Review: "Baby, It’s Cold Outside" anthology - so much alpha maleness
I read "Baby, It's Cold Outside," a distinctly Christmas-themed 5-novella romance anthology released at the tail end of 2014, on a lark. The name, which obviously evoked the classic American Christmas song that, even at the time of the anthology's publication, attracted some controversy, caught my eye. And I was intrigued by the idea of five (well, four - more on that in a bit) writers trying to take the classic novel-length romance novel structure and condense it into a novella. And, because Chicago Public Library catalogue is ever-bountiful, I decided to literally and figuratively check it out.
While my review on LJ and elsewhere tend to get a bit wordy, I decided to try something different, and, hopefully, more compact, this time around. Let's see if I manage to keep it short medium-length.
General Thoughts
First of all, it is important to note that Emma Chase's contribution, "It's a Wonderful Tangled Christmas Carol," isn't actually a romance novella as such - it's an equivalent of a Christmas Special for the protagonists of her novel Tangled, set after the novel's events. I'll get more into it later, but I figure I should make a disclaimer up front that most of what I'm about to say applies to the remaining four novellas that have to set up the relationship and built it up the way this one doesn't.
As expected, writing novellas that clocked an average of 100 pages (give or take 30 pages) forced the authors to compress the usual romance novel arc, and, in a lot of cases, take shortcuts. Jennifer Probst's "Something for You" and Kate Meader's "Rekindle the Flame" featured leads that had some romantic history with each other. And while it isn't uncommon for romance novels' leads to be pretty quickly sexually attracted to each other, the four novellas lean in more into lust to drive the plot forward. Which isn't a problem for me, personally (for the most part), but romance novels tend to have more a build-up where characters get to know each other more (or get reacquainted), something that these novellas can't really afford to do due to page constraints. As another side-effect, they mercifully compress the Third Act Break-Up periods, so they don't drag too long.
It's also interesting what all five novellas do with the theme. All of them are set in winter, and all but Kristen Proby's "Saving Grace" are set on Christmas. Without spoiling anything, our leads being trapped by snow gets used more than once, and Meader's piece actually features the song.
It's also interesting that magic comes up not once, but twice. It wouldn't be a spoiler to say that Chase's contribution features some supernatural shenanigans, and the framing sequence in Probst's novella features a character with apparently magical ability to find soul mates (which never actually comes into play - which makes me wonder if the matchmaker characters taken from one of her series/standalone novels).
And the final general impression is that one thing that I realized fairly quickly is that male leads of all five novellas are alpha males, in all of the archetype's arrogant, I-know-whats-best-for-the-female-lead glory. Which... I'm not here to put down anyone else's catnip, but this isn't my thing. Frankly, the fact that I liked any of the novellas that featured them was a pleasant surprise. But be warned that my lack of enthusiasm for this trope is going to affect my feelings about the novellas - and it will probably affect yours depending on how you feel about this trope.
The Good
As I've said, "It’s a Wonderful Tangled Christmas Carol" is the only one that isn't about getting the leads together, since it's a sequel and the leads are already married and have, for the most part, a solid relationship. And it worked for me. Even though I didn't read the original novel, Chase gave the reader enough to get them up to speed on the basics, convey the relationship between the leads and, since this is a Christmas Carol type story, actually did some interesting psychological exploration of how the leads changed. And our male lead, Drew Evans, got the most distinct voices of any male leads in the anthology, and I thought Chase did a good job of playing him a s Scrooge figure without making him all that Scrooge-like. And, even though we are firmly in Drew's head for this story, we get pretty good characterization for the female lead, Katherine Brooks. The conflict between Drew and Katherine is believable, even if I didn't quite buy the whole "a business deal has to take place on Christmas Eve" thing that served as a catalyst for said conflict. And it is interesting to see a protagonist who knew that he was in a Christmas Carol type story and was willing to play along ([Spoiler (click to open)]going from "this is a dream, so I'm just going to roll with this ridiculousness" to realizing that, on some level, it's real, while still pointing out the plot points and cliches). And the novella did subvert the Christmas Carol Special Episode structure in certain ways, while also, without spoiling anything, bringing certain nuance to situations that would usually be treated as completely black and white in this sort of story.
Meader's "Rekindle the Flame" helped me put a finger on what bugged me about alpha male heroes in "Searching for You" and Melody Anne's "Safe in His Arms." While Meader's male lead, Beck Rivera, was arrogant macho guy who thought he knew what was best for his ex (the novella's female lead, Darcy Cochrane), it didn't go unchallenged. Darcy not only regularly called him out on his crap, but she wasn't treated as a bad person for doing that.[Spoiler (click to open)]Beck even (mostly) admits at the end that he was wrong about pushing Beck away when they originally dated without talking to her like she's a peer and an equal partner in a relationship. If we must have alpha male heroes, I would rather have it where the leads have something resembling a balanced power dynamic.
