I Love to Hate It: Romance Novel Tropes

 

I'm a latecomer to the romance genre, having discovered somewhat later in life than most women that I didn't hate reading "mushy" stuff.  My reticence was born mostly from shame, which is dumb, because in the grand pantheon of embarrassment, reading romance books is like the very bottom of the list.

Despite the late start, it didn't take me long to separate the bad from the good.  I'm sure I'll discuss the tropes/genres I love at some point, but I'm better at complaining than I am at opining on why I actually like something (without devolving to my prior pre-teen self), so here's a list of crap I hate:

1. Reverse Harem
• I totally understand the desire for women to want to have a bunch of <zoolander voice> really really really good-looking</zoolander voice> men fawning all over them, but I'll freely admit that I'm selfish, even if it's myself we're talking about sharing.

ACOMAF Re-Read - Complete Notes, Quotes, and Criticisms

Don’t worry, Tam Tam. I’m on your side. 

Below is the full export of all of my highlights and notes, collected during my recent critical re-read of ACOMAF.  I tried my hardest to focus only on passages that showcased either the blatant revisionary approach SJM took to Tamlin, the blatant hypocrisy exhibited by both Feyre and Rhys, or if you're really lucky, both.

As you can see the infodump is massive, which leads whether or not SJM even tried to be careful about how she was even contradicting her own work.  My gut tells me that, much like Feyre, she's often enamored of her own cleverness, and thinks she was probably being like super-smart about dismantling every single thing Rhys did wrong in book one (to make it be right) and every good thing Tamlin ever did (to make it be wrong).  I can literally see the bullet-point list in my imagination, and her ticking off items one by one, cackling in glee. 

What she, and the less mentally independent readers out there, see as cleverness, I just see as laziness, because for all of her very thorough efforts to showcase Rhys as the good guy all along, she appears to have completely ignored the fact that she's created the two most blatantly oblivious characters in the history of YA/NA Fantasy Romance, neither of which have any awareness of the fact that they are actually not the heroes they think they are, but are instead sanctimonious, condescending Mary-Sues.  I’ve found that taking that perspective makes re-reads much more bearable, because I’m sure Feyre and Rhys will never get their comeuppance, and certainly not in the way Tamlin has. 

Excuses, Excuses (ACOMAF Re-read)

A victim of his creator

 

Chapter 55 is probably the most well-known chapter in the entire series.  I'm not going to go in to why, but while I will say that what I found kinda hot 3 years ago, I can barely stomach listening to/reading now.

So while chapter 55 is infamous, I think Chapter 54 might actually be the most important one in the entire series, certainly the first two books.  Tamlin's retcon had been slowly building since page one of ACOMAF, it's Chapter 54 that really buries him.

It's basically a pages long explanation of why Rhys isn't anything like what we knew of him in book one, setting up the smut to come in the next chapter (because how could our heroine ever fuck a guys that isn't perfect).

Long story short, he knew of Feyre before she ever came to Prythian, he loved her from the first, and every last thing Rhys ever did was done with the express purpose of being near her, or being with her, or whatever.  I forget.  My brain got addled from all the eye-rolling.

It's obviously supposed to be some grand, romantic thing (it's destiny! it's fate!), but it also reveals what a lot of the fandom already suspects about him - that he's a manipulative, self-centered....prick.

SJM methodically tries to tie up every loose end imaginable with regard to Rhys's true character, but I am still left with so many unanswered questions.

Review: A Court of Silver Flames

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ah. It’s so good to be back in the Fae lands of Sarah J. Maas, where all the males are beautiful, ripped, and roar when they come, all the females are beautiful and delicate-yet-strong, all characters are over-powered to the point of it being ludicrous, and nothing bad ever happens, at least to those in our sacred Inner Circle. Oh, and I almost forgot the copious amounts of fucking. Lots and lots and lots of fucking. Fucking and fucking and fucking.

It’s formulaic as shit, predictable and trite, and I looooove it.

There’s nothing earth-shattering about this latest addition, and it goes much the same way pretty much all of SJM’s books go. I think people have been clamoring for the story of Nesta and Cassian for a long time, and now that it’s finally here, it winds up being......a lot like the story of Feyre and Rhys. Broken girl mends herself through the love of a good man, and exhibits yet more world-shattering power and saves her friends from certain death through the power of love and family and togetherness. Blah blah blah.

