I'm really digging Soulless so far (~115 pages into it). Fun!

I'm fifty pages from the end of Changeless and waiting for shit to get real, as I know it's about to. I think the plotting is actually similar to Soulless in how slowly pieces of the puzzle are doled out, but there's more going on besides the main plot to keep me interested. I wonder how much of it will end up tying together.

Finally read La Princesse de Clèves, which was one of my should-reads for the year. The basic plot is quite good, but all the names and titles (it takes place at the court of Henri II) make it extremely hard to follow in the beginning. I'm sorry I gave it to Brenda, since I can't imagine what it would be like to read this without a basic knowledge of Catherine de Medicis, Diane de Poitiers, the Duc de Guise, and Mary Queen of Scots.

Of course, maybe I'm underestimating Brenda.

But, in the end, I liked it and will probably reread at some point (it's quite short). The main character, who is fictional, reminded me a lot of Madame de Tourvel from Les Liaisons dangereuses. So, in my head, it was as if Michelle Pfeiffer was taking on a young Verna Lisi with occasional echoes of Monty Python.

Kate Beaton, on all the Austen & monster remixes

I haven't read any of the Jane Austen vs. Zombies Pirates Sea Monsters, etc. books, but I'd totally read that book in the last strip in a heartbeat.

Started a new book this morning and just came across the phrase "as her eyes washed over the jar."

My mind went to a really creepy place.

Hee. Nothing like waves of eyes flowing over things.

"Or taken literally, incredibly gross."

Funny thing is, this is another one of those "love stories written by men, so of course they must be deeper and have more meaning," books. But unlike a Nicholas Sparks book, this one is actually quite good. (Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff.) Great setting/era, in post-D-Day 1945 and the premise for the story is well thought-out. The author has written quite a bit for film and television so he can craft a nice story, but again, I find myself thinking, had this been written by a woman, it might have been published, but not in hardcover and it wouldn't have gotten front table placement at B&N.

(And most editors of my acquaintance would not have allowed the washing eyes.)

But still, it's a good read with which to unwind.

Question for the reading hive mind:

Why is a romance/love story written by a woman so looked down upon while a love story/romance written by a man is considered stunning work of sensitivity and a revelation?

(And yes, I deliberately reversed the terms separated by a slash.)

You say that like it's a bad thing.