Observations on bookish things #2

What do you think of my bookish observations after the first one? Do you think I'm being too opinionated? Do I need to dial it back a notch? Because you know, I'm rather feisty today. Hang tight.

So reader book requests confound me. I mean sometimes they sound interesting and I'm intrigued and might even want to read the book, but mostly they confound me and make me wonder about human nature. Let's take this one book request. The requester said that she has never encountered a book with this plot but she wants to read it. (I paraphrase.) And also, hooray for book groups where she feels safe enough to post something like this. That's got to be a good thing right? She (the requester) wants the heroine to be very insecure and is married to the hero. She (the heroine) thinks that the hero might be still in love with his ex or dead ex wife or something like that, then misunderstands an overheard conversation and snaps. She can't take it anymore and leaves him. Poor sod is then supposed to immediately grovel hard and refuses to sign divorce papers but he's confused because he doesn't know what he did wrong and he always thought she knew how much he loved her. Okay, here's the deal and my observation. This is a completely unfair and effed up scenario (so why does she want to read that?) because the poor guy doesn't even know what hit him. He's done nothing wrong, and yet he's served with divorce papers and he's supposed to GROVEL HARD in order to win back this insecure as eff heroine who has jumped to all sorts of conclusions and left instead of dealing with it like an adult and actually having a grown ass conversation with her husband. This just makes me want to drop kick the heroine and commiserate with the hero. Maybe he would be better off without her and he should just sign those divorce papers. There's probably no helping her. Honestly, it sounds toxic and effed up as heck. Oh yes, sometimes my observations can be kinda judgy but I'm kinda partial to healthy relationships. #imsoconfused #why

On a similar topic, another reader wanted to read a book where the heroine is abused, raped, tortured, beaten, and treated badly by the hero, but there must be a happily ever after. The worse she is treated the better. And she wanted it in all the gory, graphic detail. And here's the kicker. She wanted to read that because she wants to suffer. I have to ask this. Why? Why do you want to suffer? What is going on in your life that you feel you need to suffer in your reading life when reading is for escapism and it will take you to a different (hopefully better) place? Why is your place of escapism so filled with pain and suffering? I have no answer for this because I was too afraid to ask. I'm only judgy inside my own head and sometimes on here. I prefer to not make waves. #butimstillconfused #why Also, how can there be a happy ever after if she's being mistreated so badly by the hero? That is not a hero I would want to spend the rest of my life with. Run far, run fast. If it was real life, I'd be encouraging her to seek help and giving her the phone number to a domestic abuse help center or women's shelter. I might even call the cops. Maybe this is the whole dark romance thing which I do not read?

By the way, I do have a regular feature on the bloggity that talks about book requests that are asked for and the books that are recommended. That's quite a fun post because you see what is being requested and the kind people who offer up book suggestions. However, in those posts, I do not offer up my observations on those requests though I admit some of them are rather bizarre and I am highly entertained by them. You can read those here.

Also, I want to bless the little ol' heart of this one particular reader because she's reading breeding kink (yes, that's a thing) books and she's new to the trope. These men, she says, are obsessed with their women (they are) and obsessed about getting them pregnant (they really are). This leads to lots of sexy times, which, let's face it, is lots of happy times for me. What can I say? I like sexy times. But I digress. The reason I want to bless her little ol' heart is because she's very concerned about the fictional children that this couple is going to have. Or rather, all the couples from all the books are going to have. Because, the hero is so obsessed about getting the heroine pregnant, are they going to be good parents to these fictional children? How will they be raised? Will they be happy? Will they be well cared for? Is she being too sensitive? Is she being too caring? Oh honey, if you read the epilogues for these books (a lot of times there is more than one), you will see that these couples adore their children and love being parents, even if they do sneak away for some quality alone time while trusted friends or family babysit for the night. This is not a breeding kink book, but I want to recommend it because it has one of the best epilogues and one of the best father-daughter relationships I have ever read. All men need to read this epilogue just to learn to be a better father, or even the best father they could be. If you don't read the book, just read the epilogue. It will give you all the feels. And if this sweet, concerned lady read the book, she will feel all better about these fictional book babies.

