Kerry Allen

My little book “reviews” come in handy when I can’t come up with any inane babbling for my regularly scheduled post, but those “reviews” are even harder to come up with because I will only write one for a book I not only liked but liked enough to take the time to jot down my thoughts about it and organize them in a semi-coherent manner and track down a cover image and the ISBN and type it all up… It’s just not worth the effort for a book that only reaches the “it didn’t suck” bar—definitely not for one that falls short of that.

I was reading a book last night, a SF romance, and it was giving me a headache because it seemed like there were 50 non-English words on every page, and I wasn’t in the mood to keep track of a whole other language. The story itself was interesting, and I want to know what happens, so it’s a Put It Down For Now rather than a Do Not Finish.

I picked up a different book, a vampire romance, and while there were several things about it I found intriguing, there were also a number of things that had me groaning and rolling my eyes. I want to know how it shakes down, but not right now. Put It Down For Now.

I realized: In one evening, I had removed two books from the unexplored frontier of the TBR shelf. I know what they’re about, I know what frame of mind I’ll have to be in to finish them, and I know they’re not great enough to make it worth my time to “review” them. If they had really sucked, I would also know by this point they were discards.

I also realized: I waste a lot of time lingering over books I’m just not in the mood for. I’m in the middle of this one, so I don’t want to pick up another one, but I don’t really want to read this one right now, so I won’t read anything at all—hence the backup in the TBR pile.

These newfound realizations prompted a decision: I will no longer make a “til The End do us part” commitment to a book that doesn’t grab me and squeeze me and refuse to let me go.

This will enable me to: expedite the garbage purging process, more rapidly discover those rare unputdownable books, and sort everything in between into Read It Later When… categories.

If I can sort out two books a day, I’ll have that shelf cleared off and hungrily awaiting fresh meat well before New Year’s.

I’m particularly eager to do this now because at the end of December, I plan to hold the First Ever Annual Squeeie Awards honoring the best reads of 2007, and I would love to find a few more to flesh out my thus far emaciated list. (Have I mentioned it’s been a pretty sad year for books? The good ones have been outstanding but few and far between.)

If you are a member of an Evil Organization (hypothetically speaking, of course…) and you betray the aforementioned Evil Organization, are you now considered:

a. One of the good guys.

b. Even more of a bad guy because in addition to whatever flaws led you to become a member of an Evil Organization to begin with, you’re now also a dirty, stinking traitor to your comrades.

c. Depends on your motivation for the betrayal.

d. What difference does it make? Some sick bastard will draw you into a dude-on-dude lovefest no matter what you do. (Links in order of increasing wrongness. And I didn’t even get into the OMG EYE BLEACH STAT ones.)

(My god, how I hate yaoi. The appeal has been explained to me: “Two yummy heroes for the price of one!” But frankly, one of them’s always kind of a girl anyway, so I still don’t understand the obsession with forcing homosexuality on characters created by others with no obvious homoerotic intent. And it’s usually forced by girls. **meperplexed** Yummy guys uninterested in girls and competing with us for the remaining yummy guys is a desirable thing? Does not compute.)

But back to the topic that got lost way long ago, at what point does the Really Bad Boy become Heroic, or do you never find it believable that a character previously portrayed as a rank bastard could have legitimate reasons for behaving badly and eventually redeem himself?

(In other words, I’m feeling sorry for my villain at this point and whipped out—even with my gimpy hand, I whipped—50 pages of notes for his own quest for twue wuv, and I’m afraid I’ve made him so loathsome in his villain role, he’ll get booed off the stage when he’s the star.)

(Edit: This is completely a rhetorical question, I’ve realized. I have to write what I have to write, and if everybody hates it, that’s the way it is. No one will ever be able to accuse me of selling out, simply because I’m not flexible enough to write to order!)

I buy books online. I buy because I hear good things. I buy because I hear bad things from people I know to have no taste. I buy because it showed up in my Recommended for Kerry list on Amazon and sometimes they’re not totally wrong. I buy on impulse. I buy a lot.

Prior to buying, I read the description. I read a couple of reader reviews. I never read an excerpt (which is crazy, but I hate reading online that much).

