Mending Fences or Bridges or Whatever

Many of you may have been wondering if the rumors are true. The answer is yes, after Angie and I spectacularly failed round two of Cupcake Wars (I blame her subpar bacon infused frosting, she blames my overly salty, salted caramel), we have had a months long falling out. This has resulted in an unplanned hiatus in our razor sharp commentary on 90s era Christian romance novels. Thankfully months of Sister Counseling with the finest Sister Therapists in the land have helped us overcome our differences. I've learned to look past her flagrant disregard for the appropriate use of umami flavors in desserts, and she in kind has accepted my perchance for breaking all of her shit and hiding it beneath her couch.

The point is we are once again a team. Stay tuned for our next book review as we take on CLOUDS and talk about teen marriage, true sisterhood, and if Robin Jones Gunn is a Nazi sympathizer.

In the meantime enjoy this guided meditation that we now do every morning in unison.

Let's Get Virginal!: Evangelical Traumatic Flashback Corner

Angie's Story:

 

Unlike Alissa and her trampy teen years spent rolling around on the beach with wild surfers, I was a stalwart example of purity in high school for the same reason I was extremely drug free—nobody asked. On the few occasions when I caught a fellow’s eye, I employed the “Shhh! I’m asleep” method. In cars, in movie theaters, in the middle of a mini golf game. Whenever things started to take a potentially carnal turn, Bam! Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. I’m surprised people didn’t try to do a narcolepsy intervention on me.

Angie, flirting.

There were a handful of girls at my evangelical school who, let’s say, dabbled with their boyfriends, as many normal, red-blooded American teenagers do. But when you add an aggressive True Love Waits campaign to the equation, logic gets a little murky. Christianity is all about second chances, and third chances, and 1,375^th chances. Unlike Catholicism with an expectation of penance when a person effs up, evangelical Christianity is all about forgiveness, which can be a really wonderful, freeing concept. But it also can create some confusion in practical application, especially for something like virginity, which you would think would be a black-or-white, you have it or you don’t type of concept.

Virginity pledges were a big deal at my school. True Love Waits came a-pimping their bracelets, rings, and devotional books. Girls had elaborate ceremonies involving contracts signed by them and their fathers. (I’ll wait right here until you’re done throwing up.) But here’s my favorite twist on the virginity pledge: secondary virginity ceremonies. Daddy’s still there, pen in hand to sign this new, better contract. But now he knows, your mother knows, everybody knows, you are no longer a blessed virgin, but you have “resealed” yourself as a blessed secondary virgin. Are there tertiary virgins? Quaternary virgins? At what point do you stop reading your parents in on your sex life?

"Pastor Dave, we need 300% more promise rings
for these old gum wads in the youth group!"

It’s an easy evangelical subcultural trait to mock, but the reasoning behind these types of ceremonies is actually kind of heartbreaking. We’re telling our girls that their value is tied to their virginity. And so you have teens desperate to regain their value in their parents’ eyes and in the church’s eyes, desperate enough to sign another contract and get that purity bling back on their ring finger until a husband comes along. There’s nothing wrong with being a virgin, especially when you’re a youngster. But when we tell our girls that they are a dirty piece of chocolate passed around a chapel audience, that they’re a piece of gum that’s already been chewed up and spit out, we end up with a damning narrative for girls like Alissa who might regret her choices but shouldn’t be made to feel like a lesser person.

Elise's Story:

I don’t have any stories of my own about purity. I mean, I remember talks in school about not dressing immodestly and not making “men stumble” which I thought was gross. Even at the age of 12 I realized that was a fundamentally unfair argument. “Keep your eyes to yourselves, pastors!” is what I thought. But honestly no one ever talked to me one-on-one about purity or dressing modestly. In fact, all of the serious talks I remember went in the other direction. People saying things like “You need to buy your jean shorts in the girls department” or “They don’t even make one-piece bathing suits for girls your age anymore” or “Can you please go on a date before you graduate college?” Youth pastors would talk to all the girls about being sexual stop lights and keeping the petals on our flowers, but it was always implied “except you, Elise, you don’t have to worry.” My understanding is that many girls who had boobs had a very different experience growing up in the church, so I acknowledge my privilege in flying under the slut-shaming radar there.

