Dammit.

Jane, I’m playing next time, erm, actually, the time after next would suit me better.

“the text of some comments are no longer there even though the responses are.”

Ah. I’d not noticed that. Thanks for putting me right, Growly and Jia. I think I probably saw the now-vanished comments before they vanished, but I can’t exactly remember what their contents were.

the comments to which I was reacting so negatively by an author who commented on Jules’ blog post are now gone.

I never had an issue with Jules’ post, just the reaction by that one person which was the tired old ‘reviewers are all mean and especially DA, who are only interested in making fun of people’s hard work’ (paraphrased).

Since I consider DA one of the few places with very analytical reviews, that are well thought out even, or especially, when they are critical, I got rubbed really the wrong way and that’s why I brought my frustration here.

There was another conversation going on at Jules Jones’s blog, which I think prompted Jane’s comment on DA. Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely), some of the most provoking comments over there have disappeared, though.

Has someone edited the comments? There still seem to be the same number of comments on the thread. I don’t think Jules Jones’s second post on the topic ever had more than three comments attached to it, and they’re still there.

If you read a book a month, or less, tropes don’t really seem like tropes. They may even be exactly what you have a yen for.

That’s very true, and it certainly reflects my own experience when I started reading genre Romance. I would pick up books that I thought were unusual only to have my long-time Romance reading friend inform me that they made use of tired tropes in an entirely tired way. But to me, of course, they were new. And depending on how one goes about learning genre, they might be introduced to tropes in different books, thus one of the sources of disagreement about whether a book is doing anything new.

I don’t know how publishers appeal to readers, as I doubt I will live long enough to understand publishing at all, either the business model or the overarching artistic philosophy (yeah, I’m assuming there is one).

Regarding Jane’s comment at the top–as I said, it went up before anyone posted saying they hadn’t read the transcript. I’m not really sure how anyone could seriously post w/o reading the transcript–what would you comment on?

There was another conversation going on at Jules Jones’s blog, which I think prompted Jane’s comment on DA. Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely), some of the most provoking comments over there have disappeared, though.

Your comments on Claiming the Courtesan are comparable. To me, the Duchess was pretty clear on consent issues. It wasn’t explicitly adressed (for which I thank the gods–I hate kink where people go through the whole Safe, Sane and Consensual recital–I want fantasy, not reality, people. The joy of kinky fantasy is that you can have non-con AND have it be erotic and satisfying for both parties (I am not into realisticly portrayed rape in stories). I get that it only works if that is your kink, if it’s not, it will probably be creepy or bizarre. But I digress. In any case, I thought it was made pretty clear that that everyone who served her adored her and/or wanted her and they didn’t view the opportunity to please her as a bad thing. Whether or not she deserved this adoration…

I actually thought that her maid was a bit cynical about the whole thing, but in any case, IMO when you have characters falling all over themselves to sexually serve their mistress, that’s it’s own kind of fantasy, open to all sorts of critical interpretations.

To your general point about consent, though, I have learned the hard way that what looks like clear consent to me is not always to other readers (and vice versa). I believe that there is a continuum on which consent moves from an unequivocal statement on the part of the involved characters to consent given only by the reader on behalf of the submissive character (and beyond that, no consent given by either). Where any scene falls on that scale (which will, of course, vary from reader to reader), will determine the character of the scene (total mutual consent to rape fantasy to outright rape) for the reader. And depending on how a reader tolerates the more hardcore end of that continuum will make a difference in how each reader accepts what’s going on.

If the reader is willing to consent on behalf of the heroine, she may not see what’s going on as rape at all, while another reader who refuses to grant consent might. Other readers might see it as rape fantasy, etc. And some readers might crave that rape fantasy scenario, to be empowered to consent where the heroine doesn’t, etc. IMO it’s an extremely complicated and very fascinating issue that goes waaayyyy beyond the traditional “stressed women want an excuse to give up control’ explanation.

I think that’s an important difference between snarking covers and books: with covers, because the entire object is present for both the snarker and the snark-reader to view, all parties start out able to judge the snark against the object. That’s not the case in snarking a book, and even less so when *no one*–including the snarkers–has read it.

It’s common for the review-reader to be unfamiliar with the book–that’s part of what reviews are for–but when the snarkERs are unfamiliar with the object they snark, of course there’s some outcry. Just as there are “Has he ever even READ a romance?” complaints about non-romance-readers who snark the genre.