But I remember my bookstore shopping days, when I could get my hot little hands on the books and stroke them and sniff them and call them George… and flip through them a little to find the Buy Me Now, Dammit incentive. My TBR pile has almost as vast a selection of reading material as my local book vendor. I wanted them all at one time or another. How do I decide what to read next? Yes, mood is involved, but if my mood demands a steamy vampire romance with gritty suspense elements and I have four books meeting that description, how do I choose one over the other?

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of that little excerpt when you flip open the front cover. Two of the four books nominated for consumption today had no such excerpt. Straight back to the shelf. The third was a seduction excerpt. Sorry, I don’t know you yet, I don’t want to watch you gettin’ it on.

The fourth took only a few lines of the excerpt to reel me in:

“Sit down,” said J.

I did. When he continued staring in silence, I raised my eyebrows and looked up at him as if to say What the hell is your problem?

A girl with some attitude. Gimme.

(That’s from Beyond the Pale by Savannah Russe, by the way.)

I have never understood why every book doesn’t have that little excerpt up front. How nice for you that you have 50 reviews lauding your last book as “sparkling and sinfully delicious,” but frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn about your last book or what anybody had to say about it. I have this one in my hands, and I want a taste before I commit to ordering a whole plateful.

Am I the only one who pays any attention to that page, or are the books lacking them missing out on a crucial opportunity to snag reader interest?

I do read more than one book a month. I’ll sometimes read five a week. Right now, when I’m bogged down in revisions on my own manuscript, I’m limiting myself to junky-fix reads (The Dream Thief **squee**), but my consumption is never less than one book a week.

You’ve seen only three “reviews” from me in the past couple of months because if the best I can say about a book is “it didn’t suck,” it’s not worth taking the time to write about it. I read more than a few that do suck. (Occasional disappointment is a fact of life—despite the encompassing magnificence of Peanut M&Ms, you still sometimes get one that tastes like a dirty sock.) Most books I read qualify as satisfying entertainment but aren’t stellar enough to recommend without reservation.

If a book shows up here, rest assured it’s because I love it, wish I’d written it, and am panting for more.

Sometimes I’ll skip “reviewing” even a great book because you probably found your way here through a romance-related site, and while I have faith that the majority of romance readers read far more widely than “their own” genre, those who would appreciate a fabulously written gory serial killer thriller, for example, seem to be a minority. Everything good, regardless of subject matter, makes it to the sidebar under “The magnificent seven,” but unless there’s something I think can appeal to a fairly wide range of readers or I’m SUPER EXCITED about it and just can’t contain myself, I’m not doing in-depth plugging.

I will be plugging the hell out of The Dream Thief sometime in the next week.

I think I read reviews as their own art form or… something. They certainly don’t much affect my decision to read a book. The review of Elizabeth Hoyt’s The Raven Prince by Janine at Dear Author, which she categorized as a DNF (did not finish), prompted an evaluation of why I feel this way.

Let me say first that I haven’t read the book in question and don’t intend to. (At least I didn’t when I drafted this post. I have since discovered that Meljean Brook, who has a reading history eerily similar to mine, is all over this series, which might constitute a valid endorsement, and I read somewhere else it’s a “hysterical” fit for contemp-only sensibilities, so maybe…) It isn’t in my realm of interest. It could suck lemur testicles for all I know.

This is more of a response to Janine’s allegations in general than a defense of the book itself.

So-Called Anachronisms. To me, an anachronism is a Prius tooling around 18th century London, but evidently my definition isn’t as broad as some.

A novel might be set in the far distant past, but it’s written for a 21st century reader. An 18th century reader might interpret “demolished his plate” as wanton destruction of the china, but I know exactly what the author means by it and wouldn’t even hesitate over it. (Not only that, but this particular example sounds to me more like an old-time usage than a current one.)

If I wanted authentic period dialogue and narrative, I’d find something written by an author living during that period, which is the only way to get authentic, anyway. Any modern author who tries to recreate the feel of a period is faking it, which frequently results in failure to satisfy reader perception of what “authentic” is (which varies, since readers weren’t there, either), and reviewers attack like sharks on a one-flippered seal.

