ROM COMS FOR JUNE

June is the month for love and weddings (among other things). There’s something about the late spring, early summer atmosphere that makes it feel perfect for affairs of the heart, and so it’s not surprising we have a number of intriguing new romantic comedies coming to The Field Library during June.

A Beauty and the Beast romantic comedy, set in modern times? It is, after all, a “tale as old as time,” to quote Disney. Barely Even Friends, by Mae Bennett, substitutes a modern day rich family’s mansion for the Beast’s castle, a young woman who’s lead contractor on the job of restoring the Killington Estate for Belle, and the grumpy recluse scion of the family who’s living in the mansion for the Beast.  Bellamy, the heroine, wants to make a name for herself in the male-dominated profession, and also wants to restore the glory of the estate, but she didn’t count on the angry presence of Oliver Killington on site.  He’s still traumatized by the car accident that killed his parents and injured him, and he wants nothing to do with Bellamy, going so far as to sabotage her wherever he can.  Then the two of them discover a common interest in dealing with the family’s ultimatums, and once they start to work together, well, one thing leads to another, as usually happens in romantic comedies.  Will they find their happily ever after?  You know the answer, but the fun is in the journey.

I’ve read a lot of romantic comedies over the years, but Birding with Benefits, by Sarah T. Dubb, is the first one I’ve seen where the connection between the two protagonists begins with birdwatching, and competitive birdwatching at that.  There’s more quirkiness in this book, too: the heroine is an older woman, newly divorced, almost an empty nester (it’s not that I’m tired of reading about twenty or thirty somethings finding romance, but I’d love to see more romantic comedies involving people who are a bit older and more mature); she’s giving herself permission to put herself first for a change and say yes to adventures as she hadn’t done when she was younger.  The hero is a shy birder who wants to start his own business guiding people in the mountains around Tucson, who sees the upcoming big bird-watching competition as a way to get himself known.  He accepts her as his partner for the competition, and the two of them agree that when the competition’s over, their “birding with benefits” arrangement will be over.  Or will it?

The setup for The Irish Goodbye, by Amy Ewing, falls into the category of “things I would love to do myself” (which can be a dangerous setup, as I’ve mentioned in the past): our heroine is a woman broken by grief who accepts a summer job at a cottage on Ireland’s Inishmore island.  Almost as soon as she arrives, however, she runs afoul of the hero, an Irish chef who’s returned home from Dublin to the island in order to nurse his broken heart and his ruined life.  The two of them keep running into each other (it’s a small island, after all), and, of course, first they’re fighting every time they meet, but in classic enemies-to-friends fashion, the sparks they strike change from animosity to attraction.  Can love and a beautiful Irish setting, filled with quirky and charming Irish characters, heal the wounds that both our main characters are suffering?  If you can’t manage a trip to an Irish island yourself, perhaps this romantic comedy could serve as a substitute (or could encourage you to look into how to visit Ireland yourself).

The “bit with a dog” in a romantic comedy is nothing new, and if done right, adding a dog (or a couple of dogs) to the story can bring a lot of fun and complications to the plot. Pardon My Frenchie, by Farrah Rochon, turns on dogs and the people who love (and don’t necessarily love) them. Our heroine is a woman who’s running a very successful doggie day care, whose beloved French bulldog, and his buddy the poodle have become social media sensations.  Our hero is the grandson of the poodle’s owner, and when the grandmother moves into assisted living where no pets are allowed, he finds himself responsible for the poodle even though he really isn’t interested in dogs.  He pulls the poodle out of the doggie daycare and then the troubles really start.  Social media erupts, the protagonist’s business is hanging by a thread, and she realizes she needs to make it up with the hero, to get the poodle back and save the day.  Can a poodle and a French bulldog show ornery human beings how to fall in love? 

