For That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday:
This week’s topic was:
July 14: Books That Make Me Smile (For any reason! Maybe tell us why? Submitted by Julia @ pagesforthoughts)
I tweaked it a bit and made it about guilty pleasures. These books make me smile because they are are trashy, tropey, and soapy. But they also make me smile because they’re fun.
1. The Luxe series by Anne Godberson– Soapy melodrama in an Edith Wharton setting. I love it.
2. The Shopaholic books by Sophie Kinsella– Well really just the first few. After that I stopped reading the series because I got annoyed at the character making the same mistakes over and over. But the first 3 were I Love Lucy– esque fun.
3. The Dollanganger series by VC Andrews– By this I mean the original 5 books series, not the new add ons. VC Andrew was my middle school guilty pleasure. I still have nostalgic fondness for her work but I’m hesitant to reread because I’m fairly sure it won’t live up to my memory.
4. The Flappers series by Jillian Larkin– Along the lines of the Luxe series (see above) this is pure historical soap.
5. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory– This kicked off a Tudor obsession when I was in my early 20’s. And not the historical Tudors or the TV Tudors (never got into the show) I was all about the soapy novel Tudors.
6. A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Devereaux– I wasn’t sure if this qualified as trashy enough to put on the list (IMO a book doesn’t belong on this list purely because it’s romance!) but this one is bodice ripper-y enough to qualify I think
7. The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon– I read this when I was about 14. I don’t think I looked up from the page once for the whole two days it took me to read it.
8. Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley– Gone With the Wind is too upscale for this list! In my defense I read this mostly because I wanted to see Scarlett and Rhett back together on better terms. I got that, so I was happy.
9.Tarien Soul series by CW Wilson– Because it’s so tropey. One after another after another. But I’m invested and I want to find out how it ends. I’m up to the last book.
10. American Royals by Katharine McGee– This soapfest imagines the American royal family that we might have had (in present day) if George Washington had accepted the crown that was offered to him some 200 years ago.
Fran Laniado- Author 
Guilty pleasure reads is a fun twist on this! Sometimes tropey soapy reads are perfect for a smile. I know what you mean about being unsure of re-reading your middle school guilty pleasure reads, though. I’m not sure mine would hold up either.
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Yeah, I think some things are better left to memory! Sometimes you’re honestly surprised when a book doesn’t live up to your memory (for me that’s the worst because it knocks down something you though you loved) but sometimes you know it won’t hold up, because you roll your eyes at what you do remember, even if the memory is fond.
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I think the ones that surprise me are worse. At least if I know something isn’t going to hold up I can decide if I still want to re-read it knowing that I’ll have an issue with something. If it surprises me, though, I’m more likely to be unable to move past whatever the now-problematic part is.
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