Smallish Book Rant

(rant)
You know what's worse than romance novels? What's worse than romance novels is when you've read a book by a certain author, (we will use The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd as an example), looked forward to that author's next book, (The Mermaid Chair), and then been disappointed that the author tried to dress up a romance novel as a general fiction book. Gone are the days when all romance novels were garishly decorated with a scantily clad Fabio (gag me with a spoon!)on the cover. At least those authors/publishers were honest.

When I pick up a book called The Mermaid Chair which has seashells and sea grass on the front and purports to explore a relationship between a mother and daughter, I'm not looking for a love story. It's insulting to me when authors think that in order to cater to a female audience, there has to be some measure of romance in the story. Heaven forbid that a woman might actually want to read something about characters she can actually picture as being real. Heaven forbid that a woman might want to read something that makes her think. No. Let's, instead, start a book out as a general fiction work and then once the reader has been sucked in, WABAAM!, in the middle we'll turn it into a romance novel. The chick who's reading it won't even realize what's happening! It'll be awesome!

Bite me, Viking Press! :)

(/rant)