This is why I love romance novels. No one has to die of cancer, or lose a leg, or a child or a dog, or be burn to a crisp or OD. No one.
Say it with me, people: "And they all lived HAPPILY EVER AFTER."
I was reading the very beautifully wrought story. It's a fantastic book, done in diary form, and has a lovely, lovely, thread of a romance subplot that developes slowly. In fact, the romance doesn't pick up steam till about half way through the book, but in the meantime there are marriages, deaths, births and a whole slew of other things going on over a twenty year period (early 1800s) as the heroine comes of age. I'm loving this book badly, can barely put it down. *sigh* And when the H/h finally get together there's a hitch in my breath as I read. But there's also a growing weight on my chest....
So I peek at the last page.
WTF?!?!
I've put the book back on the shelf. I'll finish it some other day, when I've calmed down.
I am now reading this book: Perfume. Someone will die in this book. I know that. There is a romance that will end badly. I know that. No surprises. No feelings of betrayal. No blind rage.
No wtf.
**update/correction: oops. there is no romance in Perfume. wtf. heh
16 comments:
This is why I can't read them...and won't. I hate it when a book ends that way, even if I can't come up with an alternate ending.
Un-frickin'-believable. Honestly, this is why I read genre fiction. I need to know I'm going to get satisfaction at the end, not this "life is depressing and then we die" crap.
I once read a book where the heroine dies in the epilogue! WTF?!?
Ladies, I am still grinding my teeth. I cannot tell you how lovely and well done the emotional development and sexual tension was. Even though you the reader understood what the h didn't--that she was falling in love with H and didn't hate him at all-- you could clearly see why she believed what she did. It didn't feel contrived. And while she read his actions/words one way, you as the reader could see his growing admiration for her. Oh! My heart is breaking! Yes, I'm being melodramatic! But this is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I was totally captivated! And the setting was wonderously done. But I just knew when I was barely half-way through the book and the H/h got married and had this AMAZING wedding night, that something was just WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! There was half a book left to fill.
WHY DID THE AUTHOR DO THAT!!! It's the first time I've ever felt like throwing a book across the room. How Dare She Make Me Care for these two and NOT give them a HEA!!!! ::Clasping head in head in hands::
This happpened to me with another book: Across the Nightingale Floor. A lovely, lovely book. Think Crounching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There's a lovely heartbreaking star crossed pair of lovers in the secondary romance. WTF!!!! That f*cking book is also half finished and sitting back on my tbr shelf. Months later.
I seriously have a huge headache now. See I refrained from posting last night when this happened because I didn't want to come across like a raving lunatic. lol. I'm PMSing, and emotional, and haven't had a book hit me in the right way for months. I'll be back to normal by friday. :-P But that book will still be on the shelf.
Why do those literary fiction books always end in Death?
The answer is Author Anger. They wanna kill up some sum'bitches. All those novel characters are people the authors know personally. It's true!
That oh-so-sweet skinny heifer shagging that fine man is gonna die a painful, hideous and disfiguring death. It's the way it's gotta be.
The best friend with the heart of gold? Kill the sorry wench.
The man, stick a knife in his heart.
Let him bleed out writhing like a half crushed cockroach.
Litfic authors are evil incarnate. I don't think they can help it.
I'm sending you my weekend story. Althought the amle harem didn't happen, I promise it has a HEA. :)
Actually, Perfume does not have a love story, unless it's about Grenouille's love affair with scents, heh. It does deserve props for some of the most inventive deaths and possibly the most inventive motive for kiiling that I've ever read.
Many authors use death as a tool for realism. "See! My Fiction is Realistic, because behold, nice people die for no good reason just like in real life!" The irony is that the vast numbers of lovable protagonists dying off becomes its own cliche. I don't mind people dying in novels, I don't mind reading books that have deeply unhappy endings, but I DO hate it when authors kill someone off only to manipulate my emotions.
I need the HEA. I need to go into the book knowing that these two will be together at the end, no matter what they go through to get there. I don't mind secondary's going (or villian's) but don't touch my H/h. *sniff*
LOL, Monica! You may have a point there. I have TFC (Toxic F*cking Coworker) who I have *unfortunate victim* plans for any future horror mss I write.
You're right, Candy, there isn't a love story in Perfume --there were some key phrases in the back blurb that gave me the initial impression there was.
To be honest, I don't *need* and HEA, but every once and awhile the bad shit just keeps a comin style of writing just pisses me off. There's no point to it, in terms of the story, character growth. But you may have a point there about manipulation. These are the only two books that have caused this reaction in me.
Hey, Kat! ::waving::
Great job, I like this site, it makes me feel warm and .....uh oh I better stop there. Really, Romance is a very solid form of aphrodisiac for me. Now I will go take a cold shower and come back to read The Drudge Report so I can sleep. :)
Grr. Just, grr. I HATE unhappy endings. I don't care if they might be realistic in some way. I want Hollywood endings! :)
I require a HEA, LOL. I want that Hollywood ending!!!
Don't kill me but serves you right for peeking. *gg*
Monica I made A MAN a horrible bad character who gets dumped and looses half his assets in one WIP--God bless community property states.
Honestly I don't think I've ever read a book with an unhappy ending, though I have seen movies that left me tearing my hair out, so what book was it?
I know what you're saying Alison (although I suspect your tongue is firmly in cheek) but these novels that protray the protagonist's lives as ones of unrelenting drugery, catastrophe, disease, abuse and heartbreak, are just as *unrealistic* as anything you can find in a romance novel.
There's a love story in Perfume. He finds the perfect woman by scent, waits for her, watches her, thinks of her every moment of the day as the epitome of perfection and everything he desires.
Then he kills her and wears her.
It's love. Of a sort. I guess. Not much of a HEA though.
Now you know why I also hate most of the movies in Hollywood these days. I just don't get the whole bittersweet ending thing.
If I wanted a reflection of "real" life, I'd go call some of my family members or neighbors and listen to all the wacked out nightmare things in their lives. Heck, I'd sit around talking about the wacked out things in my own life.
However, I want the escape. More importantly, I want to believe (and I do) that happy endings can exist in this freakish world. And that is the sort of thing I wish to put in my head, not more of this hopeless crap.
I'm on my soap box again, aren't I?
LOL! Only you, Julie, would come up with that angle. ::snort::. In the end, he only loved himself. Interesting book, didn't love it, but it kept my attention. He was rather replusive, wasn't he?
Danica, I think this is why I do do the rom-com/rom-anything movies. Give me car chases, alien invasions, and lots of big guns any day of the week. Those movies often do the romance/relationship angle better.
Cece, missed ya the first time. I'll probably post about my two WTF novels soonish. They are worth the reading, aside from my major peeve with them.
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