Well, look who just popped open a fresh can of venom.

Xander ,'Empty Places'


We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good  

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Atropa - Oct 25, 2005 10:39:33 pm PDT #9337 of 10002
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

I read the Flowers in the Attic series

Wait, are those considered romances? I thought they were ... something else. Modern wanna-be-gothic novels that were heavy on the smut, maybe?


Volans - Oct 25, 2005 10:46:13 pm PDT #9338 of 10002
move out and draw fire

They definitely had gothic overtones, which was probably why I could read them. Is there a genre for post-gothic? Neo-gothic? They've got the insular family, the house/family link, the secrets, and the decay and decadence, but the morality is skewed.

I don't know that I'd shelve them with The Monk or The Castle of Otranto, but I can see the connections.


P.M. Marc - Oct 25, 2005 11:15:24 pm PDT #9339 of 10002
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

I thought they were shelved with Horror, back when I was reading them.

They're not in Romance by any stretch, however.


Calli - Oct 26, 2005 4:01:12 am PDT #9340 of 10002
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs

Dad had all the Analog, Science Fiction and Science Fact magazines going back to the 50s. So I read a whole lot of SF. I got a bunch of fantasy from the library--the Dark is Rising series, some Xanth books (I went and bought the former a few years ago). I also picked up the occasional early Anne Rice. I don't remember reading YA romance--I just jumped head long into my folks Harlequin collection when I was 12. And then jumped right out again at around 18 when I realized that a heroine had been raped by a man, and yet it was ok because they were in love and engaged to marry by the end of the book. Ugh. It's taken 20 years and a careful reintroduction to Regency romances and Jennifer Cruisie to get me back into the romance genre.


Connie Neil - Oct 26, 2005 4:50:15 am PDT #9341 of 10002
brillig

Mary Stewart--along with Jane Aiken Hodge--rock.


Kathy A - Oct 26, 2005 7:11:06 am PDT #9342 of 10002
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil

One type of novel I used to really like (maybe due to the early exposure to Michener and Roots) was the centuries-long following of a family. My favorite in the subgenre was The Books of Rachel, by Joel Gross.


Aims - Oct 26, 2005 7:11:19 am PDT #9343 of 10002
Shit's all sorts of different now.

t raises hand

Have read damn near everything by VC Andrews. I own the entire Heaven series, and I am proud of it. I wrote my senior thesis on "her". My teacher said it was the best thesis on a non-existant author she had ever read.


Aims - Oct 26, 2005 7:12:18 am PDT #9344 of 10002
Shit's all sorts of different now.

ION, I have been completely transformed into Geekdom.

I am reading Ender's Game.


Susan W. - Oct 26, 2005 7:17:25 am PDT #9345 of 10002
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

One type of novel I used to really like (maybe due to the early exposure to Michener and Roots) was the centuries-long following of a family. My favorite in the subgenre was The Books of Rachel, by Joel Gross.

Same here.

I miss those. I kinda want to write them.


Kathy A - Oct 26, 2005 7:26:26 am PDT #9346 of 10002
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil

They really are a great way to cover multiple places and times in history in one book. ...Rachel was fascinating for the Midwestern Catholic girl I am because it was all about the wealthy European Jewish experience (the family business was diamonds) from late medieval era to post-WWII.