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latesummerfrost · 2 years

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If any of you seriously went into an adaptation of an Anne Rice property on goddamn AMC expecting a trigger warning you're sipping some Olympic-grade delusion juice. Settle back down with a nice soothing episode of The Owl House on Disney and stop pussy-aching about media with blatant adult themes if you can't handle it. This is the network that ran The Walking Dead adapting a book about a wildly abusive relationship between preternatural creatures who literally kill people for sustenance and amusement. Seriously, disconnect from your idiot-box of collected trigger words and go kick open a DVD out of the Twilight collection for that wholesome, family-friendly, Mormon-skewed vampire experience you so dubiously crave. Lestat unrepentantly ate a whole damn baby in the books, sweets, you think this is the worst it's gonna get? 😂😂😂

Sidebar; as someone who grew up in an extremely violent household, I can safely attest that THAT scene was exquisitely done. Putting Louis and Lestat's relationship through the lens of Claudia's POV the last two episodes was nothing short of inspired. And sorry to say it, but every queer story isn't going to be sunshine and daisies (especially not one that is, again, about preternatural creatures who kill people for sustenance and amusement). I can binge Heartstopper on Netflix anytime I want, but I've been waiting for THIS particular show my entire life.

Horror isn't just about beings with special powers peacocking and monologuing between luscious set pieces. The real horror of this story has always been underneath all of that simmering in the protagonists' extremely flawed humanity. Did you seriously walk into a horror show and balk at people experiencing and perpetrating horror?

And as a lifelong reader, let me close with this; this IS our Lestat. This is Lestat in as many forms and personalities as he's ever held (countless, btw), fused into one being who is going to fit the trappings of this story as its NEW custodians lead us down dark new paths.

Jesus god between this all and the assertion that Rice hated women because - let me check my notes - bad things happen to women in The Lives Of The Mayfair Witches (because it would have been a much better series if Lasher was a friendly pet ghost who tied the neighbors' shoelaces together when they were mean to Deirdre, and Rowan just spent the entire saga cruising on her boat and patching peoples' brains together between calls home to her loving and unproblematic Aunt Carlotta), I don't know how to engage with fandom anymore. I don't know how to politely tell people to shove their weird puritanical ramblings into the orifice of their choice, so I'm just gonna word it like that. Get real; get a grip. Bad things happen to women and all you're doing when you bitch and moan about women writing about these things is passing the narrative torch on to men who can't fucking relate enough to themes like rape and forced childbirth to touch on them well. And YES, a lot of Rice's women are super horny. LET WOMEN BE HORNY. Are you people on crack? Ya'll smokin' that shit the conservatives be slingin' on corners about women needing to think more with their brains than their privates? Women have sexual agency. I didn't phrase that as a goddamn question, women can suck dick and eat pussy till their incisors fall out. Women being sexual has LESS THAN NOTHING to do with rape when it happens to them. Seriously, Mom's Got A Date With A Vampire is fully streamable on Disney, ya'll. God knows I love Caroline Rhea and Charles Shaughnessy enough to give it another watch myself in between maimings and tragedies on Interview.

#interview with the vampire #the mayfair witches #lasher #rowan mayfair #lestat de lioncourt #louis de pointe du lac

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nerdygaymormon · 3 years

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Hey, it's national coming out day and I wanted to tell someone I'm girlflux. Sometimes I feel really masculine but never like a boy. I feel sort of comfortable about it but I'm still getting used to it because it means I'm not cis. I won't come out to the family I live with bcuz they won't understand. Pls tell me it's okay to not be cis bc I think have some trauma around the idea of not being cis. Thanks for reading😊

I'm honored you chose to share this with me on this important day. Coming Out is sort of like your queer birthday (except that you were queer when you were born, so I guess your actual birthday is your queer birthday, but you get what I'm trying to say)

We’ve always had non-cis people, they can be found in history. It’s a natural variation of the human condition. We know that non-cis people were honored and respected members of communities in the Americas, Pacific Islands, and in Asia. Some societies even had multiple classifications of non-cis people.

