I was reading CrankyReader’s entry on her latest Ken Follett glom, and a comment she made caught my eye. She noted that people who love soggy romantic fiction a la Nicholas Sparks and Robert James Waller also love to make fun of people who read romance novels, and yeah, I’ve noticed that too. It really, really peeves me.
Those books are every bit as formulaic as romance novels, and aside from a lack of explicit sex and the lack of an HEA guarantee, they bear more than a passing resemblance to our beloved rippers de corsage. Many of these books are also every bit as badly-written as the worst romance novels. I couldn’t finish the one Nicholas Sparks novel I picked up (Message In a Bottle) because the I could feel the beginnings of a diabetic coma approaching, and the other book from that genre that I read, The Lighthouse Keeper, was… oh God, it was so bad. If I didn’t have to review it for AAR at the time, I never would’ve finished that, either. And if I’d been writing for Smart Bitches at the time, I might’ve finished it, but the review would’ve been so filled with profanity, I would’ve had to change the website’s background from pink to blue.
Just to give you an idea of how that book was: The Lighthouse Keeper ties with Desire’s Blossom for the worst book I’ve ever read in my life. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
I haven’t tried anything else from that genre since. This may sound really odd coming from a person who relishes reading romance novels, but: my threshold is really low when it comes to sentimentality. You’re looking at (or reading the words of, at any rate) the coldhearted bitch who made gagging sounds during the scene in the beginning of Finding Nemo when Daddy Fish was all “You’re all I have left my pwecious widdle son and I’ll always take care of you.”
But this coldheartedness is not remotely consistent, of course. No, that’d make it too easy. Like that scene right at the end of The Dream Hunter—OK, this is a spoiler, so please highlight the text to find out what I’m talking about if you’ve read TDH already or if, like me, you don’t give a shit about spoilers—
so that scene at the end in which Arden gives Zenia the paper with the spell written on it to assure her of his love, and it turns out to be “I Love You” written backwards or whatever?
SWOOOOOOON. That one scene single-handedly lifted that book from C territory into B. (OK, that scene and Arden in general, who’s one of my all-time favorite heroes.)
Uh, what’s my point again? Hmmm. OK, hang on, here it is: Bad writing can be found in any genre. I’m sure there are good examples of this sort of soggy masculine romantic fiction, books that are a credit to the genre as opposed to horrifying embodiments of every awful Movie-Of-The-Week cliche in existence. (As a side note: anyone know what this genre is called? Or does it not deserve to be labelled because the writers are predominantly male, instead of female? I vote for Squish-Lit, to indicate the state of your heart and hanky after you finish one of these.) I will read and enjoy just about any kind of story as long as it’s well-written, but I’ll also readily admit that given my distaste for a certain kind of mawkishness, and given the ease with which these sorts of books can fall into the Crevasse of Neverending Sappiness, I’m a harder sell than most.
God, now that I’m looking over what I wrote, this whole rant has basically been a long-winded way of saying: people in glass houses should turn off the light before putting on trousers.
Or something.
Sigh.
Did you ever know that you’re my hero? You’re everything I wish I could be!
I love the idea of Squish-Lit—I haven’t been able to finish a Sparks novel, and I’d rather gouge my eyes out than watch one of the movies. I don’t understand it…maybe it is a penis thing? If I glue a tube of flesh onto my crotch, will I like these books? Dunno. I’m all for angsty romance, but overly sweet sentimental romances? Ugh.
And yet wiener-wielders get away with it, and get movies made out of it. I cry foul.
And I’m really going to have to pick up Desire’s Blossom. The title alone makes it giggle-worthy.
What, you don’t want to read Bubba’s Billboard for Kitty?
Bummer. I was going to send it to you.
I’ll try to hide my disappointed tears, Sarah. I’ll pour all my anguish instead into gloriously overwrought prose, stick the paper in the bottle (oooo, wonder what THAT symbolizes?) and toss it into the ocean, in the desperate hope that some hot bitch will find it, fall in love with me while reading my deathless prose and then proceed to stalk me.
No, wait, shit, I totally meant to say “hot bastard.” I swear.
If I glue a tube of flesh onto my crotch, will I like these books?
I’m pretty sure a lot of women read and love these books. I begin to feel I will have to take one for a test drive.
SquishLit. Hehehe. Sap(py)- or SoppyLit works for me, too.
I haven’t had the gag-inducing experience of reading (through) the books I listed, but I know there MUST be *some* romance readers out there who read SoppyLit and like it. (Just like SOMEBODY is buying those Cassie Edwards)
I also have a hunch that the majority of readers and buyers of Soppylit don’t read much fiction. But that doesn’t stop them from criticizing romance readers…
Or Danielle Steele (which is who Sparks reminds me of most—sentimental, not always HEA, etc). I remember my mom reading Danielle Steele, and that’s where I read mine.
I can’t remember who blogged about it now, but someone mentioned that they’d never seen Danielle Steele actually purchased by anyone/knew anyone who read DS, and that the books were just popular because real estate developers bought them for display in model homes—I couldn’t help but laugh, because it was true: aside from my mom, I’ve never seen DS in anyone else’s bookshelves, but I’ve seen them in plenty of advertisements and mock bookcase displays—oh, and in libraries.
But someone (and likely it is a lot of women) is definitely buying them, enough that she became a popular figure that represents the romance genre, one of the stereotypical figures (though not as popular as the “bodice rippers” reference, I guess).
Sadly, I see plenty of women on the subway reading the DS sagas. I even bought a few myself- Zoya, for one, and Star, I remember reading on the beach.
The thing…about Danielle Steele…is her constant use…of…dramatic…(so she thinks)…ellipses….
I once saw a review of her books in which the reviewer said things like, “No, no, Danielle. One sentence cannot be an entire paragraph. No, no, Danielle, we do not use sixteen ellipses in one phrase.” Etc.
Someone is definitely buying them – there’s a certain amount of guaranteed angst in a Steele novel, along with a heroine fighting back towards happiness against horrible odds. No good sex scenes, though. And, I’m ashamed to say, that’s why I stopped reading them!
I stopped reading DS when I stopped reading Barbara Cartland….elipses indeed! I think I was seventeen.
I don’t know why but I tend to shun anything that gets a lot of hype though I loved Titanic (the movie not the ship).
I totally can’t…can’t….CAN’T pick up a Nicholas Sparks book (Or James Patterson who seems to be blatantly riding his coattails methinks), and I have NO desire to see The Notebook.