Book Boyfriends

 I've been an avid reader for as long as I can remember.  My earliest memories of reading were of me working my way through a tiny book on the Smurfs when I was a kid.  My earliest memory of buying books was begging my Dad to let me get a box set of Sweet Valley High Books at a Barnes and Noble.  All throughout grade school I remember looking forward to the Scholastic Book Sales and those newsprint flyers where we'd get to circle whatever we wanted and it would be delivered to your classroom weeks later (those days always felt like Christmas).

What I'm trying to emphasize is that books have played such an important role in my life for a long time....the better part of my years, long enough for me to not really be able to remember a time where I didn't have a book in my hands.  They're a crutch for me, a way to lose myself, a way to find myself, who I thought I could be, and who I wished I was.  I remember important events in my life and the books I was reading at the time - struggling while I adjusted to a new school in a new state (Interview with the Vampire); sleeping on my grandma's couch after my parents split and we didn't have a home for almost a year (Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone); sitting at my father's bedside after he suffered a stroke, waiting for him to wake up and realize who I was again. (A Court of Silver Flames).  He didn't, by the way.  He passed away on March 8th, 2021, and I'll never forget the book I stopped reading when he first suffered that stroke and I visited him in the hospital every single day for a month and reading just didn't seem that important anymore (Wolf Gone Wild, and it was crap).

I keep a little bit of all of those books with me, even the bad ones, and I consider the characters in my favorites my friends, and people I like to visit with again, every now and then.

So now that you have a little bit of an idea as to just how big a role books have played in my life, I thought it would be interesting to not just go through a list of favorite books and characters, but my favorite book boyfriends (or husbands, as it were).  I'm not ashamed to admit that I tend towards self-inserting when I read books (part of that whole imaginary life and exploring unseen worlds and living vicariously thing with them), so I like to read stories about characters that are either like me, characters that I'd like to be with, or maybe both.  Without further ado, my top book boyfriends:

My name is Danielle, and I am a Tamlin Apologist (an ACOTAR re-read)

 Admitting you have a problem is the first step in recovery, right?

I will not feel bad for loving you Tamlin, and not just because you're super hot.

Problem is, I don't really hate Tamlin, not like I'm apparently supposed to, and certainly like I felt like I should (and sort of did) after witnessing his total 180 (or retcon, tomato tomahto) in ACOMAF.  I changed my tune pretty quickly though when 1). I saw what a bleating, whiny, overpowered cunt Feyre became as you progressed through the series, and 2). I couldn't help but feel bad the more everyone in the vaunted inner circle started shitting on him, and not only shitting on him, but like actually enjoying shitting on him.

The issue that really rubs me the wrong way is sort of twofold:

1. I did NOT appreciate the deepfake SJM pulled with the love interests.  At that point I had very much already decided that Tamlin was my new book boyfriend, because the whole Beauty and the Beast thing is sort of my catnip.
2. The more I thought about, and the more I payed attention to Tamlin's behavior (from Under the Mountain through ACOMAF), the more I saw that he was hurting just as badly as Feyre, but dealing with it in a wholly different way.

So in any case, this is my first "re-read" of the series since I originally read them way back in 2019 I think?  Re-read in quotes because I'm listening on audiobook on my daily commute.  I've been listening specifically for hints that SJM may have dropped as to Tamlin's "true nature", and outside of several mentions of his temper, I'm not really seeing anything.  I'm juxtaposing this with Feyre's first meeting with Rhys (mostly because I literally just listened to that this morning so it's fresh in my mind) and I can see now that there was something, an attraction at least, even then.  I don't think, given even this small scene at this point, that SJM just suddenly decided to make Rhys the hero and Tamlin the bad guy in book 2; I think she was planning on Rhys stepping into that role all along, and it's fairly obvious that she was laying that groundwork.  What she did a shitty, lazy job on (at least from a reader's perspective at this point, as technically the series is still unfinished and Tamlin's ultimate fate still malleable) was explaining away Tamlin's behavior in book 2 as "well he's just an asshole" instead of "he's a guy dealing with some serious shit and doing a really bad job of it and goddammit someone please help him).  Feyre is our heroine, so presumably we're supposed to agree with her most of the time and find her motivations believable, and if we're supposed to believe that she really loves Tamlin because he is actually a really decent guy underneath that gruff, beastly exterior (just like the Disney cartoon).

