Catriona wrote in the Heyer/Grand Sophy thread:
Sarah, can we do a thread on romances that we want to love, we should have loved, everybody else loves them…but that we can’t stand because something just left a bad taste in our mouths?
I like this idea for two reasons. No, three. First, we’ve done it before. But let’s do a new one. It’s been years.
Second: not enjoying a book that it seems like everyone loved or enjoyed can be an isolating experience, but as I’ve learned on the internet, you’re never alone in your likes and dislikes, no matter how outlandish they might seem. 0_o
And third: everyone’s buttons are different (woo, kinky!). What ticks me off may not bother you in the slightest, and vice versa. For example, and I’ve used this example before: there are many who are intensely bothered by historical inaccuracies in romances. I am not one of these people. The Duke can in fact drive a Porsche to Almack’s, and I’m fine with it. Whatever.
My hot button is stilted, unrealistic and awkward dialogue. If characters, like, for example, the Duke of Porsche, say things that real human beings wouldn’t say, and use cliches to the point that they don’t sound like actual people, I get really annoyed. Yanks me right out of the story and into Land of Crankypants. But the Porsche? Meh. Whatever.
I am not alone in that preference, but I do think that among romance readers, especially historical romance fans, I’m in the minority. And this is not to insult any author who busts her ass doing the research. Go on with your bad self – and your Porsche.
Catriona’s example is a bit more specific:
My example is As You Desire by Connie Brockway. Everybody is in love with this book and it always appears on people’s top romances list. I should love it – I enjoyed Brockway’s other books, I’m crazy about Egypt and archaeology and I love romances that are supposed to be funny and witty. It had everything going for it.
But I’m telling you, this book is like my own personal berserk button. To this day, I still can’t think about it or hear somebody sing its praises without my blood pressure spiking. My issue is with the way the author set up an “older” woman (I think she was in her early 30’s) to be the younger heroine’s foil. Basically, the older woman was rejected by the hero and pretty much every male in the book because she wasn’t as “perfect” as the seemingly smarter, blonder, younger heroine. I would expect this kind of ageism/blondeism in a book from the 1970’s, but this book was from 1997! This passage in particular, in which Marta, the other woman, sees the heroine at a restaurant, encompasses everything that bothers me about this book:
“I say,” Lord Ravenscroft suddenly breathed, “Now, there is a treasure worth coveting. Have you ever seen such a piece of tiny, golden perfection?”
…Marta followed the direction of everyone’s gaze to where Miss Carlisle’s progress through the room was marked by a wave of men scurrying to their feet as she passed.
To blatantly steal a phrase from you, Sarah: OH COME ON NOW AND I MEAN IT! Is this supposed to be a parody? Because it fails if it is. I ended up feeling whole lot more sympathy for Marta, while I wanted to bury Desdemona Carlisle headfirst in the sand. Normally the perfect, blonde, child prodigy, men-literally-fall-at-her-feet woman is the RIVAL, not the heroine.
Maybe I’m letting this bother me way too much…. But somewhere deep down, it grates on me that the heroine has to be this drop-dead gorgeous, “oh save me” frail young creature. I often wonder why people loved this book so much when I, who was much closer to Desdemona’s age when I read it, was so bothered by the discrimination against the older, more experienced, more capable other woman.
I got to wondering, is this just a case of me finding it difficult to relate to the heroine, and seeing myself as a rival to her to the hero? Nah, I thought Harry was an idiot too. His famous “you are my Egypt” speech just made me cringe. I would’ve heaved if anyone said anything so ridiculous to me, but apparently a lot of readers disagree judging by the links out there:
I fully expect the pitchforks and torches to come after me on this one, but bring it! Catriona “Encyclopedia Hittanica” is ready!
Ok, I’m about to come off even more objectionably: I have never read this book, but now I’m so very curious.
So, what’s your book that everyone adored, but you couldn’t enjoy it? You certainly don’t have to limit your example or response to this one. No shame and no shaming, please! Bring on your least liked books that made you feel the most isolated in your lack of enjoyment.
Outlander. Slogged my way through to page 50. I write Scottish Time Travels, for crying out loud, and I just can’t get through Outlander.
My biggie-The Duke and I. Hated the scene where the heroine sexes up her drunk hubs to force him to “spill his seed inside her.”
She knew he didn’t want children, but she felt it was ok because he’d obviously see how much he truly *did* want them once she was preggo.
