Trashy red-haired heroines!

[cahn]

For a while there I wasn't really feeling up to reading much meaty. I was in fact craving trashy-but-not-completely-badly-written novels. My usual go-to for that is to reread Judith Krantz's Mistral's Daughter, which has oodles of trashy romance, not to mention three generations of gorgeous professional-model red-haired Mary Sues. It's not even horribly badly written (for example, I can no longer physically read the Sidney Sheldon I scarfed down as a kid, it's that bad), though note I am not particularly recommending it to anyone here. So, I finished that and was still casting around for something. I decided to reread that trashy-but-usually-not-unacceptably-badly-written long-novel with gorgeous model-quality heroine and hyper-masculine red-haired Gary Sue. Yes, The Fountainhead. I love that book! It is so deliciously trashy, what with the frigid heroine melting when Her Man shows up, the total bonding of Peter Keating (whom, by the way, I totally love) to his alpha male, the wife swapping, the total manly-man Roark-Wynand friendship and love triangle. (Note also that I intensely despise most of Atlas Shrugged, which tries to be bombastic rather than deliciously trashy, thus losing all the charm of Fountainhead. And is depressing to boot.) Yes, I know Ayn Rand is turning in her grave at being compared to Judith Krantz... bonus!

This all led to a conversation with D in which a reorganization of our bookshelves was proposed. They are currently organized in a Byzantine system involving a) how much we like the book (horizontal depth and partial vertical placement), b) category of book (room and vertical placement), c) height of book (inter-shelf placement), and d) author last name (intra-shelf placement). The new proposed system: a) hair color, and possibly b) eye color.

Besides Mistral's Daughter and Fountainhead, on the red-haired shelf would go Bujold's Cordelia books, Hero and the Crown, Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset (the only reason I own this one is because of the heroine's marked resemblance to my awesome high school junior-year roommate)... Cordwainer Smith's stories about C'mell... probably more I can't think of off-hand. I'm a little shocked, actually, at how much red hair there is around, given how few people I know in real life with red hair, though I suppose I shouldn't be.

(Also, I recently picked up one of the Alanna (Tamora Pierce) books from the library because I was feeling nostalgic, and was horrified to find that Alanna has red hair and purple eyes AND a sentient cat. Who also has purple eyes. (D thought this was hilarious, mind you.)

Does anyone else have trashy but still compulsively readable fic they would be willing to recommend? For reference, besides Krantz, I like in this category Maeve Binchy and Agatha Christie (well, I don't think of her as trashy, but she is not exactly literary).

Comments

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I like Binchy for that sort of thing, too :)

I have not attempted any Rand.

Hmm...Julie Kenner, at least the California Demon books -- I have a few of her others, but haven't read them yet. Meg Cabot, _Size 12 Is Not Fat_ and sequels -- chick lit mysteries, not horrid, just cheesy. I went through a Phyllis A. Whitney phase when I was younger, but haven't read any recently enough to say how well they hold up to adult judgment of writing quality. Carrie Vaughn's Kitty books are fun, too. The first 6-8 Anita Blake books are good, but when it starts getting bad, stop -- it won't get better. (Different readers place the stop point differently, but usually in that range.) Charlaine Harris. Mom likes Dick Francis and P.D. James, on the mystery side; I haven't read them.

[joyce.livejournal.com]

I'll second the Dick Francis, if one likes one's mysteries to be formulaic but well done (which, I do :) ). Stick to his early stuff, though; anything written after his wife died just hasn't been as good (IMHO).

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Well, I recommend Fountainhead as trashy lit as long as you don't take her too seriously (I have a fairly large small-l libertarian streak, but even so she goes SO far I was mostly just amused). I don't recommend Atlas Shrugged.

Ah, Meg Cabot! Yay chick lit! I tried Anita Blake without great success, unfortunately; maybe because I started with a later book. I checked out a Kenner and was sort of mystified, because it turned out I think I got a later book in the series... I should start again at the beginning.