Color Correction: Taking An Objective & Subjective Look At The Uneven Fantasy of Susan Johnson’s Hot Pink

Part 1 - The Review

Caution: This review discusses sexual assault, rape culture, coercion, and stalking in some detail.

With Hot Pink, published in the desperately chipper year of 2003, I was hoping to have a fun, frivolous time. Perhaps even a fun, dirty time. On that note, I’m not here to condemn or shame. This is a sexual fantasy, and people’s fantasies often include behavior that they wouldn’t tolerate or perpetuate in real life. These are my opinions. And in my opinion, it’s important to discuss what I find to be damaging or harmful here, even if it isn’t portrayed as such in the book.

Chloe is a strong independent woman who likes sex, pink hair, owning her own graphic design business, and Jimmy Choos. Rocco is the tall, dark, handsome stranger of her wildest dreams, about to go into business with his siblings. A chance meeting in an elevator leads to a one-night stand that evolves into an affair, despite Rocco’s family friend Amy insisting that she is his fiancée. Chloe’s attempts to steer clear of Rocco backfire, Rocco’s attempts to resist her fail, and the two must grapple with Amy’s manipulations and the question of when lust will turn into love.

Erotica doesn’t need fully-rounded characters or a twisty plot in order to work well as erotica. At best, Chloe is a serviceable main character, despite the wild-on-paper description we get of her purple eyes and spiky pink hair (insert anime character joke here). Her distaste for wearing bras seems like a throwaway detail, and I can’t picture how she’s supposed to have a knockout figure if she doesn’t need a bra to help shape it. Rocco, fashioned in the style of an alpha male, comes across as neutered when he interacts with anyone but Chloe. Everyone, including himself, assumes that he has an insatiable sex life, but we only see him with two other women outside of Chloe and he has zero interest in either one. It’s hard to believe that Rocco is this tower of unbridled masculinity when he’s yes-ma’am-ing through his flat interactions with Amy or acting like a mopey teenager when Chloe suggests she needs some “me” time.

Then there’s Amy, who at first appears to be merely delusional but devolves into a psychopath in her harmful machinations to keep Rocco all to herself. I would have allowed for some nuance to the rival for Chloe’s affections, but Johnson isn’t having that. Amy is rich, spoiled, cruel, and destroys personal property. Even worse, she blackmails an employee at her family’s country club into having sex with her—a detail that I foolishly assumed would double as foreshadowing. But no: at no point does Chloe, who is given this information, turn heroine and successfully reveal Amy as a rapist.

This is because the “r” word doesn’t exist in this universe. There is an initial emphasis on consent, as Chloe declares that she decides when and when not to have sex. That is gone by mid-book, at which point Rocco turns briefly into a different character. At a party, he digitally penetrates her while she protests, then carries her outside and continues to force himself on her. “There’s no excuse for what you just did,” Chloe tells him shortly before he mumbles an apology and they retreat to a convenient boathouse to have frustrated, if consensual, sex. This is meant to illustrate their pointless and dated slap-slap-kiss dynamic. Later, Rocco calls her mother to track down Chloe without her knowledge; her mother tells him where she might be, making her complicit in his stalking. Chloe is also harassed by a younger lover, who pounds on her apartment door when she has asked him not to come over (she lets him in so the neighbors aren’t disturbed). In a later scene, Rocco physically assaults her in order to get her to accept a gift. By this time, she has also been harassed and threatened by Amy, and quite justifiably wants nothing to do with her or Rocco. He breaks into her apartment and it’s okay because he saves her from a bad fall … caused by his break-in. Much later in the book, it’s loosely implied that Rocco left money at Chloe’s place as payment for sex—which, even if this doesn’t count as abuse, definitely doesn’t reflect well on this supposed stud with a heart of gold.

The behavior I’ve identified as abusive isn’t recognized in-universe as abusive and the characters claim to be motivated by sexual desire and frustration. But the language used to describe these acts often evokes violence and harm, which, divorced from any discussion of political correctness, does nothing for me as a reader. 

The sex scenes are rote, though not necessarily bad. There are only so many ways in which one can describe how male genitalia reacts while aroused; Johnson makes heavy use of a thesaurus, to mixed results. When Chloe’s orgasms and pleasure are the main focus, Rocco is at his most believable as a lover. This is the kind of erotic fiction in which the labored act of penetration somehow doubles as foreplay, which might appeal to other readers. There is some basic variation in positions, allusions to oral, the perpetuation of the myth that a “tight” vagina is a good sign, and no need for lubrication. The orgasm is always described the same, no matter which guy Chloe sleeps with: explosive and all-consuming. For some reason, these lovers don’t actually kiss all that much; the first kiss between them is a peck on the cheek by Chloe that Rocco describes as motherly even as it turns him on, which is not my idea of sexiness.

So. Was there anything I liked? Actually, yes. I like the title. Chloe’s character shines brightest when she lends her friends (cut from the Sex and the City mold) a sympathetic ear and gives them sensible advice. I like her work ethic, which is one of a few scant traits that stays consistent throughout the story. The book is set in Minneapolis and portrays the city as having a vibrant cultural life. The phone sex scene is genuinely enjoyable. Toward the end is a rambunctious sex scene that made me laugh out loud, which I very much count in its favor. Rocco and his would-be rival arm wrestle in a scene that is so laced with subtext that I almost thought that the two men would forget all about Chloe and jump into bed together. 

Several technical aspects of the book irked me. The editing was slap-dash and clearly an afterthought. Details are brought up at bizarre moments and do nothing but interrupt the flow of the scene, making me wonder if Johnson was merely trying to get the page count to a respectable number. The dialogue tags are so disorganized that I had trouble keeping track of who said what. The level and placement of padding is egregious: for example, four pages are spent on Chloe packing for a last-minute getaway, pages that could have been better spent describing the weekend-long sex binge she and Rocco share earlier in the story. All the characters—mothers, lovers, friends, enemies—call each other “darling,”  Apparently it’s okay when Rocco calls Chloe “darling,” but not when Amy does it (ditto for the use of “bitch”).

Ultimately, Hot Pink is a bumpy ride with small highs and depressing lows. I am here to judge the book and not the reader; if this is someone’s cup of tea, that’s fine. If someone wants to read this and skip over the scenes I mentioned and pretend they don’t count, that’s fine too. For me, the fantasy Pink offers is as sloppy as its editing. I can’t recommend it, but I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who wants to give it a try.

Return for part 2, when I’ll explore Susan Johnson’s romance novel legacy.