Seriously Serious Readers

As evident in my last whiny rambling post, my brain is a bit scattered at the moment.  So while I've never admitted to being the brightest crayon in the box, I'm a little slower on the uptake than usual these days.  But no matter how I read it, this post over at All About Romance today is so full of wrong that it boggles my mind.  Let's begin by addressing the sentence that set Wendy off.

"I have moved past the Harlequin love and I am mystified by serious readers who haven’t."

What follows is some back-pedaling, but at that point I was so annoyed we had reached the point of no return.  Now if you're a "serious reader" of this blog, you'll probably think it was the category romance slam that pissed me off.  Which, it did.  But what really got my goat was the "serious reader" jab.

Here's my problem with a phrase like that one - it has no meaning.  It's nonsense.  What the feck is a "serious reader" anyway?  Is it a person who reads 100 books a year?  Is it the person who only reads science fiction because we all know that's the "smart genre?"  Is it a person who only reads 3 books a year but they're all Super Serious Literary Tomes That Clock In At 800 Pages?  Is it the person who reads a book with an eye towards dissection and analysis?  Is it the person who only reads books that get glowing reviews in the New York Times Book Review?  Is it the person who only reads non-fiction?

The answer?

THERE IS NO ANSWER!  (And if there were an answer I'm pretty sure my library science professors would have crammed it down my throat ad nauseam).

Look, I get that not everyone is going to love everything.  Truly.  But the gist of this blog post seems to be Stop Bashing The Trilogy That Shall Not Be Named But If It's A Small Town Romance Or Category Romance It's OK To Say It Sucks Eggs.  Um, yeah.  No.  That doesn't really work for me.  It would be like me saying that all of you who like paranormal romances aren't "serious readers."  Which leads me to a phrase I use a lot, especially with librarians: 

Just Because You Don't Like It Doesn't Mean It's Automatically Wrong.

Shocking, I know.

Granted, I'm willing to concede that my love of the category format has made me more than a wee bit defensive over the years.  I've largely gotten to the point where most of the time it rolls off my back.  But this blog post commits the one cardinal sin that I'm unlikely ever to "get over."  That practice by some romance readers, people who claim to love the genre, slamming the format.  Seriously, don't we get enough of that bullshit (yeah, I just said that) from people who don't read the genre?  Do we really have to keep going there?

Here's the thing, category romance isn't going to be for everybody.  There's never one thing that's for everybody.  It goes against everything we know about human nature.  However that doesn't mean anyone should be completely incapable of understanding the appeal of the format.

I read romance because I'm a Character Ho.  Actually I read period because I'm a Character Ho.  What category romance gives me, as a reader, is a very intense focus on the romance and the characters.  When it's done right, it's magic.  It's also not one size fits all.  I've read category romances that are light, fluffy, cotton-candy confections.  The kind of books that entertain you while you're reading them, but an hour later you can barely recall what you read.  I've read category romances that are so angst-ridden and emotional that I'm exhausted by the end.  I've read category romances so awful that they have questioned my faith in humanity.  I've read category romances so good that they literally haunt me for days.

And you know what?  You can say things like that about all books.  Not just romance and not just category romance.

I love category romances and think everybody else should love them too.  Realistically though, I know that's just not possible.  But I do expect readers in the community to respect each others choices.  I haven't read That Trilogy That Shall Not Be Named, and it's very likely I never will.  But you don't see me going around telling people online (or people who ask about the books at work) that they're obviously not "serious readers" because they liked them.  So please for the love of all that is holy don't make statements like this one:

What gives anyone the right to judge a reader for a book she likes?  I am sick of the vicious remarks I’ve read on Twitter, but the casual swipes are also getting to me. 

and then turn around and write this:

I have moved past the Harlequin love and I am mystified by serious readers who haven’t.  

It just makes you look stupid.

99 Librarian Problems

OK, only seven.

1. RWA Logistics.  I'm presenting at Librarians Day again this year.  Since it's local, I'm commuting.  Oh, and I'm taking the leftover books from the Literacy Signing and have to get them out of the convention center and back to my library.

