Authors Pulling Their Punches
I finished a reading book this morning and was left feeling fiercely annoyed. This is the second book that did this to me and it's driving me crazy. The book I finished this morning was a romantic suspense, and the other one I'm thinking of was a contemporary romance. Both by well-known authors.I am all for a happy ending. I love happy endings. But not when the author LIES to me.
Here's how it goes. Heroine has a deep secret, a secret so painful she doesn't talk about it. She just wants to live her life as best she can in spite of the secret. We admire her, we feel her vulnerability, we root for her! She's doing okay and along comes Hunky Hero. (I do love me a Hunky Hero!)
Nature takes it's course, and Hunky Hero gains our Heroine's trust, she's starting to believe she and Hero have a future. Maybe he can love her even though she has this dreadful secret.
The tension builds. We watch her struggle. Finally the Big Moment comes where she tells there hero the truth--she can't have a baby.
Hero is shocked, saddened, but he loves the heroine. We all sigh in relief. Look at that, two people can find love and happiness without perfection. Good, yes?
The author threw her punch and these two survived it!
Then comes the epilogue...and guess what? Suddenly, we find out it was all a big mistake and the heroine is pregnant!
Just like the kitten above, this is where I has a fierce! reaction to this. It's pulling your punch! It's setting up a conflict through three or four hundred pages, then in the last pages, saying, "Ha ha, just kidding, the conflict wasn't real."
I HATE THAT!
I believe in happily ever after. But I don't believe it pulling punches like that.
So what about you all? Does it bug you?
posted by Jennifer at 8:22 AM
4 Comments:
Argh it drives me crazy. But I think I would have been left feeling ripped off if not being able to have a baby was the big bad secret. In this day and age more and more people are opting to not. In my experience a woman wanting a baby... in the future led to guys taking the bullet train far, far away. I know that's just me, but give me a secret that is truly deep, dark, and daring. Something that challenges acceptance and a relationship.
Cele, I would totally agree with you, but in this case the baby thing was part of a bigger internal struggle for the heroine mixed into a suspense story. It worked right up the epilogue where I felt like it was cheating. And the implication is that biology makes a family complete which I don't think is always true.
Man, I hope I'm not doing anything like that in my stories... You'd tell me, right? ::gulp::
M.
Michele, you never do this, and of course, I'd tell you! Like I hold back????
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