If you really want to set up a conflict in a romantic comedy (and isn’t that what it’s all about?), you can have one character who doesn’t believe romance or happily ever afters are possible, and the other who believes in romance and happily ever afters with all their heart. Then you can make them really opposites by having one character a person who writes rom coms for a living, and the other a divorce lawyer.  Then, just because we don’t want to be too obvious, make the one who believes in romance be the divorce lawyer, and the one who writes rom coms be the one who believes it’s all bunk. Throw in a past romance between the two main characters, and then bring them to a high school reunion, and you have sparks.  Actually, what you have is Just Some Stupid Love Story, by Katelyn Doyle, and, while I haven’t read it yet, I have to give the author props for such an excellent setup.  Just in case the opposites attract, former lovers and high school reunion setting aren’t enough to make things interesting, in this case the two main characters have a bet about which one of them can predict the fates of five couples, and the fifth couple is – of course – the two of them. The potential for fun and complications is exceptionally high, and so are my expectations for this one.

Whether you want to return to your love of Beauty and the Beast, or learn more about birding, or vicariously travel to Ireland, spend some time with dogs and dog people,  or sit back and enjoy the attraction of opposites, we’ve got you covered at The Field Library this June.

HEARTTHROBS GONE WRONG: THE DARCY MYTH

I’m not ashamed to admit I love Jane Austen.  I have long said that she originated (or at least made popular) two of the basic tropes of romance novels ever since, the enemies to lovers plot (Pride and Prejudice) and the second chance at love plot (Persuasion).  So when someone writes a book whose thesis is that the archetype of Fitzwilliam Darcy, of Pride and Prejudice fame, has caused generations of people (especially but not exclusively women) to try to follow a toxic and even dangerous romantic pattern without even realizing that they’re doing so, I am DEFINITELY interested in reading the book, whether to argue with it or to find it surprisingly persuasive.  

The book in question is The Darcy Myth: Jane Austen, Literary Heartthrobs and the Monsters They Taught Us to Love, by Rachel Feder, and I didn’t just read it, I devoured it in a couple of days.  It’s great fun, and whether you’re a fan of Mr. Darcy or you loathe the whole concept of Jane Austen, you will find something to love in this book.

To begin with, the author is funny. She’s a professor of English literature, among other things, and if she had been a professor at my college, I would have definitely wanted to take her class just to enjoy her snarky take on things and the way she uses modern language (including four letter words, just to warn anyone who might expect a pure G-rated and esoterically academic discussion here) to describe, startlingly accurately, characters from Austen’s (and others’) literary worlds.  You can hardly get through a page without a funny remark or a wisecrack, and that’s part of the charm of the book.  The book is seeded with pop quizzes (“Are You in a Gothic Novel?”, “Are You Dating a Darcy?”, to name a couple), “Hottie Smackdown”s (Darcy v. Heathcliff), and frequent “Meet a Darcy”s, with the character’s name, love story, turn-ons, turn offs and a couple of paragraphs introducing you to the character and guessing why you might want this particular “Darcy,” like something out of a teen magazine.

But it’s not just snark, and it’s not superficial (nor is it excessively academic, so don’t be afraid of it on that count).  The author knows her stuff, and she places Darcy in a historical and literary context that includes Gothic novels, horror novels, vampire novels (you may never see Darcy quite the same way once you’ve read about his connection to Lord Byron and the vampire novels at least partially inspired by him) and the like. She gives us the social background in which Pride and Prejudice exists, and the literary background which led Austen to write the kind of books she wrote. 

Her thesis is that the arc of Darcy’s story, his being emotionally unavailable and pretty much a jerk to the main character at the beginning of the book, only to fall in love with the main character and ultimately to make a grand romantic gesture to show her his love (and that he’s changed) so the two of them can realize they’re soulmates and that they’re due a happily ever after, is ubiquitous in so many other romantic novels and romantic comedies.  And this myth sells the idea that it’s a woman’s job to reform a would-be romantic partner who’s got all kinds of red flags, or even just someone who treats her badly or doesn’t respect her.  It’s akin to, and probably related to, the thing parents (used to?) tell little girls when boys teased them, that “he’s doing it because he likes you.”  Believing that someone who’s acting like a jerk may really be a romantic hero who can be reformed sets people up for heartache or worse.   While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Darcy himself a monster, people who are monsters can look, at first glance, like a Darcy rather than a monster, and that’s a dangerous thing.  If nothing else, the enemies to lovers trope, as exemplified by Darcy and Elizabeth, leads people to ignore their intuition that tells them from the first that there’s something wrong with this other person and they should drop them as soon as possible.

