s chest with a bonesaw, yanks his chest open, and pulls his heart out with his bare hands. In another, the victim wakes up on a bloody slab, looks down at his body, and finds himself staring at his own intestines. When he looks around some more, he finds dead bodies and body parts scattered all around him. Which really struck me as very untidy. If this is indeed a business of obtaining organs for people who are willing to pay top dollar for them, what good would it do anyone if the organs become contaminated with germs and dirt and couldn’t be used by anyone? There’s suspension of disbelief, then there’s GOOD-GOD-MAN-IT’S-CALLED-RESEARCH. If you’ve got a whole train of people waiting for organs, you can’t just snatch some random tourists without knowing the most basic thing about them which is their blood type or if they’d be a match. One part that really made me laugh was when they yanked the eyes out of a twenty-two-year-old man and stuck them in a three-year-old Asian kid with no regard to whether or not the guy would be a match. Just because a girl needs a new heart, you can’t just open up some random dude, yank out his heart, stick it inside of the girl, and hope for the best. IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT. And what kind of ruthless, professional organ thieves would employ a pair of dirty, toothless inbred-looking yokels that would rape and urinate on the specimen?

Usually I can find something entertaining in any horror movie I watch, just because I love the genre so much. While watching this movie, all I could experience were disgust and disbelief. The premise is ridiculous—the whole train is in on it, really?!? The actors, while attractive, were on the whole so unmemorable that I’m hard-pressed to even remember what they look like now; basically, they’re cannon fodder and nothing more. It was almost like the killing itself was the meat at the deli counter and the victims were like customers holding a number, waiting for their respective orders. Thora Birch’s acting was nigh unbearable— she has four modes: pouting, scoffing, whining, eye-rolling. She does redeem herself a little bit in the end by some badassery which made maybe five minutes of the entire film a little worthwhile, but it wasn’t enough. If you’re a gore-hound, there’s all sorts of goodies here for you: bone-sawing, eye-gouging, evisceration, decapitation… and an instance where one of the killers cuts along the middle of the victim’s back, exposes the spinal cord, and jams a rail spike into it in order to paralyze him. *Shudder* If you’re the type who enjoys copious amounts of bouncing naked breasticles in your horror movie, this one will disappoint you. I think there were a couple of random boobies in the party scene, but that’s it. You don’t get to see the milkshake of Thora Birch or Girl #2. Gratuitous violence and gore but no boobies. Whut? That’s ridiculous. This, I think, is the movie that made me go, “All right, that’s it, no more torture porn. No more idiot-Americans-going-into-a-foreign-country-and-getting-their-asses-killed-because-they’re-retarded.” On top of that, the xenophobia in this particular film is astounding. Americans, they don’t want to kill you because you’re “special” and they’re jealous of you; they want to kill you because you’re obnoxious, arrogant, and they just want you to shut the fuck up. I have to give this one an F. That’s right. An F.