 Why, they’re all representative of what gets under Lisa’s skin, of course! Read on…
Dear Friends,
Forgive me if I indulge in what seems like a somewhat negative post. But since I have frequently proclaimed my sincere and undying love and respect for the romance genre and all its lovely subgenres . . . I want to share some of my pet peeves. I’ve read thousands of romance novels, and there are a few things that trouble me :
Peeve #1
An excess of bodily fluids. In my opinion, no romance hero or heroine should produce enough bodily fluid from any given orifice in sufficient quantities to drown one’s partner.
Peeve #2
While I appreciate an impressively, perhaps even unnaturally well-endowed hero, I do not enjoy the idea of one so large as to necessitate the rearranging of a woman’s internal organs up to her esophagus.
Peeve #3
Hyperactive eyebrows. While I am not opposed to the lifting or lowering of eyebrows to indicate various moods or thoughts, this snapping together, shooting up to the hairline, twisting and arching of brows, brings to mind nothing so much as a pair of caterpillars in heat. If anyone feels I am being hypocritical (since I have indulged in some heroic eyebrow theatrics in past novels) it’s impolite to say so while I’m having my guest day. Tell Sybil tomorrow when I’m gone.
Peeve #4
Since the romance genre is written for women by women, I must ask, What happened to foreplay? Why are so many romance writers penning sex scenes in which an oversized hero merely reveals himself to make the heroine excited, then instantly initiates coitus with no further ado? Why go straight to bat? What about second base? Third base? A kiss from the Shortstop?
Thank you, dears. I feel so much better, having aired my grievances. And now I would like to invite you to share YOUR pet peeves. No names or titles are necessary, just the peeves, please.
LMAO! This is a great list. (love that piccie of The Rock!)
The cucumber one made me snort my tea.
My number one pet peeve in a romance novel is a weeping, wilting TSTL heroine. Ye gods save me from them. The kind that faint and quiver when the hero slams his eyebrows together (tee-hee, couldn’t resist). I like heroines to be strong, but still be feminine in their own way.
What I cannot stand in a romance book is when the hero and heroine hate each other. They act like they hate each other until the very last page. Then suddenly, the I love you’s come gushing out. We’ve all read them – romance’s where the hero thinks of the heroine as a tart, slag, thief, whore etc.
I want to read a romance where I can actually see the hero and heroine have a happy marriage. One in which they develop a friendship or at least respect one another.
My biggest pet peeve is “the big misunderstanding”. And I really don’t like it when it drags on and on and on. Puh-lease!
I also like the pic of The Rock! 😉
Covers are important! If the couple or hero/heroine look weird eg. hands are too big in proportion to the rest of body or don’t match the author’s description, that bugs me! Lisa’s covers have always been beautiful. Lisa, Do you get input on them?
How aout a cucumber and bodily fluids together? Bleck.
I like more foreplay to the point where both can’t take it anymore! But please if the heroine is a virgin and has never had sex, don’t have her go at it for hours up to 4 times in a row and not even say “ouch!”
I am shocked… I really thought there was going to be link embeded in here that would lead off site to something nekkid. Gwen was good. Who knew?
I hate it when the hero feels like he can do no wrong – the worst is when this type of hero gets piared with a submissive heroine because then there really isn’t an interesting story. Just a whiny snobbish guy with a posse.
I LOVED Sugar Daddy by the way!!!
xoxo
Way a great, great blog, Lisa!!! You had me giggling, and yet you hit on the things I don’t enjoy either. Andrea — I agree with you. The big misunderstanding erks the stuff right out of me.
ROFL!!!–Gwen, you did a fantastic job putting those images up. The cucumbers are priceless!!!!
Allison, thank you about the covers . . . St. Martins is absolutely wonderful about listening to my opinions and ideas, but I can’t take any credit for that gorgeous MTM cover–that is the genius of the St Martins art department.
bwahaha! Great list! I shall never look at cucumbers in quite the same light. Nice picture of the Rock too. lol.
My pet peeve is definitely the Big Mis or when h/h keeps some sort of crucial information secret from the other “for their own good”. *snort* whatever that’s supposed to mean. Also, the martyr heroine (cuz, face it, usually it’s the heroine who does this) who renounces the hero and slinks away in the middle of the night being all noble and such for no good reason while the hero thinks that she no longer loves him. bah! Talk to each other, people!!!
Was the cover ever suppose to be white? It was up at amazon for the longest times as a white dress… and I think it is still up somewhere… I forget where.
If it was whose call was it to go to blue? Cuz good call 😉
The cucumbers! *dies laughing*
I also like the change to blue.
I am probably also guilty of crazy eyebrows. I had to cut out (pluck?) a few in the last manuscript. Maybe a few oversized salad-fixin’s. But I am very happy to say I don’t use a lot of salad dressing, cuz that’s just Not Right.
Pet peeves for me include when the heroine starts out intensely disliking the hero. Unless it’s great writing it’s hard to believe she could overcome that over the course of the book. I don’t like long separations even though I may enjoy the book itself. I mourn the time lost they are apart. And this one applies more in contemporaries, but I really REALLY dislike when a woman keeps a child away from the child’s father or hides the fact that he has one when he is a pretty decent guy.