"Why can't you be more feminine like
that nice girl, The Icebox?"

I remember one time at youth group getting a purity pledge card I was supposed to fill out and turn back in, but I don’t think I ever did. The weird thing is, I wanted to wait to have sex until after I was married, but I remember thinking it was super gross that my youth pastor would have an index card with my future sexual plans on it. I guess a Ron Swanson-like commitment to privacy was a big value of mine back in the day.

Me at prom.

So anyway, I don’t remember ever taking a purity pledge but I was a big fan of this Christian singer Jaci Velasquez in middle school and she was all aboard the abstinence train.  My best friend “Brawndo” and I went to see her live for our first concert and she was AMAZING. I remember being shocked that she wore a tank top and leather pants. (Do you guys remember when all the pop stars wore leather pants? What a chafing-centric time!) I don’t remember what Jaci’s big purity song was, probably “My Vagina Gift for My Husband.” (I’m just kidding, I googled it and it’s called “I Promise.”) At the merch table she had a TON of virginity-themed merchandise.

Brawndo got a genuine Jaci Valasquez purity ring that said “I Promise.” It was so cool, but the best part was all the jokes you could make. If Brawndo forgot to wear her ring, I would be like, “Hey Brawndo, did you lose your purity?” Eventually she accidentally dropped it in the toilet. One could say she “flushed her purity down the crapper.” Not really, I’m pretty sure she stayed a virgin until she was married, but also I never asked because what  a creepy thing to ask someone.

Alissa Is Watching You Read This...Right Now.

“Just calm down, ma’am, and tell me exactly what happened,” the detective sat back in his chair and clicked his pen absently. The elderly couple sitting in the vinyl chairs next to his desk clutched each other. The gesture would’ve been sweet if circumstances had been different, if they’d never met Alissa.

“She seemed like such a nice girl,” the old woman started with a quake in her voice. “Wasn’t she lovely, Chet? A little heavy, sure, but a good, Christian girl.”

“They all seem nice at first, ma’am. Let me guess. All her furniture is wicker.”

The woman gasped. Chet shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You gotta help us, officer. This woman, she’s unstable. She’s everywhere. She calls my Rosie here incessantly. She drops by. She plans elaborate itineraries to Italy that we don’t even want.”

“We had to call from Venice and beg her to let us come home,” Rosie said as sobs racked her feeble frame. “But then it got worse. I mentioned we were getting married in passing. Chet and I were cutting the cake when we looked across the dance floor, and there she was. Uninvited. Without a date. Watching us.” Chet handed Rosie a handkerchief that appeared to be pre-war.

“Don’t you worry, Rosie. The police can stop her. She’s only one person. She has to sleep sometime,” Chet put his arm around Rosie protectively. The detective wondered if he knew how futile the gesture was considering who they were dealing with.

“She knows so much about us, Chet. She kept prying and prying for information. She knows where we live. Where we sleep. We only have a few good years left. I can’t spend them sleeping with one eye open, wondering if Alissa and her cat-companion is peering in the window.”

“We’ll do everything we can,” said the detective, signing the police report, knowing a restraining order would do little to stop someone like this. If anything, it might anger her more.

Chet says, "No thanks, little missy!"

As if Chet were reading his mind, he jumped up from his chair, nearly causing Rosie to tumble out of hers. “You know a little piece of paper won’t stop that monster.” He beat his frail old man fists on the detective’s desk. “What are you going to do about this, detective? I didn’t tear my way through Europe, dodging Krauts and The Clap to go down like this, dammit!” 

“Sir, I’m going to need you to calm down.”

“You calm down, son. You calm down!” Chet began to run wildly through the precinct, flipping desks with the strength of a much younger man.

In the end, it took several tranq darts and a 5150 to slow Chet down, the thought of losing his dear Rosie to a deranged stalker was enough to send him over the edge. The detective never saw the elderly couple again. This wasn’t uncommon in his line of work. People come and go. And yet, he always wondered, did Alissa ever catch her prey?

SUNSETS: If You Don’t Have a Friend With Boundary Issues, It’s You.

Synopsis

What even happens in this book?

Alissa's wore short skirts, Christy wore
parachute pants.

In Sunsets we get two Robin Jones Gunn B-plot characters for the price of one. Alissa (the slutty cautionary tale from the Christy Miller series) and Brad (computer nerd brother of sad-sack Lauren from Echoes) find the truest love there is... the love of convenience. Yes, in this epic romance, Alissa and Brad are duplex neighbors who fall in love because the best major life commitments are the one’s you gradually slide into.

The book starts with Alissa reflecting on her troubled teen years, blaming herself for when her mom’s abusive drunken behavior caused her to miss one birth control pill, immediately get pregnant, lose the baby’s father in a surfing accident, and have to give her baby up for adoption. That’s what you get for being an attractive female with sexual agency, Alissa! In the sexy present, Alissa is now a travel agent in her late 20s with no friends, family or community. Her virginal friend Christy led Alissa to Christ in her teens (in an evangelizing move that I’m sure was 100% appropriate in light of Alissa’s recent horrific losses), but after experiencing sexual harassment from a pastor at her church in her early 20s, she’s closed the door on letting anyone into her life.

This door is blown open in a cloud of dorito dust and Mountain Dew burps in the worst meet cute of all time, when a rude IT guy (Brad) yells at her and then secretly gives her a lead on an available duplex. Not wanting to ask questions in this market, Alissa rents the duplex and immediately connects with her new roommate (Shelley, foreshadowing for another RJG book down the line?!)via rad, wicker furniture, her wistfully tragic landlady (Genevieve, foreshadowing for another RJG book down the line?!), and her two goofy college guy neighbors, Jake (Foreshadowing for another RJG book down the line?!) and Brad. While Alissa starts letting people into her life, she becomes...disturbingly enamored with an elderly couple (Chet and Rosie) whose honeymoon she helps plan. In between stalking the two octogenarians, Alissa and Brad go on a zany road trip to Glenbrook (they lose Alissa’s cat! Brad forgets to order Alissa a taco! Alissa gets poison ivy!). This love story for the ages finally culminates in Brad asking Alissa to marry him, because he mistakenly thinks she’s dying of cancer. Alissa, inexplicably says yes, before realizing the mistake and informing Brad that her CAT is the one with cancer. Then somehow they end up together anyway after all of that? Probably because it was either start dating or move out of the duplex.

Wait...whaaaa?

There’s a lot of questionable behavior in Glenbrook. This is where we judge it all.

Rosie’s friend Meg was described as traveling from the mid-west to San Francisco after V-Day to meet the

Meg's wedding day.

sailors at the docks and “get a husband.”  Is this code for Meg banging like a million sailors at the docks post WWII?

After Alissa moves in with her new roommate Shelly, Shelly tells her two weeks later that she’s actually moving back to Oregon. Alissa immediately bursts into tears, before running out of the living room and locking herself in her bedroom for a few hours. Bet you $200 that Shelly thought, “I made a good decision”

Brad and Alissa go on the road trip to Glenbrook to move sad-sack Lauren’s antique furniture up to her new life with KC in Oregon. An hour into the drive Alissa says she can’t take a driving shift because she “accidentally” forget her glasses. Was she just being crafty? Did Brad know this and “forget” to order her a taco later at the rest stop for this very reason? So much subtext, you guys.

How bad of a lady boner did Alissa have for Brad to offer to host his sister for a week AND to move her shit from Southern California to Oregon? I don’t care if she schemed her way out of driving, that’s still pretty thirsty.

How have Alissa’s dreams of being a charity travel agent at her own firm worked out post internet boom?

Should Alissa have given Chloe cat chemo? She at least should have asked her vet about it and then made the call.

Could Brad and Alissa hear each other fart through the walls of the duplex?

Precious Moments:

Our favorite quotes...

Opening line of book jacket: “Here’s a terrific romance from some of your favorite characters from Secrets and Echoes.” It’s better if you do what I do and imagine Doris Day narrating.