From The Bridgertons to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, from Dracula to The Bachelor, from Gossip Girls to Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, the author brings in all kinds of stories and archetypes and demonstrates how we have been seeing different versions of Darcy all over the place, to the point where we don’t even realize that’s what we’re seeing.  

Because she’s not the kind of author who leaves her readers in a state of despair, the author also provides some ideas for how to break ourselves of the more pernicious aspects of the Darcy myth without losing the good stuff in the original Darcy (she admits that the scene where Darcy proposes to Lizzy the second time is wonderful and says, “So before we proceed, maybe we should indulge in a collective swoon”, and the next paragraph is just the word “Swoon”, bold and italicized). 

If you’re ready for a provocative book that will make you think about the origins of some of our more culturally problematic behavior when it comes to relationships, but you don’t want to get too heavy about it, The Darcy Myth should be just what you’re looking for.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go back and reread Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time.

NORA MULLIGAN’S UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR ROMANTIC COMEDIES

I’m stealing a title from one of my favorite reads of this year (Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers) because it’s so fitting.  With all the romantic comedies I’ve read this year, both for my short-lived book group and for myself, I’ve developed some guidelines for what I think a rom com should have in order to be a good one.  In no particular order, here they are.

1. The protagonists should be likable.  I realize that in the beginning of the book, both the protagonists will have their own problems to solve, and the solving of those problems is part and parcel of the plot, so I don’t need to have the protagonists be perfect at the start (or anywhere along the line; spare me the absolutely gorgeous woman who doesn’t realize how beautiful she is, or the woman who’s great at everything except she has this one tiny little flaw that wouldn’t even be seen as a flaw in general).  It’s okay if they’re a little grumpy, or a little shut off, but they should not be obnoxious.  They should be people I want to root for.  Even if, for example, one protagonist thinks the other one is a jerk at the outset, there should be something that shows me, as a reader, that the character’s view of the other person isn’t quite accurate.  While I love Pride and Prejudice, Darcy comes very close, at the beginning of the book, to being really dislikable, and we don’t see a lot to cause us to question Elizabeth’s view of him.  It’s usually the male lead in rom coms who comes across as a complete jerk who is somehow magically reformed by the end, but if he doesn’t show us some glimmers of humor or kindness early on, he’s going to be a really hard sell for me. 
2. The protagonists should have some real obstacles to overcome.  I am extremely tired of the stories in which the main characters sail over every obstacle in their way just by virtue of their charm or their goodness or whatever.  Any major problem that could be resolved if characters just talked to each other is not, in my opinion, a major enough problem.  If there’s nothing keeping the main characters apart, I spend my time wondering why they don’t just get together and stop wasting our time.
3. There should be actual comedy.  The genre is called romantic comedy for a reason.  It doesn’t have to have laughs on every page, but if there aren’t a fair number of scenes that make me laugh out loud, I’m going to find it disappointing, or at least mislabelled. Give me mistaken identities, give me slapstick, give me ridiculous situations which the protagonists make worse in mistaken efforts to make them better, and I am a happy reader.
4. The protagonists shouldn’t have sex too early in the book. I get it that we want to show that the couple is sexually compatible and hot for each other, and this may be a particular prejudice of mine that is completely out of step with the rest of rom com readers (I doubt it, but it’s possible), but I think the payoff is much more emotionally satisfying when the two characters don’t get it on much before the climax of the book.  There are other ways to show that the two people feel lust for each other than actually throwing them in bed together in the first third of the book, and I personally like the delayed gratification of not having them jump each other’s bones until they’ve gotten through the things that are keeping them apart.
5. The supporting characters should seem like real, and interesting, people. There are more things going on in the main characters’ lives than their romance (or if there aren’t, there certainly should be) and that’s where the supporting characters come in.  Good supporting characters, whether friends or family members or people the character comes across in their job, can make or break a book.  They create subplots, they interfere with the main story, they can even be obstacles on the way to the happy ever after, and they illuminate the main characters’ worlds.  The more individual and the more plausible those supporting characters are, the better the book.  If one of the protagonists has a bunch of friends but they are all alike except for their names, that detracts from the protagonist’s reality.  If, on the other hand, you have some secondary characters who are funny in their own right, as happened in the rom coms I’ve enjoyed most over the years, then you’ve got something great.
6. There should be some kind of grand romantic gesture at the climax.  Again, this may be my own preference, but especially if you’re going to have one of the main characters be something of a jerk at the crucial moment (often the last obstacle to be overcome by the protagonists), then that character is going to have to compensate for that with something spectacular.  A mere apology isn’t going to cut it (and the worse the character acted, the more major that apology should be); if you want me to believe that this person is worthy of the happy ever after, then this person needs to do something big enough and romantic enough to balance out the bad thing they did (for instance, if the character dumps the other character at a critical moment, the character is going to have to do something public and outrageous to make it plausible the other character is going to forgive them; if the character just screwed up accidentally and more or less innocently, they’re not going to have to do something quite that major).  The exception to this, of course, would be if the character is always doing things that are huge and extravagant and the other character finds that annoying or embarrassing; in that case, the character needs to show they can tone it down and give their would-be partner what the partner wants, not what the extravagant character wants.

