Guilty Pleasures: Indulgences, Addictions, Obsessions

by Susan K. Caba, Jane Holwerda, Cathy Luh

Guilty Pleasures is a hilarious collection of 21 essays recounting the irresistibility of (among others): o Therapy and Antidepressantso Milking Parents for Casho Marrying Moneyo How to Prepare for and Secure the Perfect Daytime Napo TVo Having AffairsEight Midwestern women also satirize their on-and-off addictions to food, eBay, toenail polish, gossiping, buying beads, and baby talk. Take their obsession with stockpiling toenail polish, for Tart, natural, rose cellophane. Shake gently . . . Sheer honey, gun metal, fresco. The thing to do at midnight . . . Sri desert frost, peach melba. Glob and dab the wand, stroke lavishly, smoothly . . . Blue lagoon, lilac mood, passion flower. Read something. Watch bad TV. CrŠme, enamel, high gloss, french. When dry, cover with white gym socks. Go forth.The authors unlocked the vault to expose what women everywhere really like to do. In writing Guilty Pleasures, these "otherwise good girls" uncovered a global secret sisterhood who enjoy pampering themselves in intensely personal delights.

Genres: Anthologies

144 pages, Hardcover

First published March 2, 2003

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this in the mail from MadameUrushiol with the following note:

I saw this little book our Bookcloseouts.com and found the title irresistible and noticed it was written by a group of eight women writers in St. Louis, so I bought it.

When I read it. I fell in love with it and found bits of myself on almost every page (particularly the rain dance, foodm scheduling naps, cinnamon roll desire, being a bohemian and burning bridges sections.)

I also noticed that it had only been registered twice on BookCrossing, including my copy, (which seemed criminally low) and I thought I'd attempt to fix that. So I bought 20 more copies and this is one of them! Please register it and do whatever you think best with it--my sole ambition for the project is to give these eight writers (all of whom have written things other than these essays) some well-deserved exposure.

So- I did and I will, and I send a big, warm and happy thank you to MadameU!


FROM THE PUBLISHER
Guilty Pleasures is a hilarious collection of 21 essays recounting the irresistibility of (among others): o Therapy and Antidepressantso Milking Parents for Casho Marrying Moneyo How to Prepare for and Secure the Perfect Daytime Napo TVo Having AffairsEight Midwestern women also satirize their on-and-off addictions to food, eBay, toenail polish, gossiping, buying beads, and baby talk. Take their obsession with stockpiling toenail polish, for example: Tart, natural, rose cellophane. Shake gently . . . Sheer honey, gun metal, fresco. The thing to do at midnight . . . Sri desert frost, peach melba. Glob and dab the wand, stroke lavishly, smoothly . . . Blue lagoon, lilac mood, passion flower. Read something. Watch bad TV. Creme, enamel, high gloss, french. When dry, cover with white gym socks. Go forth.The authors unlocked the vault to expose what women everywhere really like to do. In writing Guilty Pleasures, these "otherwise good girls" uncovered a global secret sisterhood who enjoy pampering themselves in intensely personal delights.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this little book a lot more than I though I would. Filled with short (1-4 page) essays; each a sample of one of the eight female authors guilty pleasures, it was whimisical, sardonic, and confessional. The writing was also surprisingly good. It appealed to the hedonistic-neurotic side of my personality.