Okay, let's move away from readers to books that are still all the rage. Mafia romance and motorcycle clubs. Mafia romance. Man, I've wanted to love them. It's like every other book that gets released is a dark mafia romance. Lots and lots of mafia book romances. One of my favorite romance authors switched from writing sexy contemporary romance to dark mafia romance. I was sad when she did that because I tried her new mafia books and could not get into them so there's one more author I no longer read. *sad times* I want to like mafia romance, I really do. After all, it's such a popular romance sub-genre. Is it a sub-genre or a trope? I'm never sure. Anyhoo, most of them are too dark for me. I've found a few that are dark-ish, and one series that was mafia-lite that I really enjoyed, but in general, mafia romance tends to be rather hit and miss for me. More miss than hit. *more sadness* I guess I am just not made for the violence and all the things that make up a popular mafia romance. In a lot of mafia romance, the heroine tends to get kidnapped, mistreated, abused and tortured... sometimes even by the hero. That is so not my jam. There is this group of authors who are writing under the umbrella of a world called the Social Rejects Syndicate. Each "syndicate" is set in a different country and each author writes a trilogy based in a country. I do not know if they get to pick their country of choice or if they just get assigned a country. I also do not know if these authors are invited to join the world or if it's an opt-in. I've picked one newly released series to read and check out because chatting with the author, she says her book is not that dark since that's just not her vibe. I hope I like it.

And motorcycle clubs. Literally so many books and series coming out for MC romance. To say this is popular and continues to be popular might be an understatement. This shiz sells y'all, otherwise there would be a lot fewer authors writing it.I have tried and tried and tried to find a motorcycle club romance to love. I've tried so hard. I want to love it because SO MANY PEOPLE love it. But I've DNFed so many of them or I don't enjoy them that much. I've read books where they were okay but I've not liked them enough to keep reading more of the series. Like the mafia stories where I'm looking for mafia-lite, I think I'm looking for MC- lite and there probably just isn't that kind of thing available. MC romances by nature of them being in an MC tend to me rough around the edges. Plus there are club women who tend to add to other women drama and misunderstandings, and in many occasions cheating which is not my thing. There's just too much lying, cheating, whoring, and violence in an MC romance for me. The closest I've come to really enjoying an MC romance is the Torpedo Ink series by Christine Feehan. I remember enjoying the first book but for some unfathomable reason I have not gotten back to reading more books in the series and I think it's up to seven books now. Might take me a while to catch up.

So we are watching the show Magnum PI on TV - the new one. And during a scene between TC and Rick, they are talking and TC has something he hasn't told Rick about. Anyway, Rick says, "C'mon, tell daddy. Tell daddy about it." Okay, that made me crack up laughing. I paused the show and told Steve, "in my world, the term 'daddy' has a very different meaning." So yeah, anyone for some daddy kink in their romance books? LOL.

I've seen this happen a few times and I'm not sure about the ethics of it. Then it popped up again in an author group and I wondered about it again. Recently, in an author's book group (the author had just released a new book - I do not know which one), someone went into the group and complained about the price of the book. I think it may have been a traditionally published book, but I'm not sure. Anyway, that person complained the price of the book was too high and she could not afford it even though she wanted to read it. Some people commented that she should not be complaining about it in the author's group. A few kind people offered to gift her the book or buy the book for her. Thank you, kind people. But then, I'm wondering if the person complaining about the price of the book is legit. Or taking advantage of the kindness of strangers, because yes, I'm suspicious like that. I always question if the person is being genuine or if the person is taking advantage of people and their goodness. I question their motives. So anyway, I see this happen a lot and the cynic in me is very suss about the whole thing. Should I be? I do not know. This comes on the heels of learning about someone who is getting people to buy her things from an Amazon registry to furnish her brand new RV which she claims she cannot afford to pay the registration fees on, but she can afford to buy the brand new RV? I've seen pictures she posted of the RV. That sucker is large and shiny, and definitely cost a pretty penny. But hey, what do I know about a person's circumstances? It could all be legit. You know... walk a mile in their shoes and all that.

Right. That's enough sass from me at one go. One can only take so much, correct? By the way, I do not mean to offend anyone with my sass. Hope you enjoyed my observations into all things bookish... or sort of bookish. There will be more to come if this post does not cause a riot and upset too many people. Toodles.


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