Romance novels, #@$%

yes, it's true, Debbie Macomber has profiled meself for many years now and yet I receive no recompense whatsoever.

Yes, I do agree. Mindless reading can be very relaxing. I tend toward People magazine rather than romance novels, but it's the same thing. Hubby reads popular fiction the same way. Interrupt him while he's reading and ask him what the book is about, and he'll say, "I have no idea." Sometimes you just have to give your brain a rest.

I have a friend who writes romance novels. This is a woman who attended the Sorbonne, mind you. She writes seriously as well, but romance novels bring in a lot of cash. She says there's a strict formula involved in the writing. (Sounds like writing them can get as tiresome as reading them!)

I should've known you'd be here.

I would've said they're written FOR daydreaming women who....

If only I warn't a Jew could've of married a good Christian man like yoo.

Guilty....I love me some mindless reading.

Dys...I can see where you would be upset...I thought of you several times when reading this stuff. You're a god.

After reading The Silmarillion and Outliers and the like - things I actually have to think really really hard about...even to the point of having to re-read a page a couple of times before I get it...it's nice to read something I can cruise through without thought.

Some people just don't know how lucky they are they have brains that process things quickly.

well, both, really.

if you take a gander at the likes of D. Macomber you know she's reconstructing in her imagination what it could've been.

I figured it has to be lucrative-- and after reading so many of them the formula rules the book. Especially in the context of the Christian romance novel...no matter how steamed up the man gets he always backs off until the purty lil' lady has his ring on her finger-- after that, well, it's bliss forever and always.

I agree about what your husband says when asked what's it about? who knows...now that's a kind of freedom.

In the case of mindless reading, why the guilt? I mean, I could see if you murdered and pillaged and felt remorse, but as Eva put it, it can be relaxing to give your brain a break.

There is something in the back of my head that says..."this is crap - find something better to do". I get over it though - it's not like I stop reading it. But the guilt - yeah...should definitely quit that...

I can read a half-dozen on a peaceful Sunday afternoon.
I can re-read the same half-dozen a couple of weeks later and not realize they're repeats.

The formula is available on the Harlequin/Silhouette website. They're extraordinarily specific in terms of what happens when.

You're way better off just giving into to the inanity of it. It does the brain some good to let it rest and wallow in mindlessness.

I always turn to the roamnce when I feel burdened by the need to read something of merit.

I found after a steady diet of these ridiculous books my brain once again craved something with substance.

Speaking of re-reading and not realizing they're repeats. I've gone to yard sales and picked up cheap books thinking I'd like to read them, only to find I've read them before.

I've done that a number of times with Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum novels. They're all pretty much the same book once it got up to 8.

If Sglass asks me what the book I'm reading is about, I'll usually answer, "It's about 400 pages," or whatever figure. Who knows what books are 'about' anyway?

myself, I can't read that stuff. It feels like I'm reading the same paragraph over and over. (see my thread about Twilight)

But I'm chiming in here because it brought back a memory. There was this girl Maureen I went to high school with. We weren't friends or anything, but we sat next to each other in homeroom.

She had a really good mind, and had a lot of street smarts to boot. She wasn't tough, but she lived a really adult life after school hours, one I couldn't imagine. (that's another story)
Anyway, it always seemed so incongruous to me that she read those harlequin romances, a different one every day.
Once I noticed she was reading her daily romance with one of her eyes covered with the palm of her hand. I asked her why and she showed me.

The covered eyes was jittering back and forth like a ping pong ball in fast motion. I asked her what that was all about, and she said she took some kind of drug last night that made her eyes do that. She said "it happens ever time"

I've completely missed the point of this story. Can you elaborate? Not understanding the connection between twittering eyeballs, drugs and romance novels.

meaning you never know the type of person that enjoys reading pulp fiction.

I never would have pegged Maureen for reading soppy stuff.

Ah, thank you.

I've read historical romances for years. I like my porn to be well-written with a plot -and I think the better authors in this genre deliver that. I've never read a Harlequin so I can't pass judgement on them, but I think an author like Georgette Heyer ranks with Jane Austin. No ones calls James Patterson or Steven King trashy, but I think their level of writing is not even as good as romance authors like Judith Ivory, Loretta Chase or Pamela Clare. I think romance books have been sneered at for years because they combine the scary elements of independent, thinking women and sex (at least the ones I read). People still confuse today's romantic literature with the "bodice rippers" of the 1980's or the nurse meets doctor romances of the 1950's. They've come a long way baby and there are some really good reads out there if you just sort through the reviews. If I do have a grip, it's with some of the stupid titles and the occasional tacky cover. It should be noted that most authors do not get to pick their title or cover art. I've long ago given up caring what people think of my reading material - sometimes I just read for fun (years without a TV will do that to a person) and sometimes I read for knowledge, but I never read to impress anyone.