book review
Sep. 21st, 2008 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanI just posted this book review on LibraryThing.com and thought I'd post it here too. It's a review of Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland. This book will not actually be published until November; I received a copy of it thanks to LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
This book is part of a genre that I'm not too familiar with, which I believe is called paranormal romance: romance novels with supernatural stuff thrown in. I guess we have "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to blame/thank for the popularity of this genre. I'll freely admit to being a Buffy fan, but when it comes to reading, I tend to prefer hard scifi.
All that is just to say that I'm not very familiar with the genre so I don't know how this book stacks up against others of its ilk. But it definitely borrows heavily from the "Buffy" paradigms. I'm not saying that Joss Whedon should be on the phone to his lawyers right now, but there are a LOT of similarities.
The story goes something like this: Elizabeth Phoenix is an ex-cop (who isn't?) who has psychic abilities. Since leaving the force after the death of her partner, she apparently has been living a life of self-flagellation. But one day her Spidey Sense tells her to visit Ruthie, the woman who raised her as a foster child, and when she gets there, she finds Ruthie bleeding to death from what appear to be animal bites. Before you know it Elizabeth is in the middle of an epic battle between good and evil, because it turns out that Ruthie was a big-shot on the side of the good guys, and with her gone, it's up to Elizabeth to take her place. She has to lead the human race against the demons of Hell, as the time is coming soon for the final battle in the war that has been brewing ever since God kicked some of his angels out of Heaven.
I'll pause at this point to wait for your eyes to finish rolling. Okay? We good? Okay, onward.
Now, you can't have a romance novel without a love interest, so enter (heh heh, she said "enter") Jimmy Sanducci, Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend, former co-foster-child, and possibly the love of her life. Maybe. But Jimmy is - wait for it - not all that he appears to be. (I'll give you a hint: David Boreanaz would be ideal to play Jimmy in the movie.) And he knows a lot more about what's going on than Liz does, so he spews exposition at an alarming rate of speed while he and Liz are alternately arguing, struggling to keep their hands off each other, and incidentally taking out a pack of werewolves.
It seems that the people whose job is to kill bad guys -- the Demon Killers or DK's -- get their marching orders from seers, whose job is to have visions about the where and who of evil, and pass that info on to the DKs. Via cell phone. Again, if this sounds awfully familiar, you're probably a "Buffy" fan. But Liz doesn't know how to use her new powers, so Jimmy bundles her off to Sawyer, a centuries-old shape-shifting Navajo medicine man. His job is to teach Liz how to, um, open herself up. Did I make that sound dirty enough? Well, let's just say that Sawyer might be taking the idea of the mind-body connection a little far.
After a couple days of mind-blowing, uh, instruction, Liz finally has her first vision, which tells her - surprise! - that Jimmy is in trouble. So she hares off to find him; a variety of fights and sexual encounters ensue, and in the end, of course, Liz defeats the bad guy and good triumphs over evil. For now. The stage is already set for a sequel, so don't get too comfortable.
From a feminist standpoint, the notion of a woman who can take on anyone else's superpowers - but only by having sex with them - is, to put it mildly, problematic. Or, to put it bluntly, horrifying. It's exactly the kind of thing that "Buffy" tries to counteract; the idea that if you're a woman, sex is your primary tool, regardless of whether your job is typing, teaching, bartending, or saving the world. Of course, at the same time, it's a great plot device and makes for some pretty interesting twists (not to mention lots of opportunities to throw in yet another sex scene, which I guess is de rigueur when you're writing a romance novel). I have to say I found the final twist a bit suspect - it kind of felt like the author was violating her own rules - but it does make for a heck of a denouement.
The bottom line is that this book is not my cup of tea. The writing is of acceptable quality - not great, but Liz does get off a few good one-liners that got me smiling - the plotting is fast-paced, the paranormal stuff appropriately creepy, and the sex scenes fairly steamy. But the whole thing just feels kind of hackneyed. There's nothing new here, from a literary perspective, and the sex stuff just seems gratuitous and, as I said above, borderline offensive. But again, I'm speaking as one who has thus far intentionally avoided this entire genre, so take it with a grain of salt. If this genre is your thing, you will probably enjoy this book, and its sure-to-be-multiple sequels.