I'm glad we're finally at a time where we are developing the language to describe how people experience the world and we're moving slowly towards acceptance and inclusion.

Your Heavenly Parents love you as you are and for who you are. You are precious to them.

This church teaches that we’re each entitled to pray and seek revelation and confirmation. You can pray to ask if God loves you, all of you. You can seek confirmation for decisions on your path.

We are that we might have joy! That is a beautiful teaching. Find joy. Take steps towards it.

There is a difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is what you feel if you do something bad. If you don’t feel guilt for an action, chances are it’s not “bad.” Shame is what you feel about yourself. You should not feel shame for who you are, for the things you’re dealing with and for having the life you do. It's the difference between "I did something bad," and "I am bad."

I know there's harmful teachings in this church about queer people, and we receive those messages before we even realize we are queer. Those messages come from an institution and people we respect and even love. They find a home in our head and our heart. That makes those words difficult to overcome when we come to understand we're queer.

Keep in mind, the people teaching these things, they are not queer. They don't have any knowledge of what it is like to be us. They see themselves as the norm and the rest of us as abnormities. That is incorrect.

When you hear or remember unaffirming words, replace them. Speak or think positive words about yourself, your gender identity, and your worth.

If we want to know God, we should look at what God creates. Look around you, the world is diverse. Queer activity has been observed in practically all species of mammals. Surely queerness is a natural, beautiful, and necessary part of this world. God loves wild meadows of diversity, not lawns of sameness.

What you wear and things you display in your room can be ways of affirming yourself that won't out you from the closet. Mormons have a lot of expectations regarding dress and appearance, but it’s okay to do things your own way.

Btw, I didn't know there is a girlflux flag! It's beautiful. The girlflux flag has varying colors of pink and red representing the fluctuating intensity of the female identity, and a tan stripe in the middle to represent agender, or a lack of gender.

Something you may not know, but Tumblr has been a very important part of queer history. Many of the different Pride flags we know and celebrate were first shared on Tumblr.

In 2015, a Tumblr user created the terms girlflux and boyflux to describe their gender identity. Their post had ideas for girlflux and boyflux flags, but people ultimately settled on the one I shared with you, maybe because using the horizontal stripes helps people know it is related to the group of non-binary, agender, bigender, polygender, and so on.

Much love to you on National Coming Out Day 2021. Thank you for being brave enough to share with me.

#national coming out day

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mimormonfeminist · 4 years

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Intro to the Blogger

Hello all! My name is Megan and I’m your friendly neighborhood blogger. I’m a cis queer Mormon woman (she/her/hers) who is also, as the blog name suggests, a feminist from Michigan. I was born and raised in Michigan (and still live there, btw) to a family that became more and more Mormon the older I got. I’m an RM, 40+ and still single, and just a joy to be around (if I do say so myself). I’m a white woman who tries very, very hard to be an anti-Karen.

Also, I’m asexual. Like, super asexual. And what a ride it was figuring out that little fact about myself.

I have some Mormon-related writing scattered around the web. A few years back I wrote a few pieces for the Wheat & Tares blog and I had a story published in Exponent II’s Winter 2020: Fanfiction edition.

My relationship with Mormonism is complex and varied. It’s no fun being connected with an organization that you’ve loved that doesn’t love you back. And while, at this point, I’m only connected with the official institution in name only, I don’t think I’ll every be ready to give up on Mormonism as a concept and the good it has brought into my life.

I intend to spend as long as I can getting my queer, feminist hands all over Mormonism and the gospel as a whole. The world comes in more colors than black, white, and varying shades of gray, and I’m here to celebrate the rainbow in all of its beautiful varieties.

