Call Me

One thing I've noticed about contemporary romance novels is that the characters are either likable and cute or super-duper trashy. The cute romance novels are the ones I tend to like, and the trashy ones are the ones I tend to write blog posts about. So three guesses as to which category Call Me falls into, and the first two don't count.

The premise of Call Me is the typical "two people who are best friends fall in love" with the added "and have copious sexytimes". Dylan and Kayla are neighbors who are also best friends. Dylan, we learn, is a total neat freak and workaholic, whereas Kayla is...a totally unlikable weirdo. She's apparently a total genius with electronics, but the only proof of that we have is the stated fact that she wired all of Dylan's electronics together once. Oh, and she built a sex toy. More on that later. Anyway, she's also completely colorblind and otherwise unstylish: we often see her in orange sweatpants with a green sweatshirt. Charming. And totally sexy. I mean, I understand what the author was going for: unstylish people can still  be sexy, or whatever, but it gets a little unbelievable that she is literally THE HOTTEST THING Dylan has ever come across, even in her complete unsexyness.

So. Kayla comes up with this awesome idea for a sex toy, an anal vibrator for men called the Walnut Wand. Oh, you thought this romance novel couldn't get classier? No worries, it does. She asks Dylan to try it out for her, but he is vehemently NOT GAY and therefore refuses. So Kayla does what any logical thinking woman would do: she places a bet on their monthly poker game. If she wins, Dylan has a gay experience with a vibrator. If he wins, she does whatever he wants. No way this could go wrong, right?

Well, it does. Obviously. Kayla loses, and Dylan decides it's time to make his move. He orders her to go upstairs and call him for phone sex. Um, okay. So up she goes to her apartment, and they start having phone sex. But then it gets to be too much for poor Dylan, and he runs upstairs and they start having sex like bunnies.

Kayla is the best at sex. I don't think they actually describe any of the actual sex, just that it was awesome and they played with sex toys and had lots of kinky sex. This will continue throughout the rest of the novel, don't worry. Kayla and Dylan have sex constantly. When they're not together, they're having phone sex. Seriously. It's not even sexy. It's kind of gross. There's a moment where Dylan's coworker tells him his office smells like a teenager's bedroom. Charming.

Anyway. Plot. Dylan is out as a test subject for the Walnut Wand (so named because it's a wand, and it's designed to stimulate the prostate, which is roughly the size of a walnut. Oh, Kayla. You so clever.), so Kayla has to find new ones. Luckily, her best friend works at a sex shop! Remember how classy these people are? She's only doing it to put herself through college, and she's a cashier, not a performer, but still. A sex shop was the only place she could find a job? Really?

Kayla's friend has the perfect solution to her problem: college students! They're poor, they're sex-starved, they're willing to be in studies...BEST SOLUTION EVER! So, against Dylan's will (he doesn't want random men coming to her apartment, that is NOT SAFE. And Dylan, being super-romantic, is incredibly overprotective of Kayla. Even though given her wardrobe, he doesn't have much to worry about.), Kayla agrees to hire some college students to try out her anal vibrator. When Dylan finds out they're at her apartment for preliminary interviews, he freaks the fuck out and charges in to stop them, to Kayla's embarrassment and anger. Really, Dylan, if you would just use the frakking vibrator you wouldn't have these problems. Seriously.

Kayla and Dylan, surprisingly, have a fight about this. She's mad because he's being unsupportive. He's mad because no, he's not, he's just taking care of her (SPOILERS: Kayla is right). Then it happens: they break up.

Dylan spends the next several weeks moping. His coworker notices. His bitchy secretary notices. His coworker's secretary/love interest even notices. She, however, is the only one to do anything about it. Well, not intentionally. She's taking her daughter (she's a single mom, so conflict with Dylan's coworker in the future!) to the park when she notices a despondent Kayla sitting on a bench. Even though they've never really met before, she sits down to ask what's wrong. Tragedy of tragedies! No one wants to invest in Kayla's product! Because, you know, no one wants to invest in sex toys. They're gross. And not at all lucrative. I mean, come on.

Secretary (whose name I have completely forgotten) reports to Dylan, and he realizes he's made a horrible mistake. So, despite the fact that there has been NO RESOLUTION WHATSOEVER, he decides to invest his life savings in Kayla's Walnut Wand and apologize to her. Kayla, being the weak heroine she is, totally falls for all this and believes Dylan has really changed. He even proposes to her! Now he'll truly be the supportive man Kayla's always wanted him to be!