In this case by starting the snark simultaneously with the reading, and doing that reading in what looked like a pretty distracting public setting, the snarkers open themselves up to the perception that they aren’t sincerely engaging the text. It’s one thing if the whole thing comes across as a riff on the object, but I read those opinions as seriously meant, despite the jocular tone. In other words, it came across as a very negative review, and one in which the reviewer didn’t set the stage with any preparatory remarks (that I remember), e.g. this is erotica, not romance; this is a fantasy historical period; etc.

The only thing this can tell us is an honest reader reaction to the book, uncensored, not prettied up, just out there and raw.

That’s precisely where I disagree. As I said above, I didn’t get the impression it was what you’re describing. The multitasking and commenting and “WTF”ing over details started immediately, which seemed like a signal that the readers’ focus wasn’t really on the book.

I have a tremendous respect for your patience, civility and fortitude from this thread. :-) Also was really fascinated by the allusions to Claiming the Courtesan and rape fantasy.

Just a few comments, that really aren’t meant to be divisive or argumentative, but this conversation has spawned a lot of interesting thoughts for me.

Well, I could argue that you’ve come to this discussion with some pretty disdainful perceptions about Romance readers vis a vis what they want out of a book. Your perception, my perception. Maybe we should just call this one a draw. ;)

Ironically, it’s more of a “draw” than you perhaps realized, as the “not believe…” line just popped out. It was my first gut reaction to the “we want different” line. So I guess I have to lend more credence to the assertions that the liveblog was the result of a lot of thoughtless remarks, since this was itself just an off the cuff remark about my perception of how mass media works.

There were two bases to that remark: 1) Personal experience reading reviews. I don’t have a catalog of all the movie, tv and book reviews I’ve read over the years (btw, that comment related to all media consumers/reviewers, not just Romance), but my basic impression is that I’ve read a lot more, “What were they thinking?” then I have praises for going out on a limb. It seems when someone does something risky, unless it’s executed near perfectly, they are in trouble with most consumers, even if they are “critically praised.” There is a reason “Critical hit” is code for “flop;” often it’s code for “flop that only intellectual wannabes like.” For producers of media, the message is go perfect or go home. Needless to say we get a lot of medocrity as a result.

The second half of that equation comes from the ‘mass’ part of ‘mass media.’ Media producers are’t stupid, they aren’t banking on pleasing the top 10-15% of prolific readers, they’re banking on the majority who read less than 15 or 20 books a year (granted all numbers are tweakable, to wit: http://writtennerd.blogspot.com/2007/08/link-mad-response-american-reading.html). If you read a book a month, or less, tropes don’t really seem like tropes. They may even be exactly what you have a yen for.

Regarding Jane’s comment at the top–as I said, it went up before anyone posted saying they hadn’t read the transcript. I’m not really sure how anyone could seriously post w/o reading the transcript–what would you comment on?

As for your frustrations while reading, I’ve been there too, but the liveblog response seems a lot less reliable? (I think “reliable” is the right word), when the person is struggling with technology and trying to entertain a cadre of listeners. Yet, because of the reputations of the hosts, their statements are treated as highly reliable. As I’ve pointed out there were a couple of basic errors made by the interpreters, that have been cemented and repeated as the hard and fast truth by certain members of the group. The Maxime thing, also what GC said in this thread about the Duchess abusing her power over the eunuchs et al. That scene was one of the more unerotic for me (“clinical” is the term that comes to mind).

Your comments on Claiming the Courtesan are comparable. To me, the Duchess was pretty clear on consent issues. It wasn’t explicitly adressed (for which I thank the gods–I hate kink where people go through the whole Safe, Sane and Consensual recital–I want fantasy, not reality, people. The joy of kinky fantasy is that you can have non-con AND have it be erotic and satisfying for both parties (I am not into realisticly portrayed rape in stories). I get that it only works if that is your kink, if it’s not, it will probably be creepy or bizarre. But I digress. In any case, I thought it was made pretty clear that that everyone who served her adored her and/or wanted her and they didn’t view the opportunity to please her as a bad thing. Whether or not she deserved this adoration…

Well, I guess having a Duchess actually act like a superior instead of one of the people is one of those risky writing moves that are rarely well-received. There’s a reason nobly born hero/ines are usually out of character for their station and time–to make them likeable to the reader.

