What Not to Read

[sanalith]

For some reason, this has not been a very good year for me in terms of books. Oh, I’m reading as much as ever – sometimes I feel like I’m reading even more than usual – but the quality of the books I’ve chosen have…not been the best. I’ll take full blame for one of them, as I knew going into it that there was a very large possibility I would dislike it, and I’ll take at least partial responsibility for another. As for the rest…to quote a character from one of my favorite novels, “I am most seriously displeased.”


What follows are the top worst five books I've read this year. They include a lack of plot, a bad plot, horrible editing, a romance book that was not even slightly romantic, and...Twilight.

5.) Plot, What Plot?

These three letters – PWP – often have the ability to send fangirls into a hormonal squee-fest, because they generally refer to stories that are filled with porn and little (or no) plot at all. In this case, however, Plot, What Plot? was not nearly so enjoyable.

The Fire Rose, by Mercedes Lackey, was a huge disappointment. This was a somewhat modern re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, and as we all know, one has to do a *very* good job to make me dislike any version of this fairytale. I mean, you practically have to work at it. The first half of the book I truly enjoyed. I loved Rosalind (Beauty) and Jason Cameron (the Beast). It takes place in the early 20^th Century, where Rose was the daughter of a wealthy family and went to school to learn classical languages and history. Following her father’s death and loss of fortune, she accepts a post as a governess with a remote railroad baron near San Francisco. This turns out to be Cameron, an alchemist, who accidentally transformed himself into a half-wolf when one of his experiments went awry. He needs Rose’s knowledge of ancient languages to translate old manuscripts, which might have clues toward undoing the spell. The dynamic between the two is very real and believable, and Rose herself is a strong, independent woman who prides herself on being well-read and, quite frankly, smarter than most of the men she knows.

Such is the first half of the book, which focuses mainly on character development. I was a little surprised at the lack of action, but I enjoyed the characters so much that I didn’t mind so much. Once I reached the second half, I could tell things were building up a little. The antagonists were making more appearances, Rose was going out more (thus putting herself in the way of danger) and I figured now the action would start.

Not. So. Much.

Rose’s first attempted abduction by The Bad Guys didn’t even succeed in getting her off the manor property.  She cleverly outwitted the second. And as for the third…the so-called climax of the story…it just didn’t even happen. The final fight was no fight at all, and in the end, absolutely nothing was resolved. It wasn’t even a cliffhanger. It ended happily ever after…but with nothing actually changing. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything so anti-climactic in my life. It seriously felt like Lackey had a page limit or something, realized she had 20 pages to end things, and just threw in some random text. She gets a solid A for her two main characters, but an F for plot.

4.) Plot, Bad Plot!

Cathy Maxwell’s Temptation of a Proper Governess, a regency romance, had almost the opposite effect as The Fire Rose. First off, let me assure you that I do not read such books expecting an amazingly intricate plot or solid four-dimensional characters. Sometimes a nice, easy bit of smut is nice. What I do expect is for any plot that slides its way into the story to be well-developed, believable, and, at the very least, enjoyable. Unfortunately, this book failed to deliver. Isabel, the main character, is a proper and respectable governess for a very improper young lady, whose parents are eager to marry off to a rich husband. Unfortunately, while saving her charge from being caught in another man’s bed, she herself is compromised and fired. Michael, the man who accidentally ruined her virtue, offers to marry her in order to salvage her reputation. Nothing new so far, of course, and I have the feeling that if Maxwell had spent more time developing their relationship like *good* romances do, it would have been a decent sort of book. Unfortunately, she had to attempt a mystery. Michael happens to be returning to England for the first time in 10 years, after having been accused of murdering his mistress. Unfortunately, the clues were so obvious that I’d solved the whole crime within the first quarter of the book, and since the rest focused more on this than anything else, I found myself extremely bored.

The moral ofthis story, people, is if you’re going to write a plot, make it a good one. Otherwise, just stick to the porn! (Which, I might add, being a regency, was almost non-existent, so I went without both porn AND plot!)

3.) Suspending Disbelief

In this case, dear readers, I must admit to some responsibility for my review. For books #5, #4 and #2, I feel I was rather deceived by the authors and the plot summaries. I knew going into this one that there was a good chance I wouldn’t enjoy it, but I read it anyway.

The Elusive Empress by Ann Nibbs is probably the most literal definition of historical fiction I’ve ever seen. By now, most of you know of my obsession with Empress Elisabeth of Austria. This book was a fictional account of her life, told from the first-person perspective of various members of her friends and family – her sister Helene, her maid Ida, her daughter Marie Valerie, and her husband’s “friend” Katharina. Quite frankly, I bought it because it was on the cheap side, and I want to read everything I can get my hands on (in English) on Elisabeth. I expected at least some inconsistencies, and Nibbs never once attempted to portray the novel as anything other than fiction, so I can’t exactly blame her. I know that part of my dislike came from my own inability to deal with these inconsistencies, especially when whoever the narrator was at the time was placed in a situation which never could have happened in real life, but had to be there in order to tell the story. I actually think Nibbs would have been better off having Elisabeth or Franz Joseph narrate. At the end of the day, the only defense I can offer is that the book was honestly just plan bad. I have a very high standard for first-person writing, and this came nowhere near it. I know she was attempting to use the style to bind us to the characters and their emotions, but so often I felt like she was giving them emotions they truly never could have had, or at least never hinted at it through their actions. Plus – and it’s rather a small thing and perhaps not the author’s fault – the editing was absolutely atrocious. I lost count of the typos and punctuation errors less than halfway through the book. And of course, every time I saw one, I got distracted, and that made enjoying the book even more difficult.

In the end, I suppose I only got what I deserved, but…I’ll admit I had been hoping for more.

