Tag: romance

You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess. It’s a love story, baby just say yes.

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Hello 🙂

I love love. I love romance. Give me heart wrenching, tear jerking couples pushing and pulling at each other, not realising they’re made for each other only to recognise it at the last moment to love happily ever after. Give me couples who shouldn’t be together or are enemies who fall in love, along with all the other soppy clichés. I’m a sucker for it. Ahhh ❤

But that’s not to say I enjoy reading romance novels where that becomes the only plotline and everything else redundant. For me, I like to have romance in novels/literature as an added bonus rather than being the main plot. I don’t want characters to be reduced to being love interests, I want their love to add to a story, to enhance it further, to be a driving force. More often than not however, that’s the case. Whether it be women thrown into a narrative, reduced to being nothing more than a one dimensional sexual character, or a male character being written purely to enhance a female’s story – to give her story purpose – because she can’t have a purpose without a man surely(!) I want flawed characters. I want them to fall in love with the person and the not the idea of romance. I know that it might be a little hypocritical to say that given that the first thing I said was I love romance. I mean the whole idea of romance is to sell an idyllic version of it right? To allow us to fulfil our fantasies and escape to a world where everything is easier and simpler, where a boy would come in and sweep you off your feet or a girl would give everything up for you in a heartbeat, you take one look at the movie industry in the 90’s and you can see that, it distorts or perceptions and our ideas of what love and romance should be and more often than not, the reality never lives up to the fantasy.

But. When you think of the best fictional couples, or when I think of my favourites, the ones that instantly spring to mind aren’t the perfect couples where everything goes right. My favourite literary couples are the ones where actually, everything goes pretty wrong. Where they butt heads and clash. Where they have a difference of opinions but compliment each other, making each other whole. Love is imperfect so why shouldn’t the couples be imperfect with it? Love is blind and romance is a fantasy, but what I love about my favourite fictional couples is their resilience, their strength and their fight for one another. Give me Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy with their different stances on pretty much everything. Give me Ron and Hermione who are imperfectly perfect for each other (no matter what JK says!) and give me Oliver and Jennifer who show that romance will never die.

“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays.

xo

Waiting for my Heathcliffe

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Hello!

I hope you’re all having a lovely day!

I have had the best day today😁 I travelled along to Haworth in West Yorkshire to visit the Brontë Parsonage to have a wander and a gander.

It’s so beautiful😍❤

I am a Jane Austen girl at heart, but the depth of characters and raw emotion you feel when reading Brontë novels is inspiring. It’s no wonder that Austen and the Brontë sisters are constantly compared – on the surface they’re similar, women writers talking about love and romance – but once you get into the stories they differ wildly.

It’s no secret that that Brontë sisters, especially Charlotte, disliked Austen and her literature. They felt she didn’t write about real women, real passion, or anything of real, solid substance. I disagree, but when you read them side by side it’s not hard to see the differences. The Brontë sisters romantic plots are darker and their men wilder – Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are perfect examples, while Austen focuses more on satire, social realism and class through romance. Could you imagine Mr Darcy roaming Derbyshire stricken with grief like Heathcliffe does on the Yorkshire moors?

Jane Eyre takes a lot from Charlotte Brontë’s own life – the death of her sisters, her schooling and her anguish at these. They say write what you know, and Charlotte certainly does this. The theme of wanting to belong runs throughout the novel and we see Jane try and find her place and her worth from the classes of Lowood to the halls of Thornfield. She must find herself without jeopardising who she is and what she stands for. Rochester is not her happy ending nor the man who saves her. He is the man she chooses, and who is her equal.

I hate that people say you’re either a Brontë fan or an Austen fan, they offer very different things through their literature. So just because you favour one over the other doesn’t mean you can’t still love and enjoy the other. I know I’m still waiting on my version of Heathcliffe/Darcy😊

xo

Book Review: The Night Brother

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Hiiiii 😊

So i just finished reading the ‘Night Brother’ by Rosie Garland and oh man, I loved it! It was such a sublime mix of poetic and descriptive language and all set in my beloved home town of Manchester❤ As a Manc I was super invested as soon as I read the ‘set in Manchester’ sentence of the blurb😅

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The Night Brother

It has a Jekyll and Hyde theme that runs throughout, and the book really plays with this in a number of ways – characters, journey’s, day and night. Through the protagonists, Edie and Gnome, the novel goes on winding and difficult journey’s of self discovery and is set in the early 1900’s which helps give, and keep, the air of mystery surrounding the plot. It also allows you to lose yourself in a period set piece of fiction and go back to a time free from the constraints of modernity. Touching upon today’s prevalent issues such as women’s rights, what it means to be a man and gender fluidity, they’re all mixed together with a touch of intrigue, flair and vital importance.

