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?