If like me you’re enough of a romance fan that you enjoy a periodic romance novel, yet you like a hefty dose of snark with your lovin’, then you should absolutely pick up a copy of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. This is the beloved child of Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, better known as Smart Bitch Candy and Smart Bitch Sarah over at Smart Bitches Trashy Books.
What do you get if you look past the heaving bosoms? A fairly decent overview of the modern romance genre, actually. Sure, there’s plenty of poking fun at the standard romance tropes, but there’s also very up-front and straightforward looks at things like how rape used to be prevalent in the genre (and glossed over as “forced seduction”), and how the arising of the No Means No movement rolled out into the books being written. (Needless to say, I’m much more a fan of modern romance novels than I am of the ones y’all are probably thinking of every time you think “bodice-rippers”.) There’s a review as well of the massive firestorm that the Smart Bitch ladies kicked up when they revealed on their site that Cassie Edwards had plagarized material for her novels.
So yeah, there’s plenty enough serious material here to make the book worth a read if you have any interest in the genre at all. But really, what makes it worth the price of admission? Five words: “Choose Your Own Man Titty”. Four stars.