About ten years ago, I went to school abroad for a year. I had no money, and thus did not own a tv. The first time I watched a movie in that year was on my flight home. The film was “Fools Rush In”, with Salma Hayek and Matthew Perry.

Television and movies expect suspended belief, and it’s my theory that the more you watch, the more of your own belief you’re willing to suspend. It’s my only explanation for that piece of crap movie. I have no understanding why on earth movies pair two very good looking actors, throw them together with wildly different cultures, beliefs, opinions, personalities, and families, and expect the audience to believe that they have a HEA simply because the woman gets pregnant.

The same with some romances. They spend the entire book fighting, fighting, fighting. They barely have a civil conversation with each other. Perhaps they’re each dwelling on their own BIG MIS, or sometimes they just despise the hero’s “arrogance” or the heroine’s “stubborn nature”. Yet, great sex and all is well? They’ll survive the seven year mark? And it’s no coincidence that when I got married was around the time that I became much more particular with my book selection.

Now the question is: is that realisitic?

But I digress. I want the HEA, but it doesn’t have to be a lifetime committment. For instance, I remember really liking the end of Sharon Cullars’s Again because it ended with the h/h starting their courtship over from scratch after the woo-woo stuff that overtook their interactions with one another. I didn’t necessarily think they were going to leap into marriage after the first date, but I felt they would make it. The trouble with the HEA is that it has come to equal marriage and babies, and if neither of those things are shown in some sappy prologue, readers panic and think the couple broke up–as though falling in love equals immediate marriage (not to say it doesn’t, but we’re talking about the genre).

But perhaps this need for the couple to show lifelong commitment is why we have so many superficial conflicts, and why there continues to exist the notion of the woman giving up her high-powered job to move to the little town to be with the hometown hero. Boy this genre can really enforce very conservative values…

BUT those stories should still be grounded in reality so that we can relate to, and cheer for, the characters.

Ditto this.

I want my HEA when I read romance. I don’t want to close it and start thinking… it will never last.

Which means to me, did the author establishing the emotional connection? It has to be a deep one, something that’s going to abide through all the changes life throws at you.

The books I’ll keep and read again are those where I can see these characters continuing to grow together.

Great post, Darlene! (and I’m so borrowing the “you’re starting to bore me” bit! *chuckling*)

Sorry, bad joke. Serious topic.

Yeah, real life isn’t what we read about when we pick up a romance (or a fantasy) — BUT those stories should still be grounded in reality so that we can relate to, and cheer for, the characters. There’s a catharsis going on when those characters fall in love and, against the odds, stay in love, or when they fight the Big Bad Evil and win. Their victories allow us, momentarily, to be victorious too.

And damned if that isn’t part of the joy of a great story.

Not sure if this is on topic. Am very tired.