LOL
I so hate the eyebrow thing! I do!
LOL
What I really dislike more than anything in any type of book is WHINNING
I really can’t stand it.
ROFL on the cucumber, and who wants to read about all those fluids dripping down the leg.
I’d much rather see some foreplay, too, Lisa. It’s much more satisfying to stop at all those bases rather than having it end all too quickly with a home run.
“An excess of bodily fluids. In my opinion, no romance hero or heroine should produce enough bodily fluid from any given orifice in sufficient quantities to drown one’s partner.” ROFLOL I totally agree on this one. Sometimes I’m thinkin, whoa! Is that possible?? What’s wrong with ME?
Love the picture of The Rock too.
I’ll never look at a cucumber the same way again! LOL
My biggest peeve is the “secret baby”. I don’t care what the reason, it doesn’t work for me. The only book I read where it worked for me is b/c the heroine thought the hero was DEAD 😉
I’m going to have to disagree with Lisa on #4 and say that the zipless fuck has a prominent and deserved place in Romance.
1) How else are we gonna know that the hero is so $%#@ hot?
2) Momentum. A drawn-out love scene has less momentum going toward the big O.
3) Especially for when the relationship b/t the h/h is still in the iffy stage, if they can make leisurely love, then they’ve no reason not to talk. But if the sexy flattens them like a steamroller, then they are excused from soul-searching conversations. *eg*
4) But of course, the zipless fuck must be accompanied by at least one full-menu session, for contrast and variety. 🙂
I am, OTOH, very much in agreement w/ both #1 and #2. Gwen’s cucumbers, however, are less than impressive. We need to use some of the veggies from Curse of the Were Rabbit. Now them’s some scary veggies. That or Meljean’s vertigo-inducing hot dog.
LMBO! Great post (and pics). I agree with every point, except…. somehow I can deal with the manaconda. Whould I want to deal with one in real life? Hell no! See that little dust cloud on the horizon? That’s me fleeing. lol. But the authors who do choose to write about the hero’s third leg, seem to do it well enough for me to find it enjoyable/a turn on.
My pet peeve? The dreaded twitching cock. Oh how dost that witchy twitchy cock causeth a twitch in mine eye. I picture a big fat worm in its last death throes. Definitely not sexy. (And if you ever find this phrase in anything I’ve written, ignore,ignore,ignore. *g*)
There is a pretty recent book me think… that someone ::looks left, looks right:: I don’t see her, I shall let her out herself…
was trying to remember the title of a book – one of the things she remembered was the hero pulls out, ejaculates and hits the headboard – that could be excess… well depending on where he was on the bed at the time I guess. I hadn’t read the book. And yep it would have been mainstream romance ;).
LOL feel free to email me if you know the title.
Meljean – LOLOLOLOL!!
I can see all us ladies going to the grocery store and dying laughing in the produce section, then once again near the salad dressing. WHAT have I started…
By the way, if you Google Image cucumbers and have your “safe search” turned off?? EEEK! That be some scary shit!
Okay – romance novel pet peeve – all of the above, PLUS nobody ever has morning breath. Why oh why can’t that happen to me? Some mornings I wake up and I’m SURE someone has punked me and put a dead animal in my mouth over night.
*tightly scrunches eyebrows in deep contemplation* 😉
hmmmm…… forget cucumbers!!? Have you people ever seen how HUGE a zucchini can grow??! @.@ LOL
I have to agree with Sherry on all points regarding Pet Peeve #4. Don’t get me wrong… I love the “full menu” session between h/h … but a well written and well timed slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am can be just what I …errr… the h/h need! 😉
Great list, Lisa!
I forgot to mention a peeve. Well… I’m not bitter or anything, but can I say I really don’t like when the hero or heroine or both … end up a ghost at the end? *sigh*
I hate it when the heroine just loses her mind as soon as the hero looks at her…when all she can think about is his body, eyes, hair, mouth. etc., etc., and every other thought disappears, this especially when they are in the middle of a dangerous situation. Augh.
The hole banging on the door of the womb thing just sounds uncomfortable to me…so I agree with the whole cucumber thing.
Oh, man, I’m supposed to be working but I couldn’t resist this one…
My absolute BIGGEST Pet Peeve is similar to the eyebrow thing. I HATE HATE HATE when one character looks into the eyes of another character and can tell every damn thing about them. You can NOT look into someone’s eyes and tell that their first crush at the age of 15 cheated on them while they were off attending Great Aunt Matilda’s funeral. You CAN’T! Let them find this shit out some other way and quit using the eyes as the equivalent of “Bark Bark.” “What’s that Lassie?” “Bark Bark.” “You say Timmy’s in the well?”
Oh, and one more. I’m okay with one, maybe even two “he got impossibly bigger/harder” but anything more, and I start picturing a balloon inflating to the point of bursting. Takes me right out of the scene.