I wasn’t using the phrase as a rhetorical device. I do agree that it’s counterproductive to keep going at this. I think I have made my initial point about different genre definitions, and as I said last night, I don’t have much new to add to the conversation.

Regarding the question of whether hybridization is transformative or not, that is something that I judge on a book-by-book basis, and also, within a context of what else is being published at the time. It seems like something that could be an interesting topic for another day, but I’m talked out here.

Check your email; I responded to a couple of your points privately.

I also tend to see a comment of “that was my impression but I could be wrong” as a rhetorical device for “that’s what I think but I’m not going to press the issue.” That’s my interpretation, of course, but it’s honestly how I was reading that statement. And the reason I’ve been arguing with you is that I’ve not felt understood and not really understood where you were coming from and why, either (I’ve spent a lot of time puzzled over your comments, which I’m sure surprises you because you feel that you’ve been clear and don’t understand why you’ve been misunderstood, but that’s where I am). But I’m done now. I think we’re basically doing the same thing to each other, wondering why the other keeps on, and it’s clearly counterproductive at this point, since I now understand you’re not still asserting that initial impression, but merely trying to offer a different perspective on the book and on erotica in general.

On a slightly different note, I absolutely believe that Hart’s first novel is hybridized (as are, IMO, a lot of Holly’s erotica books, which I think is why she’s being marketed as ER, even if it’s not quite a true characterization of her work), and had I read it this year instead of whenever I did (two years ago, maybe?), I would have a different sense of that hybridity, because I’ve spent the last year or so reading more erotica (because of my interest in understanding the rape in Romance trope) and have been studying the captivity trope in genre Romance, which has changed my perspectives about the relationship between hybridity and genre transformation (in other words, I now think that there’s much more hybridity within genres than there is transformation, and that genre thrives on that hybridity). I’m not saying my views are correct, only that they are driving my interpretations, which are themselves changing somewhat as I study genre structures more.

I think we’re disagreeing, and that the crux of our disagreement emerges from our very different definitions of “pure erotica.”

Yes, we have different definitions of the genre, and that’s the main thing I set out to point out in most of my posts here.

It’s not the fact that our definitions of the genre are different, though, that is frustrating to me but rather the way my motives for pointing that out, and my judgements or lack thereof, about readers here, about the genre, about specific books, etc., are being misrepresented.

IMO erotica doesn’t have to have sex on every page or ever other page (in which case this book wouldn’t even apply, lol);

Okay, I may have been exaggerating a bit when I said that and I obviously did not communicate that well. I don’t have that specific and rigid a definition of pure erotica, but when I read them, they come across to me as books with lots and lots of sex; books whose primary objective is to arouse the reader; books where other elements (like plotting & characterization) serve that purpose, rather than having the sex scenes serve the other elements.

I don’t think erotica and porn are equivalent;

Neither do I. To me, erotica is a wide umbrella for a variety of books and other works. Pure erotica is a narrower subgenre of erotica. Porn is a largely pejorative term since, when I look it up in the dictionary many definitions will say it has no artistic value. That seems like a negative judgement to me (However, some dictionaries do define “Erotica” as “porn,” so I think the two words could be applied to the same work by different people — someone who liked it might call it erotica, someone who did not might call it porn).

I think your definition of “pure erotica” is closer to what I think of as porn, esp. the idea that characterization and plot are there to serve the sex;

Fair enough, but I don’t think I’m completely out in left field in my views. Upthread, there is Carol’s comment that:

Personally, I didn’t like the book. The sex was too clinical for me and I’m not a pure erotica fan.

And Jan’s comment that:

Janine, I have no problem with defining pure erotica as having characters and plot that only serves the sex. It’s pretty much my definition lol.

And Jessica commented that though there was 80% too much sex for her in the book, she didn’t see why erotica fans would not like it.

So, although I agree that my defintion is different from yours and from Jane’s, and no doubt from many other readers’ too, I don’t think I’m completely alone in my views, and my reason for posting for much of this discussion (after the first one or two posts) was that I felt that if others viewed the genre as I did, they might have had a similar reaction to my first impression of the chat. I have stated multiple times that I only caught bits and pieces of the chat, and that my impression could have been wrong, etc., so I don’t see why you feel I am judging those who participated in the chat.

