though my biggest issue is when you have a kick-a** female hero in the book, taking out the bad guys, being independent and totally focused on the task at hand and then walks in the hunky guy. Kick-a** female hero comes to a screeching halt, swoons and starts babbling about her lipstick and her hair or whether her ass looks good in her leather pants. The story then becomes more about how to bed this hunky dude then going after the penultimate bad guy... and, often, the female character who was once really smart and self-sufficient becomes totally dependent on this guy. I often think if you put the same character in a room with her two personalities, the initial kick-a** personality would totally, um, kick the a** of the newfound "I'm in swoon" personality--the two sides of the same personality would not like the other at all.
So, yeah, I find that disappointing in a lot of ways (and it's obvious I'm not reading high-brow fiction when I describe the above scenario). Often times, I'll read a blurb and think, "Yes, this has possibility!", then I read the reviews for the book and the they almost always end up revolving around a romance. I guess I hate any book that is really a romance but disguises itself as something else, like a mystery or thriller or urban fantasy (which is becoming more and more like paranormal romance with each book published).
I'm also disappointed that women don't have fiction that revolves around truly strong female character's--somehow the cliche's always seem to work themselves into the novel.
= new reply since forum marked as read