shipperx | What Are You Reading Wednesday

What Are You Reading Wednesday... where yet again the answer is that I'm not really reading anything much. I did sort of half-read/Kindle-buy a book to read later and being something of a spoiler slut I read the final couple of chapters (hey, do that within the first twenty-four hours and I can decide whether or not to return the book. I know not to judge a book by its cover... or its ending, but...eh. This is fluff reading and I don't think it much matters).

Anyway, impression from reading the end of the novel -- Good Reads is as per usual a bit crazy.

This particular book (historical romance. Yeah, yeah. I know. It's fluff, okay!)...   Anyway, this book had 3 1/2 stars and rather opposing reviews. After poking about the reviews a bit, I went what the hell and downloaded the book. Here's my issue with Good Reads: Most of the really highly negative reviews stated that it was because they disliked the heroine. Glowing and negative reviews frequently featured adoring the hero.    Upon my (rather cursory) look-see of the final chapters, my response would be that I LIKED the heroine and the hero is problematic! In fact, the hero is problematic in such a way that I do not downgrade the novel for it (because his problems are deliberate by the author and addressed within the story) but I DO side-eye the glowing love of the hero by some of the readers. Erm... guys --or in many cases, ladies-- the hero is a misogynist!   It's flat-out stated by the heroine (more than once!) that he's a misogynist. What's more -- he IS one!

Now, the misogyny has an internal cause in the story. As a child, he was abandoned by his mother and was raised by a 19th century male Miss Havisham-like uncle, who specifically and deliberately instilled a misogynistic mindset in the boy and fostered a distrust of women which, in tandem to his being 'late-blooming' and socially awkward to begin with (on top of growing up in atmostpheric Wuthering Heights-like physical isolation with a couple of Estella-like interactions as his female cousin) causes this hero to have actual social problems (ala what you occasionally run across in bitter fanboy circles while they're complaining 'OMG fangirls ruin everything!' You know the ones I'm talking about. Yep, he's that guy. Prior to his (superficial) transformation he has a full-blown case of nice guy syndrome). Again, he has actual social problems that the author and the heroine recognize, address, and react to. These issues are deliberately part of the story and thus I don't downrate the novel for its misogynist hero. It's a point.  He has to change himself, beyond superficially (which was the sum of his early idea) but actually examine his attitudes towards women and really change by recognizing the toxicity of misogyny in his life and in his relationships.   So, yeah, a misogynist hero but...hmmm... I'm still inclined to read the book because the author has a take on that. I'm more inclined to downrate stories with unintentional misogynistic heroes where it's never recognized (there are tons of examples of these. Tons. Too many. Way too many.).

So, first, I'm distrustful of the Good Reads love of this hero. Exactly -- specifically -- what are they loving?  Is it his evolution by the end? That would be good. But given the way that the love of him is paired by the reviews loathing her, I wonder whether some are actually adopting the nice guy syndrome  aspects of his character in which case...ugh!.

Second, why all the heroine-hatred?  I'm pretty much siding with her. While her early transgression wasn't 'nice', neither did it deserve the seriously OTT reaction of the hero.  I consider the heroine to be correct when she says the offense the hero took was disturbingly disproportional to her actual offense ( Yes, she actually points that out.  Cooly, rationally, analytically, and dead on. This is why I liked her!)  In the early stages she had apparently made a bet with hero's older cousin that she could get his socially awkward bespectacled (virginal) misogynistic cousin to kiss her... and like it. And she had). Said socially awkward bespectacled virginal hero discovered the bet, felt humiliated, and decided to superficially transform himself into what 'women like her' want and then humiliate her in kind at a later date.   Again, her early actions were not 'nice' ...but, really, it was just a kiss! (Even if it's the early 1800s. It's still just a kiss.) Hardly the sort of thing deserving the hero's protracted fuming, much less his intention to 'get back' at her for it either.

However, several of the Good Reads reviews seem to have wholly adopted the hero's view that her stolen kiss from the awkward (woman-hating) male virgin was mean, mean, mean and what a bitch!

I...er... don't really think the author intended us to think the hero was being reasonable here. That's stated more than once by several characters in the last couple of chapters that I sneak peeked. There's a reason why the heroine and severak other characters ping the guy for having misogynistic views on women (instilled in him by the aforementioned mother abandonment, Miss Havisham-like misogynist male guardian, general inexperience with women, etc). The hero's narration of the situation is unreliable. He reaction is not okay. The heroine is not wrong in telling him he overreacted in the extreme and that his behavior was messed up.   Do not adopt his view of it as the correct one. It's not intended to be. It's the thing about him that he must FIX if he is to find a happy life (and, it being a romance, of course he does --perhaps unrealistically so, but that's romance for you. Happy endings are required.  By the end, he even recognizes societal male privilege as an issue.)

Anyway, from the partial part that I read, that's my impression.   And I'm intrigued enough not to return the book for a refund and to read the thing sometime soon.

But, boy, do I side-eye some of the Good Reads reviews. Um, ladies, there seems to be a bit of internalized misogyny going on. Exactly why is a female's bet over a kiss unforgivable... but a hero bent on revenge because of a KISS A-okay?

Maybe the 3 star reviews are because the author seems to be taking the heroine's side that the hero is screwed up where women are concerned and needs to get the hell over it?

I LIKED the heroine because of this. She was matter-of-fact about it and stated the problem bluntly. I thought, 'good for her!' But, then, I tend to frequently be out-of-step with some of Good Reads romance reviews.

(No, I don't remember the name of the book at the moment. I've only read the last three chapters and not the whole thing and would have to look it up on my kindle in order to remember. It was written by Miranda Neville, though.)