My escapist fiction is making me tense

[sqbr]

So perhaps watching Dollhouse to distract me from the offensiveness of this novel wasn't the best idea (not that's it's particularly bad so far, for Dollhouse. The season premiere of Lie To Me squicked me more(*). But it's still...Dollhouse-y) And the episode of Xfiles I started watching was about a bunch of carnival freaks and I just didn't have the energy to give it the benefit of the doubt.

But this book! It keeps mentioning all these "negro servants" then giving them nothing to do but open doors etc and have no dialogue. But I was doing ok and getting attched to the characters and then the male leads backstory was fleshed out: his family was attacked by pirates pretending to be in distress, "a mixture of races and language, filthy beneath their disguise of Western dress". AARGH.

And oh god, am I getting sick of heroines with ivory skin. The problem with getting into romance novels via 50books_poc is I got used to them being, you know, not racist.

This bugs me particularly since while I am quite pale (though still too splotchy and freckled for a romance novel) my (half jewish) mother is pretty dark for a white person(**), and I grew up seeing her feel unnattractively unlike the pale wispy floral girly ideal she aspired to (The rest of the time she appropriated an exoticised voluptious ethnic beauty ideal, which she does fit pretty well) I'm working past both of these standards (which are problematic for different reasons) but any time I see people over-emphasising the beauty of paleness I think of my mum and am pissed off (I'm also pissed off on behalf of all the POC and other non-pale women it oppresses, but it's less personal).

Anyway I was TRYING to stay offline today since I'm not up to intelligent conversation but everything is working against me. Maybe I'll try the book again, I do want to see what happens next. Perhaps things will improve when the actions moves to England and she can ignore the existence of POC all together, like in the previous book I read by this author *eyes it suspiciously*

EDIT: OH GOD, the villain appears to be an evil kinky bisexual pedophile. I'm only a quarter of the way into the book! What's next?! I predict at least one of: an evil or inspiring cripple, murderous madman, jealous uppity servant, gross obese greedy rich guy, evil manipulative promiscuous woman..ah it's too depressing.

(*)People with sexual assault triggers should definitely give it a miss.
(**)For reference here's mum, dad, two of my siblings and me. Yes this is an old photo :)