WHAT NO JENNIFER BLAKE ARE YOU ACTUALLY A WOMAN
Apparently today is Day of Rage. Yay. Anyway, I grabbed some books at the March of Dimes book sale Friday, just to have something to do over the weekend. One was a collection of Christmas-themed romance novellas. Okay, so sue me. :P It looked cute, and I've actually found four or five romance novelists who write good stuff. (Though they're mostly Regency/historicals, and I just realized why in a blinding flash of insight. Mostly the romance genre is variations on the Cinderella story - kind, underappreciated, and secretly beautiful girl swept off her feet by a rich, handsome Prince Charming who rescues her from a life of ordinariness. In a modern setting, that immediately sets off all my angry independent feminist alarms... but in the Regency era, it almost works, because there really wasn't any respectable way for a middle- or upper-class woman to support herself, so they had to rely on finding a good husband. ANYWAY.)
So. A Vision of Sugar Plums. Jennifer Blake. Had me cussing a blue streak and calling the characters terrible names while reading. I wanted to finish in case things somehow started making more sense, but they DIDN'T. By the end, I was about ready to go after Male Protagonist's eyes with my nonexistent fingernails. Let's see... when you're stuck babysitting your niece over Christmas and you LEAVE HER IN A STORE DISPLAY while you shop, and the stunningly attractive store owner finds the kid and thinks it's abandoned, do you: A) claim the baby and apologize, then ask her out to dinner; or B) talk her out of calling the police and into TAKING THE BABY HOME WITH HER, then offer to come along and help care for it? If you chose B, what do you do when you realize you really like this woman and she's going to be hacked off when she finds out that you knew who the kid belonged to the whole time and she's panicking for nothing? A) 'fess up, admit that things got out of hand, and apologize profusely for being a complete frakking idiot; or B) think "Hmm, I like her, she likes babies, OBVIOUSLY I MUST SEDUCE AND IMPREGNATE HER BEFORE SHE FINDS OUT THE TRUTH AND GETS PISSED OFF, THEN SHE'LL HAVE TO MARRY ME ANYWAY."
Seriously, what. The. *&%*%$&^#$. It's not all on Male Protagonist, though... he may be a manipulative lying ass, but I was rolling my eyes at Female Protagonist too. Seriously, it's the 21st century. A thirty-year-old woman who's been married and had a child should know about condoms! One mess-up is understandable, but an entire steamy romance-novel week with someone you just met, and you don't insist on protection? DUMB. And then when she realizes (at six weeks pregnant and not having seen the guy in nearly that long) that he's really her twoo wuv... she tells him off for making decisions for her, BUT HE CAN MAKE IT UP TO HER BY BUILDING A GREAT BIG HOUSE FOR ALL THE BABIES THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE WHEN THEY'RE MARRIED. And They Live Happily Ever After. And I throw the book across the room.
Okay, I know women are supposed to like men who take charge, but WHAT. Obviously I'm not a real woman, because I *&^%$ HATE IT when somebody makes decisions for me without asking my opinion. Or asks and then ignores it. Or thinks he gets to call the shots on everything just because he's willing to pay the bills, whether he's asked to or not. Also not a real woman because I like kids much better when they belong to somebody else. I'm uneasy around infants, get claustrophobic at the idea of being a stay-at-home mom, and the whole pregnancy and childbirth thing makes me feel vaguely queasy. So reproductive coercion hits ALL KINDS of hot-buttons here. NOT romantic, NOT sweet, NOT sexy. I don't expect much from romance novels, but this one managed to undershoot my expectations impressively.
Tl;dr? CAPSLOCK OF FEMINIST RAGE.