Blogtober Day 26: Paranormal Romance

Paranormal romance is the intersection between a romance novel and the supernatural. Often times, the story follows the formula of one character meeting and falling in love with some mysterious love interest who turns out to be some sort of supernatural being. Sometimes a vampire, other time the love interest is some kind of shapeshifter. 

In order to qualify, at least from the criteria on Goodreads, the story needs to have both romance and the supernatural element at its forefront. If there’s a vampire love interest, let’s say, but him being a vampire isn’t a major part of the plot, it doesn’t qualify. The same is true if the story itself is paranormal, but there isn’t a romance at the center of the story. The best, and most well-known, example of a paranormal romance is, of course, Twilight. There’s a romance, regardless of how much its love or hate, and the paranormal element, Edward being a vampire and that being a central part of the story.

Now that we’ve established what it is, let me tell you my thoughts on paranormal romances. I’m not a huge fan. I’ve got nothing against anyone that writes this subgenre or reads it, but it’s just not for me. I’ve read many, and there are a lot of things about the subgenre that I just don’t like. 

Usually, the main character, who’s almost always a girl, learns her crush is a vampire or werewolf or whatever when she finds herself in a dangerous situation and he rushes in to save her. I’m not a big fan of women being damsels in distress. Often, the main character is bland. She’s bland, she’s boring. She’s not pretty, or smart, or talented. She has all of the personality of a paper bag. I know, there’s an argument to be made about the story being wish fulfillment, but why does that mean the main character has no personality? Boring main characters make the story so much harder to read and it takes me out of the story. If I don't care about the main character, why should I care about what happens to her?

A lot of these stories are YA novels, and YA novels tend to over-dramatize relationships or make aspects that shouldn’t be seen as romantic appear like they’re relationship goals. Also, it weirds me out that hundred/thousand-year-old beings have nothing better to do than lurk around high schools. It’s weird and creepy. Even when the supernatural being in question isn’t a thousand years old, there’s almost always an age-gap. Maybe the protagonist is in high school, and the love interest is college-aged it’s still weird, especially given the prevalence of adult men dating “mature” teenagers which is just a smokescreen to hide the predatory behavior of said men. It sends the message that dating someone older than you is fine, because it means you’re more mature, not that he’s predatory. 

There’s sometimes a soulmate aspect, which works when used correctly and appropriately, but it often isn’t. The angle is used to wave off any problematic aspects of the text that someone might object to. The love interest follows her around or breaks into her house? He’s not stalking her; he’s just worried about his soulmate. He loses control when she cuts her hand or it’s a full moon? Of course, he wasn’t really going to kill her, she’s his mate. Also, I find the concept of soulmates, and the implication that the characters are incomplete without each other, to be dumb. In some, there’s an added problem of the main character being the creature’s soulmate meaning she’s somehow responsible for “fixing” him. I don’t see why she’s all of a sudden responsible for what this random person, who she probably just met, does.

The last pet peeve that I have about young adult paranormal romance is the bad dialogue. This isn't the case with every novel in the genre, but a number of them have this problem. The characters are supposed to be teenagers, yet they don't sound like teenagers. They sound like what a 40-year-old thinks teens sound like.  It easy to tell when the author is much older than the demographic they’re writing for in this case. I’m sorry, but no teenager these days is going to call someone a “trollop”. No one’s used that word in about 40 years. As soon as I read that, it takes me completely out of the story itself and all I focus on is the dialogue. Additionally, and this has nothing to do with paranormal YA in particular, but exposition/info dumps through dialogue also needs to go. It needs to stop. It’s unrealistic. No one’s going to explain the entire, centuries-long war between two factions, their first time meeting someone.

These have been my thoughts on paranormal romance, more specifically young adult paranormal romance. As I said earlier, I’ve got nothing against the genre, it’s just not for me. I also know that not every book has these issues, but I thought I should mention why I dislike certain parts of the genre rather than just say something like “it’s just stupid”. What are your thoughts on paranormal romance?

