won't let you down
I have a tendency to use Blogspot for when I need to get review thoughts out of my head immediately so I can start reading the next book/author. Ergo this one from last week.
Mary Balogh disturbs me.
So far I've read four of the six Bedwyn novels. And there's a clear formula that's emerged. Couple meets, couple is attracted to each other, couple gives in and has sex, couple then gets to know each other intellectually and emotionally and spiritually, couple then make love, couple finally admit love. I don't mind that so much ... if anything, that's quite classic romance, sort of a modern romantic archetype. I'm sure I do it too in my own novels, nothing wrong with that.
What unnerves, appals and deeply upsets me is how that first sex scene takes place. Four out of four times, it's happened abruptly, almost without warning. And it happens in almost clinical fashion, awfully so. There's such a lack of emotion I find myself horrified in each book, appalled that they would do it so soon and with such a lack of emotion. Then it's always over far too quickly, with a near brutal efficiency, and I'm left feeling almost violated on behalf of our heroine.
But then the final bizarre thing: a few pages later, I'm told how emotional it was for her. WHAT?! Were we reading/living the same scene?! Where was that in the language of the actual scene, the act? Cos, yes, of course sex that begins in lust can end up emotional, I totally accept that. But it has to be shown right there and then ... not told after the fact.
I do find myself a little disappointed at the male dominance in the sex scenes, how passive the women are. Even Freyja wasn't quite as assertive in bed as I'd hoped. So it felt even more unfair that when Christine (definitely my favourite so far) takes the initiative, we're told about it after the fact and summarised in one paragraph. Unfair, Balogh, unfair.
Those two quibbles aside, I've definitely enjoyed the books more as I've proceeded through them. Mind you, I'm pretty sure I inadvertantly began with the weakest of them all, Slightly Sinful, which royally pissed me off on every level. And I'm very glad I followed boojumlol's advice and read the others before I got to Wulfric's story, Slightly Dangerous, because that novel is so very very awesome, an absolute masterpiece in terms of mature characterisation and also wrapping up the entire series.
I just wish the sex was better handled. The fact that I'm squicked says a helluva lot.
Mary Balogh disturbs me.
So far I've read four of the six Bedwyn novels. And there's a clear formula that's emerged. Couple meets, couple is attracted to each other, couple gives in and has sex, couple then gets to know each other intellectually and emotionally and spiritually, couple then make love, couple finally admit love. I don't mind that so much ... if anything, that's quite classic romance, sort of a modern romantic archetype. I'm sure I do it too in my own novels, nothing wrong with that.
What unnerves, appals and deeply upsets me is how that first sex scene takes place. Four out of four times, it's happened abruptly, almost without warning. And it happens in almost clinical fashion, awfully so. There's such a lack of emotion I find myself horrified in each book, appalled that they would do it so soon and with such a lack of emotion. Then it's always over far too quickly, with a near brutal efficiency, and I'm left feeling almost violated on behalf of our heroine.
But then the final bizarre thing: a few pages later, I'm told how emotional it was for her. WHAT?! Were we reading/living the same scene?! Where was that in the language of the actual scene, the act? Cos, yes, of course sex that begins in lust can end up emotional, I totally accept that. But it has to be shown right there and then ... not told after the fact.
I do find myself a little disappointed at the male dominance in the sex scenes, how passive the women are. Even Freyja wasn't quite as assertive in bed as I'd hoped. So it felt even more unfair that when Christine (definitely my favourite so far) takes the initiative, we're told about it after the fact and summarised in one paragraph. Unfair, Balogh, unfair.
Those two quibbles aside, I've definitely enjoyed the books more as I've proceeded through them. Mind you, I'm pretty sure I inadvertantly began with the weakest of them all, Slightly Sinful, which royally pissed me off on every level. And I'm very glad I followed boojumlol's advice and read the others before I got to Wulfric's story, Slightly Dangerous, because that novel is so very very awesome, an absolute masterpiece in terms of mature characterisation and also wrapping up the entire series.
I just wish the sex was better handled. The fact that I'm squicked says a helluva lot.