I just reread this yesterday and loved it even more the second time. Adorable, sweet, funny and very well-written, Pitifully Ugly captures amazingly well all the insecurities, fears and frazzled nerves that come with trying to connect with someone you really like.

Robin Alexander's books are consistently pleasing and get what so much of lesfic does not: that true love, the kind that both pulls you in and lasts, is based on friendship first, romance second and physical intimacy last.

Some of my favorite passages that I highlighted in my Kindle*:


 "I fought the urge to cry when I realized I didn’t even want to date me."

"You always hear of people having epiphanies. One morning they wake up and have a moment of clarity. I thought I was having one of my own. I’d been so focused on having someone to share my life, that it made me kind of pathetic. //
Love me, love me, please pick me and complete my life.” I suddenly had a mental image of myself as a pooch in the pound barking and pawing at my cage door as prospective owners came looking."

 

"There’s no pretense, no smooth-sounding lines, just a woman honestly offering her heart and hoping that it will be taken by someone who’ll cherish it.”




*If you have a Kindle, you can go to kindle.amazon.com to keep track of all books and passages you have highlighted. Another neat feature I like (that remains anonymous, obviously) is that you can see what other people have highlighted on both the website and in your Kindle (if you have that feature turned on.) 

When I'm reading in my Kindle and see previously highlighted dialogue or inner monologue that are the same ones I have marked and complete strangers also have,  I feel an odd connection with them.

During the 50s and 60s there were two kinds of lesbian pulp fiction: the ones straight men wrote for other straight men purely for the titillation factor (often portraying the 'dangers' and 'ills' of being gay, as seen during a time very few people tried to understand gays and lesbians) and the ones closeted gay housewives looked to as survival literature (the only thing they had to cling to in a world that rarely discussed 'the love that dare not speak its name.')

Ann Bannon, whose five highly addictive and surprisingly well-written books are so much better than their covers and reputation would have you believe, went for the latter in a frank, sincere and often very touching manner.

As Patricia Highsmith wrote in her afterward to The Price Of Salt (written around the same time as Bannon's books): "Homosexuals male and female in American novels had had to pay for their deviation by cutting their wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to heterosexuality (so it was stated), or by collapsing (alone and miserable and shunned ) into a depression equal to hell."

Odd Girl Out and other novels like it may seem terribly out of date in our more enlightened 21st century, but, sadly, for many (especially those women who live in conservative towns or have no one to reach out to who would support their coming out) Ann Bannon's books still have a lot to say, not just about the chills and thrills of being a woman first realizing she likes other women, but about love in general.

Sentences such as these could apply to anyone who has ever been on the cusp of love and been terribly afraid: "And in self-defense Laura tried to build a wall of politeness between them, to admire Beth from far away. There was a vague, strange feeling in the younger that to get close to Beth was to worship her, and to worship her was to get hurt."

After Odd Girl Out, there is: I Am A Woman, Women In The Shadows, Journey To A Woman and Beebo Brinker (actually a prequel even though it was written last.) I bought all five separately through the Kindle store, but I love the idea of all of them coming together in one collection.

No matter what your orientation or beliefs, you may find all five books riveting, not only for their historical context in giving modern readers an idea of just how much has changed in the world of LGBT rights, but also because they do what any good book should: tell a compelling story with characters who jump right off the page. (Journey To A Woman, for instance, has a lot to say about finding yourself and making sure you don't mistake a past you still yearn for as the answer to all your problems.)

There is even, if you wait the series out and find yourself liking characters like Beth and Beebo, a happy ending of sorts...something almost unheard of for lesbians back then and, sometimes, even now.

I wish I could do these books the justice they deserve. Maybe, one day when I've had time to reread them, I can better capture how they can still speak to women decades later...

 

 Maybe I'm especially fond of this because I love the period of music For What It's Worth centers around. I don't think that you have to love the 70s and the music of its time to love Janet Tashjian's very engaging read, though.

There's a vibe here that is just lovely and great writing, too. One of my favorite sentences is: "I know it doesn't make any sense, but there's something cool about Caroline being so uncool."

The author clearly understands how deeply music touches our souls and the neat facts and playlists Quinn, a fourteen-year-old walking "encyclopedia" of music, shares are fascinating.

His zeal for buying albums is wonderful nostalgia for those of us who loved record stores as a teenager. This will go on my to-be-read-again list and is definitely "feel good." 

Never have I seen a book cover so perfectly capture what's inside it as That Witch! does, yet for all the sincere sweetness and goofy likability of almost every character involved, there's something I can't exactly put my finger on that takes away a bit of the magic.

Maybe it's that things go just a little too well for both girls soon after That Witch! opens? Not in respect to what happens when they both come out (though that does go a bit more without a hitch than would probably happen in real life) but more so in how quickly and easily Cassidy and Brynn bypass the cliques and social protocols involved in two wildly different people coming together in high school.

In the very beginning, there's promising (and very realistic) conflict in Cassidy's cold statement to Brynn: "I don't want to be the object of your affection." But in less time than it takes to sneeze, suddenly both girls realize they really (really, really) like each other and believability takes a back seat to romance. What could have been an honest and sometimes heart breaking look at what it's like to be uncool and gay in high school suddenly becomes just a little too lovey dovey.

Of course, if all you're looking for is an afternoon's great escape and a cute little (and very loving) romance that parental disproval, a nasty and judgmental best friend and high school cattiness can't shake for even a second, then That Witch! does its job.

I don't mean to be snarky, especially when romance and true love are usually my undoing, but there's just so much wonderful potential here that misses its mark ever so slightly..

 

 

 

 

"Get Well Soon" can be a casual sentence we dash off on a greeting card or the heartfelt words we say to a friend or loved one we desperately want to get better. Nowhere, in recent musical memory, have I heard it sung with such devastating sincerity and pain as here on this gorgeous album by Sarabeth Tucek.

There are so many pretty songs to like whether they're "The Wound and The Bow" or "The Doctor" or the title track. And there's also a lot of depth and quiet pain. "Wooden" is a stunner, but then most everything on here is. "Exit Ghost," like "Wooden," has a harder guitar edge to it. Both of these are about as close to hard rock as the album comes.

The two tracks that are absolute Kryptonite to any steely heart are "At The Bar" and "Get Well Soon." The former has a catchy little beat that rolls out like the beginning a harmless journey into a bar for a quick drink, but soon turns into a night with the kind of meditations that only break your heart. "Get Well Soon" is, quite simply, going to make you cry, unless you're as cold as ice. Not only is it an autobiographical account of the singer facing the aftermath of her father's death, it's a mini-guide to being there for someone who really needs us when they're not well.

Besides being a wonderful singer in her own right, Sarabeth Tucek sounds so much like Karen Carpenter it kind of scared me the first time I heard her voice, mostly because you don't hear too many vocalists who resemble the late singer's so well, not even British success story Rumer.

I'll admit I went into this album liking it because Sarabeth Tucek reminded me so much of Karen Carpenter, but I left "Get Well Soon," realizing it's about so much more than someone sounding like someone else. It's something that nestles nicely in your heart and mind and won't go away anytime soon!