Notes on a romance novel
Saturday, 6 August 2016 13:44![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lea_hazelI read historical romances once in a blue moon, when I have a craving for three hundred pages of their particular brand of frustration. Earlier in the weekend I picked one up on half a whim and have been tearing through it ever since. With some breaks.
Pro: crossdressing, briefly.
Con: heroine has that obnoxious protagonistic habit of insisting, over and over, that she's not pretty.
Pro: one of the protagonists has to nurse the other's gunshot wound. No, not that one. The other way around.
Con: hero is a fake rake who never did anything remotely wrong in his life.
Pro: hero dresses down his douchebag friends.
Con: main portion of the romantic conflict revolves around people who have sworn never to love again and I want to slap them.
Pro: heroine is a coal-miner's daughter and the narrative never lets go of that thread for a second.
Con: she's heroically stubborn and keeps making dumb bets with the hero, even when she and the reader both know they're bullshit.
Pro: there is so much oral in this book omg.
Con: heroine never seems to be wearing any underwear, ever. Or maybe this is a pro?
Pro: heroine has an incredibly ambivalent but ultimately positive relationship with her overbearing, melodramatic mother and attention-loving older sisters.
Mega pro: if the above made you think, "is this a pastiche of the Bennets from P&P, or of our modern day Kardashians?" the answer is, gloriously, both.
Mega con: I'm not sure why I read love stories at all, since the whole song and dance of "this is the only chance at love I ever have, if s/he rejects me I shall resolve to be miserable forever, on principle" makes me seriously stabby.
Pro: crossdressing, briefly.
Con: heroine has that obnoxious protagonistic habit of insisting, over and over, that she's not pretty.
Pro: one of the protagonists has to nurse the other's gunshot wound. No, not that one. The other way around.
Con: hero is a fake rake who never did anything remotely wrong in his life.
Pro: hero dresses down his douchebag friends.
Con: main portion of the romantic conflict revolves around people who have sworn never to love again and I want to slap them.
Pro: heroine is a coal-miner's daughter and the narrative never lets go of that thread for a second.
Con: she's heroically stubborn and keeps making dumb bets with the hero, even when she and the reader both know they're bullshit.
Pro: there is so much oral in this book omg.
Con: heroine never seems to be wearing any underwear, ever. Or maybe this is a pro?
Pro: heroine has an incredibly ambivalent but ultimately positive relationship with her overbearing, melodramatic mother and attention-loving older sisters.
Mega pro: if the above made you think, "is this a pastiche of the Bennets from P&P, or of our modern day Kardashians?" the answer is, gloriously, both.
Mega con: I'm not sure why I read love stories at all, since the whole song and dance of "this is the only chance at love I ever have, if s/he rejects me I shall resolve to be miserable forever, on principle" makes me seriously stabby.