I’m in the minority on that one.
Oh and Dunnett is different. Not a romance, so don’t bring romance expectations to it, and he never, ever sexually attacks the heroine. Good Lord, it’s the opposite, if anything!
Love those books to bits. Literally. I’m on my third set.
Lymond is not so much a hero, more a protagonist, and since you see him through other people’s eyes through most of the books, you rarely know his true motives.
I fell in love with him when he set fire to his mother’s castle, with his mother still in it. He’s a jerk because he is trying to stop people supporting him, because of the trouble that will bring them.
My God, this may be the most cathartic thread Romancelandia’s ever seen!
Thank you, Smart Bitches!
Lord of Scoundrels
Lord of Scoundrels
Lord of Scoundrels
*DEEP BREATH*
JFC I hate that book. And I read it twice just to be sure. It’s the reason I take all glowing reviews with huge grains of salt, and why I don’t even bother reading any “Top…” lists when it comes to romance. Awful. So many people include LoS as a book to recommend to non-romance readers in order to convert them, and I cringe every time I see that. Because, guys? LoS is the EXACT book a non-romance reader would write to mock the genre.
First, there’s the asshole hero, but WAIT! He’s really just a scared little boy at heart because of his awful childhood, so it’s all good!
Then there’s the oh-so-perfect heroine. She’s a crack shot, super intelligent, educated, is an expert on antiques and money management and man-child rearing and who the hell cares what else…a woman truly ahead of her time. Except for the fact that she’s virgin. Yes, that’s right, Miss SoDifferentFromOtherRomanceHeroines is still a virgin, because a hymen is truly essential even in the most groundbreaking romance. Her “relationship” with Dain boils down to her infantilizing him every step of the way. And I mean that literally…several times she compares her management of Dain to her raising the boys in her family. And that attitude continues straight through to the end of the book.
And then there’s the side characters—the delightfully horny grandmother, whom I would ordinarily have loved if this book hadn’t already possessed enough preciousness to rot my teeth. There’s Jessica’s mind-numbingly stupid brother, who I THINK is meant to be the comic relief but who is so damn useless at life that he really needs to be institutionalized for his own safety. There’s also Dain’s group of asshole friends/sycophants. Jessica, of course, has no friends…I’m guessing because only Dain is stupid enough to not sense her disdainful condescension for all of humanity save her grandmother.
And finally, the kid. Yes, of course Dain has a long lost son, who’s just as ugly as Dain was as a child and that’s just too much for Dain to handle, the poor dear. Does Jessica use the awesome power of her hoo-ha to get through to Dain? Does finally connecting with his son cure Dain of his childhood trauma, allowing him to be the man he really is instead of the wounded asshole he shows the world? If you don’t know the answers to those questions, then you clearly have never read a romance, or watched a movie, or had any exposure to Disney. Because that’s all Lord of Scounrels is…it’s the Disney version (+sex) of adult romance.
I feel better now.
Is it weird that I now want to read every loved/hated book on this list?
Wow, love this. I especially love seeing what works and what doesn’t with people.(and am taking notes).
My oh gawd make it stop list:
Jane Austen’s books. Please, can we get over this already? It bores me to death!
Though I do like the earlier Feehan books the later ones are starting to get redundant.
LKH – Torn on this, I like the earlier Anita Blake books but the more you go the mehier I get. (if meh-ier is a word)
Most UF gives me headaches. I think it is a matter of me not the writer, magic stuff in today’s world (or an alternate modern world) just bugs, I can’t seem to suspend my disbelief very well.
Fantasy romance is hard to find, and is what I prefer over contemporary, historical, UF and so on. So when I was told how wonderful Elizabeth Vaughan’s Warprize series was I went and bought the 3 books I could find and went home to read them.
The worldbuilding was good, the cultures were interesting. But some things really threw me out, for one first person (or the way she did it in these books) just bugged! I don’t care for 1st POV in romance books generally to begin with. Then the mc bugged me, though I can’t really place my finger on why, she just didn’t work for me. The premise bugged, a few of the scenes where she is captured and interacting with the hero irritated me. he seemed pretty decent overal, but just rubbed me the wrong way too. But what did it was a warrior group of people who don’t know how to set bones??? excuse me? The heroine just HAPPENS to be a healer/medical person so can help….That just hurt my brain and the book took a flying leap at the wall… with help. I am at a loss of what to do with it, I wanted to like it. I just… meh
Twilight. -.-
Hunger Games the whole idea of that storyline bugs the crap out of me. Throwaway children just don’t do it for me.