As a Chicago resident, I am also contractually required to point out that Meader's novella is set in the Windy City and is brimming with Chicago references - some obvious cliches, some a bit more subtle (for example, Darcy's dead seems to be a fictional equivalent of Sam Zell). And, as someone who's written a lot about Chicago, I have to point out that some of the Chicago references would have been dated even when she wrote it (which, assuming one-year gap between submission and publication, would be 2013) - Clybourn Corridor wasn't the land of lofts and artists since the early 2000s at the latest (If you wanted a tattoo parlor in a loft space in a neighborhood that was in one of the earlier stages of gentrification as of 2012-2013, KInzie Industrial Corridor, Bridgeport or (if the author was feeling bold) East Garfield Park would've been better fits).
And I should mention that both novellas had some amusing, often not-safe-for-work jokes. Props to both authors.
The Decent and the So-So
I don't actually have that many thoughts about Kristen Proby's contribution. I liked that the the female lead, Grace Douglas, took initiative, was confident in her sexuality and wasn't made to look like a bad person for simply wanting a fling (obviously, because of the kind of novella it is, it turns into more than that, but one doesn't invalidate the other). And, while not all of Grace's jokes land, Proby gave her an endearing sense of human and a plausable ability to think on her feet. I'm less impressed by her male lead Jacob "Bax" Baxter, especially with his silly nickname, but he wasn't a bad character. I didn't mind the leads ending up together. And I liked that Proby didn't go for the more obvious catalyst for a third-act break-up and went for something more character-driven. I always applaud authors for successfully playing with expectations.
Probst's contribution... wasn't bad, but it wasn't too terribly good, either. While in "Rekindle the Flame," Darcy is allowed to push back and land (metaphorical) blows, this novella's male lead, Dylan, talks a good game about wanting someone who challenges him, but he's the one who's doing most of the challenging. While the female lead, Riley gets some good digs in during their verbal sparring,[Spoiler (click to open)]she is the one winds up doing through changes, while Dylan is mostly proven right at every turn. And I could be wrong about this, but I think Probst honestly didn't quite understand what makes career-minded, plan-orientated women like Riley tick, and what comes across the page winds up hollow and superficial.
Also, there is this bit where Riley seemed to actually, no exaggeration, sexually get off on high-quality kitchen appliances.
Riley moaned and squeezed her thighs together. Oh God, the appliances were beautiful. The things she could do here...
.And it doesn't really get used in the novella aside from a joke at the very end. Which seems like a missed opportunity. I mean, if you're going to put something that fetishistically specific, you should do soemthing with it, right?
The Bad
And last, and certainly the least was Melody Anne's contribution. It wasn't just the male lead, with the so-obnoxious-it-hurts name of Hawk Winchester (I mean, Americans have some weird names, in real life as well as fiction, but this is a bit much). It was the female lead, Natalie Duncan.
*sighs* Look. I can buy a person who spent their life in California , the Land of Always Summer, not to realize just how cold Montana gets. I had trouble realizing just how warm Illinois gets when I first came to this country. Natalie not realizing how heaters work is, again, understandable. But to have absolutely no idea that Montana is cold during the winter... Bear in mind, the character is supposed to be a teacher. One may forgive this kind of ignorance in a spoiled heiress, but if you want us to buy this character as someone who has what it takes to educate kids, that's a bridge too far.
This made a whole bunch of other things in the story look worse. The way the town's resident matchmakers connived to have Natalie get hired as a teacher simply because they thought she was perfect for Hawk (based on, the best I can tell, little more than her resume and a headshot)... I know matchmaking elders isn't exactly an unusual romance trope, but the whole thing was already manipulative as hell (with Natalie having no idea she was just a pawn in the matchmaking plans), and it just looks worse with my disbelief firmly unsuspended. Plus, as someone who covers more than a few school board meetings, the idea of a board member manipulating the process for (kind of) personal gain stinks. And Hawk does himself no favors by being the kind of alpha where negative qualities overshadow the positive ones.
By Chapter 8 (of 17), I realized that i really wasn't interested in seeing Too-Dumb-To-Live Teacher (with a sympathetic backstory) get together with an obnoxious fireman playboy with an obnoxious name and just DNFed the story, skipping head to Meader's contribution. And I have no inclination to go back.
