i want my fictional incest to be interesting, not gratuitous and stupid!

[schmerica]

So the novel I just finished reading had SUDDEN SURPRISE HETCEST. If you're reading this journal, you probably know enough about me to assume that this would be a huge plus in my mind, but in this case you would be wrong. It was bait and switch, man! The author spent four hundred pages convincing me this dude and chick were totally OTP in every way, and then hey, they finally get engaged! And they have sex for the first time! And then it's like you can almost hear the alarm go off in the author's head, all "oh, shit, I have to wrap this up in the next fifty pages, how can I stave off the happy ending? I KNOW, THEY'RE SECRETLY HALF-SIBLINGS! GENIUS!"

So weak. So very weak. There wasn't even any interesting angst about being in love with her, either! Just automatic "ew, gross cooties, I must break our engagement and go off alone into the world." Bleh.

In other news, today we moved the final bits of my stuff back from Eugene. Stuff! I missed you! I have a bed and everything. And my books. Sweet, sweet books, never leave me again.

Comments

[shoemaster.livejournal.com]

APPARENTLY THAT REALLY HAPPENED IN ENGLAND. IT'S SO SAD :(

only they'd actually gotten married, and it was annulled by the court

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I hate it when life steals its plot devices from shitty fantasy novels! :(

[highschoolhussy.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, what book was it? I would like to know what to avoid in future. Don't you hate it when authors finally get to the actual story, only to conclude the novel? Oy. I don't think I could ever be totally separated from my books. I really only feel truly safe with a stack of books a mile high next to my bed.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

To be fair, there was plenty of story in this one -- it was a fantasy satire, so all full of adventures and action all through.

[violin-road.livejournal.com]

This cannot be upsetting as this one piece of fic I read over and over where halfway through you realize "oh man, it's rapefic :(" and then spend like six pages like "RAPE IMPENDING" before suddenly they start talking about feelings >:(


... it's very depressing. to me.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Ahahahaha. Oh, beckah, your life is so hard! *hugs*

[desultory6.livejournal.com]

It's like a soap opera. Thing start to work out and then they need drama so there is sudden Secret Sibling Syndrome (SSS).

[modillian.livejournal.com]

HA! That should be in the standard fic warnings system: violence, dubcon, and SSS.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

It's so true!

[sinsense.livejournal.com]

I would never think that SURPRISE HETCEST A-THWARTED would be your thing. They should have stayed together and guiltily hidden their shameful affections from the world.

I have read a lot of romance novels, so I have encountered many "whoops ending coming let's just have them be siblings/faeries/murderous psychopaths/selkies" resolutions. Generally my reaction is to throw them into the donation bin with enough force to melt the cover off.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

YOU KNOW ME SO WELL. If I thought that in the sequel he was going to spend a lot of time pining and angsting over her and thinking about it, that would be another thing, but it's totally the kind of thing where it might maybe have two paragraphs of "oh hey backstory" if that.

Now I want a romance novel with romance between murderous selkie faerie siblings. :D

[cass404.livejournal.com]

i want my fictional incest to be interesting, not gratuitous and stupid!

Precisely. I am dismayed when it fails to be, too.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I am glad people understand this!

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

darling darling darling i miss you hi.

Also, did you read How I Live Now yet?

also hi i miss you hi.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I MISS YOU TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Tomorrow I am going to be working on data entry for my parents for a couple of hours, so I am thinking I should be on AIM then? AND WE CAN CLING FOREVER.

I have not read it yet! It is currently second in line on my to-read pile. At the rate I am reading right now, it should be soon!

[carnilia.livejournal.com]

DDD: WHAT THE HELL. I'm going to be honest, incest is a huge squick for me. Like, it is so, so hard for me to be okay with it, ever, in fiction, published or otherwise. Like, I have found that I can sometimes be okay with incest in a story if it is all tortured and angsty, and then I'll cry a lot and I'll never, ever want to reread whatever it is because it will tear out my soul. I can't deal with happy, fluffy, incestuous love with flowers and smiley faces. I'll just say WTF and stop reading. HOWEVER. If you're building up a relationship for a whole book, then you can't just go Oops, siblings, nvm! at the end! THAT IS RIDICULOUS. Please tell me what book this was, so I may avoid it like the plague.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

The book is Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David -- it's actually pretty fun in a lot of ways, if not high quality. I feel like incest is kind of normal for the course when you're basically riffing on fantasy/myth/folktales, because it's definitely a major theme in all those genres, but yeah, I just didn't like the way it was handled here.

[carla-scribbles.livejournal.com]

-- it is so, so sad that I totally suspected which book you were talking about before I even hit the comments. And I was right. (I still want them to have figured it out halfway in and then just gone for it anyway, dammit, but I suppose there wouldn't have been any sequel that way.)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I am still undecided about whether to read the sequel or not! The "lord of the cock ring" set up in the excerpt seems amazingly lame, but I guess that's over with pretty quickly before the plot sets in?