A pet peeve ... you ready for it?

Ok, so I just finished a book last night, and I have a bit of a pet peeve I need to get off of my chest. (No, I am not going to tell what book or who the author is).

What is up with whiny assed heroes? Ok, sometimes, the heroine winds up being TSTL, due to plot devises and such. (BTW – TSTL=Too stupid to live). But the hero? Nah, it isn’t supposed to be that way.

Now I am not saying all heroes need to be alpha males, or even all that heroic. Anti-heroes can be a good time too. But someone who spends the whole damn book ‘oh woe is me, I have to get married and my whole life is over!’? (Yeah, historical … figured I’d give it a try since it’s been a while.)

What’s really frustrating though is that the author had a really good premise. The story was followed through, without any real inconsistencies. I just hated the hero. Hated!!!

Not disliked, not intolerant of, but flat out wanted to slap some sense into him hated him. Ok, let’s face it, there are a lot of the older romances (and some newer ones too) where the hero wasn’t exactly nice to the heroine. He had to be shown the error of his ways, either by her almost leaving him, her almost dying, etc. And that happened in this book too, he finally came to see what an ass he was.

But rather than be brooding, or distant (yet oh so hot in the sack cause he just couldn’t resist the heroine, no matter how much he didn’t want to be married to her -- oh yeah, i used to love this), or cold, or any number of other things, he whined.

Whined!

He’s 30 years old, and yet he acted like a 12 year old told to do his homework when all he really wanted to do was go out and play with his friends.

But I have noticed a trend of whining in a lot more novels that there ever used to be. And as a major fan of the romance genre, I am troubled by it. I have gone back and reread some of the older novels that I first fell in love with, just to make sure that it isn't just that I am just getting more jaded as I age.

Nope. That's not it.

So, anyways, that’s my pet peeve. All I can say is, thankfully it was a library book.