tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350052669699480502.post7474258370689194253..comments2024-03-27T12:54:20.598-07:00Comments on The Misadventures Of Super Librarian: #TBRChallenge 2018: Midlife CrisisWendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485867264936716806noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350052669699480502.post-63886573408354846102018-11-29T20:08:21.300-08:002018-11-29T20:08:21.300-08:00Thanks Dorine! I need to get moving on planning n...Thanks Dorine! I need to get moving on planning next year's TBR Challenge. November flew by in a flash!Wendyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12485867264936716806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350052669699480502.post-41286621179442105912018-11-28T11:23:48.000-08:002018-11-28T11:23:48.000-08:00Great review of a tough situation, Wendy. Even div...Great review of a tough situation, Wendy. Even divorce would have been much easier to deal with in this situation. I really hate it when there's a death and the wrongs can't be righted.<br /><br />I do like the cover - I would have been drawn to it as well.<br /><br />Speaking of covers - this month's challenge is my favorite. I choose so many books by their covers that I now have an immediate TBR based on what I found while looking for this month's book in my piles. I always do that, push books around to the front while looking for this month's challenge but this month was crazier than normal. LOL<br /><br />Thanks for keeping this rolling for us - I have read some great books this year trying to meet the deadlines. :)Dorinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02091485214243243002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350052669699480502.post-63419633867529902162018-11-22T19:56:11.261-08:002018-11-22T19:56:11.261-08:00Jill: There was a book a few years ago - right whe...Jill: There was a book a few years ago - right when the Put A Dog On The Cover craze started and everyone was going nuts over it "Oh, how cute!" etc. etc. And all I could see was how badly photoshopped the dog was. So bad the poor animal looked fake. And I never thought about animals like kids in romance but YOU ARE SO RIGHT! That's a perfect analogy.<br /><br />AL: That's what killed me on this book. If Cam had been bi? This could have been SO good. But the author makes a big hairy deal about reinforcing to the reader that he isn't bi - to the point where when secondary characters assume that he is (after finding out he was married to a woman for over 30 years...), he corrects them. Great. Yeah, being married to a woman who you clearly did not love past the friendship definition makes it somehow all better? No, no it does not. Ugh.<br /><br />The more I think about LaVerne not getting a HEA the more I want to smack someone, anyone, into next Tuesday. I know she's fictional, but damn I want to kidnap her and take her on a raunchy girl's trip to Vegas or...something.<br /><br />I remember really liking Butterfly Tattoo but I read it so long ago. It's the kind of book I'm scared to reread for fear it won't hold up to my fond memories.Wendyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12485867264936716806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350052669699480502.post-43059778286521316682018-11-22T03:47:28.124-08:002018-11-22T03:47:28.124-08:00Please forgive me, Wendy, as I indulge in a bit of...Please forgive me, Wendy, as I indulge in a bit of stream of consciousness. <br /><br />Had Cam been written as bi--and closeted over it, or not really aware of it until later in life, or (fill in the blank)--he could have very well loved LaVerne as she deserved, and still have motivation/conflict to set up his later romance with Dave. In fact, given how often bi people in real life get erased ("you are married/in love with (fill in blank), you can't be bi!" etc), I could see Cam dreading trying to explain to his adult kids that, yes, he had loved LaVerne, that they'd been happy despite her illness, etc.<br /><br />Which is, loosely, the set up for Deidre Knight's <em>Butterfly Tattoo,</em> which created a bit of an uproar in online romland when it was published in 2009--precisely because a lot of readers struggled to accept Michael's bisexuality. And in that one, the dead lover was male, the second chance at happiness female.<br /><br /><br />I think it's reflective of that bi erasure that so few authors present bi characters happy in both hetero and same sex relationships in this type of premise. mfm mênages are fairly common, usually with some heavy kink involved, but well adjusted bi characters are rare as hen's teeth.<br />aztecladyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14857872357667370906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350052669699480502.post-4673271346410049942018-11-21T18:12:38.668-08:002018-11-21T18:12:38.668-08:00Boo! I didn't even finish my book. Again. My...Boo! I didn't even finish my book. Again. My track record has been miserable this year. I picked a book with a poorly photoshopped dog on it and yeah, it was about what you think. <br /><br />I feel like the internet might come get me for this, but I'm not really a dog person. They're fine, but just like kids in a book, if they're in there, there had better be a point. This was a lot of people cooing over dogs and talking about how people who don't love dogs are terrible. So over it. . .<br />(I do like cats more than dogs although my current psycho cat may poison me against them. 😒)Jillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15364220221782320521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350052669699480502.post-35691447144910336442018-11-21T15:10:37.847-08:002018-11-21T15:10:37.847-08:00Lori: It's not like straight romances don'...Lori: It's not like straight romances don't have these issues (Evil Other Woman trope anyone?) - but yeah. I mean, it's 2018. I feel like we should be doing better with this as a genre.<br /><br />If you can completely overlook the LaVerne "stuff" - this really is very sweet in parts. But ugh. Seriously. How the Dead Wife stuff was written made me SO angry. I was so offended and horrified for her and she's NOT EVEN A REAL PERSON! It's a grave miscarriage of justice. Someone needs to resurrect LaVerne and give her a happy ending because I just can't. Honestly, I may have been generous with my C grade that's how outraged I am over LaVerne.Wendyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12485867264936716806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350052669699480502.post-89180599547844739752018-11-21T10:58:20.929-08:002018-11-21T10:58:20.929-08:00There were several reasons why I stopped reading m...There were several reasons why I stopped reading m/m years ago and the way the female characters were often treated was definitely high on the list. <br /><br />It's really too bad this book had this problem. I would love to read more romances with older characters, but the ones I've read have mostly been problematic in really frustrating ways or just not very well done. Sigh. Lorihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05851793803155368702noreply@blogger.com