Pitifully Ugly by Robin Alexander

Book:  Pitifully Ugly
Author:  Robin Alexander
Publisher:  Intaglio Publications

A few years ago, I spent an afternoon at Ellis Park, a horse racing venue in Owensboro, Kentucky.  It was a typical summer day on the Ohio River, probably in the mid-nineties, with humidity pacing the temperature step for sticky step.  As I recall, it was the fifth race of the day, and my friends were applying their individual parlay philosophies when I looked at the race card and instantly knew I had a winner.  A little, gray, spotted filly named 'Margaret Thatcher'.

Well, heck yeah. I saw that her odds were 52-1, but sometimes you just feel 'it' in your bones.  Big spender that I am, I gleefully thumped my two dollars down on Mags, and sat back to watch the show.  

Well, a better ending would be that she showed the boys how it's done by taking the race in grand fashion.  But in reality, Margaret Thatcher looked and ran like her namesake in a pair of sensible shoes with low heels.   It wasn't pretty, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat, if ever given the chance - someday a Margaret Thatcher out there IS going to win.

Flash forward to 2011.   I was thumbing through the cyber-shelves of one of my favorite publishers, and imagine my giddy delight when I spotted the book called Pitifully Ugly by Robin Alexander!  Much like my Margaret Thatcher moment, I knew deep inside my soul that this book was going to be mineminemine.  I bought it, and put it away for a rainy day.

Let's just say, it rained a whoooooole lot this week.

Pitifully Ugly is the story of Shannon Brycen, a thritysomething  lesbian stuck in a rut.  Her sister, Kalen, has tried fixing her up with women, but each one is worse than the last.  After two particularly bad blind dates, which included cat piss in a shoe and what could have been Lorena Bobbit's long lost sapphic sister, Shannon takes matters into her own hands, she goes on-line.  Of course, it probably wasn't the best idea to write her profile while feeling surly after half a bottle of wine.  Claiming she was 'housebroken" but "rabid", she signed it Pitifully Ugly.  She gets a few creepy replies, but also makes a few promising connections, including Newbie.  At the same time, she meets Hailey and her golden retrieverish dog Fuzzy.

Shannon likes the email back and forth with Newbie, but feels an immediate connection with Hailey.  Both women draw her in, and then back off almost as fast.  Long story short, Shannon finally figures out that Newbie and Hailey are one and the same.  Hailey isn't ready for a relationship, and Shannon likes her enough to try to respect her need for a little space.  Hilarity ensues, and of course, both girls keep running into each other.  The push and pull continues.  Both eventually realize the force of the cosmic pull after Fuzzy gets lost.  It takes a while, but they find the crazy chicken-on-a-stick pooch, have a belated Valentine's day, and then enter into a new phase in their lives, together.

This book was a fantastic read, and I'll tell you right now that it will be one of the first books I go to when I need a laugh-out-loud, feel-good bandaid for my soul.  The concept is simple, but handled brilliantly. Every character in the book has a role that advances the story, and the scenes are tightly written.  The internal and external dialogue is consistent throughout, and Fuzzy's tennis ball was appropriately soggy.

Mm, well, funny thing is, I know what it's like to have a wet tennis ball dropped in your underpants.

I was impressed with the circular nature woven into the story.  For instance, early in the book Shannon is a victim of strap-on interuptus.

I actually laughed so hard my Siberian Husky started yodeling at me.

Anyway, near the middle of the book, Shannon learns that Hailey is going out for drinks with a group of friends that includes Ms. Birthday Strap-on.  Then, in the end, Hailey helps Shannon forge new memories through strap-on compleo.

This was only one example, but we see this sort of thing throughout the book with other people and things - I found that to be a welcome aspect of this storyline.

Like I said, it was simple but complete, no loose threads or dangling plot devices.

I have to say I can't remember the last time a book made me laugh as hard as Pitifully Ugly.  Of course, it seemed like the first third of the book was a riot, the middle had a few chuckles, and the end found another burst of humor.  That part wasn't so consistent, but then again, if the whole thing was a riot then I'm afraid some of the better parts of the story would have been overshadowed by the abundance of mirth.

Sometimes a book just reaches out and grabs you, pins you to the wall, and claims you.  Body.  Mind.  And, soul.  Pitifully Ugly grabbed me with the title, pinned me to the wall with the cover, and claimed me with a simple, sexy, smart, and funny story.

This is the first Robin Alexander book I've read, but if she approaches her other stories with the same wit and gusto, I'll gladly add more of them to my bookshelf.

On a Rainbow Scale, I'll give Pitifully Ugly a 5.7 out of 6 - this was a flat out tilt-o-whirl of fun.

