Will this taint never go away? A man writes it, it ain’t romance, it’s literature. Film at 11.

None May Say blog review of the self-pubbed Do The Math by Philip B. Persinger:

[summary snippage]

Virginia “Faye” Warner, William’s wife, is a romance novelist. Her books all follow a rigid — and successful — formula. But her reality falls fall short of her fairy tale public façade.

[more summary snip]

[begin review]

To its credit, Do the Math is not a novel of overblown passions…So the fact that Do the Math does not rise to the extravagance of a typical romance novel (no pirates, for example, and the coma and hospital romance aren’t what one might expect) does not detract from the novel at all.

Color me touchy, but really. All this tells me is that the reviewer has never actually read a romance novel. Ever. I had umbrage. Apparently, Emily Veinglory did, too, and rightly chastises the reviewer for such sloppiness.

Great googly moogly. We come back to the principle of reading something before snarking. And I want to know something. How come other genres aren’t ever chastised for their “formulae”?

And PS also, too. I’m going to buy this book as soon as iUniverse makes it easier for me to give them my money. Bastids.