Except no, not really at all. When it comes time to decide where they're going to live, Kayla wants to stay in her apartment, where all her stuff for inventing is set up the way she likes it. Dylan wants to stay in his apartment, because it's more nicely decorated. They decide to play poker for it. Since Kayla is a woman, she loses, and they end up living in Dylan's apartment and planning their wedding.

The epilogue, of course, has nothing to do with the rest of the novel. Instead of showing them living happily ever after, it sets up the sequel, with Dylan's coworker and his hot secretary. So that was a disappointment.

The moral of this romance novel? If you're a girl and you dress like this:

Or a workaholic asshole, you, too, can find happiness! At least for a short period of time, before your general assholery drives away your fashion-challenged true love.

Slave

Slave was basically the inspiration for this blog. You might think it was the were-cougars book I wrote about on my regular blog about a year ago, but it wasn't. Yes, that novel was ridiculous, ridiculous enough to warrant a blog post (and possibly a second one, if Patty gets her way), but it was nothing, nothing compared to Slave.


Slave is, as far as I can tell, self-published. I say this for multiple reasons:

1. The characters are ridiculous. By which I mean the main character/narrator, who talks like a twelve-year-old, with exclamation points after-- quite literally-- every other sentence. This is not something one sees in published books. Not even books published for twelve-year-olds.
2. General style. Apart from the overuse of exclamation points, the whole book reads like a NaNoWriMo novel. And not in a good way.
3. I don't want to believe this is a published novel. I refuse to believe there is a publishing house that would print this kind of bullshit. I have no desire to research it and prove myself wrong (upon which moment I will either kill myself or submit my first drafts to these publishing houses, because apparently they'll publish anything).

So, let's get into this. Keep in mind that it's been many, many moons since I read this book, so the details may not be entirely clear. By which I mostly mean names. Many of the grittier details are, unfortunately, still very clear in my head.

We open with the narrator, whom we'll call Overemphasis, in her spaceship. We learn many things about her. She is the ugly older sister of a delicate beauty who, several years ago, was kidnapped and sold into slavery on her watch. Too ashamed to face her parents, who loved her sister more than her (because she was prettier and more ladylike, etc., etc., and bullshit), Overemphasis sailed away on her spaceship on a mission to find her sister. Since then, she's been traveling the universe.

Now, however, Overemphasis has run into a problem. She's tracked her sister to a planet where women are forbidden from traveling alone. We'll call this Planet Anti-Feminism. In order to get to Planet Anti-Feminism, Overemphasis needs a man to take her on a chain. Kinky. So she stops by a slave planet to purchase a man, whom she will keep until she's found her sister and then will release, because she's a good person. Either way, lots of kinky potential (which, by the way, is the name of my band).

So here's Overemphasis, on Slave Planet, looking at an uber-sexy man with a giant penis. He's naked, which is why she knows about his penis. His penis is magical. We hear a lot about his penis. But for now, Overemphasis simply wants to buy him. She's disguised as a man, which means she's wearing her spacesuit with the helmet on, which no one finds even remotely weird for some reason. Possibly because the planet smells bad. I don't remember. Anyway, Overemphasis is super attracted to Mr. Magic Penis, mostly because of the aforementioned member. Magic Penis senses this, as evidenced by the raging erection he then gets. Charming. No worries, it does indeed get classier than this.

Overemphasis buys Magic Penis as a slave, and then they get into some sort of argument, I think because he doesn't want to be a slave and refuses to understand that she totally has a plan for all this? Either way, he leaves, and then comes back when Overemphasis gets attacked and saves her life. Or maybe she saves his? I don't remember. The important thing is, they fly off together in Overemphasis' spaceship.

At this point, we learn a little more about Overemphasis and Planet Anti-Feminism. As I've already mentioned, women are not allowed to travel alone. They must be chained to a man at all times. Moreover, the women wear these sheer dresses so they're basically naked while men wear Renaissance clothing with giant holes in the crotch so their penises can just hang out. This facilitates the blowjobs their slave-women must give them whenever they get upset. Aw, what a classy planet (that is the point, of course. Overemphasis is very anti-Planet Anti-Feminism, but she has to go there to rescue her sister. Otherwise, she wouldn't be doing this)!