ALL I have been speaking of here is how the conversation first came across to me, and why it came across to me as it did. I’m not saying my impression is correct, or that those who participated in the liveblogging were wrong and I am right. I just wanted to convey my initial puzzlement when I first logged onto the liveblogging on Friday night. What interested me shortly after the beginning of the post-mortem on the liveblogging was the disconnect in genre defintions and how it might have contributed to the different ways in which the chat was viewed.

To me, this whole teapot tempest of a brouhaha has looked partly like a misunderstanding, which I’ve been trying to help clear up, but since I’m only getting misunderstood myself for my troubles, I’m growing more and more frustrated.

I know there was at least one overt discussion in the chat about how this book was erotica and therefore not to be judged by Romance standards

I have been upfront about the fact that I wasn’t there for the entire discussion and may very well have misjudged it initially. My aim here was to present that initial impression and explain how it came about, not to say that it was necessarily correct.

I don’t believe that Hart is creating a new genre;

That is interesting, because I recall you saying, shortly after you first read Dirty, that you felt it was a hybrid of several women’s fiction type genres. I think it might even have been your comment that got me thinking along those lines. Eventually I even discussed that aspect of Hart’s writing with Jennie in our conversational review of Tempted:

Janine: LOL! Jennie, I’d like to start with a brief discussion of the labeling of this book and of its cover.

First, Tempted is described as “An Erotic Novel” on its front cover; and simply as a “Novel” on the spine. Are the book’s romantic elements strong enough that you would consider it a romance? Are its erotic elements prominent enough that you would call it erotica? Or do you feel that “erotic novel” is the right definition?

Jennie F.: I think coming up with a niche for this book (and to some degree, Hart’s other books) is a bit problematic. I would have a problem calling Tempted a romance, because I didn’t find the resolution very romantic; it was more bittersweet. The erotic elements are not prominent enough for me to label it erotica, though. Even calling it an “erotic novel”, I think, may mislead some readers.

Perhaps it’s just my own personal definition of “erotic novel”, but I wouldn’t necessarily expect to face some of the heavy emotional issues that Hart writes about in a novel labeled that way. I suppose “erotic novel” or simply “novel” works best for me, although the latter might leave some readers (albeit readers who don’t bother to look at the racy cover or read the back text) a bit shocked at the content.

Janine: Those labels work pretty well for me, but I brought it up because labeling and the way it sets up reader expectations has been a much discussed issue here at Dear Author. If we expect a certain kind of ending or a certain kind of content because of the way a book is labeled, and then we don’t get it, we can often feel very frustrated even though the book itself may be well-written.

Jennie F.: Yes. I think Hart is extremely difficult to classify; I’d almost call her erotic women’s fiction, but not the kind of women’s fiction that is at all chick-litty, more the sort of serious kind. I don’t think that label would fit on a spine, though. :-)

Janine: I understand what you mean, because Hart’s books do deal with women’s issues, and yet, I hesitate to call them erotic women’s fiction because I have this association to women’s fiction as a genre in which the characters sometimes lack a kind of romantic glamour that I crave; but Hart’s characters have that glamour in spades.

Getting back to the issue of genre and how much we want books labeled accurately. At the same time, I think it’s often true, for me at least, that some of the books that are most interesting and exciting to me are those genre-benders that are hard to categorize. The Time Traveler’s Wife, anyone?

Jennie F.: Oh, absolutely. Honestly, that’s a large part of Hart’s appeal, for me.

Back to your post:

and I don’t think chat participants were criticizing the book for having a lot of sex in it.

I don’t know how many more times I can say this: I’m not saying that’s what people were actually doing, only that that was my first impression of the liveblogging, which may well have been mistaken. But I felt there was value in sharing it, since some of the other comments by other people mirrored my reaction or were even more negative (read Jessica’s at #82), and I did so in the hopes of clearing things up, not causing more confusion.

What gave me the sense that you were judging me through Jessica’s review was the passage I quoted regarding her review, especially the sentence “Yet Jessica doesn’t conclude that it’s a bad book,” as if her judgment about the book was the gold standard and that those of us who did not see the book that way were misinterpreting it because we have different definitions of erotica or worse, unfairly judging it for what it was.

