brigid | 30 Days of Books: Day 05 (Reply)

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

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.