The pro and cons, to be or not to be...

[reviews_and_ramblings]

When wondering why and if I have to continue with this blog, I received an email like this one:

"Greetings and respect from a gay leatherman who finds your reviews truly excellent

Dear Signora Rolle,

I wish to express my sincere thank you and my profound respect for your wonderful and discerning reviews. I use your reviews to select what M/M fiction I will like best and you never, ever let me down.

You provide a wonderful service, taking your passion for M/M fiction and sharing it primarily wih female readers but also with gay men.

I also love the beautiful male images which you have collected.

You are a wonderful person, a wonderful and expressive writer. I both admire and respect you. Thank you so very much."

I received this email weeks ago, and also in a moment when I was a bit down. Then I read it and decided there was a reason for doing what I'm doing. Then again yesterday I wondered again; maybe I should let other people doing that, other reviewers with more experience... why a straight woman should read and review gay romances? but now, when I will wonder again, I have the above letter to give me a reason to continue.

My response to Victoria Brownworth: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1108364.html

Comments

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

The power of love, above all love for books, is extraordinaire ;-)

[kiernankelly.livejournal.com]

Elisa, I've told you before that you were the first person to review my first book, and your opinion is what kept me going all these years. For that, I will always be grateful, and sincerely hope you continue to do so!

The article you cited made me see red - it was full of half truths; the author tried to pass off skewed views as fact.

I think the line that angered me more than any other was "A feature of M/M novels is often rape." Really? Not in my books, sister. Not in any I've read, either.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and if the author of that article was simply stating theirs, it would have been fine, but that's not the case here. It was opinion and prejudice being passed off as fact.

Don't let it get to you.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to comment that sentence since, if I had to give other statistics, the author probably would have some surprise. As I said, what worried me more was the generalism of her assumptions, so full of unproven facts.

Thank you Kiernan, it's for friends like you that I find the mood to continue.

[belindamcbride.livejournal.com]

I went, I read, I shrugged and I left.

That sounds overly simplistic, but what she said in that post was excruciatingly narrow and largely incorrect. My experience in reading m/m romance is so far removed from hers that its like a completely different topic.

Recently I took a long trip by train and loaded up my e reader with books that had been sitting on my TBR list. When I sat down to start reading, I realized that among the authors I'd chosen were Josh Lanyon, Sarah Black, ZA Maxfield and Tere Michaels. Hmm... Now I read pretty much everything, and that list led me to realize that many of the truly quality authors out there are in the genre of m/m. Oddly enough, many are women.

I occasionally write m/m. I don't think of myself as a m/m author because I write outside the genre as well. I'm a writer, I write romance, and I write the characters that suit the story. Sometimes its fantasy, sometimes its sci fi. Sometimes its m/m and other times its not.

I write for women. I am a woman. I have always had male readers, even when my book is het or bi.

This whole angst isn't mine, and it isn't yours, Elisa. Its hers. She owns it, we don't. It sure as heck doesn't keep me awake at night.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is probably the best attitude, and then everyone has the right to its opinion, it's only that those words were so hurting that I really wondered if there was something I need to considered. But as I commented there, and here you, some assumptions she used were so wrong, without basis and research, that basically all the rest she said didn't matter.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that you've been feeling as if you ought not to carry on, but I hope that that letter and the comments here have convinced you that you should. You know that your blog is read with pleasure by LGBT people as well as straight ones - that must mean you're doing something right, mustn't it? If LGBT people read your LJ and don't feel exploited or uncomfortable - if they write to you to say how much they enjoy it - then you must not be part of the problem.

That's my take on it, anyway. As long as I'm getting fanmail from gay men, I reckon I can't really be writing skeevy exploitative stuff, no matter what some people say. It's good to be kept on our toes, though, by articles like this, so that we can be thoughtful about what we're doing and try not to do harm. Not that you ever have!

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Thank you Alex. You are right, it's good if people arise a flag to tell us when we are doing something wrong, but it's also bad to read some generalistic assumptins without much foundation. I know that I shouldn't have not probably commented there, but saying that the majority of M/M romance are historical, chick with a dick style and about rape, that was way too much to read.

But yes, if from one side I read that, on the other side I know that there are people who think different, and they are the same if not more important.

[neyronrose.livejournal.com]

I (and obviously a lot of other people) think you write with respect and caring about the books you read. I've found some books I really loved from reading your reviews. Thank you for this LJ.

Emilie

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Thank you Emilie, in this moment I'm really hot-tempered, despite all the good words, I can't really go over those hateful things that writer said. I know it's not my war, I'm not a writer, but they hurt the same. But thank you for your words, really.