Guilty Pleasures.
No, I’m not talking about the book by Laurell K. Hamilton…though I am talking about books. Those books you read when you just want to feel good. The books you know you should criticize as pure fluff – and maybe you do, when they’re brought up in discussion.
Right before you go home, dig out your dog-eared copies, and give ‘em another read.
These books are your guilty pleasures. They have no lasting literary merit, but they feel good. They’re emotional, their stories are soppy and overdone, their characters take “larger than life” a little too far…but they’re as much fun as eating ice cream for breakfast or bonbons for lunch. The sugar goes right to your hips; the fluff goes right to your brain and leaves a few thoroughly mushed brain cells in its wake. But you’re left having thoroughly enjoyed yourself, which gives those books merit enough on their own.
I have several guilty-pleasure books, and often wonder if I don’t write them myself. Some of my favorites, though, are Anne McCaffrey’s Rowan and the sequel, Damia. I wouldn’t be caught dead reading them in public, with their space-opera-esque damsels poised on the covers in such regal and graceful fashion. I have little enough masculinity left to sacrifice its remnants on that altar. They’re little more than romance novels with sex couched in terms of telekinesis and space travel, and their heroines are just a little too good to be true (yet manage not to be unlikable by avoiding the current overdone heroine trap: being a walking attitude problem, constantly lashing out at people whether they deserve it or not, anything to prove her street cred). Yet I like them. Maybe not as much as I like other books on my list of favorites, but I still enjoy them on days when I just need something easy-to-read that has no trouble making me laugh, smile, groan, or gnaw at my fingernails in a mixture of trepidation for the characters and embarrassment that anyone might catch me with the books.
What are your guilty pleasures? Are there any books on your shelf that you consider turning spine-in when company’s over, but that you secretly love?
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The only thing I can think of is fanfiction, really… I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that can fit the guilty pleasure category… I watch cheesy romance movies for that
Oh, slash fiction. So awful, but so fun.
Besides that, I do have a few books or book series that I may not be proud to admit that I’ve liked. When I was younger, it was Goosebumps stuff, or cheesy “young adult” novels by Christopher Pike, or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels (my childhood was filled with dramatic vampires and the like). My interest in those have since waned, but there are still quite a few books that never quite make it to the bookshelf. The Keys to the Kingdom series, the Cirque du Freak books, even the Artemis Fowl series were all at one point or another lent to me, and I may have ended up buying one or two for myself…
Actually, as I’m looking over at my stacks of books, I’m seeing more: Margaret Mahy’s The Tricksters was one I used to like, Woman in the Wall is cute…
Okay, now I feel like I’ve said too much.
The part that amuses me, though, are that it’s the modern, often somewhat popular books that tend to embarrass me, while my Piers Anthony, Magic the Gathering, ancient classics and yaoi books have their places on my shelves with pride. :3
Sihaya: …don’t get me started on my cheesy romance movies. I can’t read fanfic for some reason, though. I don’t know why; some of it is very well-written. It just…doesn’t engage me the way original work tends to.
Kaine: I don’t think I’ve read any of those, which embarrasses me. I think I’ll add them to my next Amazon order. I’m the same way, though. I have some White Wolf books that I keep just because they’re interesting world-building books (I don’t play), and I’m not embarrassed to have those on my shelf. The romance novels, though? Spine turned in.
!!! I love White Wolf. Arkie and I are definitely into the WW world, and we’re even now trying to start a proper Mage campaign. I’m thinking of being a Dreamspeaker.
Ahem. Anyway.
Just don’t blame me if you end up reading some random cheesy ridiculousness that I mentioned. I can’t actually remember what most of them are like, except for Woman in the Wall. Mostly I think I’d feel too silly trying to pick many of them back up. I might try anyway though. >.>
My twin sis and I *loved* The Rowan and Damia. I still occasionally reread the scene in The Rowan when she tans herself and makes her hair curly and then seduces the guy on the boat. And the scene when Damia gets the sunscreen rub down!? I learned a lot about sex from those books way before I was having it.
I still think The Rowan has merit as genre fiction but the series goes downhill from there.