#intro post #a little bit about the blogger #a couple few years late-ish #mine.txt

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rachello344 · 6 years

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I’m going to tell you all a story. I don’t really know who all will see this, but I think it’s important for me to make my position and my history clear, so I’m going to write it out anyway. This will probably have some level of TMI, so your mileage may vary, but I don’t want to censor myself for this. Includes frank discussions of sexuality, sex ed, etc. so it’s relatively NSFW. Nothing especially graphic, but again, ymmv

This is... much longer than I meant it to be, so tl;dr: Fiction is meant to be a place to explore. Being afraid of sexuality or intimidated by it is normal, but trying to control the people around you because of that is not. The only person whose sexuality is your business is your own, and potentially your partner(s)’. Policing the sexuality of other people will not give you anything more than the illusion of control. Illusions, however nice, don’t generally last long. Be kind to others, and be kind to yourself.

I started reading fanfiction when I was 12 or 13, which I think is about the average. Everyone around me was starting to talk about dating and the like, and I wanted to figure out what they were talking about without asking anyone I knew. As an avid reader, the only way I knew how to get contextualized information was through stories. So I did what I think a lot of kids online inevitably do: I looked up stories about sex and romance. The site I was using at the time was DeviantART.

Any of you who have used the site are probably recoiling right now, as you should be. I have seen so many terrible things written in fiction from such a young age that a lot of the stuff people complain about here seem legitimately tame. But that’s not the point. The point is, I was a curious kid looking for answers, and I turned to stories to find them.

I started with original fiction. Imagine that. A 13 year old girl online reading effectively hentai-style fiction about OCs she had no connection with. I learned about my body through badly written dA hentai fic. I figured out things that felt good. I experimented quietly when my family left for my brother’s baseball games. And then, at some point, I found my first fanfiction.

I’d technically written fanfiction of Sonic characters when I was 8 or 9, but they were all just fairy tales with Sonic and Amy as the leads. I didn’t start with Sonic fanfiction, though. No, the first fanfiction I remember reading was Naruto. It was a badwrong Uchiha-cest fic. I was probably 13 at this point. I’d never watched Naruto, but I absolutely knew that those characters were related. Morbidly curious, reluctantly fascinated, I read the fic.

It was short, but it was definitely hot, to my 13 year old standards. I mean, most things were. I was 13. I didn’t exactly have standards. And then I realized: If this exists, shouldn’t there be stories with characters I actually know? Granted, I still read SasuNaruSasu fic because it was SO easy to find--I preferred Naruto topping at the time, but now I’d go back and forth, I think, I just hated the characterization of bottom!Naruto--but I also discovered slash for things I actually knew. Sonadow was a revelation.

It does not escape me that I got my start in fanfiction reading incest and furry porn, btw. I mentioned earlier that I was curious, and that was my driving force. I wanted to see where the limits were. I would read anything. And then once I figured out the tags, I could look for the things I liked and avoid the things I didn’t. I didn’t much care for a lot of things where romance was concerned, but for a PWP those limits evaporated like rain in the desert. And through this process, I developed standards. Things I will read, things I won’t, writing styles I prefer, things that I won’t read no matter how well written, writing unskilled enough that I wouldn’t touch it regardless of the kink depicted. And on and on and on.

I feel like it bears mentioning that the demographic of my junior high and high school was predominantly Mormon and Fundamentalist. Not all, but a significant number. We were mostly white, mostly well-off. I was in as much of a bubble as I could be. But that meant that until my friends started coming out in high school, I didn’t know any queer people IRL. I had one friend, Avery, who told me she was Bi in eighth grade, but until about tenth grade, she was the only one who’d told me.

Our sex ed was abstinence only. Heteronormative and absolutely the kind of thing that we all speak out against. There were no websites that I could find with reliable info. I was using google image searches to figure out what genitalia looked like, and I wish I were kidding. All I’d ever seen was stuff with diseases and sores. I was told that a girl who has a lot of sex is like an old pair of gym shoes. I was told that boys will be boys. I was not told that boys could love boys or girls could love girls. I was told “Just say no,” instead of any kind of way to tell when it was safe for me to say Yes.