I never said that Jessica’s judgement was the gold standard. I was just explaining the reason for my initial reaction to the liveblogging, and my feeling that it was possible to look at a book as Jessica did, find the sex too clinical and plentiful, the book lacking in emotion, and still conclude that there was no reason erotica fans would not enjoy it. I haven’t read this book, but that would be my judgement of something like Rice’s Beauty trilogy. I pointed to Jessica’s review to show that it was possible that others would view things from my angle. In my mind, I was trying to point out that this might be a contributing factor to why some people’s reactions to the liveblogging were negative.

And my perception that you felt it would be an insult to Hart to label her book erotica came from your comments that pure erotica and porn were equivalents, which came across to me as something you wanted to distinguish Hart’s book from (especially when you said you didn’t even read it for the sex).

I don’t think it’s an insult to pure erotica to say that its primary aim is to arouse. I don’t feel that that’s the primary aim of Hart’s books, though. It’s certainly not their primary effect on me (though I do find the sex in her books sexy). I see them as explorations of character, partly through sex, whereas of pure erotica it’s more apt to say that I see it as exploration of sex, partly through character. I was just trying to distinguish two different types of books, but not because I thought it was an insult to confuse them — just because for me it muddies things to confuse them.

Ultimately, I think we’re operating from very different perceptions of erotica and what the book is and has been advertised as.

Yes, and that was the main point I was trying to make.

My sense is that you think people were unfairly judging the book for what you saw it to be based on the cover, title, and Jessica’s review.

That is inaccurate. I did initally think that when I saw the liveblogging, and that was my immediate response. But I think even in my first post here I acknoweldged that I hadn’t read the entire transcript. And very shortly after that I said I could be wrong in that first impression. I’ve been far more interested in the way different genre definitions have shaped the different responses to the liveblogging, than in judging the livebloggers for unfairly judging the book.

Whereas I feel that that book was not marketed the way it appeared to you and that even the definition of erotica you believe it to reflect is not the definition of erotica I hold or that IMO the book conforms to. So I fundamentally disagree that people were holding against the book exactly what it was, since I don’t think we’re operating off the same definition of “what it was” or the book’s character itself.

I think you’re fundamentally disagreeing with my first impression of the liveblogging which I have stated multiple times may be mistaken. I frankly don’t understand why you feel the need to disagree so strongly, and over and over again, with something I have already acknowledged was just a sketchy first impression and not one that I stand by. Seeing as I have also already said that I agree different people have different genre defintions and therefore different perspectives on both the book and the liveblogging, I don’t understand why you and others feel so compelled to keep repeating that point as well.

I’m sorry if I’m still misunderstanding you, because if that’s the case, I’ll have to concede that I’m at a loss to understand what you’re saying.

I hope I have cleared it up in this post because if not, I don’t know how much more effort I can expend on it. I mean, I will probably try, since there are few things that upset me more than being misunderstood and misrepresented. But well, it is getting pretty disheartening to have to do it so many times in one conversation.

That message has been repeated through out this thread–that dissenters are just thin skinned and want to protect authors. This messages have typically been couched in fairly disdainful terms, implying we are whiners and almost always imputing some belief in the sanctity of authors or need for nice reviews on us.

Well, I could argue that you’ve come to this discussion with some pretty disdainful perceptions about Romance readers vis a vis what they want out of a book. Your perception, my perception. Maybe we should just call this one a draw. ;)

No, it does not look like any participant was ridiculed in the blog, however, the person who kept trying to clarify that the setting was fantasy was basically ignored in favor of complaining about the setting.

Having been in the chat, albeit as more of an observer, many of these comments were occurring at the same time because of the time lag. So in all likelihood the person who was submitting the question about the setting hadn’t even seen the comment answering someone else’s asking of the question. Then by the time everyone got caught up, the conversation had jumped forward to something else.

The complaint about people commenting without having read the blog is also doubly ironic as most people felt free to riff on a book they hadn’t read, only had a few lines cherry-picked for amusement value.

