First, because I'm just going to say a few short lines on the matter: the way the book world responded to the Gilmour article was returning douchebuggery for douchebuggery. So an academic had an opinion. Big whoop. I read the article. The guy's an a-hole. Period.
Being a reader means being open-minded. It means understanding and accepting that people are going to have different opinions than you.
The guy's not a reader. He's a professor. And guess what? The guy teaches short fiction. Guess what else? The Americans and the Russians dominate that field in classic literature. Any lit teacher will tell you that. You can't change history.
I was ashamed of my fellow readers when I heard the outcry. Y'all know better.
To quote Christina Dodd from her Read-A-Romance-Month article, it's about romance, but it goes for all book-bashing, really:
"It’s become an internet standard that if a psychologist/book columnist/writer of “more important” fiction, wants attention, s/he posts a “Romance is stupid” article. Frankly, the organ that creates my outrage is exhausted. I can’t get excited (again), when someone I don’t know, don’t care about, will never hear of again, bashes my genre. [emphais mine]
....
So it’s time for us romance readers and writers to pull up our big girl panties and stop arguing with the willfully ignorant, and stop worrying about whether we are respected.
....
— According to a study cited by Dr. Joyce Brothers, women who read romance novels make love seventy-four percent more often than women who don’t read romance novels.
— According to special research from the British Medical Journal, the more orgasms you have, the longer you’re likely to live.
Assuming those studies are true, we don’t need to “read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” We romance readers are going to outlive all the critics anyway.
Full Article HERE
And on the topic of romance, I hate when I see books gave me unrealistic expectations about men. I mean, I have a special hatred in my heart for that crap--right there with my special hatred for reality TV. Girls, you've obviously never read a romance, WHICH ARE ACTUALLY ABOUT LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS.
Those guys aren't perfect. They're screwy, stupid, dominating/posessive, afraid of committment, you-name-it. In some cases, misogynistic.
But that's why we love them. I will admit, romance books probably gave me unrealistic expectactions about sex (I'm a virgin, what do I really know anyway? and even romance writers will say it's unrealistic), but not about the male of the species. Men will be men, and women will be women. We're different, but we complete each other. Yin and yang. The two become one. All that.
Frankly, I think it's mostly girls that are into YA saying it/making the memes. Girls, that is NOT where to look for your standards for a relationship/husband. And you're too young to be thinking about that anyway.
Maybe I'm being overly critical. Maybe because I'm terminally single and I don't even think an idiot out there exists for me. However, probably more because I read a lot of adult romance, and I don't have a long list of things I'd want in a potential husband. Because I don't read YA and am not sensitive to the matter.
If I learned anything from romance novels, it's that you never wind up with the kind of person you thought you would, or what you thought you wanted. He'll annoy you. And you'll have to learn to work as a team. You might even hate him at first. He might be a little dense. He will not, under any circumstances, be perfect. He will be a guy.
And this, because I love it so:
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