Luckily I wasn’t interested in sex for me, personally. I was interested in it intellectually. I wanted to know how it worked, why people chose to do it, what it might feel like, what kinds of sex you could have. I was arming myself with knowledge in case I ever needed it.

When I was 15, I stumbled on a kinkster’s blog. She was a writer, and she specialized in BDSM practices and culture, specifically in explaining it to the uninitiated. I was too young to be there, but the information I got was invaluable. Again, scarleteen might have existed? But I’d certainly never found it. This was the first time I saw someone talking about consent, about condoms and dental dams, about safe words.

It was life changing. I read her blog avidly. I spent about three weeks there, researching BDSM. When I found something that seemed interesting, I’d return to deviantART to see if I could find it in story form. I’d google terms I wasn’t familiar with or cross check online. I googled so many things that it’s lucky that my parents let me have my own computer (an old desktop from my dad’s boss). It’s even luckier that my parents generally let me have free reign.

When I was 17, I found the word Asexual. It was the best word I’d seen for how I was feeling. Sex positive asexual. “It would be fine if it happened, but chastity isn’t exactly a punishment.” I could make do on my own without much trouble, and I didn’t really like any boys. Not like that. (Whether or not I ever liked girls, I’m still trying to puzzle out.)

What I’m trying to say is that my best online experiences were via kinksters. Fic at the time did NOT go into safer sex details. They were either implied, glossed over, or outright ignored. Fantasy doesn’t need to jive with reality, so it’s hardly wrong of them to ignore it. But that information was truly incredible to me.

And I know I’m an odd case. Someone who’d never felt sexual attraction to her knowledge researching every kind of sex under the sun sounds strange, I know. But I’ve always been a researcher. When I come across something I don’t understand, I look it up.

I guess, the point I was trying to make is that... for me, without all the “bad” erotica and porn, without kinksters, without slash ships, I never would have figured things out for myself. I had no sexual education to speak of, no context for anything I did no, no one to talk to, and I definitely didn’t have any queer role models or examples in media or in my real life. The first time I met a lesbian was when I was 13; she was my gym teacher. And she was the absolute first queer person I ever knew about. And until college, I’d never met another queer adult that I knew of. Never.

We had a gay straight alliance in high school, but I didn’t want to get involved. The cultural climate wasn’t outright homophobic, but I’d learned to keep my head down for being “too much” a feminist. Like hell was I going to put a target on my back. I doubt I would have been bullied--no one had come after me yet--but I didn’t really want to tempt fate either. I stood up for the people around me, and I called it good.

When I hear people say “Kink is unhealthy and glorifies abuse” I think back on my sex ed, on learning that women who sleep around are dirty. I think about the first time I ever even heard about consent being on a blog about a woman who loved BDSM. When I hear people say “X fic trope condones Y behavior” I think back on the absolute sewage that I was reading as a young teen. It’s safe to say that I’ve read just about every kink there is. I read vore on accident by the time I was 15. And I didn’t even remember it until I had a visceral flashback to it about a year ago when the jokes first started getting popular. And despite all of the abuse and rape and badwrong incestuous fic that I’ve read, never once have I knowingly harmed another person. And that makes the arguments feel a little odd. Like “violent video games make teens more violent,” the argument that violent erotica and porn makes teens more violent is absurd.

So, for those of you still reading, if you promote anti-shipping or kink critical anything, I think you should look at it a little more closely. Do some more reading on the other side, within your limits. Do your own research and figure out where you stand. I know that sex can be intimidating and scary, especially when you’re young, but something can be scary without being harmful. Only you know your limits, but there are plenty of places to do research that have reliable information. I’d be happy to help you find them. For general sex ed, scarleteen is definitely my go-to.

