Artistic Explorations

Okay, I have been putting off this post for way too long, but now I need to just get it off of my chest -
Gena Showalter's book Last Kiss Goodnight was not her best work.

There, I said it.  Gena Showalter, who I love and look to as an example in good writing, made a book with flaws.  It wasn't as much of a fall-on-your-face problem such as Lori Foster's My Man Michael (which was well and truly awful), but it was not what I had come to expect from such a talented writer.

First, my thoughts on the book - it was okay.  Lower case 'l'.  I dug the whole beauty and beast thing, the addition of demonic forces was worth a small nod and the circus environment was very cool.  The hero was tough, vulnerable and worth rooting for.  The heroine was...ok.  I saw that I was supposed to see her as tough and vulnerable since she was abused by her father, had no place to go and yet maintained her compassion but I still never really grooved with her.  She was a bit of a caricature to me: pretty + spunky + abused + gentle = perfect romantic novel heroine.  Meh.

But since I am such a sucker for the beauty and the beast story line I was totally willing to roll with it.  Until the angel and devil popped up on the hero's shoulders.  Really?  Angel and devil speaking into each ear trying to tempt a man into good or evil?  I kind of got my fill of that back in the Warner Bros days of my youth.  If felt like it was a writing short cut for the hero's inner turmoil, his change of heart and ultimately his survival of the climax.  (Oops, spoiler alert - but then the hero always survives so it's not exactly a big surprise!)

And so even though I wanted to write my 'review' since the day after I bought the story I have held off. I even read the story again, hoping  that it would be better.  But not really.  Still the same decent story sprinkled with way too much out of place hack.

But then, after coming upon a scathing review of My Man Michael on Amazon I realized something - writers, even writers that you love, have no obligation to write the story that you want to read every time.  They are artistic and creative people who are free to experiment, play and stretch their figurative wings in whatever way makes them happy.  If an author stays in a place that I find to be weird and do not like then I don't have to read their work anymore, even if I might mourn the lose of what I thought they could do.

Here's a secret, I'm married to a professional artist.  Really.  And he is always working to see if he can draw better, paint better, write better or try a new medium.  If you don't live with and artist then that might seem flaky but here is the thing - art comes from the soul and the soul is constantly changing.  Sure the basics are the same but the world and the input that you give yourself in books or art are always affecting it.

So I am not a huge fan of Last Kiss Goodnight but I admire the fact that Ms Showalter tried something a little different.  And as for Ms Foster...I think that I am not her only fan to say, "Nice try, but I'm going to pretend that this never happened".