2.  Weddings.  Seriously, it's the year of the wedding.  College friend getting married in northern Cali in August.  Another college friend getting married in October - in New York.  Which means we're rolling that into a visit with the in-laws.  A week, in the woods.  With no cable TV and only my smartphone binky to keep me warm.  Maybe I'll get lots of reading done though.....

3.  Oh, and I need to visit my family in Michigan.  Sometime.

4.  Work is crazy-sauce busy right now.  Summer reading, planning an author program in July, ordering books again now that the new fiscal year has started, signing on to help plan our Big Literary Event again, planning a meeting for the adult services librarians in August, and general paperwork drudgery that never seems to end.

5.  Review books.  Seriously, buried.  And because of #4?  My reading mojo has left the building.

6.  I need a haircut.  I need to make an appointment with my eye doctor.  I have no idea when I'm going to do either of these.

7.  I've been asked to contribute some writing to a Supah Sekrit Project (OK, it's not super secret - I just don't want to talk about it yet in detail).  Deadline is middle of August.  Someone hold me.

 Whine, whine, whine.  Poor, poor Wendy.  So many "problems."  /end sarcasm.

Suck it up cupcake, and just listen to Dori.

Review: My Fair Concubine

My Fair Concubine by Jeannie Lin is the author's take on the Pygmalion trope.  Basically My Fair Lady set in 9th century China.  I tend to love this theme because, when done well, it says a lot about identity, appearances, and how people perceive both.  Also, the nature of this theme tends to mean a lot of forced proximity for the romantic couple.  After all, one character has to tutor the other in the ways of polite society.

Chang Fei Long is not in a good situation.  His sister, Pearl, has run away from home in the name of "true love."  Which would be all well and good, except the romantic ninny was supposed to be a heqin bride.  As a "princess," a betrothal was arranged for a "peace marriage."  It was a diplomatic practice not unlike Queen Victoria marrying off her children and grandchildren all over Europe.  Pearl running away is a disaster, because with his father's death, Fei Long has inherited a mess.  His house is swimming under a sea of debt, and "losing face" within the diplomatic community would spell certain doom.  Normally not one to take risks, with his back pushed against the wall, that's exactly what he does. 

Yan Ling is a nobody.  Having been left there as an infant, she knows nothing but the lowly tea house where she lives and works.  She's a servant.  Her job is to not be seen.  However something pushes her over the edge the day Fei Long enters the tea room, and the unthinkable happens - he notices her.  Then he spins her the most fantastical tale about "princesses" and "peace marriages" and he thinks he can tutor her in the ways of high society in two months (!).  While the task is daunting, and she thinks he may be a little nuts, Yan is also a terribly practical girl.  Gee, spend the rest of her days toiling in the tea house for masters who barely tolerate her, or go to a faraway land to live the life of a pampered princess?  Yeah, not a tough choice - that is, until all those tutoring sessions with Fei Long blossom into romantic feelings.

This is an interesting departure of Lin, because although she's still working within the Tang Dynasty time period, the bulk of this story is set in the capital city of Changan.  So readers get a glimpse of all the things such a city would have to offer - which includes the markets, entertainment district and a seedy underworld.  It's a feast for the senses for a girl like Yan who has never gone anywhere or done anything outside of the narrow scope of the lowly tea house.

Fei Long is all about honor and propriety.  Anything that would bring dishonor to the family name would be unthinkable, and would result in nothing but disaster.  His father has left a mountain of debts he must deal with, but he must do so very carefully in order not to "lose face."  Also, he needs this deception with Yan to go well.  Because having "Pearl" pull out of this arranged marriage?  Not a possibility.  At all.  Which means even though he's developing feelings for Yan, he mustn't admit them to anyone - including himself.

This story is a bit of a slow mover, basically because of the nature of the conflict.  Fei Long is a very bottled-up man, from an emotional stand-point.  His entire would is about appearances, honor, and respect.  He's a man who has a lot of burdens, a lot riding on his shoulders.  I wouldn't go so far as to label him as repressed, but he's not a terribly demonstrative fellow.  So while he's tutoring Yan, he's also holding himself back from her.

