Katie Fforde

[ailbhe]

I read two Katie Fforde's in quick succession lately. Very irritating. Both had Magical Mystical Irish Romantic male love-interests, and both of those men had barely suppressed violent tempers. One had a non-Irish dependable settled single father love interest, and he had a barely suppressed violent temper, too. He didn't drink to excess though.

An abundance of punishing kisses and ignoring what the female leads said was in evidence, too.

The women found the idea of a man who might hit them exciting and erotic. I kid you not. There was some sort of "I'm so special that this VIOLENT THUG won't hit me" thing going on. It was vile.

I got more and more irritated and eventually spent hours hunting down Sarah Rees Brennan's essay,
Pleasure Town is Invite Only, which was harder than you might think because her LJ was hacked and although a lot of articles have been recovered they are all in different places than they used to be and Google hasn't quite caught up yet.

Comments

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

I love that essay.

I had to read a current best-selling book for one of my classes, and ended up with Smooth-Talking Stranger, by Lisa Kleypas. In it, I learned that if I want great sex, all I have to do is find a bully who will disregard my principles, thoughts, emotions and everything else to take control over me. I'd rather have self-esteem and some respect.

I love Heyer and Crusie, but then I have a weak spot for Witty Banter.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

heyer's great :) also jane austen. (incidentally, if you like that sort of witty banter, check out connie willis's short story "ado". it's wickedly funny, and has a very satisfying protagonist.)

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking to that.

Thinking about it, I find that I'm usually not critical of what I read. As with my humour musings, it seems that my critical faculties were somewhat clobbered by English Lit and the like at school, and I've been reading and watching stuff that generally hasn't been provoking me to think and question the internal assumptions of a lot of it. Primarily, I read for enjoyment of the story. Character is important, but wonderful insights into what makes the protagonists do stuff is no good to me if they don't also go and Do Stuff. Romance never really grabbed me, although I'm revisiting the idea that it might not all be boring. The thing that usually hits my buttons of 'Hang on a sec' is when a clear religious viewpoint that I disagree with is heavily pushed. Possibly it's just a case of what I'm more sensitive to?

Sorry, this has become woolly and rambling - I'll try and think about it coherently before I post any more half-formed response...

[merryhouse.livejournal.com]

Knowing I'd seen the name but being totally unable to think of any Actual Books, I've just googled Katie Fforde and came up with this quote:
"Jilly Cooper for grown-ups!"
Um.

[ailbhe]

Um indeed.

[(Anonymous)]

I've read a few of hers over the years, and don't remember the older ones being so bad (idiotic, but not violent!), but yes, have been really icked by the last couple.

Alison