And finally,

7. The happy ever after should be believable.  The protagonists shouldn’t change their basic personalities to end up together.  The reunion after the final breakup should make sense in the context of the characters and their world. I want to believe that these two people are going to be happy together, that they were in fact made for each other (after all, the author created them for each other; they should feel as if they were made for each other), and that they deserve each other.  Let me down on any of those things, and the ending isn’t going to work for me (and we all know how I feel about endings that don’t work).

Give me those things, and I will not only read this rom com, but I will eagerly look for others written by that author, or others that are like that one, and I will be a very happy reader.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE AND ROM COMS

Even though I have temporarily put the It’s Not Rom-Complicated book group on hiatus, I’m still a big fan of romantic comedies, and I’m delighted to point out new and potentially fun versions as they come to The Field Library.  This month I’m highlighting two new romantic comedies which both, in their own ways, revolve around weddings, though not (necessarily) the weddings of the main characters (of course not – if the characters were getting married at the beginning of the book, where would you go for a plot?).

In Fancy Meeting You Here, by Julie Tieu, the female protagonist, Elise, is a struggling florist, all of whose friends are getting married in a short period of time. She’s set to be bridesmaid and florist for all their weddings, which already puts her in a position of serious stress (being a bridesmaid at one wedding can be an exhausting experience, and the stress would increase exponentially with more weddings).  One of those friends, Rebecca, has a mother who’s running for office and is very high powered, so this wedding will, naturally, be very high stakes.  Enter Ben, an outside caterer who also happens to be Rebecca’s younger brother.  Incredibly competent but prickly and aloof (traits he seems to share with most male protagonists of rom coms, I’m just saying), Ben puts Elise in the way of doing flowers for his mother’s political campaign, and she begins to see his better qualities.  They’re thrown together working on the campaign, and sparks begin to fly between them, until (of course) there are unforeseen complications that jeopardize their budding relationship.  Will Elise be always a bridesmaid, or will there be a wedding in her future with her in a starring role?

