Book 05 Feb 2009 08:38 am
Stereotypes in Romance Novels
You know the covers. Buxom yet innocent lass and Strapping, muscular, and obviously well-hung muscular womanizer in a heated embrace…
An interesting article here at MSNBC.com. Talking about where the genre is going, and some new names that you wouldn’t think of in the “bodice ripper” genre, likeEmily Giffin. (By the way, her covers DEFINITELY do not fall into this post.)
For those that really just find the covers ridiculous… head on over to World of Long Mire.com. It pretty much sums it all up!
I know I should use the small Flickr size on this photo. But he really is too yummy looking to be anything smaller than medium. *drools*
Anyways, to get to the point of this post. Felicia Day did a post about the new Highland Hunk sub-genre in romance novels. She read 5 romance novels that all deal fairly exclusively with the Highlanders and did a mini-review on her reactions.
All are pretty standard reviews. Yes Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is not a trashy romance novel (though there are Highlanders and romance in it) but the others are pretty “generic.” I have read other books by some of those authors and yes they are just there for the fun. No real award winners, but the ones I read were fun.
However… I don’t feel that I could give a detailed account of the modern Scottish Man from these books. Which makes one of the comments and then subsequent post all the more interesting to me. In Response to Highland Hunk is a response in the Watch The Guild forums to Felicia’s post.
Really? First of all. Everyone in romance novels are attractive. Well. the rich ones anyways (or the poor ones that you are rooting for). The girls are always petite, and so small they gosh-darnit don’t even NEED a corset!!! The men are always muscular super-hunks.
And don’t we know that that is JUST LIKE IN THE REAL WORLD!!! uh wait… no it isnt. Yeah some people are attractive and some people are super hunks… most of those people, I definitely wouldn’t read a novel about since most of the rich people today are NOT attractive. Yeah Prince William is cute, but his dad… not so much…
Anyways, I love the Scots. I went there for a vacation with my dad in 2006 and was very impressed with… well mostly the scenery and the accents. But everyone was nice to us, and dealt well with my dad’s inability to understand their accents. And one place even had a man’s border collie outside the pub waiting for him to come out.
I, however, saw no super-stud Highland men in kilts galloping about on horseback. That would have MADE my vacation.
That said, I’d just like to remind people that Karen Marie Moning (one of the authors Felicia Day reads) also writes a contemporary romance in Ireland which is a bit more realistic to what people are today (plus fairies and evil shadows of course) called DARKFEVER. and that is a fabulous series. So even within one author who writes the Highland Hunk novels, they can also write other stuff that you might actually enjoy!
Thanks!
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