Slogging through a novel

Have you ever picked up a book by an author that you normally really love, only to find yourself dragging through it?  Like one of those bad dreams where you can’t run or can’t get up the steps fast enough—the book’s so uninteresting that your eyes don’t want to scan ahead and read, and you have to keep putting the thing down and go do something else.

Such a thing doesn’t usually happen to me—I usually pick good stuff to read.  But right now, I am in the middle of TWO such sloggy-boring novels.  The problem, I think, is that they are both romances; I think I’ve grown beyond romances at this point in my life and need something with a little more substance.

But it has to be more than that, because truly, I am ever the romantic; I love a love story!

The first book includes whole sections of narration and dialogue that sound like they were copied straight out of an encyclopedia or textbook on equine veterinary medicine.  The author also hits the reader over the head with the message that “Abusing animals is bad!”  Well, yes, of course it is.  We know this.  But I am reading a romance novel, not a diatribe on the evils of animal abuse.  Ugh.   Usually, I can whip through one of this author’s books in short order, but this one, I’ve been trudging through for weeks.

The second book is an older novel by an author who switched from writing secular romance to writing Christian romance.  Good for her.  I had already read this book years ago, in ‘93, I think, when it first came out, and I recall enjoying it a great deal.  Not so, this time ’round.  As with Book #1, I am trudging, slogging, dragging along.  This book is actually considerably better than Book #1.  However, it has one of those romance novel devices where the heroine decides she would rather give up her innocence to the hero (who, at this point in the novel, doesn’t even love her) than die without having known what it’s like to be with a man.  And then she is (predictably) heartbroken when it’s over and he gets up and leaves without having declared his undying love.

The PROBLEM with this kind of thing is that of course he is eventually going to declare his undying love, they will marry, and the book will have a sappy happy ending.   I ask you:  What message does this send to young women?  I mean this in all seriousness, because I have seen this stupid mindset at work in my very own life and in the lives of some of my friends (when we were younger—it wasn’t exactly the same thing, but close enough).

The message these novels send is that it’s okay to have premarital sex because surely life is just like a novel and he will eventually (if not right away) declare his undying love and you will marry and be happy forever.  Real life doesn’t work like that, though.  In real life, more often than not, there is no undying love to declare, and the girl gets her heart broken, and the story never really ends because she never forgets the hurt.  She might forgive it, but she doesn’t forget.

But I was meant to be talking about Book #2!

The heroine is being stubborn and kind of dumb (especially when she REFUSED the hero’s proposal when it came WITHOUT a declaration of undying love), and the hero is none too bright, either.  So I’m bored.

I don’t usually give up on a book, once I’ve started it, but over the past couple of years I have realized a few things:  1)  I have way too many books on my shelf to waste my time on something boring.  2) I am a busy person with limited free time; I should use that time doing/reading things I enjoy.  3) I should be reading things that edify my mind and enrich my spirit; books and magazines that don’t fit the bill should be tossed in the give-away pile without guilt.

There.  I think I just talked (wrote) myself into not forcing myself to finish those two books!  The big hold back is money (“But I paid for those!”).  If a friend said this to me, I would say, “Time is money, Sister!  Go read something else!”

Now I am set free.

Happy reading!