She Waits by Kate Sweeney

Book:  She Waits
Author:  Kate Sweeney
Publisher:  Intaglio Publications

I've mentioned it before in the blog, but it bears repeating that I grew up in Illinois.  I chose Kate Sweeney, and the first book of her Kate Ryan series because the heroine is from Illinois.  Granted, her world is about 10 hours north from where I grew up, but anyone that knows Illinois is singular not plural is a friend of mine.

And it doesn't hurt one little bit that she knows the pain of loving the Cubbies!

In this book we meet Kate Ryan, a soft butch nature photographer and former PI.  We learn that she left a successful PI business after falling in love with a murder, who almost killed both her and her partner.  She tries to be uber stoic, and mostly succeeds.  She is prone to panic attacks, but only when she's reminded of her greatest failure.  She's also prone to tripping, slipping, flipping, and going 'bump' in the night.  Kate is told of a friend of friends in the western part of the state that has had some problems.  Kate offers to help, but the help is rebuffed.  Still, as in any solid piece of lesbian literature, as she drives through the countryside, on her way to a lovely weekend, she, her dog, and her car, run, quite literally, into the lovely, auburn-haired Dr. Maggie Winfield.  Maggie is as high-spirited as her horse, Thunder, with a stubborn and sarcastic streak to boot.  Maggie's Aunt Hannah promptly arrives on the scene in a runaway golf cart, and the mystery begins.

Ooh, and if you haven't figured it out yet, Maggie is the 'friend of friends in the western part of the state that had some problems.'

Aunt Hannah piles the girls and the dog into the golf cart, and spirits them back to the mansion . . . yup, Maggie is loaded.  Long story short, somebody is trying to kill, or simply maim, Maggie, there is a ghost in the woods, the dog unburies Maggie's dead mom's long stolen jewelry, and the mystery is afoot.  Soon, Hannah kidnaps Kate's car, invites her to stay, invites Kate's sister and b-i-l to visit, and the mystery grows deeper.  So does the friendship, the appreciation, and the attraction between Kate and Maggie.

Oh, yeah, and the mystery finally gets solved!

This is a fun little who-dun-it, with some nicely compelling characters.  Kate is wounded spiritually, but her self-described 'emotionally detached loop' keeps most of the unpleasant things from slopping out over the sides.  Maggie is wounded as well, but hers comes from abandonment issues and loneliness.  Hannah is sweet, endearing, and a bit squirrely.  Teri is spooky but solid, and Mac is a good guy to have in your corner.  The book is also sprinkled with other minor, but completely necessary characters.

One of my peeves as a reader is when an author introduces a character to make something happen in the midst of a good story, then the character that played this really important role, just disappears.

Makes me want to flick their literary ear.  Twang!

But, by the grace of little, green, dancing leprechauns, Ms. Sweeney sidesteps this beat-over plot device in grand fashion!

Oorah!!

The mystery was complex but tight; the leads had a plausible beginning, middle, and end; and there were no goofy red herrings that you could smell a mile away.

I loved the tension that surrounded Kate and Maggie.  I'll tell you now, they did not fall hopelessly in love by the end of the book.  They have a very point/counter-point relationship.  One minute they are on the same wavelength, the next they are annoying the snot out of each other.  Still, they are obviously drawn to one another, and everyone but them gets it.  The only thing they fall hopelessly into by the end of the book is a deep and complicated friendship.  Kate needs to face some of her demons, and Maggie needs to learn to trust and wait just a little bit more.

Of course, this is the first book in the series, so you have to leave a little somethin' somethin' to grow on.

And, I guess that's one of the things I really liked about this book - the author isn't rushing the bigger scope of the story.  She used the first book in the series to introduce the characters.  Yeah, yeah, there was a good mystery in here, don't get me wrong.  But, just like almost any friendship, we see the learning and trust building over time.

Another quick little thing I liked about the book is that the dog didn't always obey, she was loyal and loving, but she was a wuss and hid under the bed when things got scary.  If she had only peed on the shoes of the villianness, I would have been in hea-ven! [insert singsong voice]

I do have to say, though, I did guess the ending about half way through the story.  It just seemed to be telegraphed.  Of course, it is possible that the author intended this story to be more about the journey than the destination.  Meaning, watching Kate put the clues together instead of screeching, "Colonel Mustard in the Library with a nipple clamp!!!" at the first opportunity.

Bottom line is that I've read one Kate Sweeney book, and am happily about 60% of the way through the second, with more to come. She is a smart, careful, focused writer who doesn't force her readers to make huge leaps of faith.  Her characters stay consistent, and she weaves a solid story that doesn't take short cuts.

On the Rainbow Scale, I'd give She Waits a clear and present 5.3 out of 6.