For a different slant, there’s Courting Samira, by Amal Awad.  Set in Sydney, Australia (that’s different right off the bat – how many romantic comedies do you see that are set in Australia?), the book features a 27 year old not-very-observant Muslim woman who’s going through the clumsy matchmaking of her family (seriously, a first date where you sit on a couch together and drink coffee under the watchful eyes of both sets of parents?  How does anyone ever get together after a beginning like that?), working at Bridal Bazaar magazine and helping her cousin and nemesis with her upcoming wedding.  The last thing she thinks she needs is a romance of her own.  So when she meets Menem, a handsome Muslim man, at a work retreat, she’s intrigued but she’s willing to listen to her friend who insists Menem isn’t right for her.  At the same time, her childhood friend, Hakeem, is acting differently toward her.  Romance is in the air, and she’s shooting for a promotion at work that she’s beginning to wonder whether she really wants.  All is confusion, and Samira has to figure out who, and what, she really wants.

Rom Coms tangled up with weddings: what could be more fun?  Come and check them out at The Field.

A BOOK GROUP ON HIATUS

Not every book group is a success, and while often it’s worth waiting to build an audience and nurture the group, sometimes you have to cut your losses and try something else later.  This is particularly hard for me personally; not only am I crazy about the fun of reading and discussing books (you can tell, can’t you?), but I am also very stubborn and persistent and basically unwilling to give up on anything if there’s a possibility it might work.

That said, after a number of months of the It’s Not Rom-Complicated Book Group, when we never had more than three people, I decided, reluctantly, to pull the plug, at least until the spring.

I’ll have plenty of time to think about what happened, or, more properly, what didn’t happen.  Possibly the low attendance was because of the time when we had the group (Tuesday nights).  Possibly it was because I didn’t provide refreshments (don’t laugh;at two of my other book groups, which are quite large, I provide doughnuts and coffee, and I am quite sure that’s a draw).  It’s possible I didn’t publicize it enough, though I did push the group to anyone who showed any interest in romantic comedies at all.

And finally, maybe there just isn’t that big an audience for a book group devoted to Rom Coms.  I’m willing to admit that my taste isn’t everybody’s (if you’ve been following this blog, you KNOW that already), and if it turns out there aren’t that many people who want to read this genre together and talk about it, well, that’s the way the ball bounces.

And the fact that I’m running three other book groups might have had something to do with my willingness to back down on this one. Reading four books a month isn’t necessarily a problem for me (I’m a fast reader, thank heavens), but sometimes the books for other groups are more involved and longer, and it’s nice to have a little more time to be able to finish them all in time (there have been times, after all, when I have been reading a hundred pages or more in a day to finish before the book group meeting).

But remember I said I’m stubborn: I’m not giving up on romantic comedies altogether. I’ll give us another chance in the spring, possibly with a different date and time, and see if we can build something together then.

ANOTHER REASON TO COME TO THE ROM COM BOOK GROUP NEXT WEEK

The newest Field Library book group, It’s Not Rom-Complicated, is having its meeting next Tuesday, August 8, at 7 p.m., and I would love to have lots of people come and join us.

The book we are discussing this month is The Flatshare, by Beth O’Leary, and it is my favorite of all the books we’ve read so far (all right, that’s only three, but still).  It is incredibly sweet and good hearted as well as being very funny and touching (there was one scene that made me cry, and it wasn’t between the two protagonists, either).  It is a fast read (all the rom coms we’ve been reading are fast reads: between the humorous situations, the funny, flirty banter and the pleasure of anticipating the happy ever after, I find myself whipping through them, devouring them like popcorn or potato chips or – well, you get the idea), it’s got great characters you care about, it’s got some wonderful scenes and subplots, and it’s just a lot of fun.

If you’re holding back from checking us out because you’re afraid that we’ll be “analyzing” the books the way you analyzed books in high school English classes, you obviously have never been in one of my book groups, and especially not in this one.  We do not spend time exploring the details of the imagery or symbolism.  Mostly we chortle together about our favorite scenes (reading certain really good parts aloud), and discuss whether a particular character should have abased himself more (in the last book; nobody needs to abase themselves in this one).  About as “English class” as we get is discussing how this particular book relates to others of its type, or others by this author, and even that is more a matter of sharing the good stuff than being critical in any way.