Policing other people’s sexualities is not the way to make things feel safe again. I know it seems like a suitable answer, and it makes you feel like you have power and safety, but think about how you feel when people tell you what you are and aren’t allowed to like or do or feel. Think about how you feel when people accuse you of all kinds of things simply because your views are different. That’s what anti-culture is doing. And just because you don’t agree with someone doesn’t mean you have the right to tell them how to feel or how to think. Because that opens the door to them returning the favor.

“But incest--” “But CGL--” “But--” No. It doesn’t matter. If you know it isn’t for you, then avoid it. That’s the end of it. Do I think some things are weird or even kinda gross? Sure. But that doesn’t mean no one is allowed to like those things. If that was the case, no one would be allowed to write fic where people have sex in a kitchen or otherwise involve food in the process. That squicks me out, but that doesn’t mean people don’t want to get off to it. I avoid the tag and move on. Don’t waste your time on things you don’t like. Period.

Life is too short to waste your time on things that turn you off. That’s time better spent finding the things that turn you on. And hey, tastes change. Maybe someday I’ll decide I want to read people having sticky food sex (doubtful). Maybe someday I’ll decide that I cannot read another tentacle fic ever again (unlikely). I won’t know until that day does (or doesn’t) come. But I’m not gonna waste energy worrying about what other people think about my fantasies. They’re no one’s business but my own, and theoretically a future sex partner should I find one.

Fiction is for exploration, so explore! Find ways to keep yourself safe. Figure out what you need to avoid, and how to do it. Find the things you want to read and read them. Consume the media you want to consume. And if anyone bullies you for it or tries to make you feel bad, you block their ass on sight. They don’t deserve even a second more of your time.

#personal #rachel writes #if anyone wants to talk about this I'd be fine with that #but if you want to come over and shame me for how I figured myself out you can show yourself out #it just really burns me up seeing kink critical people coming after people for doing things they enjoy #the sex and fantasy lives of other people are none of your business #i'm not gonna go into the gray areas here because I'm not a lawyer and I don't want to get into it on what amounts to a vent post #so i'll leave off with 'don't break just laws' and call it good #above all else be kind #tbh i might delete this at some point but right now i'm feeling brave #mostly because i'm annoyed about purity culture tbh #deviantart was a dumpster fire but damn if i had a shame free place to figure out what things were #people on this hellsite are so uptight i feel like i'm back in high school #it's the Worst #I just wanna like my weird shit in peace

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christinaroseandrews · 6 years

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Part 5

*Crawls out of her weekend writing binge* What do you mean I haven’t finished with this yet? *Cries*

This is the last actual post where I sum up the most egregious offenses Faleena Hopkins committed, and then there will be a masterpost linking to all of the posts related to this travesty of a book.

There are a lot of little things that went wrong. Things that would have dropped stars on their own, but nothing I haven’t seen a million times before. Things like bad proofreading, weak heroes and heroines, bad sex scenes, lack of research. Ultimately if those had been the only problems with this book, it would have been rated two or three stars. Mediocre and unmemorable. Not throw the book across the room worthy.

This book is.

I’m still angry at it.

And that’s a problem.

So what are the things that on their own make this a one star?

For starters: Sean.

“Wait!” I hear you say, “But you liked Sean. He was your favorite character.” And he was. I’m not about to deny that, but the problem with Sean is several-fold.

His story arc of coming out to his family wasn’t relevant and is part of what made this book Not A Romance.

His POV wasn’t needed and again is part of what made this book Not A Romance.

His being gay was not handled well and featured some very hurtful stereotypes.

Once he was out in the book, his entire character changed. And he became sex-obsessed and attention-whoring. Gone was the empathetic generous man. He became Jack... only Gay. And we all know my feelings about Jack.

I’ll cover points one and two later when I get to the part about how this book wasn’t a romance.

I wish Sean had been openly gay from the start. Not because we needed another hurtful stereotype of the “Sassy Gay Friend” which BTW we totally got. But because it would have been better than what we did have. Which to refresh your memory, is this:

So why is this so wrong? Because it contains the following harmful implications:

Queer people must be either completely celibate or...

