It’s possible I’m crazy.

So…..

Sure, I’m doing the Popsugar book reading challenge.  And sure, there’s a list of 52 delightfully random reasons to read a book there.  Because they’re random and fun, I was on board almost from the beginning.

BUT THEN.  

Do you see it there?  You don’t?

You’re not crazy?  You need an explanation?

I’ll tell you how it went down.  I started with Blue Lily, Lily Blue because I was already reading it and it slammed out a book with a color in the title.  I followed up with a book more than 500 pages because oi!  And then I was like, I want to re-read The Grand Sophy, so I’ll do that one for my classic romance.  And then I was scanning down my options, having fun with it.  The Grand Sophy went really fast because it’s HILARIOUS.  So then, I was like….well  I’ll do a book with antonyms in the title because it was harder than I thought it would be to find one I wanted to read.  (I read The School for Good and Evil.  Of which I have mixed feelings about but that is not the point right now).

The point is every single time I scanned that damn list my eye twitched a little bit on one of them.  I couldn’t help but internally wail WHYYYYYYYYY??????  Why?  WHY!!!

Melodramatic?  Maybe.  I’ve been having a crazy week.  On my crazy train.  To crazy town.  With my crazy tots, one of whom said today that brussel sprouts taste like there are tiny bad guys inside.  The other one bit me. The littlest is saving up her evil to catch me later.

So, back to that bad guy on my Popsugar list.  It’s the Ninth One Down on the Right.  It’s the, “A Book By A Female Author.”  As if that were unique in some way.  As if Tale of the Genji (sometimes said to be the first novel) wasn’t written by a woman.  As if Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and Georgette Heyer and Agatha Christie and J.K. Rowling hadn’t happened.  As if being a female writer were somehow astounding.  As if…

Okay, okay, I’ll calm down.

Look at this chick.  Female writer and totally wearing that curtain.  She doesn’t care.  She’s owning the shit out of that curtain.

Look at that chick.  She totally wrote that creepy ass book that I can never finish but still get literary references to because dudes…it’s Wuthering Heights. Of which I hate. (aka Emily Bronte).  This will not be the book I read for the Book I Was Supposed to Read in School but didn’t.  (Not sure what I’m going to do there.  I might have to do a re-read because I already addressed that challenge a few years ago with my classic novel a month challenge.  I basically started with the ones I promised myself I’d read in school when I didn’t actually read them in school.  (And thank goodness I did.  There were some GOOOOD books in that pile.  I’m looking at you Barchester Chronicles.)  The only other one I can think of currently that qualifies is James Joyce’s The Portrait of an Artist by a Young Man which is crap, and I refuse to read.  I even wrote an essay about why it was crap.  I totally had to fake having an idea about what the hell happened in the end.  Part of being an adult, btws, is refusing to read shit from school that is, in fact, shit.)

Anyhow.  Again, not the point. 

Look!  Female writers have been around since forever.  It isn’t remarkable.  It isn’t worth making a little checkmark for it.  Like, I totally had to google Antonym because it’s been a while since I got my Bachelor’s of Arts in Writing.  So, yeah.  You’d think I’d remember that…  And then I still had to google ideas of what to read.  And then I picked from there because I’m lazy.  But I totally had to work for that The School of Good and Evil read.

I even had to look up Can You Forgive Her? to see how long it was since I had an audio copy.  I had to put in some effort if you will.

There is ZERO effort necessary for finding a female writer.  I’m looking at you dicks who wrote this Popsugar reading challenge.

So I have made a DECISION.  It’s a serious decision.  SERIOUSLY.

Like Serious.

Serious-serious.

Siriously.

I’m going to add a book to my challenge.

And not just any book, I’m going to read a bro-mance.  What I mean by that is those stupid ass books written primarily for dudes.  Like Clive Cussler.  And any book that had the movie version wherein the star was Tom Cruise in his typical action figure role.  You remember that one with the traveling former military police guy?  Look, I can’t be expected to remember this shit.  I read the first one in that series, and I was like Oh Yeah.  Bro-mance.  Essentially a romance written for dudes.  Wherein the main character, Señor Badass will get beat up a whole lot, but still be able to kick the shit out of the bad guys, save the girl, have sex with her, and leave her.  You know that kind that makes my eyes roll.

Maybe I’ll read a Louis L’Mour or however you spell his name.  I assume he’s bro-mance.  Since his book covers look like the Marlboro Man commercials.  Maybe I’ll read another Clive Cussler, though I don’t know if I can do that because the one I read on the recommendation of my buddy had a ship in the middle of a dessert.

Um….okay?  (Clive Cussler also cameoed himself in his book to link together a massive plot hole.  You just can’t make this shit up.)

DUDES….maybe I’ll read James Bond.  DUDES…

Bond.  James Bond.

Anyhow.  My challenge got upped by one.  I’m going to read the manliest book of cheese I can find.  And when I read that book written by a woman, I am going to close my eyes and point to my shelves.  I’m sure chances are the book I choose will be written by a woman.  Because, it turns out there are a LOT of woman writers.

Like myself.

~Amanda

aka Senorita Crazytrain

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