Readers need to understand that, and get past the first half the book.  There's not a lot of "action" during these chapters to keep one glued to the pages.  The meat and potatoes of this story is all in the second half.  When both characters realize that they have these feelings, and the emotional angst starts spilling out on to the page.  There are some amazingly tender, heart-felt, and downright torturous emotional moments with the couple realizing that they may feel the way they feel but it doesn't change their reality.  It was these moments of emotional truth that made this book for me.  Yes it starts out deliberate, even a bit slow, but the payoff is worth it.

Final Grade = B-

TBR Challenge 2012: Anger Management

The Book: High Country Bride by Jillian Hart

The Particulars: Inspirational historical western romance, Love Inspired Historical, 2008, Out of Print, Available Digitally, Book two in connected duet.

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  I picked this one up at RWA 2008 (uh, San Francisco?).  Plus, I tend to like Jillian Hart's books.

The Review:  Joanna Nelson's life has been one big trial after another.  After her no-good drunken husband dies, she takes her two small children to live with her father.  He's not much of a prize either, and when he takes sick, Joanna writes her half-brother begging for help.  Now their father is dead, and Joanna is hoping that Lee can hold off the banker and debt collectors with the same ease Daddy did.  She's in for a shock though when Lee declares that he had no intention of keeping the farm and has sold it back to the bank.  Oh, and by the way, she and her two kids need to get the hell out before nightfall.

Aidan McKaslin finds Joanna Nelson and her two small children living out of a wagon, and squatting on his land.  He can't very well leave them there, and the idea that this woman has, literally, no place to go and no one to help ease her burden turns his stomach.  He offers her the use of an old shanty cabin he has on his land, just for the night of course.  Until she can decide what she's going to do.

What I tend to love about Hart's historicals is that she really slathers on the angst, but still manages to make it feel authentic.  In other words, not over the top.  Yes, Joanna has had a hard life, but nothing that befalls her is so extraordinary that it couldn't have happened to women living in the 19th century.  She's been at the mercy of useless men her whole life, and while Aidan does scare her, at first, she quickly realizes that he's not just any man.  He's the man.  However, as much as she's starting to care for him, she knows that he is unable to return her feelings.  He's already buried the love of his life, along with their infant son.  While his faith is still strong, he fears his heart is dead.

The emotional turmoil in this story is really gut-wrenching.  Joanna has gumption, and is the sort of woman who would go to hell and back if it meant providing stability for her kids.  Aidan is a man who was so desperately in love with his late wife, that her death literally shattered him.  It's an amazing amount of internal baggage in this story, and the author makes her characters walk over miles of broken glass while lugging it around.

Unfortunately the longer the story goes on, that baggage gets heavier.  It also begins to wear on the reader how exorbitantly tolerant Joanna is.  Aidan isn't outright cruel.  He doesn't beat her.  He doesn't abuse her.  But his belief that he simply cannot love her and her refusal to confront him on his bullshit began to make me very angry.  Joanna feels it's her fault for making Aidan relive his pain.  Joanna thinks that if she lessens his burden, if she waits him out, if she's patient, he'll come around.  In the meantime he avoids her and avoids her children - both of whom worship him.

I wanted her angry.  I wanted her so angry that she'd damn God to hell, get in Aidan's face, and tell him what a moron he was being.  I wanted a confrontation.  Instead we get Aidan wandering off to contemplate if Joanna and the kids coming into his life were all part of "God's plan."  Ok, fine.  That might be all well and good - but would it have killed God to let Joanna find a little backbone and rip Aidan a new one in the process?