“Alissa’s live-in companion was a cat named Chloe, and her favorite weekend pastime was reading. At twenty-six she was living the life of a sixty-year-old.” I wonder how RJG’s world was turned upside when she saw non-pathetic representations of single women on Sex in the City. (the TNT version without any of the dirty parts).

Alissa’s idea of fun lady-time chatting: “I like your wicker furniture. I have some just like it.” “I like your garden themed wallpaper, it’s so homey.” “This tea is good.”

PET scan of Alissa's brain

Conspiracy Theories

We tell you what’s really going down in Glenbrook.

Elise: Alissa is a stalker. 

Chet and Rosie are an elderly couple who seek Alissa’s help at the beginning of the book to plan their honeymoon. Alissa becomes obsessed with the story of how they fell in love decades ago, but the timing never allowed them to be together until now. Alissa, continues to bother this poor couple as they are trying to plan their wedding and enjoy the like,,, three days of happily married life they can expect at their age. She shows up to their wedding that she was verbally invited to the day prior, she drops by unannounced a few days after their honeymoon, and then she tries to set up a lunch date with Rosie, but when Rosie invites other people Alissa is “annoyed.” These are all weird, weird things.

There is nothing I could say
that could make this photo funnier.

Angie: Brad is a Pickup Artist, possible MRA (Men’s Rights Activist)

While RJG seems to praise Brad for his childlike honesty, I believe something more sinister is afoot. He’ll tell Alissa she’s beautiful in the same breath that he tells her she’s 30 pounds overweight. Any time she tries to walk away, he flips the scenario and asks, “Why are you always pushing people away?” There is a certain breed of man that embodies these traits—backhanded compliments (aka negging), putting responsibility for rejection of male back on the female (aka “You don’t want to go out with me? There’s must be something terribly wrong with you, woman. Surely me or my character isn’t to blame”). Brad acts as a puppet master, securing her the other side of his duplex, sending travel agent clients her way—all out of the “goodness of his heart,” I’m sure. “I’m the reason you got your apartment, Alissa. Why aren’t you more grateful?” “You think you can walk away, after all I sent clients over to you? Not happening, Alissa.” “I got you a diet coke, Alissa. You owe me…your soul.” Our only hope for Alissa is that she someday stumbles upon a website that reveals MRAs/PUA’s for what they are: dudes who blame women for rejecting them, which is weird because how can an object reject you?

Final Judgement

Is it worth the $0.01 on Amazon?

"Want to get married?"
"Ok, why not?"

Sunsets is the crazy pants book that started this blog, so I can’t judge it too harshly. These characters and their love for wicker furniture and blase small-talk made me want to dive head first back into the world of Glenbrook. Alissa’s a loner like sad-sack Lauren was but she’s at least trying to get her shit together. Alissa has a lot crap to heal from but like… she not making a big THING about it. She’s owning her journey, and I respected that. I also liked how her story addressed that people can be hurt and abused by the church. Bold move for a Christian Romance novel, RJG! Brad is a decent love-interest. He seems to bring out a sense of sassy fun in Alissa, and he talks to middle school boys about keeping their virginity, so hooray for subverting gender norms there! He also has enough human decency to NOT be the person that tells Alissa her dead parents are going to hell the second he learns she has dead parents (UNLIKE JAKE). He’s not a dick about her cat. He’s not a dick about her having a baby as a teen and giving the baby up for adoption. Jake would have been like “your baby is going to HELL!” Brad also first had a crush on Alissa when she was chubbier, so that was cool. Overall, Sunsets is a pretty cute. If you ended up marrying your next door neighbor, you’ll probably relate to this story. I’d say Whispers is still the high-water mark of a good love story in the Glenbrook series, but Sunsets at least doesn’t give you a temporary depressive episode like Echos did.

Our Bad!

Censored b/c Angie
hates me

Hey ya'll!

So, we know it's been a while since we posted new content, and we hope you can forgive us. Elise has been moving to a new city and doesn't have time for you, and Angie has a HUMAN CHILD so you can just back off.