I agree (well, not with the cherry picked lines part of your comment), except there is a difference of importance, IMO, in the fact that the transcript was available to be read by the time these comments were made, whereas the chat was occurring in real time. To me, there are two potential problems with publishing the transcript: that it does not adequately reflect the nature of the event and the difficulty of commenting (and this is partly because it was the first time anyone did this or used the software to do it) and it has a definite insider/outsider vibe that is similar to viewing the drunken antics of friends who are laughing at something you, the sober observer, find completely juvenile and stupid. Where I disagree is in the characterization that it was mean or bullying or a frontal assault on the author.

IMO the characteristic of the chat is going to be that of a free-form festival of reading, a raw, untamed, undisciplined experience that is much more about the pinging back and forth between comments than about any highbrow literary experience. That may come off as stupid to people, it may give a glimpse into the process of reading that authors might not want (sometimes it’s ugly, I gotta say — I’ve used the “this book didn’t work for me” euphemism for books that made me so bored, frustrated, angry, or induced such chronic eye-rolling that I had to really cool off before sitting down to write a review), and if anyone actually thought it was going to be a review, well, after reading the chat I don’t know how that perception could be sustained, at least not here where reviews run into 2000 words with some frequency, and where even DNFing a book generally takes longer than an hour or two.

Bottom line is that IMO people are ascribing so much more intention to this chat and its hosts and participants than was actually present. Jane and Sarah had the idea to try out the software and do this live blogging thing as an experiment. They chose a book they both were curious about reading and that seemed like it would be provocative enough to be interesting. They started doing it and found that technical issues made it far less smooth than they thought it would be. And then they were basically reading along, posting things that struck them. Had they been blown away by different passages, I’m sure they would be quoting those.

And yes, people did comment on what they saw out of context. People comment in the same way on reviews, too. In general I don’t find this troubling, because we all take impressions away from things we glimpse out of context. The only situations I get upset by this kind of thing is when, for example, people who have not read a book begin arguing that an author is doing x or y. For example, I got frustrated when people who had not read Anna Campbell’s Claiming the Courtesan argued that Campbell was advocating/excusing rape. That, IMO, is of a different character than saying, ‘ugh, this book sounds awful,’ which I think we all do with some frequency. I think there’s an analogy here to your point about the chat and its non-readers, but I’m too tired to track it down.

Also, as I stated in my initial comments, I felt that the hosts seemed too distracted to always make sense of what they were reading or wait to see if it would be explained in the next paragraph.

I’m sorry to say that when we read it isn’t always a polite or pretty experience. Sometimes I yell at a book, sometimes I underline something that pisses me off so much I practically rip through the page with my pen, sometimes I mutter and fold pages down with aggression, sometimes I sigh and re-read a passage just to experience again the beauty of the words, sometimes I start calling and emailing people to tell them they HAVE TO BUY THIS BOOK, sometimes I drop everything else to finish a book, sometimes I get so bored I fall asleep on the book, sometimes I silently deliver a silent lecture on why I hate crappy copyediting, sometimes I make snide comments to myself about a plot point or character trait I can’t stand or that I find poorly executed (and thus insulting to me as a reader). Maybe authors don’t want to see those aspects of the reading process, because they aren’t always very refined.

Robin @101, as I look at this post, right now there is an ETA in the main post which mocks anyone who has a thin skin or knows the author, and strongly implies that there is no legitimate reason for dissent from the party line.

As smart-ass as I agree the last line of that note is, I think Jane’s frustration was coming from the fact that some folks who were commenting about how horrible the chat was *hadn’t even read it OR the book.* But I agree with you that it’s sarcastic (I think her warning about reading the chat is sincere). However, I think Jane has treated her dissenters with a reasonable level of respect in this thread, and that note is still an after the fact comment, so my request for horrible chat comments hasn’t really been answered by that.

Because I think we’re disagreeing, and that the crux of our disagreement emerges from our very different definitions of “pure erotica.” IMO erotica doesn’t have to have sex on every page or ever other page (in which case this book wouldn’t even apply, lol); I don’t think erotica and porn are equivalent; I think your definition of “pure erotica” is closer to what I think of as porn, esp. the idea that characterization and plot are there to serve the sex; I know there was at least one overt discussion in the chat about how this book was erotica and therefore not to be judged by Romance standards; I don’t believe that Hart is creating a new genre; and I don’t think chat participants were criticizing the book for having a lot of sex in it.