I’m not begging for people to come to the group just to boost my program statistics (though that would be nice, I’m not going to lie).  I’m begging for people to come to the group so I have more people to share this wonderful book with.  Copies are still available at the library, and you can absolutely read this one in less than a week (and you’ll want to).  Come and have some fun, and help us decide what fun book we’ll be reading next month.

WINNING THE LOTTERY: TWO DIFFERENT TAKES

Occasionally it happens that two books come out at the same time and start with the same idea.  In this case, two books were published on the same day, and both of them start with the same situation: a person wins a staggering amount of money in a lottery, and then things get complicated. Windfall, by Wendy Corsi Staub, goes in a very different direction from Play to Win, by Jodie Slaughter, and which you choose to read depends on whether you’re in the mood for a dark thriller or a romantic comedy.  Remember, both these books have a lottery win as their inciting incident.

In Windfall, a group of friends who once were very close but have drifted apart over the years get together in Vegas and, on a whim, buy a lottery ticket together.  To their amazement, that ticket turns out to be a billion dollar winner.  Talk about wish fulfillment!  Being mostly sensible women, they realize that they’re going to need some help adjusting to becoming so wealthy so quickly.  Being less than terribly sophisticated, they turn for help to one Shea Daniels, a “sudden wealth manager” (the very title should clue them in that something’s not quite kosher here), who promises to guide them through the dangers of sudden acquisition of tons of money.  They go to her retreat in a secluded California mansion (another red flag which they ignore), which is rumored to be cursed (really, haven’t these women ever seen any horror movies?), and at first everything seems wonderful, of course.  Then, however, they’re trapped in this mansion by quick moving wildfires.  Not only can’t they get out, but communications are down as well, so they’re really isolated now.  One of the women disappears, and she happens to be the one who had the lottery ticket in her possession.  What happened to her?  Has she betrayed them, or is there someone in the mansion who’s out to kill them?  Not having read the book yet, my money would be on the latter.  Will they all live to collect their money, or is this a situation where what at first appears to be a dream come true turns into a nightmare?

Not in the mood for something quite so dark but still intrigued by the concept of winning a ton of money in the lottery?  Then turn to Play to Win instead.   Our protagonist in this romantic comedy, Miriam, has seemingly hit bottom.  She’s separated from her husband, working in a job she hates, for which she’s paid very little, she’s living on a spare bed in her mother’s home, and there seems no possibility of her getting out of this rut, until she buys a lottery ticket and it turns out to be a Mega Millions winner.   Naturally, her former husband reappears now that there’s real money involved, and if you’re getting vibes from the movie, It Could Happen to You (which, if you haven’t seen it, you really should because it’s charming and wonderful despite Rosie Perez’ phenomenally annoying character), you’re on the right track.  Except that in this case, the husband isn’t just a leech (as was Stanley Tucci’s character in It Could Happen to You), but someone who genuinely regrets his separation from his wife and really wants to get back together with her and prove himself to her.  Is the money going to make Miriam’s life better, or is it just the spark for what’s really going to make her life better?

So if your fantasy is to win the lottery and become incredibly rich immediately (and why not?  As fantasies go, that’s pretty common and harmless), check out one or both of these books and consider what the result of such a windfall might actually be.

ROM COMS GONE WRONG

I’d be the first to admit that I love reading romantic comedies (rom coms).  They can be lots of fun, they’re a break from the much darker stuff I often read (as you might guess from reading my blog), and even though you know where they’re going to wind up, it’s still a pleasure to get there.

However, there is a type of rom com that I’ve come across more than once lately that doesn’t work for me, and I think there’s a fundamental flaw in the authors’ approach that makes these particular books fall flat.

