Pills & Pucci: Those Sex & Shopping Novels!

[Peggy Lane]

I reread "Once Is Not Enough" thanks to insomnia tonight. Every time I read it I notice more blatantly incestuous overtones. I mean...subtext rapidly becoming text territory.

I really respect how Susann gave heroines we were supposed to root for really realistic endings*. Anne got Lyon, but marrying him didn't give her the happy life she thought it would. January's relationship with Tom ended badly, just like anyone would expect it would. I think that makes her stand out among other sex and shopping writers. Lucky (a pretty good parallel for January in many of ways- obsession with father, obsession with father substitute (Marco/Tom), dead mother) lost a lot but always had what she most wanted at the end of every book, Gino's love and respect at the end of "Chances", Lenny and business success at the end of "Lucky". et cetera. Krantz's heroines got happy endings at the end of each book, even if she blew it to bits in the next book.

Weirdly enough, Robin and Maggie had the happiest ending of any of Susann's main characters. I was really going somewhere with this, but I need to sleep.

*The whole abducted by aliens thing, of course, not so much realistic but I don't it negated the completely realistic disaster January had made of her life until that point.

[dwanollah]

OR... for Book Club, the new ten-years-later Sweet Valley book is coming out in a couple weeks. I'm jus' sayin'....

C'mon, huntergrayson, shit or get off the pot, as Gramma would say, and go make the pick(s) official!

[twopfan]

Yes, PLEASE. I never buy books, I'm a library girl all the way and I'm gonna go order the new SV book now.

[huntergrayson]

Unless the Wakefield Twin become pill-popping whores, there shall be no Sweet Valley in this book club!

I say let's do Scruples.

[Peggy Lane]

I really think there is a possibility with Jessica of whoredom...and as tightly wound as Elizabeth always was an addiction is pretty much a given at some point.

[Auroranorth]

What drugs would Elizabeth use? Uppers, coke, Valium- I can't see her on heroin and pot is too mellow for her.

*My childhood self would not understand the above sentences. That's probably a good thing.*

Anyway, I vote for Scruples- it's so delightfully trashy.

[Daisy Pusher]

I'm game for Scruples.

[dwanollah]

And I actually think Scruples will be a good follow-up to our last selection.

And at the rate we're going, maybe we can get up to TWO whole books a year!

[huntergrayson]

Okay, I ordered Scruples AND Scruples Two from Amazon. (Along with Love Machine on DVD, which I didn't even know was available! They burn it to a DVD-R on-demand. The
Scruples miniseries is available this way as well. But I wanted to read the books before ordering it & see if the DVD-R on-demand plays properly) and Peyton Place.

Let's do this! Dwan wanted me to suggest dates but I wanted to take the temperature here before posting in the actual Book Club Thread.

Peggy - "Once is Not Enough" is on regular R1 DVD now. I HIGHLY suggest you experience its terribleness.

[dwanollah]

The Scruples miniseries is nothing like the book and just plain awful. Most of the Krantz tv adaptations are squirmingly bad.

I'm looking fwd to thinking about "chicklit" and issues of feminism comparing Scruples with The Dud Avocado. This will make me feel less guilty about wallowing in all the Krantzian details that I have such a hot nut for.