Hello! Today we have a guest post by WannabeGailHulley (who is not incidentally one of my most favorite people on the planet) about her recent DNF pile. And boy is it glorious. Brace yourself.
Once upon a time, I prided myself on my supernatural
attention span and devotion to finishing books, even when I didn’t particularly
feel like it. Then I had a kid and my reading time became a lot more precious.
I can’t waste my naptime-reading time on crap. To use a phrase that my husband
has a profound hatred of, I can’t even. And
so, I have amassed quite the DNF pile; when I give up on a book, I just leave
it in the crack between the mattress and the nightstand for the monsters under
the bed to devour. As we are moving, I’m uncovering a lot of these books. One
commonality amongst a number of these novels is that I’ll be enjoying it for
the most part, and then a character does something stupid. Like, so really
fucking stupid. And I know exactly the kind of fallout that is going to happen,
and as I said, I can’t even. So I
don’t. In each instance, I find myself thinking “Don’t be a fucking idiot!”
(Meanwhile, I am currently working on my first novel where all the characters
are of course incredibly intelligent and mature and never do anything stupid or
ever act like a fucking idiot…)
Without further ado, here are my “Don’t Be A Fucking Idiot”
DNF’s:
The Duke Is Mine by Eloisa James
I find a lot of James’ work can be hit or miss for me, and I
either really love it or find it meh. This was one that was initially falling
somewhere in between love and meh, until the hero and heroine start to move
into Fucking Idiot territory and I had no desire to follow them there. To
explain: they have just decided to marry, but a) she’s engaged—by contract, if
I’m not mistaken—to a mentally handicapped manboy who’s just gone off to war;
b) they’ve only just met a few days ago; c) his mother haaaaates her; and d)
they haven’t told anyone of their plans to marry each other yet. So of course,
this means they must absolutely run off from a ball that’s currently happening at his home to go have sex in a tree.
Yeah, I had to put it down. I couldn’t even read through to
see if they actually do manage to have sex in the tree (where I’m sure of
course she’d get immediately pregnant because pulling out during tree-sex is
incredibly difficult), or if they get caught and exposed and scandal blah blah
blah. It was just the principle of the thing: You’ve decided you love each
other and must marry. Excellent! In which case, just get all the legal stuff
taken care of first. Sex is great and all, but it will still be there once
everything is squared away with the whole betrothed-to-another-manboy thing. There’s
also the little matter of, if she gets pregnant, it’s going to be assumed to be
manboy’s child due to some machinations that happened in the beginning of the
book. Don’t be a fucking idiot and let your hormones drive you into a situation
that is going to destroy your reputation, hurt an innocent mentally handicapped
person, and give you an awful case of
bark-rash.
And onto our next Fucking Idiot!
Mr. Cavendish, I Presume, by Julia Quinn
This is another book I was enjoying for the most part. I’ve
read at least 2 others of her books, so enough to say they’re the light fluffy
cotton candy types of regencies. This one is no different, and I was down with
that until the hero, who thinks he’s about to lose his title and thus his
(again contracted) betrothed (the heroine) whom he’s only just started to like
(gee, this sentence got away from me…). Anyway, the hero is in a low place and
gets drunk. And stumbles across his platonic lady friend, who he knows is in love with someone else. And
he starts to think, “You know what, I’ve got nothing now. She’s pretty much got
nothing. I should totally make an awkward drunken pass at her.”
Are you a fucking
idiot???!!! Urrrgghhhh, staaahhhhhppp. If you could stop wallowing in the
expensive brandy you don’t want your successor to inherit, and pulled your head
out of your spirits-steeped butthole, you’d see that a) maybe you should have
an honest discussion with your fiancée about your situation and see what her
feelings are, and b) you are putting your friend (who is in your employ) into a
really really awkward situation of potentially not being able to say no. Oh,
and c) you cheapen her to think “Well, now that I’m potentially not a duke, I
should settle for her.” She’s your friend. She puts up with your bitch of a
grandmother so you don’t have to. You owe her better than that.
In all honesty, I’ll probably pick this one up again and
finish it, simply because I know it will be cotton candy and thus all this
bullshit will probably dissolve quickly. I just need to take a loooong break
from it, see other books, maybe begrudgingly take it into the bathtub one or
two more times to give it another chance before truly committing again. We’ll
see.
And finally:
Until Forever, by Johanna Lindsey
This is one I definitely have no desire to go back and
finish. From the very start, I was doing the “Don’t be a fucking idiot!” chant
but I tried and tried and got a little over halfway and found myself all odds.
(Aka, I can’t even.)
The heroine is just so freaking annoying: prim, “smart”,
virginal (not quite sure why, just that she seemed above all the groping sex
entails?), and of course, so beautiful that she has to wear her hair in a tight
bun and fake glasses so men won’t pay attention to her. She was constantly
thinking things like “Of course, being an expert in history she knew that
Vikings behaved that way so she wouldn’t be offended by it,” while lecturing
said Viking on how things are different now and people don’t do that anymore,
etc. etc. All without even a trace of self awareness that her present day
(1995) was nowhere near perfect and sexism/racism/classism/violence still
totally exist.
As for the Viking hero: Were you aware that cursed time
traveling Viking demi-god genies could be bland? Because this guy does
absolutely nothing for me. Case in point: He likes the heroine, even though
she’s a complete twit. That’s my “Don’t be a fucking idiot” for him: I’d rather
spend an eternity discussing frozen pizza brand preferences with my mom than
deal with the heroine’s scholarlier than thou attitude.
As for the heroine: of course she’s too stupid to live. When
she wakes up alone in a tent in medieval France, her first instinct is to run
through the army camp outside looking for her Viking lover. You know, dishelved
and half dressed into a camp full of horny medieval soldiers. Once she realizes
that the men probably think she’s down for some pickle-tickle, this is what she
thinks:
“And these weren’t twentieth century men who might back off with an apology, once she explained their mistake.”
Ahahahaha! As if by the 20th
century, rape is no longer a threat to women, especially those in war-torn
areas.
I think my biggest “Don’t Be A Fucking Idiot” with this book
goes to the author for her heroine’s professional back-story: After graduating
college with a degree in history, she was offered a teaching position a college
with the promise of tenure in one year if she did a stellar job. A history
major, without an advanced degree. Gets a job right out of college. And tenure
within a year. Uh-huh. Fucking idiot.
Well, I think my indignant, perfect self has spent entirely
too much time and thought on this topic. Thus concludes my evaluation of my DNF
pile. Until next time, and please don’t be a fucking idiot!
- WannabeGailHulley