The theme of duality that runs through the entirety of the novel is such an interesting one because we all have different personas depending on who we’re with and the situation we’re in. A lot of people (myself included) probably feel like they are living separate lives sometimes. The novel deals with sexuality and gender fluidity in a way that shows you that you are more and can be more than what you are born into. Edie and Gnome differ in every way, they are complete opposites. But, they need each other. They’re constantly battling against each other for freedom and you do, like with Jekyll and Hyde, get the sense that this could easily be interpreted as someone battling with their inner demons. They desperately yearn for freedom from each other, fighting against their restraints and bonds, but if one of them does win in the end, can they really be whole? To survive one cannot be without the other no matter how hard they try – they are indeed 2 halves of a whole.

Some people might say the ending is anti-climactic, and while I can see where they might be coming from, I have to disagree. The ending, for me, wrapped up the story of the 2 siblings and their arduous journey and provided a sense of comfort. Not just for them, but for us the reader. You become invested in their stories and you really (or I did anyway) want to see them find stability and safety in a world where they would be chewed up and spit out.

I adored reading this and I don’t want to give too much away, but I highly recommend😊

xo

200 years of Austen❤

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Hello 🙂 This is just my little tribute to the brilliant writing of Jane Austen.

Today (or 2 days ago by the time this is posted😶) marks 200 years since one of the most influential women writers died. She, her novels, and characters have managed to stay in the public eye for 200 years. She even got put on the back on the £10 note😊🎉

Gosh, where do you even start with Austen? Her characters? Her mesmerising writing? Her scathing critique of social situations, and society? I’m not even sure to be honest. She’s spawned prequels and sequels, fan fiction, a web series, stage productions, podcasts, and multiple tv and film adaptations. Phew! Did I get everything? It’s like we can’t get enough of her, even 200 years later, constantly being drawn in and enticed by her witty language and bold protagonists. What’s brilliant is that her stories and themes still hold relevance today. Everybody still wants their Mr Darcy, or Colonol Brandon (I’m a hard-core Mr Darcy lover, particularly Matthew McFayden in the 2005 movie😍).

I read an interesting article today about how Austen is lost on teenagers because they can’t understand it. That the deep meanings, intricacies, and themes of her novels go over their heads. I’ve gotta say I completely disagree with this. It’s not that teenagers don’t understand it’s that most teaching methods won’t allow them to gain the understanding and nodules of from her novels. What makes Austen so relevant and brilliant is how accessible her writing is, whether that’s through her novels or the maaaany adaptations and interpretations (Bridget Jones ftw although I am partial to the Bollywood version of P&P😂).

Smart, funny, witty, passionate, and fiery, Lizzie Bennett is probably the most well known Austen heroine, and my favourite. But she’s not without her faults. Her pride and naivety get in the way of her judgement of both Wickham and Darcy. Its not until she’s forced to realise her mistakes that she re-evaluate all she knows and allows herself to become open to change. So beautifully written, Austen isn’t afraid to make her characters flawed, nd that’s what makes them human. No character in an Austen novel is perfect. Perfection for Austen is superficial only. No-one, no matter how much they claim, can attain that level of perfection because reality dictates it as unattainable. It’s down to this and Austen’s frankness of society that’s allowed her work to transcend over the past 200 years.

For me there’s an Austen novel and heroine for everyone. You just have to find it. So thank you Jane. Thank you for writing 6 of the greatest novels in the English language. But not only that. Thank you for being one of the pioneering women writers in a time where it was frowned upon. Thank you for showing and proving that some of the greatest stories come from those who are oppressed and that all they need is one chance to get their story out there.

xo

Calling: all romantics

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Hello there my fellow romantics 🙂

I feel like that word gets a lot of flak nowadays, ‘romantic.’ You tell people that you’re a romantic and they give you that pitying sort of look and words to the effect of oh, bless you. You’re so naive and idealistic. The real world doesn’t work like that.

Oh boo to you.  

So I may have watched a few too many films set in New York or London where people meet and instantly fall head over heels in love (Serendipity, I’m looking straight at you), or read books full of brilliant heroines and dashing heroes. 

But sue me. I can’t help it. Escapism, naivety, innocence, call it what you will, I say it’s a kind of hope. From the first time I read Pride & Prejudice I was hooked. Not because of the romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, but of the way Austen doesn’t allow it to be the be all and end all for her characters. It’s something to be incorporated into a life to make it stronger, not to define it or make someone weaker. Austen’s characters, the intensity with how she writes them, and the life she pours into each one of them and her plots make them so relatable. So I guess I could blame Jane Austen for my so called ‘unrealistic expectations.’

So give me more romance. Give me all of the corny, cliche, idealistic stories. I’ll gladly take them. I’m not saying I’m an optimist (if anything I’m a realist), but in this world of cynics and pessimists we could all do with a bit more love to shine a light through the despair of it all ❤

xo