There are others, i just can’t think of them.
Oooh Yes! Excellent opportunity to release pent up Angrygurl!
LaurellK—recycling is good if it is glass and plastic—but Anita has become ridiculous and “blood and THICKER THINGS” is stupid and repetitive. Like, repetitive.
And Nalini’s Psy started out so well and has become so MINE/SEX and then her Archangels became so BORING and WHERE IS THE FREAKING PLOT???
Showalter? OMGIHeaven. Wherever that One True Deity may be, he is not with Showalter or her editor or those demon guys. The first Darkest book engaged me because it was a new take on the old myths, and I think it’s about time we had some new myths. No chance of that—instead we have vapid heroines and more LORDS who MUST have SEX and oooo now its all coming back to me and I am raving mad as in angry AND insane because that series is so AWFUL and I always finish my peas like a good girl and… I can’t. Three books I made it through, skimming the third so I could get to the end and be done FOREVER with Showalter.
Drive93. Yeah. How far will that drive take you?
Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux
This one was hyped by so many and I found it so boring! The characters were also terribly frustrating and I kept picturing the hero as a decrepit version of freakin Ivanhoe! The weakness of the heroine drove me crazy as well, watching how she let her boyfriend treat her like trash! Ugh!!!!
I loved other Deveraux books I had read previously so I was super disappointed that I didn’t OMG LOVE!!! this one too.
Whew! Nice to admit that 😀 I agree with the comment earlier who spoke of guilty pleasure books with non PC stuff that I adore despite terrible plot devices etc.
Thanks for the vent today! 🙂 Good to get more input on books I’ve had recommended to me; this way I know if there are issues in them I’d want to avoid.
Personal peeves: I am a historical accuracy nazi; this is not to say I won’t tolerate a little inconsistency but when it is very obvious and very off-base it’s a DNF if not a throw-across-the-room. This includes heroines who are way too liberated and self-sufficient for their time period and intent on doing things and embarking on careers that would clearly be at least inconceivable if not impossible. I also have issues with names; if you’re writing a historical, for crying out loud, research popular names of the period, and don’t name a Regency heroine “Brandy” or “Ashleigh”. Ditto fantasy; make your names something not of this world, not just a phonetic spelling of a popular name. (The names in BDB drive me up the wall and I haven’t even read the books! Won’t either, just because of that.) And time travel is almost never done well in romance; romance authors do not think through all the obvious paradoxes and consequences or even the culture shock.
I can’t stand to read Elizabeth Peters; way too many Victorian euphemisms for sex way too often and JUST GET ON WITH THE PLOT, dammit. Hated Stephanie Plum, maybe just because she and her whole neighborhood remind me too much of the kind of people I sold my soul to get away from. Not sure about Carriger, just because the idea of mixing vampires and werewolves with steampunk just makes me itchy; and yes, I never liked vampires and am getting more sick of them by the minute. I was severely disappointed in the whole Blades of the Rose series; they were way too talky to the point where even the action scenes dragged, and by the end it was so outlandish it bordered on farce for me. Currently reading the Kushiel series, and while I love the lyrical prose I’m getting a little bored by all the BDSM and kind of wish the plot would just move along.
capcha: choice67 – we have a choice of 67 things to avoid…
@Erin F – Ha! I LOVED Ravished; but exactly for it’s ridiculous handling of the subject matter. I’m a paleontologist and I found the fossil talk and heroine as a whole hilarious. She reminded me of the annoying “dino dorks” we get at paleo conferences decked out in fedoras and khaki. Reviewed it here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/159059813 (for some reason can’t link to my blog). Looks like we were both annoyed, but the annoyance was endearing to me because of its context to my real life. 😉
I detested Gone With the Wind, The Outlander and am just not a Jane Austen fan. I think the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum books have gone on too long-pick a guy and get it over with. Ugh. (Can’t stand Joe, btw. And Ranger isn’t a good choice, either. I vote for a mystery guy at this point!) Don’t understand the BDB love, just… don’t. Stopped reading the Betsy books by MJD long ago. The same with the Sookie Stackhouse books by Harris. Also stopped reading Nora Roberts Romantic Suspense books a few years ago-they just all seemed the same.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I tried Nobody’s Baby But Mine, hated both the hero and heroine within the first few chapters and never finished it. Maybe her other books aren’t as bad, but in any case it turned me off enough that I’m unlikely to ever give her another try.
