Smart Bitches Day-Perfection

Today's SBD Topic: Perfection On Paper

She is beautiful, kind and thin as a weed.

He is tall and handsome and has sinewy muscles.

Sound like every single romance book that you read?

Why the perfection? Is there perfection in real life? How many perfect looking couples are there out there? And if you know any...do you really like them?

But there is nothing that will yank me out of a story faster than an imperfection in my characters. I don't want wide hips or a big nose with a hook. Yuck! If I wanted imperfection, I would look in a mirror! LOL

There are two books that I've read recently where the imperfections in the characters really pulled the bottom out from under me with the book. In this first book (I can't remember either of the titles) the hero marries the heroine instead of the girl he was betrothed to. During the course of the book the jilted fiancé comes over to the house and harasses the hero and heroine.Anyway, the jilted fiancé is supposed to be oh so beautiful but she has a big, hooked nose! Every time the narrator talked about the girl her nose was brought up. It's size, it's hook, and it might have even had a mole or mark! The nose was as much of a secondary character as the girl herself! And then I find out she is the heroine in another book! How am I supposed to see her as beautiful?

And then I read another one where the heroine was standing in front of the hero half naked and he makes a comment to himself about how big her thighs are and she probably doesn't like them. Hello!?! I'm not buying into the fact that he wants to scrump her if he is thinking about how she freaking has thunder thighs!

When I read these details in a book it's like running into a brick wall. I can't seem to get past the imperfections. The flaws. Every time he calls her beautiful I think to myself, "Yeah, except for her huge ass thighs."

So is there a happy medium? Can you have beautiful characters without the perfection? How come I (we?) can tolerate personality flaws in characters but not in physical appearance? Or does this all go back to the thought that this is a fantasy and we can fix personality flaws but not physical flaws?

...Fiona...

PS to Holly: I've lost my ? key. It must be a virus that you are spreading around! I've had to Ctrl + V this whole post for all of my ?.