Sophie Jordan Has an Adventure in Babysitting

It’s no secret that I adore Sophie Jordan. Aside from being super fun and a dear friend, she’s also one of my very favorite authors. It started with an obsession with her historicals (I mean, have you read Sins of a Wicked Duke? No? You MUST. Go now and get it. I’ll wait.), but now I clamor for anything this woman writes — which makes the fact that she is willing to share her draft manuscripts with me very very awesome. 

Aside: Her current Forgotten Princesses series is fabulous — and you can get its next installment tomorrow in her Valentine’s Day novella The Earl in My Bed. It’s the perfect V-day treat!

All this is to say, when I conceived of Girls Who Wear Glasses month in honor of One Good Earl Deserves a Lover, I of course invited Sophie to join me…and she of course came up with a FABULOUS choice!

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Hands down, my favorite girl with glasses has to be Brenda in Adventures in Babysitting. Remember that movie? Remember her? If you ever saw the movie, how could you forget Brenda!?

She was played by Penelope Ann Miller. She stole the show for me. I was glued to my seat, anxious for all the Brenda scenes (sorry, Elizabeth Shue!).

 Just to recap the basic premise: Brenda runs away from home and ends up stuck in a bus station deep in the city. She’s out of money and has no way home. Naturally, she can’t call her parents … well, because she’s a teenager. Who does she call to come and get her? Her best friend, of course. Now, I “get” that the movie is really about Chris (Elizabeth Shue) and her “adventures in babysitting”, but Brenda’s storyline … struggling to survive in a scary, inner city bus station was all I really cared about. Let’s just go over a few of the problems our bespectacled girl endures.

A bum screams at her to get out of his “house” (a phone booth). Her glasses are stolen by a bag lady (the look on the bag lady’s face when she puts them on and realizes she can now see is just too, too precious). A hot dog vendor won’t take pity and feed poor, starving Brenda when she tells him she doesn’t have any cash (No money? Then I don’t have a wiener!). And perhaps the best part is when she rescues an oversized sewer rat, thinking it’s a poor little, abandoned cat (Remember, she can’t see without her glasses). Oh, her horror when she realizes she’s cuddling a rat! The only thing better that could happen is for Brenda to meet her hero amid all these mishaps. Oh, imagine the romance of her falling for some guy she can’t see – but of course, he won’t end up being a rat. He’ll have to look something like this:

My kind of rat.

Hm. I’m already tinkering with a new story in my head inspired by Brenda’s night at the bus station … and Chris Hemsworth. What do you think? Winning combo?

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Thanks for coming over to play Sophie! You’ve got me thinking about hot heroes to match with bespectacled beauties! So…tell us, readers! Cast Sophie’s movie! Who should play the hunky hero for whom our blind-as-a-bat heroine falls?  

Share in comments for a chance to win Sophie’s most recent (and the one she dedicated to me!), Lessons from a Scandalous Bride and a Girls Who Wear Glasses microfiber lens cloth! (US Only, sorry.)  Winner will be chosen on Friday!