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muccamukkFunny thing is that the last two romance novels I read had two plot elements in common (the rest of the novels were completely different aside from both being contemporary romance novels set in the US). I will not mention the titles because even talking about the tropes is huge spoilers for both of these, and I honestly didn't see the twists coming (which was a good thing once, and not so much the other time).
The tropes were: marriage under unusual circumstances (which, I know, is about half of romancelandia ever), and the man writing the heroine's story in a negative way.
The second one, for me is pretty much the worse thing a dude could spring on a gal in romancelandia.
First book goes: girl decides conventional relationships not working out, decides to try an arranged marriage instead. Meets and marries guy and they seem to be getting along really well, and start falling in love. Then she finds out that he's actually writing an exposé on the secretive company that sets up the marriages, which includes talking about her and laying out their whole relationship. Infuriated, she dumps his ass and kicks him out. Some large amount of time, like a year later, the book comes out (he had to publish due to contract), and he's rewritten it much more sympathetically, and they tentatively get back together and start to date.
And I don't really have a problem with that one, because the level of grovelling he put in was excellent, and he was actually in the process of changing it when she found the original awful version, and her being mad at him was considered completely reasonable by everyone. Also, a lot of grovelling, and he lived absolutely on her terms until she decided to resume contact.
Second book actually starts with the Persuasion quote: No reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree. The pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.
I was really into this book until about the last quarter, basically it's about a little town in Mississippi fifteen years after highschool. The queen bee mean girl comes back to town, and everyone reacts, and she begins a relationship with someone she massively screwed over back in the day. The focus is a lot on the Ideals of Southern Womanhood and how they can either provide strength or screw you up, depending, forgiveness, mother-daughter and sister relationships and why acting like a dick in highschool is bad, but continuing that behaviour into adulthood is the real problem. The romance plot is more push me pull me than I usually go for, but they two characters are so much emotional and intellectual equals that it felt more like a game then vindictive.
But then the hero, now a famous author, publishes a tell all about how her mother was a bitch and she screwed him over. Mitigating factors being that she did screw him over, he wrote it before she came back and they were reconciled, it was too far along in the publication process to change, and he did give her an ARC once they were reconciled as a heads up. Infuriated, she tries to dump him, or at least seriously put the breaks on their relationship, then decides to leave town to get away from him because he doesn't want to. He calls her a coward, then leaves town himself so she doesn't have to. When she wants to resume the relationship, having weathered the national media attention that the book brought by herself (since he's vanished), he says he'll only come back if she not only agrees to marry him, but is standing at the alter waiting. Everything has to be on his terms. And the worst part is, she agrees to this! The push me/pull me relationship ends with her putting up a white flag and doing what he tells her. Then it turns out he wrote a sequel to his book as a love letter to her, and everything's fine.
So basically he screws her over via public humiliation in a way that gets national media attention, then refuses to give her space, then will only give her space as a punishment, then wants her to live on his terms. Why the fuck would you marry this guy?
I was saying to Nenya, as I was reading this, I tend to prefer Misunderstandings in romance, because actual shit going wrong takes more than the third act to fix. Given that, if you do have actual shit happen to close act two, some ways of fixing it work, and others do not. There's a difference between Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew.
The tropes were: marriage under unusual circumstances (which, I know, is about half of romancelandia ever), and the man writing the heroine's story in a negative way.
The second one, for me is pretty much the worse thing a dude could spring on a gal in romancelandia.
First book goes: girl decides conventional relationships not working out, decides to try an arranged marriage instead. Meets and marries guy and they seem to be getting along really well, and start falling in love. Then she finds out that he's actually writing an exposé on the secretive company that sets up the marriages, which includes talking about her and laying out their whole relationship. Infuriated, she dumps his ass and kicks him out. Some large amount of time, like a year later, the book comes out (he had to publish due to contract), and he's rewritten it much more sympathetically, and they tentatively get back together and start to date.
And I don't really have a problem with that one, because the level of grovelling he put in was excellent, and he was actually in the process of changing it when she found the original awful version, and her being mad at him was considered completely reasonable by everyone. Also, a lot of grovelling, and he lived absolutely on her terms until she decided to resume contact.
Second book actually starts with the Persuasion quote: No reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree. The pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.
I was really into this book until about the last quarter, basically it's about a little town in Mississippi fifteen years after highschool. The queen bee mean girl comes back to town, and everyone reacts, and she begins a relationship with someone she massively screwed over back in the day. The focus is a lot on the Ideals of Southern Womanhood and how they can either provide strength or screw you up, depending, forgiveness, mother-daughter and sister relationships and why acting like a dick in highschool is bad, but continuing that behaviour into adulthood is the real problem. The romance plot is more push me pull me than I usually go for, but they two characters are so much emotional and intellectual equals that it felt more like a game then vindictive.
But then the hero, now a famous author, publishes a tell all about how her mother was a bitch and she screwed him over. Mitigating factors being that she did screw him over, he wrote it before she came back and they were reconciled, it was too far along in the publication process to change, and he did give her an ARC once they were reconciled as a heads up. Infuriated, she tries to dump him, or at least seriously put the breaks on their relationship, then decides to leave town to get away from him because he doesn't want to. He calls her a coward, then leaves town himself so she doesn't have to. When she wants to resume the relationship, having weathered the national media attention that the book brought by herself (since he's vanished), he says he'll only come back if she not only agrees to marry him, but is standing at the alter waiting. Everything has to be on his terms. And the worst part is, she agrees to this! The push me/pull me relationship ends with her putting up a white flag and doing what he tells her. Then it turns out he wrote a sequel to his book as a love letter to her, and everything's fine.
So basically he screws her over via public humiliation in a way that gets national media attention, then refuses to give her space, then will only give her space as a punishment, then wants her to live on his terms. Why the fuck would you marry this guy?
I was saying to Nenya, as I was reading this, I tend to prefer Misunderstandings in romance, because actual shit going wrong takes more than the third act to fix. Given that, if you do have actual shit happen to close act two, some ways of fixing it work, and others do not. There's a difference between Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew.
(no subject)
Date: 29 Jul 2012 21:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 29 Jul 2012 23:37 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30 Jul 2012 03:45 (UTC)