“If this book somehow got to be a bestseller...” I told my husband when he asked how I liked my beach read, “...there’s no hope for humanity.”
I had grabbed the book at a discount store near the beginning of my vacation. It was a Monday. The library was closed, I needed something to read.
The cover proclaimed that the book had made the New York Times Bestseller list (#1, in fact), and (to judge a book by its cover) it didn’t look too serious. Or depressing. Nothing serious or depressing during vacation, thank you.
The name of the book is ‘Savor the Moment,’ by author Nora Roberts. She’s evidently written scores of novels, dozens of which were listed on the first few pages of the book. This particular book was described as ‘Book three in the Bridal Quartet.’
I suppose the book would be classified as a romance. The slender excuse for a plot in the 303 page novel centered around a young lady and fella discovering their love for one another and dealing with the (predictable and inane) situations to which their newfound affections lead them.
The novel was thought provoking only in the sense that it made me wonder what people (mostly women, I’m thinkin.’ I can’t picture a man enjoying this read) see in this book, and in the rest of the ‘quartet’ of books it belongs to. Despite the dearth of plot and character development, there are enough little hooks to keep one interested enough to turn the pages, and I can’t deny that the author’s style holds a certain charm.
The story involves very little conflict. There’s no mystery. Maybe that’s the attraction. Maybe women have enough conflict in their lives. Perhaps in their spare time they want to peek into a fantasy life that flows freely, love that rolls along without a hitch, doesn’t sap brain power.
A large part of the book circles around weddings and wedding cakes, because the central character is a baker of such cakes for an enterprise (formed by the character and her best friends) that stages weddings. Judging from the number of wedding themed shows on cable TV these days, people eat that kind of stuff up.
Also, her lover is very rich. Maybe women like to fantasize about not having to be the ‘alpha earner,’ maybe they entertain fond thoughts of being part of the 1% instead of languishing in the 99.
At any rate, I think I’ll leave the rest of the ‘Bridal Quartet’ on the shelves.
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2 comments:
Some years ago, I resolved to read some romance novels. I wanted to find out what they were like. So I went to the library and checked out a whole stack of them.
I had only gotten about a chapter into the first one when I realized that reading it felt like work. Hard work.
For instance, there were two men squaring off to fight each other. And the author was describing the "lovely blue eyes" of the villain.
About then, I realized romance novels really really are written for womens folk.
I read a lot of romance novels when I was a teen, and they varied in quality. Now that I'm grown up I only read them if there's nothing else. One of the best that I've read lately was actually in serial form on a blog. It was one of the few I've ever read that I think would appeal to men (it was written by a man, and had a man as the central character).
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