I came to an absolutely horrifying realisation this weekend. About half my bookshelf is made up of complete and utter crap. This made me want to cry since I normally think I have pretty good taste in books. I'm not talking about my Meg Cabot books which are, essentially, books for teenage girls. I still laugh my butt off at some of her stuff. I don't think it's a matter of "growing out" of my books but realising that a lot of it is drivel. Some of my stuff is so unbelievably sexist, I can't believe I hadn't noticed it before.
I was raised on a steady diet of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy was the type of heroine that could take care of herself, thank you kindly. She could even swoop in to save her boyfriend if push came to shove.
Now, I know we can't all be Buffys. But for the love of all things holy, they can at least give us leading ladies whose brains do not seize in the presence of testosterone.
The biggest culprits are Stephenie Meyer (I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a former Twihard) and Christine Feehan. I won't knock Meyer since that's been done to death. I don't think she's intentionally sexist, I think she's just dumb. But Feehan's more recent stuff has had me sitting there staring at my book, wishing I could get in there and slap the lead characters.
I've been reading her stuff since high school. I've read enough of her books to pick up on a couple of... flaws, which can be pretty flipping annoying. She's repetitive. Seriously, she will describe how beautiful/nice/hot/macho/dangerous her characters are ad-nauseum. She has copy-paste story lines. Her male characters are all beef cakes and her female characters are all unearthly beauties who border on being nominated for sainthood. These woman are so damn sweet that they give you bloody toothache. I can normally overlook these little issues and just enjoy the story.
The last two books of Feehan's that I read were Dark Predator and Spirit Bound. These drove me to the brink of losing my ever-loving mind.
Let me start with Dark Predator. This is the 22nd book in the Carpathian series (it took me 22 bloody books to reach the end of my tether). Carpathians are these vampire-like creatures. They're immortal and the guys are really Really REALLY aggressive. They lose their emotions after a couple of hundred years and run the risk of turning into vampires who are evil and kill humans. The guys all look for their lifemate, the woman who "completes" them. Generally, the woman have little (read "no") say in the matter. They recite their little bonding ritual and that's it. The unfortunate woman is married to a horny, chauvinistic douche bag.
Dark Predator tells us about Zacarias, the oldest de la Cruz brother (yes, there are more of him). Man. I hated this guy. What a pushy, obnoxious asshole! Not that the female lead, Magaurita, is all that great herself. I wish Feehan had mentioned that this woman's middle name is "Doormat". Old Zacarias decides that he's had enough of his colourless, emotionless life and tries to kill himself. Magaurita sees him lying there trying to catch a tan and and knows that Zacarias will burn to a crisp if he doesn't get his dumb butt out of the sun. She freaks out. He tells her to buzz off and let him die but she ignores him. She saves him by dragging him into the safety of the house.
Big. Mistake.
As the book went on I found myself wishing that she had just left the bastard in the sun to fry. He nearly strangles her for disobeying him and then he bites her. He nearly kills her. He carries on with this abusive behaviour throughout the book. He is so effing controlling that he even picks out her clothes for her! Because obviously her tiny female brain can't handle anything so complicated. He then turns her into a Carpathian (a hugely painful process) without her permission. Magaurita, being the weak-kneed ninny that she is, just forgives him. She doesn't crap him out for taking that choice away from her. She just accepts that this is "the nature of the Carpathian male".
The worst part about all this? Women older than myself are gushing about how romantic this jackass is. When it's pointed out that his behaviour is overbearing and controlling to say the least, they respond by saying that "you are thinking in human terms". I kid you not.
I can't go into detail with Spirit Bound because I gave up halfway through the book. I was that pissed off with this book. Stefan, another macho man with zero consideration, cheerfully bulldozes his way into the feeble female Blythe's life. He is pushy and aggressive and condescending and I wanted to slap him. This overbearing SOB drugs his beloved to "keep her out of harm's way". At this point I just put the book down. After I had picked my jaw up off the floor, that is.
What I don't understand is how a female author can do this to her female characters? I was pretty young when I started this series so it stands to reason that other young girls are reading this stuff too. Is this really something you would want a young impressionable woman to be reading? The whole idea that a woman should just passively let her partner do whatever the hell he wants just freaks me out.
Whew...
Thank you for your patience everybody. I just needed to vent.
Have a good Monday!