Blogtober Day 7: Anomaly

(Disclaimer: I did receive the novel for free in exchange for an honest review. )

Anomaly is a 2019 self-published novel by Jessica Gilliland. It is a paranormal thriller. I decided to give the novel a chance since the description reminded me of X-Men, more particularly the second X-men movie that was released in the early 2000s. The synopsis of the book is as follows:

“Liv is a powerful telekinetic, but she keeps her head down, and her powers in check. If she doesn’t, the government is going to execute her. Deemed a threat to society by the governments Anomaly Control Team, Live was kidnapped from a facility for supernaturally gifted children and has been under surveillance for five years. When a group of renegades led by her first love, Jason, break Liv free from government control, she gets a taste of freedom. Jason takes Live to Hawthorn House, a secret facility that vows to educate and protect those with supernatural abilities. Liv and Jason fall back into their interrupted romance, but life at Hawthorn isn’t as perfect as she’d hoped. While at Hawthorn, Liv’s powers and loyalties are tested. Her struggle to find herself and build a new life is only made harder by her insecurities and her suspicions that Hawthorn isn’t what it seems.”

I found this book to be enjoyable. The pacing is excellent, there’s an appropriate building of tension as the plot moves along and the reader nears the climax of the story. There’s a good mix of showing and telling of information about different characters, what’s going on and what the motivations of the different characters are. There’s an underlying sense of dread, vital for thrillers, as Liv becomes more at home at Hawthorn and starts to become the powerful young woman she used to be before she was taken.

Let’s discuss the characters for a moment. There are a handful of characters that need to be mentioned. Liv, our main character, Jason, her first love, Lexa, her friend from before she was taken by the ACT, and Dr. Stone, the woman who runs Hawthorn House. Liv was, unsurprisingly, my favorite character, not just because she was the protagonist. For most of the story, she was the one that was easiest to relate to, as she seemed to be the only character reacting in an understandable way to what was happening. The reason none of the others react in a way that makes sense is revealed during the climax, but let’s just say its because some big things are being hidden from Liv. Not only is Liv smart, and resourceful, she’s also strong-willed, something I appreciate in my protagonists. Being strong-willed matters as the story progresses and no one else seems bothered by things that are out of place at Hawthorn. Jason and Lexa are both well-written and the fact that they are both clearly conflicted is something that’s telegraphed early on but done in a way that doesn’t reveal anything too important to the plot until the right time.

Not including Liv, the most important character, I feel, is Dr. Stone. Stone is a figure who, from her first mention, the reader know to be wary of. None of what she does seems genuine, and given Liv’s history with her before the government found her, I doubt any reader would assume she was anything other than an antagonist. It’s Liv’s distrust of Stone, given their history, which drives the plot forward. Liv’s not willing to relax, not willing to trust any of the staff at Hawthorn, simply because of Stone’s past experiments on her.

Something I enjoyed most about this story is the climax itself. After pages of building tension, foreshadowing and introducing details that may or may not be red herrings, Liv finally sees the truth of what Hawthorn House is. I think what I enjoyed most about it was that I was close when I tried to guess what the “big reveal” was, but I wasn’t completely right. The real secret of Hawthorn, and Dr. Stone, was in the same vein of what I thought, but it wasn’t completely correct. The revelation is related to my assumption, which meant the story was somewhat predictable, but there was enough room for me to be pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Since this is the first book in a series, the ending is ambiguous which I enjoyed in this case.

While for the most part, I enjoyed the book, I do have a few negatives I should mention. One is the length. The book is about 150 pages, which is not very long for a novel. Gilliand’s writing somewhat makes the book feel longer, with more plot packed in, but I feel like it needed to be a little bit longer for the climax and ending to feel completely satisfying. My other complaint would be regarding Liv’s reaction when she finally learns what’s going on. Up until that point, I related to her, I thought she was making good decisions and reacting to things in a normal way. Following the big reveal, however, I can’t say I like her characterization. Rather than stay, and fight, or make what’s happening stop, she leaves. She yells at a few people, asking them what’s wrong with them, roughs a few people up, but doesn’t really do much to stop Stone. I wish she’d done more than just storm off.

Anomaly is a good book. I found it entertaining, I was intrigued by it. I’ll most likely pick up the next book in the series to see where the story goes. A few things of note: the author has another published book, this one from 2012, also called Anomaly and part of a series called The New Haven Project. While the novels are similar, based on the synopses of both, the main characters are different and I haven’t read the 2012 version.

Rating: 3.7 stars