(no subject)

1. Last night was spent cleaning out shelves, watching super fix shelves (so they don't fall on my head), cleaning again, and putting things back into shelves.

2. Haven't really read anything of note of late. Oh, I've read some books, I just didn't like them that much.

* Hate to Want You by Alisha Cole - highly rec'd by SmartBitches, plot did not work for me. An issue I have with contemporary or modern romance novels. Also the gender imbalance in modern romance novels irritates me. And, this is odd, I know, but I feel the writers don't know how to write male characters effectively? They either romanticize them or demonize them. I've seen male writers do it with female characters in noir mystery novels and spy novels, and female contemporary and historical writers do it with male characters. I think the writer forgets to treat the person like a person and not as some idealized or demonized take on their gender?

It's less of a problem, oddly enough, in historical romance novels. You'd think it would be the opposite, but, alas no. I don't know why this is.

Nor do I know why the roles are more stereotypical in modern romance than historical.

Hmmm.

I was gifted with a brother, so I've seen the romantic conflict from the male perspective. He is apparently a very attractive guy, and women, to say the least, throw themselves at him. Always have.
It irritates him. They've also used him. I watched them do it when he was in Elementary through High School.

And, I've heard the male side of bad divorces and breakups from various male friends and co-workers over the years. Our society, I think puts an undo amount of pressure on men being well...a certain thing. My brother stated it once, how there's this view that you have to be the macho guy..the guy that pops up in so many contemporary romance novels -- that alpha male character, who frankly does not exist in reality. Aka James Bond.

It's also one of the issues I've had with reading female written male/male fiction...the men are written oddly at times. I don't quite know how to explain it. Seen this with male written female/female slash as well. I think people have a tendency to write their fantasy versions and not the reality? Which is okay of course. But it is interesting.

* Book that I can't remember the name of, but just finished today, which I guess is saying something isn't it? Oh well, at least I can remember the names of the characters - Genieve and Archie, usually it's the exact opposite. And the plot. Then again, it's not that surprising I can't remember the name of it...all these books appear to have variations on the same title. Innovative in relation to titles these writers aren't.

Anyhow...the book is interesting in this one respect, the writer got curious about what would happen if a woman inherited the Duke or rather Duchess title upon her father's death along with his estates, during Victorian times. Apparently the writer had read about this happening...a family, I think Ledbester? Had requested a special dispensation from the Crown to permit the eldest daughter to inherit. The Duke's two sons had died and he was left with seven daughters, so he requested one of the daughters inherit upon his death, and Victoria granted it. So, the book is about Genieve inheriting the title and falling in love with a Steward (third son of a Viscount, who is a retired army Captain), that her godmother sent her to help her learn how to become a Duchess.

Interesting premise. And it worked. But...the book is poorly executed. Instead of exploring the premise or even the family interactions, or giving us more on why the hero is estranged from his family and working as a steward...we get a lot of "does he love me, he shouldn't love me, we can't be together, blah, blah, blah" and vice versa. I started skimming halfway through. Also the sex scenes don't quite work and feel clumsy. (Note: less is more with sex scenes. We do not need to know that he put his tongue in her mouth or licked it. It suffices to say, he kissed her deeply. Or with devotion.
You do not need to provide graphic anatomical details...not only is it rather dull, it's also a bit jarring. This is not a how to manual on how to have sex, after all.)

Also, at one point, and I thought this rather interesting, the heroine proposes that the hero become her mistress. Which he's put out about and states, he'd thought she wanted to marry him. And this breaks them up for a bit. (I'm not sure a man would be quite that insulted by such a proposition. But this one might. Particularly since his father had a mistress and he despised it.) At the end, she proposes to him, asking him to marry her. He turns her down. Until they have sex and he thoroughly ruins her, then he proposes marriage to her, and she accepts...and they have sex on the ground, naked, in a place anyone could just happen by...seemed rather uncomfortable, not to mention awkward and a bit odd.

The book ends with her announcing their marriage to their friends. I felt sort of let down by it, since at that point I was only reading to find out what his estranged brother had written him and how they reconciled. But the writer wasn't interested in exploring it further, and it was summed up in a brief sentence. "He read his brother's letter aloud to her, expressed, and they reconciled." Seriously? We get graphic details of an awkward sex scene, but nothing on this? Ugh.
(This is the problem with a lot of romance novels.)

3. Was going to discuss world-building in books but no time. So will leave you with this...
I've realized that books that have a lot of world-building but not a good or clear plot or clear character arcs, seem to lend themselves to television and film adaptations rather well.
GRRM Game of Thrones is great with the world-building and the character vignettes, but bad on plot and cohesive character arcs. Same is true with most of Neil Gaiman's books, great world-building, not great character or plot development.

Also apparently most sci-fantasy readers don't really care about character arcs or plot that much, as long as there is an intricate world and mythology in place. It does help to have interesting or likable characters...but they can be sketchy, the world building can't. They get very upset if the writer screws up on the world-building. I've never understood this.