Naw guys, we took a Bridget Jones style mini-break but are excited to be back in the game!






Stay tuned for our review of the Christian Romance/Horror Story that is Sunsets next week!

In the meantime, enjoy these links!:

Elise had a story about sexy robots published on Broad! last week

Robin Jones Gunn's instagram feed is want I want for my life. Living in Hawaii, snacking on French Toast with besties.  You've got it all figured out RJG...

For Real Christians: Evangelical Traumatic Flashback Corner

Angie’s Story:

At an Evangelical school, religious lessons bleed into every subject. In AP Bio, we were presented with

Jeff Goldblum thinks you're lying about dinosaurs

the theory that Satan might’ve been responsible for burying dinosaur bones extra deep to confuse the carbon dating system into believing the fossils were millions of years old. In art class, we crafted crosses and nativity scenes. So it should come as no surprise that we spent a great deal of Mr. M’s history class learning about the history of the Protestant church. Much was made over Martin Luther nailing his 95 Thesis to the church door in 1517, when “real” Christianity began even though we were Baptists not Lutherans. The important lesson is that this was when we left the Catholic church and really began living it up, Protestant-style.

While many disparaging comments were made about Catholics during my education, none was quite as facepalmy as Mr. M’s claiming that Mother Teresa (yes, THAT Mother Teresa) might not be going to heaven. You see, some evangelicals throw shade in the Catholic direction because they believe the denomination to be “works based,” meaning you earn your way into heaven with Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s, which is, of course, an extremely reductive, offensive way to categorize someone’s belief system. To an outsider, the divisive attitudes between denominations like Roman Catholic and Baptist may seem silly or nitpicky. And on some level, they are.

Y'all, if she ain't getting in, I give up.

But some people take this mess dead seriously. Take eternal security, for another example. Mention this phrase to a hardliner, and you will see them instantly break into a holiness-sweat (which smells like rose water FYI). Because many Christians believe in a literal hell with fire and brimstone and Lord Voldemort, there understandably comes an inherent sense of panic over losing one’s salvation. 

When I was a young junior higher growing out her bangs and only possessing enough courage to pluck one of her eyebrows, a Baptist friend (with mad eyebrow game) hurried over to me one day and in a blind panic said, “We have to talk to Justin*, he believes you can lose your salvation.” Because our school was Baptist (Calvinist theology), the majority of my classmates believed in eternal security, or “Once saved, always saved,” and explained those who had fallen away from the church as “Never saved to begin with.” But a handful of people at my Baptist school attended a Nazarene (Arminian theology) church which meant they believed a person could “backslide.” In other words, they were once a Christian but later on decided not to be, essentially nullifying their “Get into Heaven, No Questions Asked” contract and backsliding (butt first, I'm assuming) into the fiery mouth of Hades.

Being unaware of what the big damn deal was, I answered my frantic friend, “Why do we care? You can’t know until you’re dead. Now loan me a quarter so I can get a Frosted Honey Bun from the vending machine.” 

This continues to be my answer nearly 20 years later for many of these underwear-bunching concepts

A bowl of diabetes

that some people like to harp on. If you need to up your blood pressure medication because someone (who shares your faith, mind you) believes in a different theological concept (and a concept that no one can prove true or false because both sides can find Scriptural backing), then you’ve got a problem and are probably going to hell (JK, GUYS!!!!! JK x1000). Worrying about whether other people are the right kind of Christian is a waste of everyone’s time, including Jesus’. You should be using that time to track your blood sugar because your Frosted Honey Bun lifestyle has caught up to you.

