Bookish Questions – Favorite Romance?
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What is your favorite romance novel?
It is February and Valentines’s Day is in a week, so I can’t think of a better time to talk about romance novels.
I’ve personally never been a big fan of romance novels. I’m even less of a fan of other novel styles, such as the ever-popular YA Dystopian Fantasy that lean on a romance as the main plot driver. A good example of this would be Katniss & Peeta’s relationship in The Hunger Games series. It seemed forced in a lot of places and was really unnecessary for the plot. Honestly, Katniss is saving the world. How does she have time for a romance?
If I did have to pick a favorite “romance novel,” it would probably be Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I haven’t read it since high school, but I remember really connecting with Jane, a woman who just didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. It was probably something about my age. I’m a strong believer in the concept of “right book/right time.”
That’s probably the same reason I enjoyed Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Ubervilles so much. It could also be considered a romance novel, but the interplay of characters was so intriguing that I couldn’t help but love the book. It’s another book I would recommend for young women, even if they don’t like romance or “stuffy old books.”
Do you read romance? What is your favorite romantic novel?
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I only read chicklit when exhausted, on a train, or ill, so I don’t read much. In my teens I actually subscribed to the six-books-a-month deal from Harlequin, though. My favourites of that sort were The Bride Price, Beyond the Foothills and The Snow Leopard…the last two for all the wrong reasons. Meaning, they took themselves soooo seriously they were hysterical! Reading them aloud had us rocking with laughter. The Snow Leopard was full of dashes: “But I–but you–oh Dominic, I….” like that. So many Harlequins were full of laugh lines: “Their eyes met as she reached for the roast.” You can see my review of The Bride Price on GR. As far as my mother was concerned all romance novels were dirty books, and that was my first. I guess my favourites were by a New Zealander who wrote under the name of Essie Summers. For all I know she could have been six people and a pseudonym, but she had a sense of humour and that helped.
Literary romances? Well there’s always Guinevere and Lancelot. I did like Mary Stewart’s Touch Not the Cat. I do prefer “Villette” to “Jane Eyre” because it’s so well written, and is so ignored. It’s hypnotic; once I pick it up I can’t put it down. I’ve read it at least five times and it sucks me in every time. (Have you ever noticed that Charlotte’s heroines tend to spend three days in a coma-like state in most of her books? Rebirth symbolism, much?)
I haven’t read Villette. I’ll have to add that to my TBR list.