[identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] 50books_poc
This novel prompted the following conversation, held with [livejournal.com profile] oyceter via cellphone:

Oyce: The angels-make-vampires writer also wrote a book about shapeshifter condos!

Me: Did you say shapeshifter condoms?

Oyce: Yes! Shapeshifter condos!

Me: Are they specially designed?

Oyce: Well, shapeshifters have special needs.

Me: I guess they’d need different sizes…

Oyce: Yes, depending on what they shapeshift into. Like, leopards need lots of room.

Me: And of course they’d have to be extra-resilient.

Oyce: They do need to allow for wear and tear when they turn into animals.

Me: They’d have to expand and contract really fast without breaking. Especially if some of their penises become forked or something.

Oyce: Forked??? Penises??? What???

Me: Did you say “condoms?”

Oyce: ConDOS -- condominiums!

Regrettably, the special shapeshifter condoms condos are more of a plot device than the subject matter of this paranormal romance. The condos were my second-favorite part of the book. My favorite was that the heroine has extra-special eyes that look like the night sky with stars, and when she has an orgasm, the stars explode into multi-colored fireworks.

In a world in which Changeling shapeshifters have allowed Yosemite to overgrow much of California and the telepathic Psy deal with their nasty little tendency to become psychotic serial killers by suppressing all emotion, multiracial Psy Sascha, who must hide the fact that she has emotions or be forcibly brainwashed, becomes the liaison between Psy and Changeling in order to broker a land deal for condominiums. When she meets hot Changeling Lucas, condoms also become relevant. As there’s a serial killer on the loose, the plot is actually, “He’s a werewolf with a tragic past. She’s a telepath with a deadly secret. Together, they fight crime!”

As I mentioned in my review of Singh’s angels-make-vampires novel, I have terribly mixed feelings about her books.

I love the over the top wish-fulfillment fantasies (eyeball fireworks! Totally literal angel dust!), bizarre yet inventive and detailed worldbuilding, multiracial casts (though I wish she’d stop describing her heroines of color as “exotic”) and a compellingly beach-read style.

I hate the gender roles, in which men are turned on by dominating women, and women are turned on by being dominated. (I don’t mind this if it’s BDSM role-playing, though I prefer female-dominant. What I hate reading about is when this is portrayed as the way romance normally goes.) This means I don’t like Singh’s romances. This is a problem, as romance is central to the romance genre. In this novel, the hero keeps talking about “marking” the heroine so everyone will know she belongs to him. This would be gross enough as is, but since the book involves wolf shapeshifters, I kept thinking he was planning to pee on her. (It’s actually done by biting.)

And yet Singh’s books have that same addictive quality as Laurell Hamilton’s early novels, which had me running out to buy more even though they had too much sex and not enough action and I detested both of Anita’s love interests. (I gave up on Hamilton at around the point where I had to detest all 69 of Anita’s love interests.) I… oh, I confess it… will undoubtedly read more of the Psy/Changeling series, and even went online to find out the release date of the next angel/vampire book.

Slave to Sensation (The Psy-Changelings Series, Book 1) (Berkley Sensation)

Date: 2009-07-27 07:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bibliofile.livejournal.com
Do shapeshifters shift *during* sex? That would mean extra extra special design considerations for condom design....

I may have to try these, as sometimes fluff is just what's needed. I too hate the dumb gender roles so prevalent in anything resembling romance. agh.

FWIW, in the latest Anita Blake, she acquired no new animals, nor did she have sex until after page 400 or so. Me, I'm waiting for her to acquire a less-impressive animal -- where are the were-chickens?

Date: 2009-07-27 09:01 pm (UTC)
rsadelle: (Default)
From: [personal profile] rsadelle
I don't know that I want to read these books, but I love your reviews of them!

Date: 2009-07-28 04:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] denelian.livejournal.com
oh, wow - i could have written that review.
and i have had that conversation (except, please note, *I* was the one saying that there were condos, and my boyfriend thought i was talking about condoms - he asked why the hell would shapeshifters who are supposed to be immune to disease use condoms instead of diaphrams, or the Pill, or something...)


so... um, funny that, small world? lol. i think you described the book to *perfection*!

Date: 2009-07-29 08:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cissa.livejournal.com
I must say that i find Singh's embracing of the most regressive sex-roles around off-putting enough that I will never read another of her books.

Not to metion the whole false dichotomy between the rational and the passionate, which I also find offensive- and ultimately silly/stupid.

Date: 2009-08-12 10:26 am (UTC)
ext_20269: (Mood - bedtime bear/sleepy)
From: [identity profile] annwfyn.livejournal.com
Nalini Singh is totally my guilty pleasure. And I know the power dynamics are shonky, and I know she's kinda trashy but I still love them so much.

If you are reading the rest, I warn you, the second in the series is extra-alpha male-creepy, but I think the third (Caressed by Ice) gets a bit better, and there are several quite decent heroines in the series. The most recent one, which I just reviewed, has an almost equal balance of power between the hero and heroine!

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