Sons of Anarchy and Anti Heroes

Win all three of Madeline Sheehan’s books in the UnDENIABLE series (ebooks).

Picture property of SOAFX

 SOA To (continue to) watch or not…and Anti-Heroes in modern romance books….

Last summer I read something I NEVER thought I would like… a romance with an “anti-hero”, it was Kristen Ashley’s MOTORCYLCE MAN.  I FELL in love/lust with Tack.  Then I moved onto her UNFINISHED HERO series, starting with KNIGHT…NEVER would have thought I would fall in love with a pimp.…. THEN a good friend told me to read UnDENIABLE by Madeline Sheehan…well I hesitated, hemmed and hawed because she told me in the book there was cheating, rape, everything you have heard of about Motorcycle Clubs….but I couldn’t resist.  I read it and fell instantly in LOVE/LUST with Duece and the Hell’s Horsemen MC, as a matter of fact three books into the UnDENIABLE series and it is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE series EVER.   After reading UnDENIABLE I decided I wanted to watch SONS OF ANARCHY, my Dad and brother have been watching it since the beginning of the series so I had heard them talk about it.   So for Christmas Santa brought me SOA seasons 1-4, and I bought season 5 when it came out. I finally made time to watch all 5 seasons two weeks ago.

I was instantly addicted to this series and the world Kurt Sutter has created.  Because of Facebook, I knew going into the series that Opie died, once I “met” Opie, I had to Google and find out which episode he dies in so I would be prepared.  Imagine how pissed off I got at myself for NOT researching the show before I started watching it…because once I Googled Opie’s death, interviews and articles started popping up about SOA being loosely based on Hamlet and that the series will end with 7 seasons (we just started season 6). Upon reading the Hamlet/SOA connection my heart BROKE….because we all know how Hamlet ends.  Then I read an interview with Kurt Sutter, where he says he sees the series ending in a pool of blood and there is not happy ending, but he hopes the fans see “hope”.    I can only imagine how the series finale of SOA is going to affect me.  The series finale of The Sopranos put me in a state of depression for a couple of weeks and even now I can’t watch re-runs knowing what happens at the end.  (The Sopranos were also loosely based on Hamlet).

Do I regret starting SOA…NO because it is an AMAZING show. I just hate how much I LOVE Jax and the Sons Of Anarchy.  I do not want to see Jax die at the end.  I WANT him, Tara and the boys to live and make his father’s wish come true.   Yes Jax and crew are outlaws, murderers, gun runners…but they, up until this season, have always had a certain honor among them.  Jax and Tara represent “HOPE” that no matter how bad things are, there is always hope that you can turn it around.  With the direction the show is taking this year…I am losing that “HOPE”.  Right now Jax is spiraling down a path he didn’t want to go. Every time he tries to go “legit” he gets deeper and deeper.  Tara is a mess with her pending trial and trying to make sure her boys will be taken care of no matter what happens to her.  At the end of episode 2 my heart broke, Jax and Tara are so far apart, so much guilt, regret and too many secrets that it appears there is no going back.  I HATE that Jax slept with that old cumdumpster.  BUT even with that I want him and Tara to make it through all the bad and end up together.   I MISS the flirty outlaw…I miss their LOVE….I miss that HOPE that even the baddest of the badasses can make it out of hell and have a happily ever after. Yes I know Jax is going down the path that Sutter envisioned for him and it all makes sense to me, but a girl can dream and hope 🙂

A few of us here at Guilty Pleasures have spent the last two weeks obsessed with what is going to happen. Multiple texts are flying back and forth about predictions, fears and broken hearts. It is RIDICULOUS how addicted and invested we are in SOA. Yes we have Google Alerts set for all things SOA. We speculate, we hold out out a tiny bit of hope that since Kurt Sutter is known for not being predictable that he will blow us away with an unpredictable ending that will make us happy.    We hope that because of SEXY and TALENTED, Charlie Hunnam’s role in Fifty Shades of Grey, that all the new fans to SOA will entice FX and Kurt Sutter to extend the series beyond the 7 seasons it is contracted to.  I mean come on, after the FSOG movie releases next August, there are going to be a shit ton more fans of SOA.  Fans that never heard of SOA or didn’t think it was their cup of tea.   I in no way want SOA to sell out just to please Hollywood, because that would kill the show, but I would love to see it run longer.

SO….based on the need to keep my sanity…. I have been trying to decide if I am going to continue to watch the rest of SOA.  I tell myself I should stop…but I can’t.  Kurt Sutter and the cast of SOA have done such an incredible job with the storyline and the acting that I can’t stop watching (SCREW you Emmys).   How amazing is it that he has written and the actors have delivered, characters that we should HATE because of what they do, but instead we are rooting for them and we love them.  There is something redeeming in each of them, that makes you feel for them.  However, if Jax continues to sleep with the old cumdumpster I may have to really stop watching, I just can’t stomach it, it literally makes me want to puke.

So here I am…a 42 yr old woman in love with the baddest of bad boys, the total anti-heroes thanks to the brilliant authors/writers Kristen Ashley, Madeline Sheehan and Kurt Sutter.   There is just something about all that bad boy swagger, machismo and that tiny underlying soft heart that is buried deep that makes me want to climb them like a tree.

Have you watched SOA? What are your thoughts? Have you read MOTORCYCLE MAN, KNIGHT, CREED, RAID, or The CHAOS MC series by Kristen Ashley or The UnDENIABLE series by Madeline Sheehan?   What is so appealing to you about Anti-Heroes/Bad Boys?

One lucky commenter will win all three of Madeline Sheehan’s books in the UnDENIABLE series (ebooks).

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