Ok, feel I have to add some books
Sookie Stackhouse – did not hate it but did not get the hype, a DNF for me.
House of Night – my husband got me the first book in the series because he wanted to be sweet and knew I was into vampires at the time. DNF.
Talk Me Down – what a seriously annoying main character. DNF.
First Frost – another annoying heroine, did not make it out of the girl’s changing room in that one. DNF.
I actually stopped reading the Outlander series after A Breath of Snow and Ashes, but the first book I must have re-read at least three times. So funny that it seems to win the prize of most detested book in this thread 😉
Another book I disliked was The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie. I thought it was wonderfully written, but Ashley went overboard with Ian. I finished the book believing that Ian doesn’t have the capacity to understand love and marriage, and that Beth is a woman who is happiest being a caretaker. Which works for the characters, I guess, but it’s not what I consider romantic. I actually finished the book feeling really sad for both characters, and seeing them in subsequent books hasn’t changed my mind.
Oh and J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series! I know a lot of people love it despite (because of??) the cheesiness of its set-up and writing but I can’t stand them! Didn’t get beyond book two.
Something Borrowed is the most memorable book that’s stuck with me as a book I truly did not get. I know tons of people loved it, but I never understood why the heroine wanted a guy who would sleep with her while planning on marrying someone else the whole book. Getting engaged to the wrong woman is one thing, but staying engaged while sleeping with her best friend is another. Once a cheater, always a cheater. The writing itself was lovely, I just couldn’t get past the premise.
@Lynne Connolly: My mom’s best friend gave me a full set of the Lymond Chronicles as a high school graduation present, with the warning that “Francis Crawford will ruin you for any other man.”
It works for Dunnett, but I think it’s because you’re not actually asked to sympathize with Francis, or to forgive him, until that forgiveness and sympathy have actually been earned. Whenever I read some Regency where the hero behaves badly due to an allegedly dark past, I think, “I’ll take your absentee father/stuttering/people think I murdered my mistress and raise you a dead sister, galley slave, flayed lover, and really, really, really complicated mother issues.”
I keep coming back to this thread because I keep recalling books and authors I forgot to mention lol.
I know that all authors have patterns in their writing and so glomming on a backlist tends to make their work seem more repetitive than it would normally. I don’t know where exactly I draw the line between what is acceptable to me and what is not, I just know when it doesn’t work for me. Julie Garwood and Christine Feehan are two authors whose books I cannot stand to read two or more in one go. Sometimes they get too repetitive for me even when it’s been months or years between books.
Oh, and to defend As You Desire: I never read the treatment of Marta as a consequence of her age; I read it that she acted false and fairly desperate a lot, and that she was rather transparent about it.
This thread is killing me. Wow, the vehemence… and I’m totally that way as well. The book that I loathe with the fire of a thousand suns is not so romancy- “Eat, Pray, Love”. When all my friends were raving about it, I took it on a trip with me. I nearly ended up throwing it across the plane. It’s been 4 years, but the fervor of my hatred still burns hot within me.
I also have a special dislike for books that have incorrect details that I recognize (I’m looking at you, Nora R and Jude D). Once I find them in 2 books, I reject all others because I assume they are present, but I don’t have enough information to spot them.
Crusie is hit and miss for me. (Like Bet Me, did not like Maybe This Time, DNF Fast Women.)
Also in non-romance, I loved Life of Pi, but hated Beatrice and Virgil. And I didn’t like Swamplandia, but I don’t like magical realism, steampunk or paranormal. (I might be missing AMAZING books because I totally skip over those.)
Captcha: after97 (After 97 pages, if I don’t like it, I should quit- right?)
@LEW Oh my god, I loved your proposed paleo romance titles (“Dirty Little Bone”, “Old, Hard, and Dirty”, “Hard as a Rock”, or “Bones of Contention”). Might I suggest that I would have enjoyed Ravished more had it been named one of the following: “Skin and Bones,” “Long in the Tooth,” or “Rock and a Hard Place.” Someone write these books please.