Queer people must fuck everything that lives.

Never being in love at the ripe old age of 23 is a problem.

Being a virgin at that same age is a problem.

Celibacy is unnatural and wrong.

The first is a huge problem. Currently in the Mormon community, this is the official stance. LBGT+ people must either choose to live a heterosexual life or be completely celibate... no kissing, hugging, or touching of anyone of the same sex. This is leading to a huge rise in Mormon LBGT+ youth in Utah committing suicide because they feel that their families and community won’t love and accept them. There was a whole documentary about it recently on HBO called “Believer.”

The second is a problem because it reinforces the stereotype that all homosexuals are raging sex fiends and unable to be in long term relationships. Or form long term bonds. It’s one of the excuses used by adoption agencies when denying same-sex couples. And worse, it’s why those in the LBGT+ community were blamed for contracting HIV/AIDS and it was seen as divine retribution for the disease, which can affect anyone.

The third is an issue, because it unreasonably puts pressure on young people to hurry up and find love. Love, real love, not infatuation, can happen at any time. That’s part of how love works. I have friends who didn’t find their first love until they were in their thirties or forties. While I know others who found their someone when they were children (a friend met their now spouse when they were in nursery school - they grew up as friends and eventually fell in love). People should be allowed to look for love at their own pace and when they are ready. Not by some arbitrary due date.

The fourth is a huge issue because of the implication that virginity, especially male virginity, is a problem. This thought is one of many that leads to toxic masculinity and the culture where men are predators and women victims. It leads to young men and boys shooting up their schools and workplaces because they were rejected by a woman and couldn’t deal with the repercussions. This thought, that male virginity is bad, is deadly. There is nothing wrong with being a virgin. There is nothing wrong with waiting until you’re ready to have sex. You don’t owe any partner anything. You don’t owe society anything. Male virgins can be awesome lovers. I know. I’ve had two myself.

Finally, there is nothing wrong with celibacy. No one owes you sex. If someone doesn’t want to have sex, then they don’t have to. There are even some people out there who find the whole concept of sex off-putting and there is nothing wrong with that. There are victims of abuse who find sex triggering. Celibacy can be a choice. And if if people are “involuntarily celibate” there is always something called masturbation, and in some places prostitution is legal. No one owes you sex, even if you want it. Period.

It’s really that easy.

The second reason this book would get one star is what is essentially plot-whiplash coupled with an unsatisfying ending. The antagonist doesn’t get his comeuppance and doesn’t actually apologize for what he did. In fact, Jack gets off scot-free because of plot whiplash.

There’s an art to telling a good story. You need to have a good hook early. The longer the story, the more concurrent plots you need juggle. And you need to have a good sense of pacing. Draw things out too long, and your readers will lose interest. Wrap things up too quickly and you leave your audience reeling. Faleena Hopkins manages to do both.

She drags out plots that have no reason being strung along for as long as they are. Things like Rue’s parentage. You told us this in the summary, why does it take you over 6 chapters to get to it in the book? Or Sean’s sexuality - which really shouldn’t have been central to the overall plot of the book yet somehow took it over (when it’s the last line of the book, that means that is also the core plot, FYI endings matter).

But for the most part, Hopkins suffers from plot-whiplash. AKA moving from plot to plot so fast that your head goes back and forth like you’re at a tennis match.

Seriously, the whole novel takes place in less than a week. It took me going back and making a timeline to realize that no really the whole thing takes place that quickly.

The problem with doing things too quickly is that you don’t give the audience time to process what happened. Crucial details get left out. Continuity gets ignored. The whole thing feels rushed. It’s like the author is afraid that if they doesn’t resolve the subplot or conflict quickly they’ll lose readers.

But here’s the thing. Readers don’t want instant happy endings. They want the happy ending to be earned. And that is true in romance as it is in other genres. If, for instance, Poirot immediately solved the Murder on the Orient Express, the story wouldn’t be nearly as iconic.