In Conclusion
Overall...it's fine. Some stories were better than others, and, overall, the package averages out to "fine." I suspect those of you who actually like alpha heroes may get something more out of it, but for me, I'm just glad that it's a library book and I can simply return it.
While my review on LJ and elsewhere tend to get a bit wordy, I decided to try something different, and, hopefully, more compact, this time around. Let's see if I manage to keep it short medium-length.
General Thoughts
First of all, it is important to note that Emma Chase's contribution, "It's a Wonderful Tangled Christmas Carol," isn't actually a romance novella as such - it's an equivalent of a Christmas Special for the protagonists of her novel Tangled, set after the novel's events. I'll get more into it later, but I figure I should make a disclaimer up front that most of what I'm about to say applies to the remaining four novellas that have to set up the relationship and built it up the way this one doesn't.
As expected, writing novellas that clocked an average of 100 pages (give or take 30 pages) forced the authors to compress the usual romance novel arc, and, in a lot of cases, take shortcuts. Jennifer Probst's "Something for You" and Kate Meader's "Rekindle the Flame" featured leads that had some romantic history with each other. And while it isn't uncommon for romance novels' leads to be pretty quickly sexually attracted to each other, the four novellas lean in more into lust to drive the plot forward. Which isn't a problem for me, personally (for the most part), but romance novels tend to have more a build-up where characters get to know each other more (or get reacquainted), something that these novellas can't really afford to do due to page constraints. As another side-effect, they mercifully compress the Third Act Break-Up periods, so they don't drag too long.
It's also interesting what all five novellas do with the theme. All of them are set in winter, and all but Kristen Proby's "Saving Grace" are set on Christmas. Without spoiling anything, our leads being trapped by snow gets used more than once, and Meader's piece actually features the song.
It's also interesting that magic comes up not once, but twice. It wouldn't be a spoiler to say that Chase's contribution features some supernatural shenanigans, and the framing sequence in Probst's novella features a character with apparently magical ability to find soul mates (which never actually comes into play - which makes me wonder if the matchmaker characters taken from one of her series/standalone novels).
And the final general impression is that one thing that I realized fairly quickly is that male leads of all five novellas are alpha males, in all of the archetype's arrogant, I-know-whats-best-for-the-female-lead glory. Which... I'm not here to put down anyone else's catnip, but this isn't my thing. Frankly, the fact that I liked any of the novellas that featured them was a pleasant surprise. But be warned that my lack of enthusiasm for this trope is going to affect my feelings about the novellas - and it will probably affect yours depending on how you feel about this trope.
The Good
As I've said, "It’s a Wonderful Tangled Christmas Carol" is the only one that isn't about getting the leads together, since it's a sequel and the leads are already married and have, for the most part, a solid relationship. And it worked for me. Even though I didn't read the original novel, Chase gave the reader enough to get them up to speed on the basics, convey the relationship between the leads and, since this is a Christmas Carol type story, actually did some interesting psychological exploration of how the leads changed. And our male lead, Drew Evans, got the most distinct voices of any male leads in the anthology, and I thought Chase did a good job of playing him a s Scrooge figure without making him all that Scrooge-like. And, even though we are firmly in Drew's head for this story, we get pretty good characterization for the female lead, Katherine Brooks. The conflict between Drew and Katherine is believable, even if I didn't quite buy the whole "a business deal has to take place on Christmas Eve" thing that served as a catalyst for said conflict. And it is interesting to see a protagonist who knew that he was in a Christmas Carol type story and was willing to play along ([Spoiler (click to open)]going from "this is a dream, so I'm just going to roll with this ridiculousness" to realizing that, on some level, it's real, while still pointing out the plot points and cliches). And the novella did subvert the Christmas Carol Special Episode structure in certain ways, while also, without spoiling anything, bringing certain nuance to situations that would usually be treated as completely black and white in this sort of story.
Meader's "Rekindle the Flame" helped me put a finger on what bugged me about alpha male heroes in "Searching for You" and Melody Anne's "Safe in His Arms." While Meader's male lead, Beck Rivera, was arrogant macho guy who thought he knew what was best for his ex (the novella's female lead, Darcy Cochrane), it didn't go unchallenged. Darcy not only regularly called him out on his crap, but she wasn't treated as a bad person for doing that.[Spoiler (click to open)]Beck even (mostly) admits at the end that he was wrong about pushing Beck away when they originally dated without talking to her like she's a peer and an equal partner in a relationship. If we must have alpha male heroes, I would rather have it where the leads have something resembling a balanced power dynamic.