Magic Penis, meanwhile, totally comes onto Overemphasis at this time. This is also when we learn that Overemphasis is your typical romance novel not-pretty: rather than six feet tall, leggy, and blonde, she's short, curvy, and dark-haired. OMG SO UNIQUE YOU NEVER SEE THAT IN A ROMANCE NOVEL except wait you see that all the frakking time. Naturally, Magic Penis is enormously attracted to her. But Overemphasis does not want to sleep with him, because she's not that kind of girl (make your own comments here).

I don't remember a whole lot of this novel very vividly, but I do remember Overemphasis and Magic Penis' first day on Planet Anti-Feminism quite clearly. The reason, I hope, will be clear in a moment. Basically, they land on Planet Anti-Feminism, masquerading as a man and his kinky slave woman, and immediately they're questioned by the locals. They end up going to a bar, wherein follows one of the weirdest scenes I have ever read in my life. Magic Penis sits at one end of the table, getting blowjobs from about fifteen different locals, while Overemphasis at the other end has male locals ejaculating on her nose (which is sexy to them, because the women on Planet Anti-Feminism have flat noses, and Overemphasis is quite exotic). So yeah. Let that image sink in. At the end of this scene, Overemphasis complains that her nose is sore. It made me laugh, anyway.

Later that same (?) night, Overemphasis and Magic Penis finally have sex. It is the best sex ever, bar none. Rolling orgasms, screaming pleasure, etc., etc. And then comes the second scene I remember quite vividly. Overemphasis wakes up the next morning to the feel of something stroking her face. Aw, you think, he's being so sweet. But then she opens her eyes and no, it's not his hand, it's his penis. Yes, his penis has separate control muscles, and he is using them to stroke her face with it. Suddenly "sweet" turns into "OMG EW WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?!?!" Except for Overemphasis, who finds it charming.

I think at this point Magic Penis asks her for a blowjob, which she has refused before because, again, she's not that kind of girl. Except oh wait! yes she is. After this beautiful display of penis flexibility, she's totally into it. And that's when she discovers the best alien thing about Magic Penis: his magic penis juice. See, because he's an alien, Magic Penis produces this fluid on his horse penis that gives orgasms on contact. It is MAGICAL. Overemphasis contemplates bottling and selling it. She'd make a fortune! And that wouldn't be using Magic Penis at all! It's a totally healthy step in their relationship!

Anyway, a bunch of other shit happens that I don't really remember. They take some horses through the forest, have sex again (or maybe that was the first time...again, it's been like, months), get attacked by some paralyzing insects, which they escape, and finally find Overemphasis' beautiful sister. But alas! the beautiful, willowy sister is no longer beautiful, because she's been so horribly abused. Good for Overemphasis, I suppose, since now there's no danger of Magic Penis falling in love with her instead.

Willowy sister tells her tragic story: she was abused by many a slave-owner, until she was bought by her current husband, a really nice man despite the fact that he lives on Planet Anti-Feminism and therefore is completely antifeminist. That's when the truth about Planet Anti-Feminism (which, by the way, I figured out around 10% of the way into the novel) comes out: it's not the women who are chained to the men, it's the men who are chained to the women! See, a very long time ago, Planet Anti-Feminism was constantly at war. The men were so angry all the time that everything was violence and destruction. So the women decided they were sick of that shit and chained the men up. Every time the men started getting angry, they'd give them a blowjob to make them feel better, and all those violent tendencies would go away. Thus, the women of Planet Anti-Feminism have maintained peace for centuries, in a way that is neither demeaning to men NOR to women! Awww, yeah.

Anyway, Willowy Sister deigns to stay on Planet Anti-Feminism with her husband, unborn child, and sister wives, and Overemphasis and Magic Penis sail away happily, planning a happy life of exploiting the other's bodily fluids (on Overemphasis' end) and having multiple sexytimes per day (Magic Penis)(and probably Overemphasis, let's be honest). THE END.

Do I need to write a concluding statement here? Oh, I do? Well, here it is:

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK.

(No worries, ladies and gentlemen, a companion novel was offered free a couple of months later, so you have that to look forward to. Until then, however...ponder this. Ponder it very deeply, and then kill yourself because this person got published and you still haven't been.)