Flavien Rous Rous itibaren Paredones, Mich., מקסיקו itibaren Paredones, Mich., מקסיקו

Since it's still Stalker Week here on Goodreads, I decided to create a new shelf, which I've called older-men-younger-women. I hope that's neutral enough that I won't get flagged. My criterion is simple: a relationship between a man and a much younger woman needs to play an important part in the story. Well, as I was saying to Meredith, I knew ahead of time that Twilight and Lolita would be there. I trust we've already absorbed all the lessons that can usefully be drawn from these books, so I won't dwell on them. My list also contains a considerable number of volumes from the wonderfully trashy Brigade Mondaine series. If you look at these, you'll get rather more offbeat advice: for example, don't get involved with an older man if he's investigating your twin sister for a grisly murder, or don't get involved with an older man if he's just using you to help get his regular girlfriend back from a gang of Chinese criminals who are threatening her with death by poisonous sea-snake. (Note: it's okay if poisonous sea-snakes aren't involved). But it was the classic novels that surprised me most. I'd quite forgotten that some of them belonged to this category, and Middlemarch is the star example. Girls, don't get involved with elderly academics. They'll try and get you to do things you really don't want to do. Disgusting things. I'm having trouble even saying this, but they'll... they'll... they'll try to make you promise to edit their papers posthumously. They will. It's true. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shock you, but it was necessary. Just say no. And run.