About Reading

So, it´s September now and as you might have read, I´m having a little reading challange mostly for myself (even though all of you are most welcome to join me of course!). I noticed that I have not read a single book with a single male main character. I´m not counting most Paranormal Romances, as they are mostly written in mutiple third person POV. I´m talking about books like Jim Butcher´s Dresden Files or Death Most Definite by Trent Jamieson, for example. Books written by male authors with first person POV, told by a male lead character.

Now I´ve been asking myself why, because especially Jim Butcher is praised by everyone and very popular. It seems unfair that I almost have to force myself to read those books.

I know why I like books like Ilona Andrew´s Kate Daniels series, Patricia Briggs´s Mercy Thompson over even Stacia Kane´s Chess Putnam (Downside Ghosts) series. For me as a woman, it´s always easier to connect to a female lead character. Doesn´t everyone wish that our life was just a little bit as exciting as in the paranormal worlds that these authors so masterfully create? After coming home from a particularly boring day of courses at university I definetly do.I wouldn´t mind getting to know one or the other vampire, shapeshifter fae or Terrible (he is awesome even though he is a mere human) or if my life got a little supernatural touch. I also wish I was as strong, fierce or witty sometimes as Kate, Mercy, Chess and all the other fabulous heroines on one of those days we all know when I´m feeling slightly depressed.

And Paranormal Romance you might ask? Those are in parts written from a male POV quite frequently. Think of J.R. Ward, Gena Showalter, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Larissa Ione and so on. Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I love PNR because I love me some alpha males. :) I like to read about my bad boy vampires/werewolves/demons because I wish just a little dose of those paranormal hunks could be found the guys I know. I haven´t found anyone yet, but I´ll let you know as soon as I come across one! :) I basically like to read about the prefect man. Well, the prfect man who starts out to be sometimes quite an a$$ but who, after meeting the right woman sees the error of his ways and changes just as much as he has for the woman he loves. A girl can dream. I also admit that sometimes like books with a less adorable hero/male love interest not as much as others with delectable heros. I know, I´m shallow. *coughs*

But why don´t I like male main characters? Is it that I feel like I can´t connect with them? That I don´t get their way of thinking? Or that an important piece of the story – the way the heroine and hero find their Happily Ever After is more satisfying if it could also have been me who got the hero? Maybe. Perhaps I´m the perfect cliché of a single twenty something who compensate the lack of romance in her life by reading romace novels (Do men also compensate that by reading romance novels? I seriously doubt it). And maybe only woman really understands what other woman need in such a situation. You know, the whole men just don´t get what and how we´re thinking stuff. 

Now I´ve started reading “Death Most Definite”, featuring Steven de Selby as main character. He is neither the coolest (which I never was) nor the most ambitious (which I sometimes am) guy who has a border collie (which I have) and work (which I don´t have – yet), likes grunge music (which I like) and scrapbooking (which I don´t like so much). There are even the first hints of a sweet but impossible love story which is also something that usually appeals to me. So maybe it was just imagination on my part that I can´t connect with male protagonists and just a prejudice that I prefer female authors.

I sometimes do wonder why the majority of authors in the Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance genre are female. Are guys too cool to write romance or fantasy books? Do they feel awkward about writing it? Or is it that they thinkg they can´t write for a female target audience? There are however quite a few male authors that write High Fantasy. So what´s the difference?

Do you guys have any answers? Do you feel the same way or am I just being strange?

I will try to shed some light on this matter this month by reading “out of the box” for me and discussing it with authors (hopefully!). I´m also having a few of my blogging buddies over who talk about their favorite book written by a male author. (If you´re also interested, I can only repeat myself, don´t be shy, just tell me! It doesn´t matter if you have a book you think I should read or if you would like to share you thoughts on my rant above, let me know!

xoxo,

Christine