This is a hard book for me to wrap up into a final grade.  It starts off like gang-busters, and I loved the angst.  But the lack of a real confrontation at the end, plus the fact that I got a little bored with hearing how awesome of a cook Joanna was, started to wear on me.  There's also the small matter of there not being a love scene in this book.  Yes, I'm well aware this is an inspirational.  I also do not need sex scenes in my romances.  But in this one?  I do.  Why?  Because Aidan's complete unwillingness to let go of the past for pretty much the WHOLE book makes it hard for me to believe that finally, in the last chapter, he's suddenly willing too.  That after, for the WHOLE book, he's held fast with his I'll-Never-Love-Again idiocy, suddenly in the last chapter he admits his feelings and I'm supposed to believe everything will be just dandy?  A love scene, even a vaguely-drawn G-rated one, would have gone a long way in showing that Aidan is ready to move on, be the husband and father that Joanna and the kids deserve.

So yeah, I got angry.  I got angry that Joanna didn't get angry.  But, I'll be honest, this book sucked me in to the point where I read it in a day.  And considering I DNF'ed one book, and chucked aside two others, before settling on this one?  As angry as I was, we're not talking anywhere near hate.

Final Grade = C+

Review: The Rebel Rancher

I tend to be the sort of reader that picks apart plots and characters.  "I was liking the hero until he did that and now the shine is off," or "Why did the author include that plot device about the drug smugglers?  It was totally unnecessary and detracted from the romance."  Then there are books where everything is perfect, for that particular story.  Where even if the author makes a choice that might annoy you, personally - you recognize that it's the "right thing to do" for that book.  That's how The Rebel Rancher by Donna Alward was for me.  The second book in a connected duet about cowboy cousins raised as brothers is really breathtaking in a lot of ways.  It's honest.  It's heart-felt.  And even if the author does make a choice during the latter half that normally drives me bonkers, it totally works.

Tyson "Ty" Diamond was adopted by his aunt and uncle after his junkie mother abandoned him on their doorstep.  Even though they raised him like their son, loved him, Ty and Uncle Virgil had a tendency to butt heads.  So Ty took off for the rodeo circuit and the estrangement has been hanging over the family ranch, Diamondback, ever since.  Ty doesn't know how to bridge the gap, and then his cousin (see The Last Real Cowboy) calls him home after Virgil has a stroke.

Clara Ferguson is Virgil's home nurse, and also the first resident of Butterfly House (again, see The Last Real Cowboy), a home that helps women leaving abusive relationships to get back on their feet.  Jackson did a real number on her, and two years later Clara is still picking up the pieces.  She's making strides, and then in waltzes Ty - who scares the hell out of her.  He's sexy.  He's charming.  He's the consummate flirt.  In other words, he's Trouble with a capital T.  But she can't seem to stay away from him, and in turn, Ty cannot stay away from her. 

What I loved about this book was the honesty of it.  Ty is an actor.  A guy hiding behind a playboy facade because it's easier than showing anyone, or dealing with, his pain.  Clara is still gun-shy, for good reason, and is working towards a life where she isn't afraid all the time.  While she knows she should stay away from Ty, she can't - and in turn he's drawn to Clara because she sees everything.  She takes one look at him and knows, deep down, he's not the man that he wants everyone to think he is.  He's kind, gentle, and in a lot of ways he's still that scared little boy whose mother dumped him off on her brother.  These two are so perfect for each other it's hard to think of one without the other.

Every choice the author makes in this story is just right.  There's sweetness mixed with sadness.  There's grief mixed with the joy.  Even a plot device that shows up during the later chapters, one that normally annoys the heck out of me (start spoiler/ One Night Of Passion And Whoopsie!  I'm Preggers! /end spoiler) totally works here.  Yes, it's there to get the characters to finally admit their feelings - but without it?  These two would have left things unsaid.  That's just the type of people they are.  Not stubborn so much as wounded and wanting to do what they think is the right thing.

Those final moments of the story where the characters have to admit to each other how they truly feel could have been a bit more drawn out for me, but that's most likely just me being selfish.  This was a really great story, emotionally charged with just the right amount of angst without being overblown.  It's a romance about two scared people who become less scared after finding each other.  It's a romance about a couple that fits, perfectly.  It's not possible to think of one of them without the other.  For that reason, I'm glad they found each other, and I'm glad they both stopped being scared.