*Name changed to protect the Arminian from Calvinist pitchforks

Elise’s Story:

"I'm Fine"

During my freshman year of high school, I fell in love with an Apostolic guy. Maybe LOVE is too strong of a word, but I was 14 and that quiet kind of dramatic that fueled the entire genre of Gothic Romance. I met this guy for all of one time at a church youth group event. I was just coming down from the high of having watched The Great Muppet Caper for the first time (props to whatever youth pastor picked that one btw; it still holds up), when I met him during the snacks and social hour that followed. I can’t remember what he looks like now. I only have a memory of general, blurry, white maleness. His hair was darker than his skin… I think. I would make a pseudonym for this guy, but I’m honestly worried I’ll accidentally use his real name. I’ll just call him “Peach Jelly Baby.” Anyway, to understand how I could instantly fall in love with a guy with no memorable characteristics other than “he spoke to me,” you have to realize something about going to a small Christian K-12 school. Every boy I had ever talked to prior to this moment had seen it all. They were there when I peed my pants during recess. They were there when I fainted during Chapel and rug burned my own face. They were there for my non-consensual hugging phase. They were there the day after I saw Grease and thought it would be cool to lick my palm and slick back my hair. But Peach Jelly Baby was seeing me for the first time! He didn’t have to know that sometimes I sweated through my shirt when I was nervous because I could keep my corduroy jacket on the whole night. Basically he was a nice guy who acted like I existed and, therefore, instantly became the love of my life.

In my defense, most youth group guys'
defining trait was "translucent"

The next day, I talked to my friend... “X-Box Outback Steakhouse” and said that I had a big crush on Peach Jelly Baby. She broke the news that Peach Jelly Baby went to a different kind of church called “Apostolic” and that he was only allowed to date fellow Apostolic ladies. Now, I’m not sure if this is true or not, and I’m too lazy to fact check, but at the time this news did not only break my heart. No, it also ENRAGED ME. I had spent the entirety of late elementary and middle school sitting on the floors of gyms listening to youth pastors telling me about keeping my standards high. Listening to how I should only ever think about dating SERIOUS Christians…“Real Christians.” So at this point in my life, I was more than prepared to turn down all the offers I was going to receive from studly dudes if they weren’t Spiritually Minded enough for my awesome Christian-ness. BUT THIS JACK-WAGON’S CHURCH THOUGHT THAT I WASN’T CHRISTIAN ENOUGH?! THAT I WASN’T A “REAL CHRISTIAN.” Damn, that felt cold.

Alas, that would not be my last time running into the concept of not being Christian enough; in fact, it has gotten much worse with time. Despite Christianity being a huge part of my identity, cultural upbringing and values, I know a lot of people don’t think I make the cut of “real Christian.” I won’t get into the specifics, but I know this because when people make a point of drawing a line and describing “real Christians,” they usually don’t describe qualities or beliefs I possess or even want to possess. It’s a lonely feeling. Not going to church much over the past few years* has helped in some ways but also makes me feel even more set apart in others.

The “Real Christian” concept came up again a couple of weeks ago. A friend and I were asked to present at a small church group. The group was unhappy with their church's stance on LGBT church members (there was a statement about not condoning the ‘practice of homosexuality’) and the group wanted my friend and me to talk about how the language in the church’s stance could be harmful to LGBT individuals. Unfortunately, there is a ton of data about how harmful the exclusion, othering and discrimination of LGBT individuals can be, so my friend and I had a lot to present to the group. At one point during our talk, I was explaining the concept of a minority identity and asked the group if they identified as Christian and if they had ever been the only Christian in a group and felt uncomfortable. One woman in her mid-70s called out, “Well, I think I’m a Christian, but I know a lot of people in this building wouldn’t think I am.” The whole group laughed in agreement, and it was clear they knew exactly what she meant. I knew exactly what she meant

Bald Eagles are Real Christians

My friend and I met up outside afterwards and talked about the whole experience, trying to make sense of this renegade church group. It was so weird to enter a church as such an obvious outsider. I shared that I wish I had gone to the service before Sunday school to see what the worship was like, and we compared our experiences growing up in evangelical churches. I talked about the laser light shows and fog machines during our worship services. She laughed and said, “Oh, you were one of THOSE churches,” explaining that in her home church, even drums weren’t allowed. I decided not to tell her about the paper mache replica of the Statue of Liberty rising from behind the stage at the 4th of July service. That’s probably something only real Christians would understand.

*Some of my high school and college friends certainly just did a spit take if they’re reading this, because they had no idea it was possible for me to attend church LESS than I had before.