This is what happens when I read "real" books

I read trash novels. Yes, bodice rippers. The kind of books where Fabio is occasionally on the cover with a 1/2 dressed woman. I enjoy them. They are light and fun entertainment where I don't have to think and don't finish the book pondering (or debating) the literary value of what I've just read. They're trash....pure and simple....and I love them.

Every day at 2 p.m. I go up to the 3rd floor and cover the phones while my assistant (the receptionist) takes her lunch break. She often laughs at the books I'm reading but I'm perfectly okay with that. Earlier this week, however, I brought up Rhett Butler's People to which she commented "Wow, you're reading a real book, huh?"

I loved Gone With the Wind. It's a great book. I also thoroughly enjoyed Scarlett which was written as a sequel to Gone With the Wind. I'm pretty sure it wasn't an authorized sequel but it was still a good book. It started where Gone With the Wind left off and went on an epic journey of its own where Scarlett moved to Ireland, the land of her father's birth, and after many trials and tribulations reunited with Rhett to live happily ever after. It's no Gone With the Wind but it was still a pretty good book.

Shortly before Christmas 2007 the book Rhett Butler's People came out and I really wanted it. Lincoln bought it for me in hardcover and I was quite excited to read it. Um.....yeah.....I just finally read it in April 2009. I started it back in early 2008 but just couldn't get into it. That didn't discourage me though since even Gone With the Wind took me a few tries. It was a daunting book after all.....at the time (and maybe still to this date) it was the longest book I had ever attempted at over 1,000 pages. When we left for Niagara Falls this past weekend I only packed one romance novel and one magazine.....certainly not enough to get me through one weekend especially with long car rides on either end of the journey. I decided that instead of packing other books I would pack Rhett Butler's People and force myself to read it while driving back from Niagara Falls.

It was good. It wasn't great. And this is why I don't like reading "real" books. It actually made me think, evaluate, and debate in my head. I don't have the time or the energy for that these days. First of all, it billed itself as being the story of Gone With the Wind from the viewpoint of Rhett Butler. That wasn't entirely true. I guess the first clue should have been the title but it really was the story of Rhett Butler's people. I think in an attempt to make it an "epic" story like Gone With the Wind it had to pull in the stories of every person who ever touched Rhett's life. I think the book was well written and I enjoyed the way the author layered the story from different perspectives and flashed back and forth through the timeline but the author also glossed over many of the major interactions that Rhett and Scarlett had throughout Gone With the Wind. He never mentions the ball where Rhett reappears and asks Scarlett to dance with him even though she is in mourning. He glosses over the death of their daughter and doesn't even touch on the fact that Scarlett miscarried their second child. The author also turns one of the most dashing and heroic figures in literature into a sniveling, "woe is me" man suffering from unrequited love.

While the book does explain a little of the back story regarding how Rhett knows Belle Watling and how he became great friends with many slaves prior to the Civil War, it's really less of a book about him and more of a book about everyone around him.

And since Rhett Butler's People completely ignores the existence of the book Scarlett the ending is completely different. While the author does make an attempt at showing a bit of the "old" Scarlett (read: Margaret Mitchell's version) when she is facing, in my opinion, greatly contrived issues at Tara after the war, it is not fully explored but merely used as an excuse (SPOILER ALERT) to kill off beloved characters and burn down Tara before getting Scarlett and Rhett back together in roughly a page and a half.

I have read both Gone With the Wind and Scarlett multiple times each and now that I've finished Rhett Butler's People I plan to go back and read both of them again, but I have to say....Rhett Butler's People is going straight into the garage sale pile. Maybe it's because both Gone With the Wind and Scarlett were written by women that I enjoyed the epic love stories found in both books, as opposed to the male author of Rhett Butler's People who created merely a great epic story of the Civil War that names familiar characters. Either way, I've obviously learned my lesson for awhile that I need to stick with my trash novels because obviously "real" books just get me too worked up. If I wanted that I'd debate the merits of Gossip Girl vs. the original version of Beverly Hills 90210.

P.S. Here is a good review about everything that is wrong with this book: http://www.amazon.com/review/RQX5Y5I1CLA5E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm