If I Love You, Is That A Fact Or A Weapon?

[redbrunja]

So, fresh off the delicious tragedy of Code Name Verity, I read The Spymaster's Lady, which was a romance I had seen recced multiple places. AND IT WAS FUCKING TERRIBLE. Like, even for a fucking historical romance.

The breaking point for me was the horrific sex scene, in which "the hero" is fondling the naked "heroine" and she's going, "I don't want to have sex" and "the hero" literally goes, "yes you do, and I'm going to keep touching you until you tell me yes." This being romance, he was correct, but I wanted to throw up.

Other things that were terrible:

1.) despite being a spy for ten years and having the text imply that she was raped on the first page, "the heroine" was an unspoiled, untouched virgin who had never known a man's body before.

2.) "the heroine" choose over and over again not to kill people who were trying to kill her. I hate that kind of behavior just on general principles but I LOATHE it in female characters, because it ties into centuries of sexist bullshit about women being the gentler sex. Basically, if a fictional chick is choosing not to kill people when her life is in danger or other people's lives are in danger, even if this position is supported by the text and other characters, the only thing I think is YOU ARE WEAK, WEAK, WEAK and I want you to die.

Help me, flist, you are my only hope: do you have any recommendations for WWII romances (or romances in general) that do not insult my intelligence and end happily (as a subset of the above, I would also accept happy Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter fanfic).

Comments

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I really love Jo Graham's "Stealing Fire" (and "Black Ships" and "Hand of Isis", which ends as well as Cleopatra can), but they might be a bit historic for you. :)

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time since I read those last two - haven't yet read Stealing Fire - but I remember loving the way the female characters were handled, and the romance was cool too.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the rec!

[bellonablack.livejournal.com]

hah, yes exactly. I mean, I don't mind a regard for life but I think when there is no choice--you choose the other. I mean, it goes against...survival. Basically.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

It's extra obnoxious when it just means OTHER people are doing the killing.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I don't know about WWII set specifically but if you like historical romance, Judith Ivory's books are excellent and very smart. She doesn't write any longer but her backlist is worth checking out, especially Beast, The Proposition and Untie My Heart. Likewise if you enjoy contemporary romances, Jennifer Crusie's books are excellent, clever and banter-filled and very realistic (they have bad sex sometimes, or heroine sleeps with someone other than the hero...etc.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I LOVE Jenny Crusie. Her books are ones I'll pull out after a bad day. She's awesome.

[shiegra.livejournal.com]

....rather than hating the author or the writing conventions or the plot or the publishers that say that women aren't acceptable if not fitting into a sexist formula of 'worthy' performative femininity or the audience that supports them?

You feel what you feel obviously, but saying 'there's this long-standing misogynistic trope, so I hate its victims and want women to die' certainly doesn't make much feminist sense. It's just a different flavour of 'wrong way to be a girl,' not unlike their sexist formula, simply on the other end of the spectrum.

[iki-teru.livejournal.com]

well I don't have any romance, per say, suggestions. But there is a book series that I always turn to in times of trying to get Bad Writing scrubbed from my brain. It's fantasy trilogy and the first book is a kind of... heist/rebellion thing. The characters are all gorgeously written and one of the Leading Characters is a charming young woman who goes through a fairly amazing identiy crisis. There's a magic system that's easy to understand, character development in leaps and bounds, and characters that do more than just have a few compulsory lines, everyone has some sort of purpose and tie and it makes sense and I really can't say too much without spoiling the plot completely? But, it's one of those books that is worth several re-reads because picking up on all the subtle foreshadowing after you know what's going to happen just makes everything hurt in that way that only really well written fiction can do. (and most sincere apologies for the huge run on sentence. I get nervous rec'ing books :x)

If you're interesting, check out Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn (book one: The Final Empire)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, that sounds VERY promising.

[ewein2412]

probably I shouldn't even be here, but I really loved a book called Tuesday's War by David Fiddimore about an RAF bomber crew and their last couple of tours. It is a very MASCULINE book and every single character in it is a complete slut and it kind of runs on and on a bit. But I thought the characters were all *lovely* and the history was excellent in detail - it rang true. There is an ATA girl in it who eventually sneaks in with the bombers as their rear gunner. I loved it. You might not, but it's worth a try.

my goodreads review here - some spoilers:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/205720429

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the rec!