Final Grade = A-

The Month That Was May 2012

::crickets chirping::

::dead silence::

Me: ::clearing throat:: ahem!

Lemon Drop:  Oh, hi Auntie Wendy!  You took so long to get here that I decided to relax with one of my favorite books.

Me: Yes, I know.  Auntie Wendy running late again.  You should be used to this by now kiddo.  Can you pull yourself away from your book long enough to hear about what I read last month?

Lemon Drop: Oh sure, I see how it is.  Keep a girl waiting and then it's all about you.  Well....what about me!  And my devoted following!

Me:  Oh brother!  I'm not touching that right now.  Let's talk about the measly five books I read last month instead.

Clicking on title links will take you to full reviews.

Naked Angel by Logan Belle - Contemporary erotica, Kensington, 2012, book three in trilogy - Grade = B-

• The final chapter in an erotica trilogy about a law student turned burlesque performer.  A fun conclusion to a soapy saga.

The Homesteader's Sweetheart by Lacy Williams - Inspirational historical romance, Love Inspired Historical, 2012 - Grade = B-

• A gentle western romance that doesn't beat readers over the head with The God Stick.  Banker's daughter heroine falls for a homesteader with an ailing daughter and 7 (yes, 7!) adopted sons.  Harlequin Cheat Sheet: Beta Hero, Social Climbing Parents, One Vile Would-Be Fiance, Finishing School Heroine, One Burnt-Up Kitchen, A Horde Of Kidlets

When She Wasn't Looking by HelenKay Dimon - Romantic suspense, Harlequin Intrigue, 2012 - Grade = B+

• A fast-paced read that had me staying up past my bed-time.  Heroine with a past learns her time is up when the deputy sheriff hero comes knocking on her door and hired goons start shooting at them.  Harlequin Cheat Sheet: Former Big City Cop Hero, Heroine On The Run, Hired Goons.

The Forever Instinct by Barbara Delinsky - Contemporary romance, Harlequin Temptation, 1985 - Grade = C+

• Take that grade with a big grain of salt - it mostly reflects the fact that the story is now "dated."  Divorced business-woman heroine finds herself falling in love with a former NFL quarterback, her ex-husband's former professional rival.  Yes, dated - but a wonderful time capsule that reflects many hallmarks of the second wave of the feminist movement.  Read it as social history.  Harlequin Cheat Sheet: Athlete Hero, Busy Business-Lady Heroine. One Selfish Jerkface Ex, Rivals!, One Totally '80s Over The Top Plot Device (you'll have to read it to find out!).

Jackson Rule by Dinah McCall - Contemporary romance, Harper, 1996 - Grade = D+ 

• Hunky ex-con hero finds work and love with the heroine, who owns her own landscaping company.  A fan-favorite that didn't work for me.  I found everything about this "contemporary" totally unrealistic and the hero was too much of a Care Bear for me to buy him as an hardened ex-con.  

Me: And that's it.  I'm sorry to have kept you and your "devoted followers" waiting.


Lemon Drop: While "devoted followers" has a certain ring, I thinking maybe "fan club" might be better. 

Me: ::dead pan:: Next you're going to tell me you want minions. 

Lemon Drop:  That's a great idea!  That's exactly what I need - minions!  If I had minions then Mommy would have no choice but to cater to my every whim!  Mwahahahahahaha! 

Me:  You, little girl, are scary.

Reminder: TBR Challenge For June

For those of you participating in the 2012 TBR Challenge, a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, June 20. 

The theme this month is Western (Contemporary or Historical).  Yes, I know.  This is what happens when Wendy hosts the TBR Challenge; its a guarantee that there will be a western theme one month.

Remember, the themes are completely and totally optional (although I personally think the world would be a better place if more people read western settings).  If you don't like westerns (::shudder::) or don't have any in your TBR (::double shudder::), just randomly pick something from the pile and dig in.  The themes aren't important - reading something that's been lying around neglected is the real goal.

And hey, and it's only June!  It's not too late to sign-up for the challenge and join in on the fun.   If you're interested, or just want to be a snoop, please check out the TBR Challenge 2012 information page.