 

2.) Rape =/= Romance

As bad as having a less-than-enjoyable plot is, having horrible characters is even worse. I’ve always said that, at the end of the day, I will forgive bad writing if I truly and deeply care for the characters. I have a much harder time dealing with the opposite, and The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss is the “best” example I’ve had of that in a while.

The real tragedy is that this is the third book by Woodiwiss I’ve read, and she is truly a good author. She writes sweeping historical romances with rich detail, and if she doesn’t have a whole ton of action going on, well, she writes a good romance and that’s the whole point. I very much enjoyed the characters in her other two novels, but this…I just couldn’t deal with.

I won’t go into much detail, but the basic point is that her main characters were horrible. The main female, Heather, was a wishy-washy mouse, and the male, Brandon, was a brute. Within the first 100 pages, Heather gets mistaken for a prostitute and is de-flowered by Brandon on his ship, docked in London. (To be frank, he basically rapes her, because she does say “no,” but due to extenuating circumstances, she didn’t resist as much as she could have, and I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt here.) HOWEVER, in the course of the next day, he has sex with her twice more, and this time it’s definitely rape. When he finds out she’s not a prostitute, he shows remorse for about two paragraphs, but only because he pictures some wealthy earl dragging him off to the gallows for spoiling his daughter’s virtue. When Heather admits she has no one to protect her, the regret vanishes and he informs her how much she’ll like being his mistress, and how she might refuse him now, but someday she’ll be begging for it.

Heather manages to escape the ship, but when she finds out she’s pregnant, she and Brandon are forced to marry. He promises to make her life a living hell for taking away his freedom, and for a while she lives in fear of his retribution. He never once apologizes or acknowledges that he’s more to blame than she is for the whole predicament. AND DESPITE THIS MISTREATMENT SHE FALLS IN LOVE WITH HIM!!! About three-quarters of the way through the book, Brandon informs her that they’re going to have sex, whether she’s willing or not, and he has an internal monologue where he basically shows his sadness that he’s going to have to rape her AGAIN, but is going to shoulder the burden and do it anyway. Instead, she welcomes him with open arms.

This is not even close to Stockholm Syndrome. I don’t even know what to call it. All I know is I hated it.

 

1.) Do I Dazzle You?

That’s right, kids. I did it. I held off for as long as I could, but in the end, the pressure was too great. I read Twilight.

Before I continue, I’d like to explain a few things. Despite my better judgment, I picked up the book for three basic reasons:

1.) I wanted to see what all the hype was about, and quite frankly, with the whole stir the movies was causing, I buckled under the pressure.
 

2.) After the whole debacle with Harry Potter and people criticizing it without even bothering to read the book, I felt it was my duty to do my homework. If I was going to mock it, I wanted to mock it well.


3.) Despite the bad press, some of my good friends really do enjoy these books, and I wanted to see if there was any merit to it. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Disclaimer: Since it’s in this category, you pretty much know that what follows is not a positive review, and I know there are some hard-core Twilight fans on my f-list. If you choose to read it, please don’t hate me!!! I just…I didn’t like it. No.

To be frank, the first part of the book didn’t bother me overly much. Sure, Bella is as close to a canon Mary Sue as can exist, Stephanie Mayer is not the best writer on the planet, and the plot wasn’t an edge-of-your-seat thriller, but it wasn’t horrible. I even got a small kick out of the Beauty and the Beast references. I smirked at the Vampire Baseball, the “Do I dazzle you?” lines and the sparkling in the sunlight, and, if nothing else, the writing style made it a fast read, so it’s not like I was suffering for long. I didn’t connect much with the characters, though I must put in a kind word for Alice, but I didn’t get the whole “OMG HORRIBLE!” vibe that I was expecting. At worst, I considered it an average book with a mediocre plot and unremarkable characters.

What really ended up making me dislike the book so much was the “romance” between Cedric Edward and Bella.

Something I always try to do, especially when it comes to controversial books, is to judge the book based on its intended audience. Harry Potter gave me VERY good practice with this – the happily-ever-after epilogue doesn’t seem quite so horrible when read with the frame of mind of a child – and I made a real effort to do the same thing here. As this was marketed toward young teenage girls, I tried to think like one.

All I came up with was that I didn’t want a daughter of mine NEAR this book until she’d had at least one good, solid relationship with a nice boy, because no way in HELL was she looking at this as an ideal romance.

It’s not healthy. I’m sorry, but I can’t be any less blunt. The fact that Bella goes into hysterics every time Edward even mentions leaving is horrible. The fact that she is eager to sign away her mortality for a boy she’s known for less than a year is practically masochistic. I’m all about “Tru Wove” and instantaneous connections, but this is ridiculous! It’s an unhealthy, lopsided relationship that basically places Bella in a horribly submissive position, and she comes right out and says she could never survive if Edward left her. And then, of course, there’s Edward himself. Bella is supposedly his One True Mate, his “personal brand of heroine,” and he oh so nobly tries to separate himself from her in order to keep her safe…and then decides, “Screw it!” I have no doubt he loves her in his own way, but he MUST see what he is doing is wrong.

I had originally intended to read through the whole series, but now I’m not sure if it’s worth it. For a so-called romance, all I see is the pain and suffering. Plus, vampires scare the crap out of me, despite my fascination with them. As cheesy as the book was, there was still enough biting and ripping and killing that I was sometimes not a happy panda. (Yes, laugh if you want, but if it would scare a five-year-old, chances are it’s going to scare me! I admit it!)

I also subjected myself to bits and pieces of the movie. Not only was Cedward less than amazing, and Bella even more pale than the vamps, but the acting was even worse than I imagined. I did, however, fall absolutely in love with Carlisle, despite the fact that I generally dislike hot blond men. He was just *that* perfect.

(x-posted to livejournal)