This book is part of a genre that I'm not too familiar with, which I believe is called paranormal romance: romance novels with supernatural stuff thrown in. I guess we have "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to blame/thank for the popularity of this genre. I'll freely admit to being a Buffy fan, but when it comes to reading, I tend to prefer hard scifi.
All that is just to say that I'm not very familiar with the genre so I don't know how this book stacks up against others of its ilk. But it definitely borrows heavily from the "Buffy" paradigms. I'm not saying that Joss Whedon should be on the phone to his lawyers right now, but there are a LOT of similarities.
The story goes something like this: Elizabeth Phoenix is an ex-cop (who isn't?) who has psychic abilities. Since leaving the force after the death of her partner, she apparently has been living a life of self-flagellation. But one day her Spidey Sense tells her to visit Ruthie, the woman who raised her as a foster child, and when she gets there, she finds Ruthie bleeding to death from what appear to be animal bites. Before you know it Elizabeth is in the middle of an epic battle between good and evil, because it turns out that Ruthie was a big-shot on the side of the good guys, and with her gone, it's up to Elizabeth to take her place. She has to lead the human race against the demons of Hell, as the time is coming soon for the final battle in the war that has been brewing ever since God kicked some of his angels out of Heaven.
I'll pause at this point to wait for your eyes to finish rolling. Okay? We good? Okay, onward.
Now, you can't have a romance novel without a love interest, so enter (heh heh, she said "enter") Jimmy Sanducci, Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend, former co-foster-child, and possibly the love of her life. Maybe. But Jimmy is - wait for it - not all that he appears to be. (I'll give you a hint: David Boreanaz would be ideal to play Jimmy in the movie.) And he knows a lot more about what's going on than Liz does, so he spews exposition at an alarming rate of speed while he and Liz are alternately arguing, struggling to keep their hands off each other, and incidentally taking out a pack of werewolves.
It seems that the people whose job is to kill bad guys -- the Demon Killers or DK's -- get their marching orders from seers, whose job is to have visions about the where and who of evil, and pass that info on to the DKs. Via cell phone. Again, if this sounds awfully familiar, you're probably a "Buffy" fan. But Liz doesn't know how to use her new powers, so Jimmy bundles her off to Sawyer, a centuries-old shape-shifting Navajo medicine man. His job is to teach Liz how to, um, open herself up. Did I make that sound dirty enough? Well, let's just say that Sawyer might be taking the idea of the mind-body connection a little far.
After a couple days of mind-blowing, uh, instruction, Liz finally has her first vision, which tells her - surprise! - that Jimmy is in trouble. So she hares off to find him; a variety of fights and sexual encounters ensue, and in the end, of course, Liz defeats the bad guy and good triumphs over evil. For now. The stage is already set for a sequel, so don't get too comfortable.
From a feminist standpoint, the notion of a woman who can take on anyone else's superpowers - but only by having sex with them - is, to put it mildly, problematic. Or, to put it bluntly, horrifying. It's exactly the kind of thing that "Buffy" tries to counteract; the idea that if you're a woman, sex is your primary tool, regardless of whether your job is typing, teaching, bartending, or saving the world. Of course, at the same time, it's a great plot device and makes for some pretty interesting twists (not to mention lots of opportunities to throw in yet another sex scene, which I guess is de rigueur when you're writing a romance novel). I have to say I found the final twist a bit suspect - it kind of felt like the author was violating her own rules - but it does make for a heck of a denouement.
The bottom line is that this book is not my cup of tea. The writing is of acceptable quality - not great, but Liz does get off a few good one-liners that got me smiling - the plotting is fast-paced, the paranormal stuff appropriately creepy, and the sex scenes fairly steamy. But the whole thing just feels kind of hackneyed. There's nothing new here, from a literary perspective, and the sex stuff just seems gratuitous and, as I said above, borderline offensive. But again, I'm speaking as one who has thus far intentionally avoided this entire genre, so take it with a grain of salt. If this genre is your thing, you will probably enjoy this book, and its sure-to-be-multiple sequels.
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Date: 2008-09-22 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-22 01:26 pm (UTC)