Beach reads
Ok, ok, I know that I promised no blogging at the beach, and I WILL post a full trip report at a later date, but I just had to weigh in quickly on something becoming increasingly apparent to me.
In the condo we've rented at the beach, there is a nice stack of books for readers such as myself. Among these are some perfectly respectable tomes as well as some undeniably trashy romance novels. You know the ones I'm talking about. With names like "The Summer I Dared" and "Summer Pleasures," these books don't come very close to being literature. In fact, I could probably crank out a couple of them myself, if I had a mind to.
I realize that these novels are women's equivalent of porn; they are fantasies. There's always some impossibly beautiful heroine, paired with an equally impossibly handsome love interest. The two usually feel a distinct attraction upon meeting, but there are obstacles to their love (another relationship, time/distance, different personalities/values, etc.). These obstacles are eventually overcome, and the two beautiful people enjoy torrid sex in some atmospheric location. I mean, it's fairly formulaic.
Such mindless, cotton-candy reading is perfectly apt for the beach. In fact, my normal fare would probably require too much effort to read while lounging languidly in the sun. But here's the problem - I can never fully turn off my English-major brain. So, when I read the trite compliments that the heroes proffer to their loves, when the characters inevitably end up married and expecting a child, when I read yet another racy bit (I mean, how many ways are there, really, to describe the act of coitus?), I find myself rolling my eyes a bit. And while a teeny part of my brain wishes that I could have a charged, chance encounter with a burly lobsterman or a fortiutious meeting with a famous photojournalist who decided he could no longer live without me, most of me just wants to let out a giggle about the improbability of it all.
And really, if I WERE to meet a hunky horror fiction writer, I'd be much more likely to grill him about his work than try to get him into bed, where all of these stories seem to quickly lead. (Hubs and I had a bet regarding how long it would take the two main characters to sleep together in one of the novels I read. He said page 168; I thought she'd hold out until at least page 175. We were both wrong; that jezebel had her panties off by page 151! Sheesh.)
So, anyhoo, I guess what I'm saying is that I've learned that purportedly "mindless" romance reads don't really hook me anymore. I mean, surely there was a time when they did? When I was younger, less cynical? Am I too old and jaded for the genre? Have I lost my taste for romance? I don't know. I will think on it for a while. In the meantime, however, I think I'll stick to weightier reading material.
In the condo we've rented at the beach, there is a nice stack of books for readers such as myself. Among these are some perfectly respectable tomes as well as some undeniably trashy romance novels. You know the ones I'm talking about. With names like "The Summer I Dared" and "Summer Pleasures," these books don't come very close to being literature. In fact, I could probably crank out a couple of them myself, if I had a mind to.
I realize that these novels are women's equivalent of porn; they are fantasies. There's always some impossibly beautiful heroine, paired with an equally impossibly handsome love interest. The two usually feel a distinct attraction upon meeting, but there are obstacles to their love (another relationship, time/distance, different personalities/values, etc.). These obstacles are eventually overcome, and the two beautiful people enjoy torrid sex in some atmospheric location. I mean, it's fairly formulaic.
Such mindless, cotton-candy reading is perfectly apt for the beach. In fact, my normal fare would probably require too much effort to read while lounging languidly in the sun. But here's the problem - I can never fully turn off my English-major brain. So, when I read the trite compliments that the heroes proffer to their loves, when the characters inevitably end up married and expecting a child, when I read yet another racy bit (I mean, how many ways are there, really, to describe the act of coitus?), I find myself rolling my eyes a bit. And while a teeny part of my brain wishes that I could have a charged, chance encounter with a burly lobsterman or a fortiutious meeting with a famous photojournalist who decided he could no longer live without me, most of me just wants to let out a giggle about the improbability of it all.
And really, if I WERE to meet a hunky horror fiction writer, I'd be much more likely to grill him about his work than try to get him into bed, where all of these stories seem to quickly lead. (Hubs and I had a bet regarding how long it would take the two main characters to sleep together in one of the novels I read. He said page 168; I thought she'd hold out until at least page 175. We were both wrong; that jezebel had her panties off by page 151! Sheesh.)
So, anyhoo, I guess what I'm saying is that I've learned that purportedly "mindless" romance reads don't really hook me anymore. I mean, surely there was a time when they did? When I was younger, less cynical? Am I too old and jaded for the genre? Have I lost my taste for romance? I don't know. I will think on it for a while. In the meantime, however, I think I'll stick to weightier reading material.
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