A few fellow Cannonballers’ brief reviews have been trickling in with disclaimers about saving the good stuff for our book discussion, and I’ll follow their lead. I want to save my most salient thoughts for the Cannonball Read Book Club, and I’m eager to hear everyone else’s. In other news: hooray for Cannonball Read Book Club and faintingviolet for arranging it!!!!
You can find the full list of NOTES on my blog, but here is one that I’ll post, and it was my immediate and pressing question:
*I am not a romance reader, so there were genre questions I was interested in, and which I’ll pose at Book Club discussion. Namely: does this represent a “good” romance, and in what way? I’m guessing, based on some initial reactions, that it’s NOT, so I feel a little less bad for not liking it very much.
Just speaking for myself, because taste in romance is SO varied (as with everything else): this book rested on my single least-favorite trope not just in romance, but in entertainment in general, where the entire plot is driven by characters keeping things from each other for reasons and all of the forward momentum is the result of reactions to misconceptions and contrivances.
In other words, no, I don’t think this was a “good” romance, because for me, good romance has a relationship I admire. Even if I don’t relate to the characters on a personal level, I want to be confident that theirs is a healthy relationship, or is going to grow into a healthy relationship after whatever initial hurdles keep them apart. I didn’t feel that way about these characters, because the entire book was based on the heroine keeping important stuff from the hero and him lashing out based on misinformation. Except the sex was good, so yeah. Together 4eva!
Ooooh, that makes sense. Thank you! Also, what you’ve said gives me an appreciation that those kinds of healthy relationships are out there, because too many times in pop culture (and I include some of my literary fiction in this) dysfunctional relationships and POOR COMMUNICATION drive a plot forward, and it makes me nuts.
This was, in fact, not a “good” romance which bums me out since I really wanted to give non-romance readers such as yourself an enjoyable entry point into the genre.
I really want to talk in the book club post about the importance of book blurbs… because I feel incredibly let down by the blurbs I saw versus the book we got.
Well, I’m glad to know that this wasn’t a “good” example, so I don’t feel bad for not liking it. I know that romance is a big part of CBR, and I was hoping that I was not being unfair to the genre and not giving it a fair shake. That said, I think I’ll try the Julia Quinn book at some point (as I commented on Malin’s post), because that sounds really enjoyable. I’m genuinely excited about our book discussion in March!
Do give Julia Quinn or Courtney Milan a try. If you have a Kindle, some Quinn’s are on sale, The Governess Affiar by Milan is $0.99, and The Duchess War is FREE right now.
Yeah, good point about the blurb! I voted for this book, given the great response to Dev’s other book and the blurb for this one sounding interesting. I had NO. IDEA. it was going to be so histrionic. But I’ll save the rest for the discussion! Which should be fun, as sometimes talking smack can be very cathartic :)