As a Chicago resident, I am also contractually required to point out that Meader's novella is set in the Windy City and is brimming with Chicago references - some obvious cliches, some a bit more subtle (for example, Darcy's dead seems to be a fictional equivalent of Sam Zell). And, as someone who's written a lot about Chicago, I have to point out that some of the Chicago references would have been dated even when she wrote it (which, assuming one-year gap between submission and publication, would be 2013) - Clybourn Corridor wasn't the land of lofts and artists since the early 2000s at the latest (If you wanted a tattoo parlor in a loft space in a neighborhood that was in one of the earlier stages of gentrification as of 2012-2013, KInzie Industrial Corridor, Bridgeport or (if the author was feeling bold) East Garfield Park would've been better fits).
And I should mention that both novellas had some amusing, often not-safe-for-work jokes. Props to both authors.
The Decent and the So-So
I don't actually have that many thoughts about Kristen Proby's contribution. I liked that the the female lead, Grace Douglas, took initiative, was confident in her sexuality and wasn't made to look like a bad person for simply wanting a fling (obviously, because of the kind of novella it is, it turns into more than that, but one doesn't invalidate the other). And, while not all of Grace's jokes land, Proby gave her an endearing sense of human and a plausable ability to think on her feet. I'm less impressed by her male lead Jacob "Bax" Baxter, especially with his silly nickname, but he wasn't a bad character. I didn't mind the leads ending up together. And I liked that Proby didn't go for the more obvious catalyst for a third-act break-up and went for something more character-driven. I always applaud authors for successfully playing with expectations.
Probst's contribution... wasn't bad, but it wasn't too terribly good, either. While in "Rekindle the Flame," Darcy is allowed to push back and land (metaphorical) blows, this novella's male lead, Dylan, talks a good game about wanting someone who challenges him, but he's the one who's doing most of the challenging. While the female lead, Riley gets some good digs in during their verbal sparring,[Spoiler (click to open)]she is the one winds up doing through changes, while Dylan is mostly proven right at every turn. And I could be wrong about this, but I think Probst honestly didn't quite understand what makes career-minded, plan-orientated women like Riley tick, and what comes across the page winds up hollow and superficial.
Also, there is this bit where Riley seemed to actually, no exaggeration, sexually get off on high-quality kitchen appliances.
Riley moaned and squeezed her thighs together. Oh God, the appliances were beautiful. The things she could do here...
.And it doesn't really get used in the novella aside from a joke at the very end. Which seems like a missed opportunity. I mean, if you're going to put something that fetishistically specific, you should do soemthing with it, right?
The Bad
And last, and certainly the least was Melody Anne's contribution. It wasn't just the male lead, with the so-obnoxious-it-hurts name of Hawk Winchester (I mean, Americans have some weird names, in real life as well as fiction, but this is a bit much). It was the female lead, Natalie Duncan.
*sighs* Look. I can buy a person who spent their life in California , the Land of Always Summer, not to realize just how cold Montana gets. I had trouble realizing just how warm Illinois gets when I first came to this country. Natalie not realizing how heaters work is, again, understandable. But to have absolutely no idea that Montana is cold during the winter... Bear in mind, the character is supposed to be a teacher. One may forgive this kind of ignorance in a spoiled heiress, but if you want us to buy this character as someone who has what it takes to educate kids, that's a bridge too far.
This made a whole bunch of other things in the story look worse. The way the town's resident matchmakers connived to have Natalie get hired as a teacher simply because they thought she was perfect for Hawk (based on, the best I can tell, little more than her resume and a headshot)... I know matchmaking elders isn't exactly an unusual romance trope, but the whole thing was already manipulative as hell (with Natalie having no idea she was just a pawn in the matchmaking plans), and it just looks worse with my disbelief firmly unsuspended. Plus, as someone who covers more than a few school board meetings, the idea of a board member manipulating the process for (kind of) personal gain stinks. And Hawk does himself no favors by being the kind of alpha where negative qualities overshadow the positive ones.
By Chapter 8 (of 17), I realized that i really wasn't interested in seeing Too-Dumb-To-Live Teacher (with a sympathetic backstory) get together with an obnoxious fireman playboy with an obnoxious name and just DNFed the story, skipping head to Meader's contribution. And I have no inclination to go back.
In Conclusion
Overall...it's fine. Some stories were better than others, and, overall, the package averages out to "fine." I suspect those of you who actually like alpha heroes may get something more out of it, but for me, I'm just glad that it's a library book and I can simply return it.