What gave me the sense that you were judging me through Jessica’s review was the passage I quoted regarding her review, especially the sentence “Yet Jessica doesn’t conclude that it’s a bad book,” as if her judgment about the book was the gold standard and that those of us who did not see the book that way were misinterpreting it because we have different definitions of erotica or worse, unfairly judging it for what it was. And my perception that you felt it would be an insult to Hart to label her book erotica came from your comments that pure erotica and porn were equivalents, which came across to me as something you wanted to distinguish Hart’s book from (especially when you said you didn’t even read it for the sex).

Ultimately, I think we’re operating from very different perceptions of erotica and what the book is and has been advertised as. My sense is that you think people were unfairly judging the book for what you saw it to be based on the cover, title, and Jessica’s review. Whereas I feel that that book was not marketed the way it appeared to you and that even the definition of erotica you believe it to reflect is not the definition of erotica I hold or that IMO the book conforms to. So I fundamentally disagree that people were holding against the book exactly what it was, since I don’t think we’re operating off the same definition of “what it was” or the book’s character itself.

I’m sorry if I’m still misunderstanding you, because if that’s the case, I’ll have to concede that I’m at a loss to understand what you’re saying.

I also had the impression (though admittedly I missed a lot of the chat) that some people judged the book as bad because there was indiscriminate sex in it. Since it’s pure erotica, that doesn’t seem like a fair criticism to me. That’s what pure erotica is all about — stuff like orgies. If it’s not your cuppa, fair enough, but complaining about it is a little like complaining that fantasy books don’t take place in the real world, or that characters are killed off in mysteries.

I see the difference between pure erotica and porn as that the first term is positive or value-neutral but the second can be used pejoratively.

This book is not labeled as romance, and the cover and title make it pretty clear what it is about.

I think Hart has said before that these are erotic novels, and I don’t think that’s the same thing as pure erotica

My expectations of pure erotica, based on the little I’ve read, is that it is often out there, because the plot has to take some improbable turns for so many sexual encounters and sexual situations to come about.

That is how I feel too when I read pure erotica, which I define as the kind of book where there is sex on every page or every other page.

Yet Jessica doesn’t conclude that it’s a bad book, or that erotica lovers would not enjoy it. She says she see why it shouldn’t appeal to readers who are looking for a book with this much sex in it. And in conclusion she states that if the author ever wrote a book with 80% less sex in it and with a romance in the story, she would “definitely check it out.”

I haven’t read Joey Hill’s books but I don’t consider Megan Hart’s books to be pure erotica. Sure, there is a lot of sex in them but not on every other page. I think Dirty is an erotic novel, and an excellent one at that, but that doesn’t make it pure erotica.

ETA: As for erotic novels like Hart’s being the same thing as pure erotica, I don’t even read Hart’s books for the sex — they are all about the characterization for me, so I can’t agree that they are in the same genre as pure erotica.

The point I was trying to make is that the title and cover did a good job of communicating to me that it would be pure erotica, and therefore not something I would be likely to enjoy that much. When I read Jessica’s review, it reinforced that impression of the book.

What puzzled me was the impression I formed that others approached the book with a different set of expectations or standards than I would have for it, based on its genre. Some readers seemed to me to be expecting a book where plotting, characterization and emotion get the same level of attention as sex does. To me, that is not pure erotica.

I don’t feel I have much more that’s new to contribute to this conversation so given my internet situation I should probably sign off.

Mojo — thanks. I’m glad I’m not the only one here who saw the cover and title in that light.

I guess I’m slow… he he.

::biggrin:: No, I just have a dirty mind.

I’ve recently read a number of her contemps and while they were hot, fast, fun reads to my mind they’d fit the ‘vehicle for sex’ category. I’ve already forgotten the plots on any of them and they are a lot more chick-lit-ish than I usually consume.

I understand your point about first impressions. I have a few of those authors/oeuvre associations myself.

As to the pearl necklace. I saw it, but only noticed it because somebody commented on it and only after all this discussion did I associate it with things other than a necklace made of fresh or salt water pearls, grin. I guess I’m slow… he he.

Clearly those who knew the movie and got a really good gander at the cover had a completely different immediate association than I did and it seems a bunch of others

As to that, did you notice she’s wearing a pearl necklace? On a traditional romance cover, I wouldn’t have noticed, but with the title and all those people on the cover, I sure did.