The Lesbihens, by Gwendoline Jones. Reveal and Review!

[rachelmanija]

Literally every single one of you who took the Lesbihens poll was wrong about what this book was about. And so was I, and I DID read the blurb before making this regrettable purchase.



Despite the title and cover, The Lesbihens has nothing to do with chickens. It is not about lesbian chicken shifters, lesbian chicken farmers, lesbian chickens, human lesbians with pet chickens, or lesbian chickens with pet humans. It does not even involve chicken metaphors.

The Lesbihens, inexplicably, is about the romance between a lesbian yoga teacher and a lesbian lighting designer. That's it, that's the book.

The blurb is highly misleading given the context of the cover and title:

When she moved to the city from the great rolling farmlands, Natasha never dared to bring hopes of romance along with her.

But everything changes when Peach, a gorgeous woman full of confidence and sunshine struts into her life and builds her nest right next to her, and Natasha knows that she has found something truly extraordinary.

I misread this as Natasha moving from the city to the great rolling farmlands. It's actually the other way around. I GUESS, as her coming from the farmlands is never mentioned at all in the first half of the book and if it comes up later (I started skimming) I blinked and missed it.

Also, the girlfriend's name is not Peach. Her name is Sawyer Martinez. Her nickname is not Peach. She is never called Peach. I did a search of the book to check this.

Not only is this book an amazing example of wildly misleading marketing, it's also an example of the power of word usage in making characters seem appealing or not. Sawyer whines, squeals, shrieks, screeches, screech-laughs, yell-laughs, and generally makes the kinds of sounds that make her exhausting just to read about. She's also an annoying hipster generally, but the words used to describe her really don't help.

Too much screeching girlfriend, not enough peeping poultry.

Comments

[sabotabby]

I'm disappoint. I was told there would be chickens.

wrong bird icon

[yhlee]

This is hilarious and I am now glad I didn't buy the book. XD

[oursin]

Is Sawyer actually a hyena?

[grayswandir]

Sawyer whines, squeals, shrieks, screeches, screech-laughs, yell-laughs

...It still kind of sounds like she might be a chicken?

[rachelmanija]

Could be!

I appreciate how my comments are filling up with bird icons.

[em_h]

Is it possible that the cover, with blurb, got put on the wrong book?

[rachelmanija]

I don't see how it could be. The cover and title are on the actual book on my Kindle.

clucks in disapproval

[karalee]

I feel cheated, and I wasn't even the one who bought the book!

Re: clucks in disapproval

[rachelmanija]

I had to share my pain.

[rydra_wong]

Despite the title and cover, The Lesbihens has nothing to do with chickens.

Is there any explanation for the title at all?

[rachelmanija]

None whatsoever.

[ratcreature]

Wtf? Why are there hens in the title then?!?

But lesbian within in book is spelled correctly, yes? The only remaining idea I have is that somebody only heard the word "lesbian" and thought it was derived from hens and spelled it weirdly without anyone ever telling them differently...

[rachelmanija]

Yes, "lesbian" is spelled correctly in the book. It's a deliberate pun for NO REASON.

[ellenmillion]

I am made of disappointment. Clearly someone needs to write the book that this should have been.

[osprey_archer]

Truly brutal that this book used up a perfectly cromulent title for a story about lesbian chicken farmers and/or lesbian chicken shifters.

I also misread the move from farmland => city as city => farmland, I guess because it's so often the other way in romance and/or Lifetime Christmas specials? Baffling that it kicks off the blurb if it never comes up in the book.

Not as baffling as the Peach situation, though!

[taelle]

Or maybe it could be about a lesbian chicken farmer and a lesbian chicken shifter. Like, the shifter is misplaced while shifted, and the farmer just bought several chickens, but in the morning one of them is a gorgeous woman...

[silverflight8]

But there are even eggs on the cover!

[taelle]

Maybe the title was the only thing the cover artist knew about this book.

[genarti]

I have SO many questions, and clearly there are no answers to be had.

[rachelmanija]

I love that icon.

[stranger]

But... the *blurb* uses a chicken (well, bird) metaphor!

Given the lack of Peach and any trace of hens in the book, either the wrong blurb got assigned to the book, or a character named Peach was re-named to sound more butch and less Southern. Is the setting vaguely Atlanta? Might it have been, even if it's now vaguely New York?

[rachelmanija]

Got me. The other lesbiAN's name actually is Natasha.

[gwyn]

How supremely disappointing--there are overalls and a checked shirt and poultry puns on the damn cover!

But everything changes when Peach, a gorgeous woman full of confidence and sunshine struts into her life and builds her nest right next to her

This makes my copyeditor eyes twitch. Needs comma after the parenthetical ends--after sunshine. So now they've guaranteed twice I will not buy the book!

[loligo]

What a criminally missed opportunity. I was 100% ready to read the book that this sounded like it should be!

[rachelmanija]

So WAS I.

[sheliak]

At least your icon is uniquely fitting for false chicken advertising!

That's extremely baffling. Why on earth is the book called that? (Could you get away with stealing the title without the "the"? Just Lesbihens, the story of a lesbian discovering the joys of chickens and her stealth chicken shifter girlfriend?)

[naye]

But WHY. (I will admit that the Peach situation is the most baffling to me. Maybe the writer just thought they were transcribing a weird way of saying ~lesbians~ and didn't see the pun. But what happened to Peach?!)

[rachelmanija]

They must have seen the pun, there are EGGS on the cover!

Peach is easier for me to understand. I took have changed characters' names and forgotten to change them everywhere.

[lydamorehouse]

Robbed! Now I want a story about lesbians raising chickens together! I was honestly secretly hoping that you were polling us about the next book you were going to write. Damn it! LESBIHENS is wasted on this story. Yoga teacher, bah!

[wpadmirer]

OMG, that sounds truly awful. And why use her nickname in the marketing if it's never used in the book? UGH.

[landofnowhere]

It's a nice cover design, shame about the book. :-(

[larryhammer]

Pardon me while I cackle wildly.

Also, I am disappoint that there are no other entries with the "genre: bait and switch" tag.

[katherine]

Last minute change from Peach, chicken-shifter, to... whatever boring not a shifter the actual published character is?

[zdenka]

Aw. :( That's very disappointing.

/adds to the bird icons

[lilacsigil]

What the hell? I would like to add that I was also so convinced about the rural setting that I also read it as "moving from the city to the great rolling farmlands" and on reading the next line about that being wrong, couldn't believe it and had to go check again! I think what we've all learned from this is that there's a market for a lesbian romance with a chicken-shifter (or chicken farmer) named Peach.

[talkingtothesky]

OMG. Steal the amazing title pun and write the couple falling in love while raising cute fluffy chicks? Please.