A Ramble through Smilie Land

Ok anyone who clicked thinking I had/have finally gone over to the dark ( or, depending on your view I guess, the right) mushy side sorry to disappoint you. Well not really seriously you people should know me better by now. And before you move on to read a note on this blog further to my prusit of brevity I have atemmpted to organise the rambling somewhat with footnotes, you have been warned.

Anyways for at least the last 4 months I see the what have you read in whatever month thread and always think I should keep track of what I read. And this month Niamh has challenged me to do so, so I am quite scarily actually am keeping track of what I have read. However, when I look at the list I can predict any respect I may have garnered in the last 3 years vanishing double quick as this is the month of romance .

I have other than the for me reading and the uni reading, work related and rating/guidance reading to do. And my current project at work is to identify and come up with some kind of classification for the dozens ( well actually nearly if not over 100) paranormal romancy/thriller/wierdos of the night type books that seem to have seeped into every corner of the library from the young adults ( Stephanie meyer) to horror ( Christine feehan&hamiliton&huff&etc etc) Romance ( well they sort of split we are getting duplicates and half seris and no one knows where anything should go ... its driving me and the rest of the staff nuts, plus being the one who can recite blurbs and identify authors from cover description people assume Ive read the books and come after me with the I read this author who should I read next. SO I am working my way through reading one book from most serieses ( with a few major exceptions).* Plus I am easily entertained and can get through most books much faster than alot of other people could.**

Then of course there is the sister(13), who has become hooked on romance has worked her way almost entirlye through the teenage section ( and now is going thorough that annoying stage when you only read one theme and hers is currently love stories, and they have to have happy endings too) And after me intercepting several adult meg cabot books thats she had ordered and an incedent with coloure postits carefully highlighting the ppoints of my argument about how parents shouldn’t just assume that kids are reading what they think they are reading my mothers suggestion was feed her Mils and boons, only my mother hasn’t had a mills and boons since the days when there wasn’t any sex in them and now I am given the semi impossible task of locating historical romance novels without sex seneces , Mills and boons without sex scenes ( and which are not too learned helplessness inducing-but that is my add on) and so when I am not skim reading a paranormal romancey thing I am going through a romance more carefully to check for suitability, the min objection as far as I can gather from the pareantal unit side isn’t the actual sex secens so much as the blaise attitude to teen sex exhibited in books such as all American girl ready or not or the JAqualyn moriarty books ( which I LOVED but then agaio I was 16 or 17 when I read them ) , and sure yeah teens have sex its natural blah blah blah, but I don’t know maybe its just me but 13 is too young to be a dad, and shouldn’t 12 year olds still be running around playing silly games? I was still playing hide and seek when I was 12.*** I used to enjoy the occasional romance brilliant for giggles****but, I fear after this I will be off them for life- not actually a bad thing, I guess .
Ok some of them aren’t all bad, I have added notes as to what made me laugh and what didn’t to the growing list and what was just plain awful. But I an tell you now some of those paranormal romances are just plain traumatic and scarring!

Footnotes

*anything printed by an erotica lable or I find is classed as erotica by amazon or another big book seller/publishing houses also see point ^^

**Its called skipping the sex scenes ^ reading every other page, or every other line. Or in some cases last chapter-first chapter- middle chapter then every third chapter staring from chapter 7 . Or just flicking to page 108. And reading enough that when someone comes with the book and starts talking I know just enough about the plot to discuss the book, or at least generally the author. Course in other cases this kind half knowedge has got me into trouble^^.

***Then again the last time I played a version of hide and seek I was 19 well it was more murder in the dark and freshers term

****Take the newest Nora Roberts, for example where this evil demon who may or may not be satan will escape from hell and kill all of humanity if these 3 couples do not all fall in love and start spawning little ‘love babies’ all said completely seriously, how can you not cry with laughter at the utter ridiculousness of it all?

^Which contributes alot of the book when somehow the author manages to cram 15 into a 350-odd page book. Actually that one was really disappointing ( I knew there was a reason I was avoiding that book in spite of its seemingly innocent cover and the fact that it has officially been deemed a Thriller I got don’t read me vibes off it ) there was actually a fairly ok murder thing going on and loads of family dynamics and interactions but every time they got close to finding something out the characters stopped to have sex, and then skip three to 5 pages and we are back standing over the body again , or breaking into the suspects house or opening the envelope to real who did it or whatever... and I don’t care how many more series this woman writes I ain’t reading any more!!


^^well not trouble but the small talk has lead this woman to insisting I read the JR Ward books because they have a good mystery in them . I know its wrong to judge a book by its cover, but enough said?!