Building off that, if you ask me, thus far all I know of Tamlin (I'm just past Calanmai) is that he had a shitty childhood, absolutely zero familial support, and nobody paid enough attention to him to even tell him that maybe acting like a wild animal most of the time isn't so good?  So basically it's kind of all he knows; this fits in with the whole "beast" aspect of his story.  We've also seen enough at this point (his thoughtfulness with encouraging Feyre's painting, the way he cared for the wingless fairy, etc) to see that there is a much gentler aspect to his personality, underneath the exterior gruffness (much like the eventual redemption of the beast).  

There are definitely shadows of his eventual overprotectiveness, especially with him telling Feyre to lock herself in her room at Calanmai, but still, he's telling her, not forcing her as he does in the next book.  I guess some would say that even something like that is unforgiveable, but I can't fault a guy for being overprotective, especially when she decides to leave anyway and almost gets sexually assaulted by those fairies.  He also knew what the magic of this night did to him, and I'm guessing didn't want to risk hurting her.  Of course, he could have just told her about this.  It's not like there's really any point in protecting her delicate human sensibilities given that she's in Prythian for life at this stage.  I always assumed (I forget at this point if/when it's stated outright) that Tam never explains the whole curse/mask/blight thing in detail because the curse itself doesn't actually allow him to, but there's no reason that he can't talk in detail about stuff like this.  Was he embarrassed?  Did he not want to risk offending Feyre (and thus ruining his courtship of her and his chance to break the curse) or does he just not think to talk to her about stuff like this.  I think ACOMAF Tam leads the reader to believe that he's just a secretive misogynistic asshole that doesn't want to trouble Feyre's delicate female brain with the complexities of Calanmai, but I counter that with the fact that he's revealed plenty of his past and life at this point that someone who was otherwise a secretive asshole probably wouldn't have done.  

Oh, he's just being a manipulative asshole who's trying to woo Feyre for his own benefit (getting that mask off his face), you say?  To that I counter with that at this stage in the story he quite obviously cares for his people - he says it plenty, and demonstrates it with his care in tending his borders and particularly with the way he cared for that blue fairy.  I know all of this can be interpreted as him really laying it on thick so Feyre falls for him, but if he was really concerned about that I don't think he would have slipped the way he did the night of Calanmai.

At this point in the story, other than be gruff and standoffish at times, Tamlin hasn't yet done anything really objectionable.  You CANNOT count the Calanmai bite/fairy hickey because first, he warned her and fey have already been portrayed as animalistic on some level, and second, she admitted to herself that she did enjoy it more than a little bit.

I'm really looking forward to revisiting the Under the Mountain stuff to look for things I might have missed the first time or forgotten.

Lastly, That’s not to say that I think his behavior is acceptable or that it can be explained away like Rhys’s, rather that he’s not some mindlessly cruel beast, and that while he has issues and definitely needs help, A) so does Rhys and B) he meant well in his own way. The wrong thing done for the right reasons is still the wrong thing, you know? 

I am determined to not feel guilty for my Tamlin love and my exceedingly strong desire for a redemption arc and happy ending for him. I mean if Rhys can be a total fucking’ creeper and still find true love surely Tam can too. 

A Court of Hypocrites and Assholes (ACOMAF Re-Read, Chapters 25-31)

 

He looks so angry because he's smelling Feyre's bullshit.  She might think it doesn't stink, but it does.

I was not going to post another re-cap so soon, but the some of the shit said in these past few had me so boiling mad that I needed to unload or I'd wind up destroying my study like big, bad Tamlin.

To be honest, I'm not sure how the hell this went down so smoothly the first time I read it - maybe I just didn't care, and maybe I was distracted by Rhys and his pseudo-flirtatious creepiness (only acceptable from guys that are hot, fyi).  

I'm rarely extra critical of books on a first pass, especially ones that rely heavily on world building and mythology, mostly because I'm too busy trying to follow the story and the details.  Feyre is really fucking unlikeable though - she's self-absorbed, selfish, arrogant, and completely lacking in any sort of self-awareness.  Rhys, as most of us are aware, is a manipulative asshole.  I actually think Feyre mentions that he's a manipulative prick on multiple occasions, but again, he's hot and rich, and oh-so-powerful, so she'll accept it.  