Fairly easily, I’d imagine, by scaling up from the justifications for the burning of heretics, and the way people comfort themselves for the loss of a loved one by saying that the soul is “with God now.” In brief: Souls go to heaven when they die. Heaven is good. Therefore, it is doing people a positive favor to get them into as sinless a state as possible (if necessary by inflicting severe physical torture until they see the rightness of whatever way you happen to selling), and then quickly kill them before they can relapse into a state of sin. That way they’re in physical pain for a little while, and then in heaven for all eternity. Conversely, if some people are so perverse that they refuse to repent even under torture, their souls clearly deserve to spend an eternity in hell after being tortured to death. After all, they could have picked heaven at any point.
Let’s not kid ourselves that belief in the soul makes a basically bad person into a good person, or vice versa.
Wow. Great thread(hugely relieved hadn’t seen my books). For me?
What I call MALE ROMANCES. Bridges of Madison County, Horse Whisperer, Cold Mountain, Benjamin Button etc. Story line= heroine looking for REAL MAN to make her REAL WOMAN. Studly hero(who seems to acutely resemble imaginary self-image of author) comes along to give heroine sex of her lifetime, ruining her for others, and then, when the inevitable consequences happen, he bolts. Even if he has to throw himself in front of insane horse, he beats town before he has to pay the piper. If I’d written Cold Mountain, that guy would have stayed around to plant real fence posts.
OUTLANDER(thank you, my peeps, for validating my feeling)—I’ve tried and tried. I just don’t like anything about it.
RAPE/ABUSE—I’m so tired of the, ‘but he has a good reason’ rationalization. His good reason better be a brain tumor, or he loses.Especially when it’s accompanied by abuse language (You deserve it. You’re worthless. You’re mine). In my town that alone would get you arrested. Authors rarely get a second chance with me after that.
ASSHAT HEROES/HEROINES: can you say, Wuthering Heights? Doomed love doesn’t mean torturing people. I think they both deserved to fall under that great Texas law, Deserved to Die.
TSTL-Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!!
And GONE WITH THE WIND. There were only two characters I liked in the whole book. Rhett and her father. Her father gets killed off right away. And Rhett has excreble taste in women.
Thanks. I feel better now.
Joining Becca in a negative reaction to a book that shows up on so many “Best-of-All-Time!!!” lists—Knight in Shining Armor. I loathed the limpness of the heroine (if one could call her that), and that one book crossed Devereaux off my author TBR list.
Later, what I read in this blog and others about the Twilight series, and particularly the heroine, convinced me to give it a wide berth.
OK, I feel validated. Couldn’t read more than a couple of pages of Stephanie Plum and she’s on book 14 or something. I LOVED Meljean Brooks book and want more, more of the series. Fascinating world building. Like the Psy-changling series but its can’t get tired now and the Angels are not doing for me. Absolutely could not get the Outlander series! And Lora Leigh is getting kinkier than I can stand. JR Ward doesn’t do a thing for me. Really like Shelly Laurenston’s Magnus pack series and LOVE the bear shifters. Maybe being from Texas the crazy Texas women appealed to me in the first few books. Also like her alter ego of G A Aiken and the dragon books. They don’t make any sense, not at all believable and I really love them—who knows why.
I really get the reasons your YUCK buttons were pushed. Adultery and rape are not romantic in my opinion. I have my own particular dislikes that spoil a romance for me.
One last point WHAT IS WRONG with MaryJanice Davidson? Her first books were kind of cute but the last 3 or 4 books are getting beyond weird, beyond strange.
I totally get why people hate virgin heroines in contemporaries, but I hate the hatred of over-25 virgins. We do exist, you know. And the loathing is actually quite offensive to those of us who are virgins later in life for reasons that are neither traumatic nor religious. OTOH, if it’s held up as either some kind of freakishness or some kind of ultimately-desirable quality (i’ve never seen either, nor have I ever seen a virgin heroine outside of Harlequins), that book would be a wall-banger. Why can’t the heroine be a virgin, but still want to have sex? Even casual sex? Why does it have to be A Thing? (For that matter, why can’t the hero be a virgin?)
(Maybe it’s my DAL of the Bridgertons speaking, but I never thought that the scene under discussion was a rape. I mean, I thought he consented to the sex. Maybe I misread it. I DO think it was deeply problematic, and definitely borderline, that she got him to … finish inside her. THAT I can see as rapey, though I remember it as kind of a grey area. Now I have to reexamine that scene when I get home.)
