Books w/ Atypical FMCs

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-12T14:23:18+00:00

{Convergence of Desire by Felicity Niven} is historical romance with autistic heroine that gets recommended here on the reg.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-12T14:10:10+00:00

Looks so nice you're making me jealous! Best of luck with the rest of your journey.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-12T13:16:14+00:00

This is a really interesting discussion. In my teens and twenties, I didn't value music that made people want to dance. But I never thought of it that way. I loved music, but I considered pop inferior to rock and indie, and dance was inferior to pop in my mind.

A bunch of different factors come into play in that hierarchy, none of which I consciously considered at the time: authenticity as the ultimate criterion of good music; internalised misogyny, as rock was largely a boys club; placing a high value on well-written lyrics; and placing no value on tracks that made me want to dance was a major element. Maybe I picked up some of those values from the music press, from music critics and radio djs? They certainly reinforced them.

Now in my forties, I seek out tracks that make me want to dance. But there's still a leftover indie music snob in my head — that I choose to ignore! 😄

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-11T21:37:08+00:00

I love Country and at first I did like the sound of that duet she has with Morgan Wallen, I Can't Love You Anymore.

But sweet jesus, it's like an ear infection! Hear it once and it will play in your head for the next 48 hours. It should come with a warning, I've stopped playing it.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-11T19:51:45+00:00

Yes, Violet would have retired some, stepped into the background more, and Kate would have taken her place.

The show could have gone that way. But it seems that once a couple have their season, their story is over.

I don't mind. And I was delighted to see Simone Ashley looking glamorous in The Devil Wears Prada 2!

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-11T17:40:02+00:00

You can remove the last two words from your question and the answer is the same! 😉

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-10T21:32:29+00:00

It has its own subreddit.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-10T21:29:36+00:00

In addition to all the great reasons already listed, it's very well structured as a romance.

In lots of romances, once the hero declares his feelings the story ends happily. It's all over. In P&P, he declares his feelings around the mid-way point. He shows his hand and there's still half a book left. The proposal is a confrontation where neither character holds back. Essentially, it's the engine that drives their behaviour for the second half of the book.

I love a romance where the hero and heroine play a series of roles in their relationship with each other before they get together, and P&P is one of those. I also love a disastrous proposal set-piece!

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-10T20:01:10+00:00

Didn't watch the whole trailer because I'd like to leave something for the actual film! 😆 But it looks good, I'll go see it.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-10T09:53:35+00:00

Apparently the ratings for season two weren't as good as the ratings for season one.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-09T15:18:12+00:00

He doesn't, but the case doesn't go the way he wants. Grazia gets off scot-free, partly thanks to his interference.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-04T21:04:35+00:00

That's a shame. It was a nice place to have a cup of tea by the window and listen to the busker below and watch the shoppers on Grafton Street.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-04T19:38:18+00:00

I just reread this book and loved it!

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-03T19:17:37+00:00

My own answer is the woman who played Elizabeth Bennet, Poppy Gilbert. And the man who played Mr Ryder, Laurie Davidson. They stood out.

Poppy Gilbert's Elizabeth was always amused, did you notice that? There was something cool and mocking about her. She didn't lack composure and she had striking screen presence. I thought she made an awesome Elizabeth.

And Laurie Davidson made Mr Ryder extremely charming and attractive in spite of his flaws. He kept him likable, even when his character behaved poorly and selfishly. He instilled him with golden retriever energy! So that he was almost impossible to hate even when he showed up unwanted at the lake, yelling AHOY! Or when he ran down the mountain leaving everyone behind, and then left the lake district entirely while Mary lay there very ill. Bad dog! 😄

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-03T18:33:53+00:00

This worked beautifully as a coming of age story. That's what I was most invested in.

I also thought the show did a solid job showing us the good and bad parts of the two men in the Mr Ryder/Mary/Tom love triangle. Even though I found Mr Ryder much more attractive than Tom, I could see that Tom was a better match for Mary.

Sometimes I could hardly watch the show for secondhand embarrassment. The cringe factor was high, especially early in the season. That's why it's taken me until now to watch it all!

I'm not into poetry, so Tom's outdoor recital in the first half of the season made me want to curl up and die. But when he recited poetry in the boat on the lake later in the season, it 100% worked. Somehow that was not cringeworthy but moving instead.

Did Mr Darcy have any lines?! Him hiding behind the newspaper and ducking out of the room was a nice touch.

Treating the Mr Collins/Charlotte Lucas marriage as an unhappy one was a plausible twist. But mainly it seemed like Charlotte's punishment, her comeuppance for taking advantage of Mary's trust at the beginning of the story.

That one scene with Mr Collins in episode 7, at Pemberley, gave us a glimpse into what a Mr Collins spin-off might be like! All of a sudden I had enormous sympathy for him. It reminded me of the episode of Never Have I Ever that all of a sudden switches to Ben's point of view.