Fake it and get ripped apart.

Don’t bother faking it and… get ripped apart.

There’s just no pleasing some people.

And fans of historical romance wonder why there isn’t more of it being written.

People didn’t behave that way. I hate hearing that because people behave every way. It’s the people who don’t behave as they “should” who make things happen, and in a story, making things happen is a desirable thing.

Examples: A proper lady would never say “bastard.” (While she was alone, from what I understand, which seems to me the perfect time to vent with a little inappropriate language.)

A gentleman would never say “shit” in front of a woman. (What if he’s overwrought? Dropped something on his foot? Just plain rude? What if he’s being deliberately offensive? I can think of any number of circumstances in which an otherwise respectable man would utter an expletive in any company.)

People don’t always behave as they “should.” Even today, a proper young heiress shouldn’t make sex tapes, have her license suspended for drunk driving, or do jail time for driving with a suspended license. Judging by the amount of attention such aberrant behavior receives, doing what one shouldn’t interests people.

A novel in which characters are rigidly proper and conformist at all times would be insanely dull. Not only that, but every book would be the same because no matter what happened to the characters, they would be limited to a narrow spectrum of socially appropriate responses.

“An unidentified flying object has landed in the garden and discharged an army of face-eating monsters!”

“Tsk. That is not an appropriate topic of conversation for a young lady. Do sit down. Have a biscuit. I spied Lord Boringashell glancing your way more than once at the concert. His title is a fine catch.”

You lost me at tsk. “Socially appropriate” generally translates to passive and inactive, which is death to a plot.

“An unidentified flying object has landed in the garden and discharged an army of face-eating monsters!”

Lady Gettabone sighed. “Again?” She drew the dagger from beneath her pelise. “Must they always arrive during tea?”

Maybe I should start reading reviews for the purpose of finding those reviewers who make statements so fundamentally opposed to my own philosophy, I can use them for reverse-recommendation purposes. “Mary says the characters are inappropriately interesting, Sue says the language is offensive, and Alice says it’s historically inaccurate. Woot! A trifecta winner! This one goes straight to the top of my TBR!”

I may have found a circumstance in which I am willing to purchase an e-book.

Today I finished reading—or rather struggling through—the first book in a series. Hated the writing—skipped right over entire pages. Actively disliked the protagonist—if not too stupid too live, at least too silly to be tolerated. Bored to tears by the endless balls and stilted, formal dialogue that’s probably authentic Regency—”I’m quite fond of you” is not an impassioned declaration, in my opinion. Found page after page of the protag’s mother and her two dippy friends a pointless and annoying interruption in what little action there was.

Thoroughly despised this book, in case I’m not being clear.

But then there’s Sebastian.

It’s pretty sad when a secondary character (so rarely appearing he may even be tertiary, in fact) is the sole compelling component of a novel. He’s sexy. He’s not a neutered “proper gentleman.” His intentions are dubious and mysterious. I perked up every time he put in appearance. I kept reading (or at least skimming) on his behalf long after this book became a wallbanger.

Sweet Author, why could you not make any other character half as interesting as Sebastian?

No way in hell am I spending $6.99 on another one of these duds. But I have to know what happens with Sebastian (and I gather he’s significantly more prominent in Book Two). I thought, I know! I’ll get an e-book, search for his name, and skip all the crap! Damn, I am one clever minx!

Except for one small problem: No e-book is available, as far as I can tell!

At long last, I understand the frustration of those who have transitioned to e-reading. Why the hell isn’t every single book being printed also being released in e-form?

So, Flightless Bird-named Publisher, you have lost what little I was willing to invest in you due to your failure to modernize. Better luck next time.

But Sebastian, one way or another, you shall be mine…

I was asked why I read—not why I read romance (or any other genre), not why I’m reading any particular book, but why I read in general, other than instruction manuals and research materials (”required” reading). The first response that sprang to mind was “to escape,” but that’s not accurate. Honestly, I would not want to escape to most of the places and situations in my chosen reading material, and there’s no escaping anything in my life I might want to get away from, anyway. I wanted to give a better answer, so I hit up Google to find someone more adept than I at explaining her motivations.

