From the book I’m currently reading:
It is Regency England. You’re the daughter of an Earl, but you marry a man your parents don’t approve of. They don’t disown you for it, though they do make their disapproval plain. When it becomes clear the man you married is a wastrel of the worst sort, your mother says you must apologize before she’ll help you. Your pride won’t allow you to do it. So for ten years, you live on pride alone, barely scraping by and utterly miserable.
Then the unthinkable happens – your husband barters with a man you’re very attracted to and you’re sold to him for one night. (I won’t spoil it, but suffice it to say things are not as they appear to either party.) Rather than appear weak to the man you’re supposed to spend the night with, you choose – to once again assuage your pride – to foster the misconceptions and misunderstandings he’s operating under. But it gets worse, because you find your husband murdered and you are the main suspect. You’re thrown into prison and don’t have the means to hire an attorney.
Now answer me this…You’ve lived on pride alone for close to a decade. You have nothing left but that, really. But it comes down to your pride or your life. Do you go to your parents and ask for help? Or do you sit in a rotten jail cell, satisfied that your pride is intact?
Well, there’s pride and then there’s stupid stubbornness. Really? Living for 10 years with a wastrel of a man because of pride? Ug. And he sold her. OMG it gets worse!
I’d screw pride and ask for help. But that’s me and I’m obviously not writing the book! lol
Well, logically speaking, if I was stubborn enough to live like that for 10 years and then sleep with a man I was sold to…I suppose I would suck it up and rot in jail.
The real me would have caved and apologized to mummy at the first hunger pain. But hey, every girl has her priorities. ROFL!
Wow. Can’t wait to read it! (insert sarcasm here)
I run back to mom and dad. You can’t tell me the parents wouldn’t be happy after 10 years to have me back. But then again this is a historical romance…
There is no aunt, uncles or cousins to take you in also? Grandma or grandpa would cuddle you and give you pudding for dessert at least.
Oh, I forgot to mention..
She couldn’t go to anyone else, either. Because they would tell her parents and she couldn’t abide the humiliation.
Because being thrown in prison for a murder you didn’t commit isn’t humiliating at all.
I quite liked this book and did not question her choice to not contact her parents. I think she also feels ashamed of the way her life turned out and the choice she made to marry the unworthy man. I think by staying estranged from her parents she isn’t letting them see just how bad things have gotten. I don’t know how far along you are but she has other reasons for her separation from her parents. She isn’t left in prison for long so I think she may have resorted to asking for help over time. Like I said, I quite liked this book and hope you stick with it.
There’s a reason it’s called foolish pride…
Pride? What pride? I know I would not like the inside of a jail cell.
Of course, I would not have spent 10 years with the guy either!
Pride, what pride? At that point, somebody really would be dead and by my hand… not saying who yet. Still deciding. Just saying, there’s pride and then there’s survival.
So, I guess that means I’m with Estella. 😉
In a heartbeat, go to my parents. My pride would not be intact in jail because I would’ve been raped or worse in there!
Well I’d never get myself into that situation :X Say after a few years of misery I’d apologize. (That and my parents… heh. Anyway.)
But here? I hope she sticks with pride :X Because this woman is too dumb to live. She doesn’t deserve being saved.
… Is that too mean? :X
Mmmm. I’ve not read this one so I have no idea if the author pulls it off, or if the character comes off as merely TSTL.
Seems to me though, that after ten years of a bad marriage and attendant humiliation (and your husband whoring you out has to be humiliating, even if you are attracted) and with her family being so punitive and unloving as to want her to beg and crawl before they’d help her, I can see as how she might feel that her pride is the only thing left of her, that if she doesn’t have that, then she’s nothing.
It’s the kind of tunnel vision people with chronically damaged self-esteem get. So yeah, I can see someone rotting because they literally don’t know how to ask for help or can’t see themselves as being worthy of it. Of course if the character does something like this but is otherwise not written as messed up to this degree, then I’d write the book off as TSTL or stupidity-via-plot-contrivance. And cross the author off my tbr list.
I read this book and agree with the anonymous commenter above. It didn’t come across as though she had too much pride, but that she was so ashamed at how bad her decision turned out that she didn’t want them to know how bad it was. If I recall correctly, she’s also not too proud to reconcile with them when the alternative would hurt the hero of the book, so she is somewhat sensible.
@Christina and Anon – I just finished reading it. While I’ll concede part of her hestitation in contacting her family was guilt and shame, I still believe the majority of it was simple pride. She didn’t want to admit her mistakes to them and apologize, which shows a lack of maturity and stubbornness that borders on stupidity.
I understand that basis of what the author was trying to achieve, but I feel she failed for the most part. While I give her credit for taking on such a hard character, I think what should have come across as fear and guilt just seemed cold and cruel instead. I’m afraid I saw her only as a prideful martyr, all the way through the end.
@FD – It wasn’t that her family wanted her to beg and crawl so much that they wanted her to admit she was wrong. That’s all. She refused to do any such thing. Which is why I’d say she came across as more stupid than traumatized. Perhaps she did have self-esteem issues, but it was hard to sympathize with her as she was.
I can’t say I was very impressed with the book as a whole, though it did have a few redeeming qualities.
Now I’m really curious. What book was it? Pretty please?
I’m thinking I should check the difference between pride and stubbornness. I seem to have it mixed up. Based on my behavior so far, I think I would chose to rot in jail. But if my brain was functioning I would have gone to mommy and daddy (wait, am I allowed to call them that in a historical?) when I find out about my wastrel husband or run away from him. If nothing else, at least when I found out I was being sold for a night, I would run away! sheesh!
Oooh, pretty sure I know what book you’re reading. Ugh.
@Kaetrin – the book is Wicked Little Game by Christine Wells.
Thx Holly! Are you planning a review?
Yes, I think so. I can’t promise when…lol