Feyre should win first place in the Darwin awards - I mean that not in the sense that the Darwin Award books do, but rather that she'll align herself with whoever the most powerful guy in the room is, all because it makes her feel more powerful and more likely to survive.  She obviously gets off on power, and you can practically see her preening every time Rhys (the most powerful high lord in history, don't forget) throws himself at her, or literally kneels before her.  Feyre might like to think she's Ms. Independent, but she already starting to base her own self-worth off of those that are around her; like, this guy is so hot and he's into me, thus I am equally hot.  Not to mention we haven't even really gotten to the parts where Rhys starts kissing her ass with every other breath.  I said it before but I'll say it again.  Feyre 2.0 got an upgraded life, upgraded body, upgraded powers, and suddenly Tamlin (still mired in his own bullshit and depressed and angry as all hell) didn't cut it anymore.

In short, these last few chapters, while really only the beginning of the saga of Rhys and Feyre, have provided scads of evidence that the entire IC is a bunch of hypocritical, selfish assholes whose favorite pastime isn't so much dancing at Rita's as it is projecting their own shortcoming and faults on to others.

Feyre is already wearing her Rhys-colored glasses (ACOMAF re-read - Chapters 15-24)

Poor poor Tamlin.

It really is interesting how you remember things completely differently than you think you do sometimes. I came in to this re-read fully expecting to find gobs of evidence re: how Tamlin really is the crazy ex-boyfriend we're obviously supposed to believe he is, but it's just not there. And technically speaking I'm not even to the really good stuff yet (Feyre's return to the Spring Court and the High Lord meeting).


Instead what I'm finding is a very pointed deconstruction of Tamlin as a decent character and the object of Feyre's affection. Like I can practically picture SJM sitting there with a white board and a pointer indicating one by one every reason why Rhys is the paragon of male perfection all men should aspire to and all women should want. Therefore, I'm making it my goal in life to construct my very own chart, as it were, to show how her own text, and her own words even, are running completely contrary to what she so obviously wants us to believe (Tamlin Bad, Rhys good).


Also, at this point you really start to see that Feyre is really good at coming to realizations about things concerning Tamlin and doing absolutely nothing about it, which makes what she does later on especially shitty.


And obviously I say all of the above knowing full well that this is SJM's creation, and she has the final word on it all, but my dissection of her text has less to do with proving a creator wrong about their own creation and everything to do with saying she did a crap job explaining it all away.


At this point in the story we're still not sure that Feyre is never going back to the Spring Court or how she feels about Tamlin. Knowing what we do know, however, makes a lot of her thoughts and words take on a whole new perspective. I think the biggest thing we learn about Feyre at this point is that she's attracted to power, she might say how she doesn't want to be coddled or protected or that she can do it herself, but it's obvious she gets her rocks off from seeing overly powerful men quite literally kneel before her.


Maybe that's what Tamlin's problem was; he was good and powerful enough for frail, mortal Feyre, but high fae Feyre needs someone even better (so naturally she's go for the most powerful high lord in a century....can't wait til we start hearing that every other fucking sentence). I mean for fuck's sake, Rhys puts her in a fucking crown before going to see her family (in the goddamn house they wouldn't even have if it wasn't for Tamlin, tyvm), and she doesn't even spare a thought for who the hell is she to have this dude putting her in a goddamn crown.


Sidenote: I've found that since Kindle and Audible integration make it so easy, it would be better to post my notes and highlights direct from the book here, so that way it's not just word vomit and musings here - I'm backing up with cold, hard quotes.

Where nothing is what you think it is (ACOMAF Re-read, Chapters 1-15)

 

Ianthe and Tamlin

I wonder how many people started ACOMAF after ACOTAR and were like "wtf is going on?"  Literally nobody behaves the way they did in book 1.  Feyre becomes a meek doormat, Tamlin goes full tin foil hat, and Rhys is suddenly nice.

Speaking of our boy Tam - he's not doing me any favors in this book when it comes to trying to prove he's not really a douche.  A cursory surface read just shows him as a possessive overprotective asshat, but I really don't think it's coming from a mean place.  He's obviously taken his role as protector to a completely inappropriate place.  That's really the main sticking point for me with how the fandom reacts to Tam (and the whole Tamlin the Tool) thing - like he's not doing this to be an asshole.  He's not right, and he doesn't listen to Feyre when she expresses how he's smothering her, but it is coming from a place of love.  

Love can get obsessive.  Love can hurt.  And oftentimes you really can't hurt or be hurt by someone unless you love them (otherwise why would it bother you?).  I think when you get down to it, the way he tries to protect Feyre, the way he obsesses over protecting her (homeboy freaks out and spends hours as a beast just to feel like he can protect her better), is just sad.  It's like Feyre is the only thing that matters in his life so she must be kept safe at all costs.  It's pathetic and sad that he's so lonely that he literally feels like he'll have nothing left if anything happens to her.  I've kind of felt like that at some points in my life - it's like that obsessive feeling you get with a new relationship, when all you can think of is that person - and to be dumped before that can wear off (it always wears off) is like having a limb cut off.

Joe Biden is not responsible for rising gas prices, you uninformed Republican Idiots, so save your Let's Go Brandon stickers.

My Spirit Animal

Read This, Please 

Then read this

Then this

Might as well read this one too

And cap it off with this one

Bottom line, the reason gas prices are so high right now are twofold - first and foremost, despite producing more than enough oil in this country, we rely on foreign sources because the dirtbag oil barons (a few of which were part of Trump's actual fucking cabinet and making actual fucking decisions that affect actual fucking American citizens) would rather send the homegrown stuff overseas so they can make more money.  If we kept it here, we'd be able to pay less for it, if these fuckers didn't just want to hike the prices up every time they needed to buy a new yacht.  Second, since we're reliant on foreign sources of oil, you can bet your ass that what's going on in Ukraine and other parts of the world are going to effect what we're paying.  

So indirectly, yeah, Biden is responsible for rising gas prices when we ban Russian oil, but only because it's one of the many ways he's trying to stop the insane dictator (aka Trump's best bud and Jesus figure) without having to resort to actual warfare, which if you think that won't turn nuclear quickly, then I pity your naiveté.  He also recently released some of our domestic reserves to keep prices down, so yeah, blame him for that too.

However, if greedy ass Republican oil barons didn't insist on hording their wealth like Smaug, we might have a cheaper alternative.

So fuck you to every asshole that thinks they're fighting the man by putting stupid stickers on gas pumps.  

Happily Ever After...for now (an ACOTAR re-read)

Some day your prince(ss) will come, Tam.

 

So I finally made it to the end.  There are a couple of big points that I wanted to note (thank the Cauldron for Audible's bookmark feature.  FYI the OCD part of me is probably going to go back and mark everything in my Kindle that I missed first go around, because I'm insane):

Hindsight is 20/20 (an ACOTAR re-read Chapters 27-36)

 This book is doing nothing to convince me that Tamlin really was a shit from the jump, as so many who jumped to Team Rhys would like one to believe.

Don't get me wrong, the breadcrumbs are definitely there if you look/listen for them, but really all I'm learning on this go-around is that it seems like Tam really never had a chance at all.  I learned that quite a bit with the exposition on Tam's past from Alys.  

He was raised by a shitty father who encouraged his violence and shit on his fiddle playing dreams, had shittier brothers who wanted to murder him for having the genetic misfortune to be stronger than them, and still he found it in him to be the best man he could.  He was by all accounts a good, even somewhat progressive high lord.  He put effort in to being as different as he could from him.  

Feyre certainly loved him to do what she did, and Tamlin obviously loved her, because he wouldn't have taken such a turn as he did if she meant nothing to him.  Despite being arrogant (and I think all high fae are to some degree), he's not unwilling to debase himself and literally beg Rhys to not tell Amarantha about Feyre, despite his history with Rhys, which would you lead you to believe that a guy like Tamlin (and certainly a guy like he eventually becomes) would be totally unwilling to do.

Tamlin didn't keep secrets from Feyre at this point except where he required to according to the magic of the curse.

So I'm not really seeing, outside of his temper, all the signs of him always being the controlling misogynist he becomes in the rest of the series.

Rather he seems like a guy that's been trying for a long time and not getting anywhere, has some level of low self esteem (to give up and think that nobody could actually love him enough to break the curse and to still be willing to tell that person, a human, that he loves her), and is just tired and wants to give up.  

I've seen a lot of people point out the fact that Rhys was strong enough to keep going, even after fifty years of abuse, and Tam just gave up.  So yeah, he gave up 🤷🤷🤷.  He shut down, as is evidenced time and time again under the mountain.  So what? Not all of us are strong enough to keep fighting; I don't think that means that he never really loved Feyre or really appreciated her enough to fight for her.  He's a different guy, so he deals with things differently than someone like Rhys.  

He did send her away to keep her safe, even though he had three days left in which Feyre could very well have said the words that would have freed them all. So yeah, he might have essentially sacrificed his court to protect just Feyre, but Rhys does no better later on.  I'd posit that Tamlin just loves differently than Rhys, and eventually not in the way Feyre needs, but certainly not any less in his mind.

Is one really better than the other?