I found a blog entry by Rosemary Esehagu aptly entitled “Why do people read fiction?”, in which she says the following:

“… I read fiction because it gives me permission to create as well. The writer may see his/her world as blue, but I am allowed to see it as periwinkle blue, or blue with a splash of lavender. With fiction, I am not just watching (as I feel that I am with non-fiction), I am also a participant, a fellow creator. As a result, I too have responsibility for the life of the book. With fiction, I am not limited to the point of view of the writer. I can disagree, I can acquiesce, and I can do a mixture of both. The result is that the book exists on a richer level in my mind.

“Reading fiction more readily promotes a crossing-over—a chance for the reader and the writer to exchange parts of their worlds, which gives you a slightly different story world, and one that is grounded in the world of the writer and the reader. It is no wonder that any particular fiction has a somewhat different meaning to each reader.”

That’s part of the reason I read fiction. Instead of throwing facts (nonfiction) or images (TV/movies) at me, fiction requires me to contribute something of myself (imagination) to make it work. I’ve had profound differences of opinion with others about the quality of world building, for example, in certain books, and I now wonder if that’s due to the reader’s contribution to the book—I fill in a lot of blanks when I commit to a story, so maybe the story I’m reading no longer bears much resemblance to the same story in another reader’s hands.

Elizabeth Lowell has written an essay entitled Popular  Fiction: Why We Read It, Why We Write It. It’s primarily a defense of genre fiction (versus literary fiction and the critics who love one and disdain the other), but what she has to say about transcendence and optimism in pop fiction fall under the umbrella of why I read.

“The underlying philosophy of much popular fiction is more optimistic [than literary fiction]: the human condition might indeed be deplorable, but individuals can make a positive difference in their own and others’ lives…

… [P]opular fiction is composed of ancient myths newly reborn, telling and retelling a simple truth: ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Jack can plant a beanstalk that will provide endless food; a Tom Clancy character can successfully unravel a conspiracy that threatens the lives of millions. A knight can slay a dragon; a Stephen King character can defeat the massed forces of evil. Cinderella can attract the prince through her own innate decency rather than through family connections; a Nora Roberts heroine can, through her own strength, rise above a savagely unhappy past and bring happiness to herself and others.”

There are real-life problems that will never be resolved. I have them. You have them. Real life is messy that way. Novels are structured so that introduced conflicts must be resolved one way or another by the final page. At the end of a novel, it makes me feel good that the characters have triumphed and resolved their conflicts (with the exception of one Stephen King book—was it Tommyknockers?—which ended with “and then everybody died, the end,” which is not a feel-good kind of resolution), which too often isn’t possible outside the realm of fiction.

Now for some reasons I didn’t pilfer from others.

Never let it be said that fiction isn’t educational. With my terrible memory for names and dates, I’m never going to apply to be a contestant on Jeopardy, but I dominate the Potpourri category every single time, primarily due to the treasure trove of trivia I’ve amassed through a lifetime of reading. (Example: Didja know Florida orange growers will hose down groves in freezing temperatures, completely encapsulating the trees in ice, to protect them from frost? And you really, really do not want to know what I do about forensics; my enthusiasm on that subject has made tough guys gag.)

My day job is repetitive and mind-numbingly boring. Those aren’t dandruff flakes on my shoulder—those are brain cells sloughing off and leaking out my ears. The act of reading—looking at the words, processing them, interpreting them—constitutes much-needed cognitive stimulation, regardless of subject matter. My preferred subject matter is fiction because by the end of the day, I deserve something entertaining.

I don’t have the time, money, or courage to travel, and I’m afflicted with paralyzing social phobia. In other words, I don’t get out much. Through novels, I have the opportunity to visit places I’ve never been and have no expectation of ever going. I could read a travelogue, but they tend to be dry and impersonal, whereas in fiction, the settings are often intimately related to the characters and their actions, giving them a richer feel.

Not to mention the impossibility of visiting a setting in any time other than right now. Novels make fantastic time machines.

Once again armed with self-awareness, I can answer the question of why I read fiction. I might add a question of my own: Why wouldn’t someone read fiction?

I can’t imagine how dull life would be without it.