Spoiling About Pregnancy In Romance Reviews

From Goodreads: Molly Harper ~ How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf

I have decided to start taking my frustrations out on Goodreads. They are just so deserving of my time and attention. People actually believe that you can review eBooks and give nothing away about the plot. I am not talking majorly detailed descriptions of every scene and careful analysis of every character and their motivations here I mean just describing major plot points that might be of interest to other readers.

Pregnancy used to provide permanence to the Romance. To me that is just like saying it is a Werewolf Romance when it comes to Straight Romance… Prego Romance could almost be considered a sub-genre because it always gets used to leverage the Romance in some way.

Now those readers out there howling about spoiling things for them well they might be right in some respects if you go to some of the “usual suspects” those websites I am talking about for eBook reviews as advertising and free promotion. Those numerous places they basically repeat the uninformative blurb provided by the publishers and then give it five angels or five tampons or five tabs of acid and we are on to the next Romance eBook. No discussion of the books contents or analysis of the writing is ever involved at all. In some cases I even wonder if the person writing the review even read the damn eBook all the review is about is how the reviewer felt getting the book to read not what was written on it’s pages.

So I guess my thing is that I don’t believe in those silly “Spoiler” deals in my eBook reviews unless I know I am going to go whole hog and do some major blow by blow analysis and even then I leave the review in plain sight of everybody who visits here. I don’t consider revealing pregnancy used to provide permanence in a Straight Romance really all that much of a spoiler in fact I know that readers out there “hate it” so revealing it’s use for them is a public service announcement in all reality. It probably should be labeled by the publishers.

I have to agree that using pregnancy in a Romance to bag the hero and make him commit is sorta screwy in this day and age and I can understand that some readers just do not like it so I see it as a valid thing to spoil the heck out of and if some readers out there want to feel that is spoiling the story for them then might I suggest they wait till after reading the book to check out the reviews because they are in for a world of heartache with reviewers like me.

Then we could talk about those Gay Romance eBooks where the guys get pregnant… OMG! What does that say about some of us having views that pregnancy is the ultimate form of commitment and love? I mean I always looked at it like guys falling in love with other guys are not doing it to procreate so that type of love is only there for it’s own reasons not for procreation so I see it as a more challenging thing in and of itself. Adding the whole idea of needing to have a house and 2 and a half kids just drives me nuts.

I have not been with Jason for 10 years now because I want to have children OK? I don’t feel the need to have kids nor do I want kids. I like my zero population growth lifestyle lock, stock, and barrel got it? I also do not believe in Gay Marriage as an option for me. I don’t want to pretend that heterosexual marriage norms in our society prove real love. If I want to be considered in public to be someone else’s property put a collar on me at least you are being truthful to me about what you are looking for and I get to decide based on that honesty. I do not want to act like what all the heterosexual people do is what I have to do to fit in to this crazy world of ours. Maybe I am comfortable being the strange rebelling outsider on this shit.

Anyway, that is how I see things and that is how I review.

Tags: eBook Commentary