Believing the Impossible

Everyone knows there needs to be a little suspicion of disbelief with a story. Some more so than others, but it still needs to be there. I rarely have a problem getting sucked into a story, no matter how outlandish a plot can get. Until this week. I’m not going to name the author or the book, but I do have to say if this hero had been a cat, he would’ve died twice.

The more that happened to him, the more suspicion of disbelief diminished. We are not talking little mishaps either, this man life was in constant doo doo, in the hospital with life-threatening injuries more than not. The more I read, the more I was like, Dude! He should be dead.

So this got me thinking. When is too much, too much? And why, when I usually have no issue with just going along for the ride, I wanted to jump out of the car in this one?

Perhaps it was because this was a contemporary. The hero wasn’t a shifter, vampire or some other creature with special powers that would allow this kind of harm to be dealt to him without repercussions. No, he was an everyday man, living in everyday America, just like you and me. And because of this, I could never get past the thought any normal man would never survive this, much less the other five attempts on his life. I know this is fiction, and we are dealing with alpha hero’s here, but at the same time there is supposed to be a fine line between the fiction and reality. This story crossed the line into unbelievable for me.

Is it fair of me to think that if the story had paranormal elements I could have accepted the things that happened to the hero? Why am I so down on this hero who survived the impossible?

So my question is, have you ever read something that tested your suspicion of disbelief?


In other news, I’m being interviewed at Night of Passion this weekend and will be giving away three e-books. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment. So drop on byJ
http://nightsofpassion.wordpress.com/

Esme
www.esmereldabishop.com

1 comment:

Ari Thatcher said...

I think you are write, we expect more realism in contemporary, but even in paranormal you have to set the foundation for miracles to happen. If your wolf hero survives multiple gunshots to the chest you'd better have told me ahead of time that he has amazing healing powers or something.

I can't think of anything I've read that I could believe. My wallbanger moments are usually because I just don't care enough about the characters, or the h/h is just too stupid to live.