They start out with a wish fulfillment premise: wouldn’t you love to be living for a year in a remote village in the Highlands of Scotland, writing a cookbook and becoming enveloped in the life of the people in this small town?  Wouldn’t you love to be the kind of person who spends most of her life traveling to wherever she likes, coming back “home” long enough to earn enough money to take off again?  My response to both of those is a hearty “yes please!”

And then they bring in the love interest, and he is (it’s usually a heterosexual romance, though I’ve seen this in a lesbian rom com as well) just perfect.  He and the protagonist hit it off, obviously made for each other.  They immediately have sex and it’s perfect, the two characters achieving simultaneous orgasms the first time they get it on.  They’re kind and charming to each other and their romance is clearly just meant to be.

What’s wrong with that?  Well, without some kind of conflict, there is no story.  Or at least, no story beyond fantasy fulfillment, where everything moves smoothly without a hitch and everybody lives happily during the story as well as ever after. 

The authors of these books realize this, I’m sure.  They know the genre requires that something keeps the characters apart, that there has to be some question, however slight, about whether they are going to end up together.  They even know that the main characters need to have some back story, some serious difficulties in their pasts or their presents that have to be worked out before they can reach their happy ending.

And yet, the authors seem unable to bear the idea of actually creating real conflicts for their characters.  Yes, they’ll come up with some last minute argument that seems to separate these fated-to-be-together lovers, and the couple might even split up for a short time, but it’s carefully designed to be something that can be overcome in a couple of pages.  And as for the back story, any conflict that can be resolved with a couple of conversations between the people involved isn’t a conflict worthy of the name, but that’s the kind of conflict they create for their characters.

I’m not saying I want to see world war level conflicts between the characters, or in the characters’ pasts.  I do want to see the characters having to adjust to each other, to learn something about each other they didn’t pick up in the first five minutes of their acquaintance.  If an author is going to pretend that someone is deeply damaged by an event in their past, it had better not be a garden-variety sibling rivalry, or a misunderstanding caused by the characters’ inability to talk to significant people in their lives.  And if it is the result of an inability to talk to someone significant, then I absolutely don’t want to see the significant person change their mind after the main character charms them or has a serious talk with them. I feel the author who pulls that kind of thing (which I’ve now seen in two rom coms recently) is insulting my intelligence.

I’m getting to the point where I resist any rom com whose premise involves characters going somewhere or doing something I myself long to do.  I want to love those books, but, based on past experiences, they’re likely to be wish fulfillment for the authors as well, lacking the guts and conflict that make for a really good rom com.

It’s not that hard, really:  give me characters I like, who aren’t perfect, let them find each other and work toward that happy ending.  Give me a plot that actually has some conflict standing in the way of the characters’ happiness, and give me some laughs along the way and I’ll follow you anywhere.

WHAT MAKES A ROM COM WORK?

I’ve already admitted my weakness for romantic comedies as palate cleansers and as light, fun reads in between heavier ones (whether those heavier reads are dark thrillers or nonfiction that covers serious and disturbing matters), and I’m not ashamed of it.  A good rom com can make a difference in my mood and outlook, and I really enjoy reaching the happily ever after.

However, I just read a book that I thought would be a rom com that turned out to be less than advertised.  I’m not naming the book here, but it was one that had a cute cover, a clever name, an amusing premise, and seemed, to someone reading the back cover and the front cover, to be something fun and romantic.  And yet, when I finished it, I didn’t feel the lift, the pleasure of reading a good rom com.  On the surface, it had all the right elements: a protagonist who needed to find a different roadmap for her life, an interesting romantic possible lead, a quirky family for the protagonist, a bunch of supporting characters who had their quirks and foibles, and a proposal and wedding in the end which helped solve all the problems in the main characters’ lives.  It should have worked, but it didn’t, and thinking about why I felt so disappointed helped me see what I really want in general in a romantic comedy.

I want romance.  I want the two main characters to care about each other in a believable way. I want to see that at least in a latent form from the very beginning when the characters first meet, and I want to see it build over the course of the book. Two people who don’t seem to care that much about each other one way or another for half the book are not going to convince me that they’re likely to fall in love with each other in the second half of the book.  

I want passion.  Emotion.  Yes, you can have a romantic lead who suppresses their emotions for various reasons, but I want to see a character who HAS emotions, even if they don’t wear them on their sleeves.  I want hints that this subdued character feels things deeply, and a good writer will give even the most repressed character moments of emotion that suggest to the reader that this person has the potential to feel, and show at last, real passion.

I want frustration and yearning.  This is the most basic part of it, to me: the happily ever after, the marriage proposal, whatever the climax of the book is, has to be earned.  That means that someone has to really want it and not believe that they’re going to get it.  I want to see someone who’s suffering in love, even if that suffering is easy to end.  Though it shouldn’t be too easy; the parties should have to do more than just talk to each other to solve the underlying problems, and plots that require a character to act like an idiot for the plot to work are as annoying in the rom com area as they are in other genres. 

And, though this should go without saying, I want humor.  I want there to be funny stuff in the book, whether that’s witty dialogue or plot twists that put characters in ridiculous situations or just the attitude of the main character.  I want laughs.  The best rom coms, for me, are the ones which I read in public and disturb my neighbors because I’m laughing so loudly or so much.

The book I just finished failed all these tests, even though it was billed as a romantic comedy.  I’m still on the lookout for just the right one, and the good news is that here at The Field Library, we have plenty to choose from. I know I’ll get lucky again sooner or later.

WHEN YOU NEED A CHANGE

I recently finished reading a couple of really dark novels, and was in the middle of reading a third, and I just felt so emotionally drained that I knew I needed to read something completely different.  I needed a reading palate cleanser.

Don’t get me wrong: the books I’m talking about (one of which is Once There Were Wolves, which I was reading for the Field Notes Book Group) are well-written and engrossing; for the most part, they’ve been page-turners.  And as anyone who’s read this blog knows, I’m never afraid of a book that goes to scary dark places (no one who’s as big a fan of Jo Nesbo as I am could be sensitive to violence and gore).  Most of the time, I can zoom from one serial killer book to another, from one book in which horrific violence is done to the characters to the next without hesitation.  It’s just that sometimes (like now), it’s just a bit too much.

Possibly it would make more sense to switch my reading around a little, alternating more (and more frequently) than I have been.  It’s easy to fall into a routine, and pick the same kinds of books over and over, and let’s face it, there are a lot of cool thrillers out there (and my running a mystery book group as well as a regular book group makes it more likely that I’m going to find myself reading books in that genre) just begging me to read them. The problem is that too much of a dark thing can make the whole world seem depressing and miserable, and it’s hard to get yourself psyched to keep reading when you know the next thing that happens is going to be terrible and upsetting (and even if you’re wrong and this time the next thing isn’t terrible and upsetting, you still know that terrible and upsetting things are lurking in the near future).  Not to mention that reading some of these books right before bed isn’t really conducive to a good night’s sleep.

Today I headed for the library shelves and chose a couple of rom coms, which I’m going to dive into as soon as I get them home. I might go through one right after the other, as a matter of fact, giving myself completely to the delights of ordinary people doing silly things around each other, making mistakes, opening themselves up and ultimately getting to that happily ever after. 

It doesn’t have to be a romantic comedy, either. That’s just what occurred to me first. I could have also gone for a book of poetry, or essays, or an engrossing nonfiction book. I could even have gone back to an old favorite, just to remind myself that there’s more to read out there than what I’ve been — should I say wallowing? — in recently.

So there’s nothing wrong with switching gears now and then.  You should never feel defensive about what you’re reading, and if you need something that’s going to make you cry, that’s fine.  If you need something that’s not going to make you feel as if everything is just a meaningless nightmare, that’s also fine.  It’s a big literary world out there, and there’s something that will work for whatever mood you’re in, give you whatever you need.  All you have to do is look.