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

Firstly, I'm kind of a WWII nut, so if YOU have any good recommendations I would love to hear them. Doesn't have to be romance. (I already have Verity on hold)

I know I've said this before, because I pimp this to everyone who ever asks me about good books. The Bronze Horseman (and sequels) by Paullina Simons. It takes place during the 1941 siege of Leningrad, where a young woman falls in love with a Red Army officer garrisoned in the devastated city. Romance aside (and the romance is ungghh) it is a fantastic WWII drama that shows the ugliness of war at the ground level, the so-called 'collateral damage' upon the civilian population. It's also a really interesting glimpse into Russian culture and life in the Soviet Union.

Tatiana and Alexander are not perfect specimens of gender enlightenment; they are products of the time and culture in many ways. She doesn't wear an obvious feminist-superheroine cape. But she is incredibly brave and smart and does and gets what she wants, rules be damned. And that is exactly why he falls in love with her. They aren't perfect and they do stupid things to each other like real couples do, and you get so invested in them that it's really a kick in the gut when they do. It is probably my favorite literary romance of all time.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I've actually read The Bronze Horseman. I LOVED all the details about the siege of Leningrad and what that looked like at the ground level - it actually put 'do more research on this' on my to-do list.

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

Over a million people died that winter, most of them from starvation and exposure. And they had no way to get the bodies out. St. Petersburg is not very big. I can't even imagine.

Did you read the sequels? (BTW I have never been more glad to discover a sequel existed in my life, after TBH ending) Personally I thought it could have ended at book 2, but it was nice to see how their lives played out because I got so invested in them.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Over a million people died that winter, most of them from starvation and exposure. And they had no way to get the bodies out. St. Petersburg is not very big. I can't even imagine.

It must have been so brutal.

I have not read the sequels - I actually liked the setting and the history more than the characters, actually, and didn't feel a desperate need to read about them being reunited.

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

I don't really hate the characters, just get thrown out of the story because all I can see is the convention. Though I really think there is room for more pacifist heroines, and would not always reject one who wouldn't kill for her survival, especially if I want to take killing seriously as moral issue within the story, instead of just being so matter-of-fact about it or going woe-is-me after the killing is done. It's more bothersome in TV, since there it feels more required that a sympathetic heroine not kill (see what Amanda didn't do in the Revenge finale, where it definitely bugged me enough, among other things, that I might not continue watching).

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, seriously? What I loved about Amanda is the early episodes was how ruthless and unflinching she was. I take it she chokes in the Revenge finale? Damn. There goes my desire to catch up.

And I hate how writers seem to think that female characters much always be 'sympathetic' aka always morally upstanding and passive.

[tigerpetals.livejournal.com]

How far did you get? I'll say what happened in a few spaces after this paragraph. That's what I loved about her too, and I could see it spiraling away the farther the season got. I also hate what sympathetic and morally upstanding are interpreted to mean. Like there can't be a complex range of roles. I actually thought Amanda was occupying such a role, where she wasn't quite evil (which is hard to use accurately as a descriptor unless you have cardboard characters) but was not doing good things. At the very least she was questionable, but she was understandable and sympathetic. Apparently someone thinks sympathetic means 'stops being questionable or doing bad things' and 'be all vulnerable over a romantic interest'.






She discovered the man who killed her father, they had a fight, and then while she was pushing a pipe against his throat she had a flashback to her father saying...something I forgot. She gets up, tells the man she is honoring her father, and then she wants to tell Jack everything until she sees that Amily pops up pregnant. Also, there was some plot where Victoria sent evidence of the frameup to the government and was presumably on a plane that blew up, and Nolan made a copy of some of the evidence, but says things were so much more complicated than the Graysons. Also, her mother is alive and part of that new plot thing.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, there is just so much terrible in all those storytelling choices. So much.

[elizchris.livejournal.com]

My WWII spy recommendation is non-fiction, but you might want to try A Life in Secret: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII. Vera Atkins ran a branch of the British intelligence service. The book not only tells her story and the stories of many of her (frequently female) agents during the war, it also tells the story of her tracking down the fates of her agents that didn't return after the war, frequently by interrogating Nazis.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, that book is currently waiting for me at the library. ^_^