I feel totally evil for enjoying this thread so much.
This thread warms my heart. So many books/series mentioned that I absolutely hated. Outlander/LoS/Kinsale/Harrison/Dragonshit/Pink Carnation/Hamilton/…blerg. I’m not alone in being a proud hater. I’m laughing/smiling/nodding at the comments. Well done.
THE HELP really rubbed me the wrong way. It was an accurate depiction of sorority/country club culture, but the depiction of race and even gender was Disney-fied and superficial.
I think it’s possible for writers to tell other people’s stories well. But I don’t think Stockett managed to do that. Perhaps this is mostly because she glosses over the challenge.
I really wanted to like the book. I tried, but I just couldn’t.
Erin F. – “Is it weird that I now want to read every loved/hated book on this list? “
I’m with you. These descriptions are making me morbidly curious!
I have another series that makes my eye twitch. Feehan’s Carpathians.
I especially dislike the ” I can do no other than see to your safety” type language. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. No thanks.
@JB Hunt – With you on The Help. I actually really enjoyed this site http://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/ which takes the casual racism in the novel to pieces and then spits on the pieces and then….you get the idea. It’s good to get the vitriol out sometimes.
I must confess to loving Wuthering Heights, but not because it’s a romance. Dear God, no. As I tell my students, “It’s actually the ‘beautiful’ love story of two sociopaths who destroy the lives of everyone around them.” I just like it b/c it’s so marvelously symmetrical. Also, both Heathcliff and Cathy get what they deserve: painful death. Pity it takes so long for the former.
Someone mentioned Fern Michaels, above. Does anyone actually like her? I tried to read a FM book once. It was hands-down the worst book I’ve ever read. Ever.
I read a Fern Michaels book. Once.
The Heroine… Never. Stopped. Talking.
Evar.
Not a romance, but I hated The Help. Felt like I was a committing a hate crime with every page. The dialect was just the tip of the iceberg, the whole theme was, “Thank you, white angel, for coming to give us poor, simple black women a voice! We never would have found strength without your white, white, lily white courage!”
I’m loving this thread like crazy. It feels good to vent a bit, and it’s even fun to see why books you love rub others the wrong way. (I’m a huge the Iron Duke fan for instance).
@Erin F. and @Lew Totally with you on paleontholy/archaeology themed romances, once something is in your field, it’s so hard to not be bothered by incorrect or straight on crazy stuff.
@snarkhunter – I can’t remember the author or even the title, but there was this short story I read in the ‘90s – all the stories in the book were by the same author – where the hero was a virgin. The heroine was a widow who meets up with the hero, who she used to babysit as a teenager. He had been in love with her since childhood and saved himself for her. I didn’t care for it myself because he was so much younger than her and because I never got the feeling she even really loved him. However, I’m sure other women liked it. All I can really remember is as they’re having sex for the first time she thinks about how she now understands why men are so obsessed with virgins.
And I’m tired of people getting angry over contemporary virgins or just celibate women too. I don’t get why people seem to equate sleeping around with being strong. I think it’s just as strong for a woman to say “No thank you” to sex. To even admit she just doesn’t enjoy it. I never had. I like reading about it and stuff, but actually having it – lived without it for 11 years now, don’t miss it a bit. Don’t see why people think that I’m “not enjoying my youth” just because I don’t want to have one night stands and all that.
snarkhunter: Thank you! What you wrote about “Wuthering Heights” is exactly why I enjoyed the story as well. I hated how much Hollywood has “interpreted and ruined the core story”, but the Ralph Fiennes BBC version stays true to the dysfunction of the novel better then most.
Ooo, I need to add to my list from earlier. Made it only as far as book 3 of Dresden files then tossed in the towel. Nothing exciting and I felt like I was reading a male Anita Blake.
I am with everyone on ignoring the Bestseller lists. Most of the time it is riddled with crap.
Non-romance book people loved I hated: A Confederacy of Dunces. Could not get past page three.
Anyone in the LA area want to start a little “Everyone Else Loved It, But You Didn’t Like it at All” book club? Because all this convo is missing is a round of drinks and a comfy couch.
@JamiSings
It’s more of a problem of being done to death. It’s only very recently that virgin heroines stopped being the standard in romance, and there are plenty of romances that still fetishize female virginity. Because of that, any contemporary featuring a virgin heroine instantly gets the side-eye from me.