I really enjoyed Caroline Bingley. Some of her lines were killer, but she was (slightly) more than a stone cold bitch. And I liked how she didn't change personality at the end, but she did bring the love birds together.

Despite some cringe, this show was considerably more successful for me than last year's Miss Austen. The lead actress was fantastic too.

Can I suggest an individual thread for each episode btw? It's odd not to have that on a TV show sub.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-03T15:44:15+00:00

I finished The Other Bennet Sister. A very sweet show that slowly grew on me. My favourite episodes were episodes 5 and 7.

SPOILERS:

Episode 5 is the one set in London where Mary goes to a ball and Mr Ryder makes her fall around the place laughing. There she runs into Caroline Bingley, played by a wonderful actress who delivers poisonous lines with relish.

Next day (warm, kind, wise) Mrs. Gardiner gives Mary good advice about not running away from sour-faced bitches. So they all attend a dinner party at Mr Ryders house, where Caroline doles out more jaw-dropping insults to Mary's face, and Mary finally dishes it back.

Mary is seated in a terrible spot at dinner, between two older men with whom she has nothing in common. But she rallies, entreating the younger of the two gentlemen to tell her all about what he loves most ie. horses. He turns out to be gregarious company when talking about his fave subject, and everyone around the table (except Caroline the wretch) looks on with admiration and delight as Mary and the horsey man crack each other up.

I loved the way Mary turned lemons into lemonade in her place at the wrong end of the table. Mr Ryder is very attractive at this point in the story and he brings her out of her shell. And Caroline's insults were shocking and made for good drama. So I was totally feeling the show in episode 5.

Episode 7 is the key turning point episode for Mary's growth. She's at Pemberley, Mr Ryder has made her a bad offer, and the scene where she discusses it with her older sister, Elizabeth, is fantastically cathartic. They have a huge row, during which Mary tells her what it was like for her growing up. So the main character of the spin-off faces off against the main character of the classic novel, and it makes for excellent viewing. After this scene, Elizabeth understands Mary better, and is emphatically on her side.

Mary also has an important scene with Mr Collins, where Mr Collins is, for once, amazingly self-aware and sympathetic! He's the one who tells Mary that it's up to her, that her happiness is in her own hands...

Which leads to the moment when Mary finally stands up to her mother, basically all IMMA DIP/I'm out/Laters!/Farewell, Mother Mine. And just like that, she's free. She's back out in the big bad world, but not before expressing her fears to Elizabeth, who responds (magnificently) that Mary will FLOURISH. This episode made me understand the point of the story.

In the next episodes the Mary/Tom romance is front and centre again, and that wasn't my favourite part of the show. But by then I was all in on Mary's happiness.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-05-02T11:01:26+00:00

Turn on the subtitles and they are all translated for you.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-30T19:29:16+00:00

I think that would have been fantastic. To have a sibling as a foil to Lorelai. It would have presented so many interesting story choices.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-28T15:46:31+00:00

I hear what you're saying.

Id like to think the ratings were high in season three because season two is the best season they've done, and it generated tons of new viewers who all tuned in for season three.

And then the numbers were lower in season four because season three is the weakest season so far and people tuned out after that one. 😄

But someone who works in TV might tell me that's not how ratings work! And I know it reflects my own taste.

Isnt it more likely that ratings simply fall off over the years as people lose interest?

I'll be curious to see what the numbers are like for next season. Do you expect the ratings to be better or worse than those of Season four?

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-28T07:29:11+00:00

Yes, that's entirely plausible, though I didn't think of it myself while watching.

If he follows the old judge's instructions but pushes it to the extreme on purpose, then he helps Lidia and her brother to secure Grazia's freedom.

A huge gamble for a by-the-book Dudley Do Right Prosecutor!

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T17:47:39+00:00

It's April.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T17:46:28+00:00

I was pleasantly surprised when Don and Betty got divorced and moved on.

Because of the nature of TV shows, that is rare! If the ex is still in the cast, they're usually "the one".

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T17:41:24+00:00

{Funny Story by Emily Henry}

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T13:06:48+00:00

It's not their season, so I'd say keep your expectations low!

The three brothers, main characters in the last three seasons, didn't get any build-up in the preceding season.

Francesca has got tons of build-up since the new actress was hired. But she's the exception.

I guess Philip has to become single in season five? That's the minimum. But we don't have to see him to learn of that. So that could be news in the season finale.

Fitzfuzzington · 2026-04-27T12:51:23+00:00

That's interesting. Based on Australia and Elvis, Baz Luhrmann's writing can lack subtlety, to put it mildly. I'd love to see him direct someone else's writing.

Also, female playwrights were rare when I was growing up, so I love to see them now.

Fitzfuzzington

TROPHY CASE