30 Days of Books: Day 05

[brigid]

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

Day 05 – A book or series you hate

Aw man, book hate.

Generally, when I pick up a book and dislike it, I just put it back down. I’ve only ever flung one book, and it was a really awful romance novel complete with abusive, stalker-y male love interest and completely awful heroine. I don’t remember the author or the name of the book, or what exactly made me fling it. I think there may have been very insulting Irish accents, or some kind of accent, thrown in to the mix as well.

I dislike the Twilight books and other books that offer up very skewed relationships as the ideal. There are a LOT of books aimed at female audiences that present fucked up relationships as the norm. Lots of “romantic comedies” that do the same.

Ooooh, also I hate gratuitous rape/abuse of a female character. I mean, some women (and some men!) are raped and it affects their lives. However, I hate it when an author trowls on the bad stuff thickly… and usually tosses in some daddy issues as the cherry on the shit sundae. I mean, if the bad stuff is only there to be horribly bad… ugh. It’s emotionally manipulative.

Hm. This is less about specific books/serieses as it is about tropes.

Oh! Shit! I hate Terry Goodkind’s “Wizard’s First Rule” books. The first one wasn’t too bad, but pretty soon you get to the trope that women deserve to be raped because they’re just bitches and straight up DESERVE IT. They must have done SOMETHING to warrant it! And it’s not that bad because it’s SEX and they LIKE SEX. So they deserve it, and they enjoy it! Rape! It’s what’s for dinner! Also he really ripped off “The Wheel of Time,” to the point where I went and checked publication dates to see who jacked who. AMAZING.

Comments

[cleverthylacine]

The Twilight series is very honest about the fact that Bella's life is weird, and when given a normal alternative and a weird one Bella will always choose the weird one, and that many of the things that happen in the universe are not actually ideal for the actual humans who happen to get caught up in the vampire-werewolf hijinkery.

The fact that the fans don't seem to get the memo is sad, but not SMeyer's fault. The fact that the haters read the books and see the memo and think SMeyer didn't intend the memo to be there is also sad, but doesn't stop me from being really annoyed at the haters.

I hate anything Terry Goodkind writes, because he actually can't write.

[wednesday]

I hate Terry Goodkind’s “Wizard’s First Rule” books. The first one wasn’t too bad, but pretty soon you get to the trope that women deserve to be raped because they’re just bitches and straight up DESERVE IT.

That's a hell of a first rule for wizards to have.