Naked in Death, Glory in Death, and Immortal in Death by J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

[lightreads]

In 2058, New York cop Eve Dallas uses advanced technology and good-old sleuthing to catch killers, deals with her history of abuse, and falls in love with businessman Roarke (yep, that’s his entire legal name, yeesh). I picked these up for the romance, and so I will talk about that instead of what I want to do, which is alternately praise and bitch out the science and future worldbuilding. There are like twenty-five books in this series, I have time.

I came in prepared to really dig these, and ended up with a tepid non-dislike. I’m tolerant of Eve and Roarke’s romance, but it has yet to hit anywhere near the watermark of really caring. I could say it’s partly the thing where Roarke is a gazillionaire, because I’ve read like two chicklittish novels in my entire life, and even I know that’s painfully wrote. That’s just a symptom, though.

Really, it has to do with intention. These are written in close third on Eve, except for the random one or two paragraph interjections where we are informed how Roarke or other characters are feeling. Feeling about Eve, mind, and it’s unerringly complimentary. Which is sloppy and unnecessary, but also just weird. Roarke falls madly, irrevocably in love with Eve within fifty pages of meeting her, and we know it. All the thrashing, then, is simply the reader watching Eve figure it out, and then deal with her admittedly horrific history and personal issues. Which, whatever, but the overall message seems to be that if you are virtuous, if you are a worthy, interesting woman, a fantastically rich and alluring man will fall in love with you with no prompting. Which, uh, no, not so much. We are supposed to admire Eve, and inevitably envy her, and I just don’t see how that’s supposed to be compelling. Do millions of women really enjoy reading these sorts of romantic fantasies where love falls from the sky and the heroin really has no choice but to deal with it (and accompanying riches) because when it’s real love it just can’t be screwed up or ignored? Apparently, but I’m just not wired that way – I keep muttering to myself about how people almost never marry out of their social class, and how is ‘love comes to the lucky and the righteous’ supposed to be comforting, anyway?

Why yes, in fact, I have a much easier time suspending my disbelief for faeries and aliens than soul-searing love from a handsome billionaire. What’s it to you?

Comments

[readerjane]

LOL. I can't argue with a thing you said.

I just gotta say...

I WANT an Auto-Chef.

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

I WANT an Auto-Chef.


Oh my God how much.

[minyan.livejournal.com]

D'you know any of the Dana Stabenow mysteries? I've only read a couple, but her detective is Kate Schugak, an Aleut living in northern Alaska, and she's tough and funny and hurt and unimpressed with anyone else's self-importance, and hard to pry away from a cabin and a wood stove and a bread bowl... and she has a wolf/husky pup with a keen sense of irony...

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I had not heard of that, and it sounds really interesting. Have hunted up the first book and thrown it into the cue pile mountain. thanks!

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my aunt tried to get me into the JD Robb books, and so did the guy (yes, a guy -- my high school chem teacher no less) who got me into the Vorkosigan books. And eugh. The whole package just didn't work for me. The crimes were too bloody and the sex was too goofy and Roarke didn't make me swoon, he just made me roll my eyes, and Eve (and her issues) just didn't gel for me. She in no way struck me as even remotely realistic.

But then again, we are talking about Nora Roberts.

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

That's the thing about Nora Roberts, though -- you sort of get the idea that she might possibly be better if she didn't write six books a year. Because that shows. Painfully. But she really does have talent -- a sense of setting more than anything, and an ability to evoke place and atmosphere, even when they are ridiculous.