You’d feel cheated.

As Hitchcock said - "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."

The same is true in romance. Or any story. It’s the journey that’s important, not the destination.

Which is why I got so angry when I reached the end. Jack hadn’t gotten a valid redemption arc and he’s still the same awful person that he was at the beginning of the novel. Sean actually got worse and his story ended up overshadowing what was ostensibly the more important of the plots (give him his own book, don’t shoehorn it into what is supposed to be a het romance). The Romance wasn’t really resolved in a positive manner. And the answer to the overarching plot -- will success ruin Rue Calliwell? - was an overwhelming yes. It may be realistic.... but it’s not satisfying.

The third and biggest reason why this book is deserving of a one-star (I’d give no stars if possible) is because it isn’t a Romance, yet it bills itself as such. I know there’s a lot of problem with Authors miscategorizing their works in order to get that elusive “Bestseller” tag. But this isn’t that. This is the author falling into the pitfall of “Trying to change romance” and ending up not being a romance at all.

Interestingly, Hopkins does miscategorize her book... but in a weird way.

Her book is not an inspirational romance. That category is reserved for “wholesome, faith-filled stories that enrich the lives of readers” - that definition is straight from Harlequin. That means no sex. No swearing. And lots of references to religion (it can be any religion but Christianity is most likely). This is why there are a lot of reviews angry about the sex and the language.

So how did I come to the conclusion that this wasn’t a romance?

To make sure we’re all on the same page, here’s RWA’s definition of Romance.

1. The over-arching plot.

The plot of the story is pretty much spelled out in the summary. “How will fame and fortune change Rue Calliwell as well as how will she handle finding out about the family she never knew she had?”

The romance is secondary. It’s part of how she handles fame, fortune, and her family. Her brother puts his best friend up to seducing her (amusingly I wrote a fanfic with this EXACT plot 14 years ago). The brother is testing his new sibling. The fact that his BFF and sister fall in lust is a side-effect. Not the main plot.

In order for this to be a romance, the characters falling in love and making the relationship work has to be the main focus. And in this book, it just isn’t.

2. The Points of View.

The book is 52 chapters long. Jack, the antagonist brother, has 8 POV chapters. Sean, the sympathetic brother, has 7 POV chapters. Alec, the love interest, has 7 POV chapters. While the rest are in Rue’s POV. What does that indicate?

Well, that the author considered the brothers equally or more important than the love interest. We don’t even meet Alec until page 60-something out of 300 pages. That’s waaaaaay too long for a romance novel. The love interest needs to be introduced quickly. Not a fifth of the way through the book.

3. The “I Love You’s”

You know there’s something wrong with a romance novel when the heroine says “I love you” to all of the other main characters other than love interest. Rue says “I love you” to Jenna. To Sean. To Jack. But not to Alec. Nor does he say it to her.

4. No actual relationship.

The story between Alec and Rue is a pure Lust and Erotica story. It’s a story of obsession. Of possession. The characters don’t talk. They don’t date. They just engage in tonsil hockey and longing looks.

And the way it’s written is about as sexy as that gif.

The thing is, there is a relationship story in this book. But it’s between Rue and her brothers. In fact, everything with Alec can be seen as supporting that story, not the other way around.

5. The ending.

Again the ending needs to be emotionally satisfying and optimistic. To her credit, she kind of gets the optimistic. Rue and Alec are going to try to make things work on a long term basis and he’s going to go public about liking her.

Sounds good, right?

Except that’s not the actual ending of the book. The ending of the book focuses on the siblings and nothing is resolved there. I was left going “is that it?”

I wasn’t satisfied. I wasn’t happy.

I was angry.

Each of those things would make this book ranked one star. (So would the fact that stalking is portrayed as romantic, but I’ve gone into that before so I don’t need to go into it here.)

So it should come as no surprise that this book gets:

One star

You can read the hot mess for FREE here.

If you’re enjoying these reviews, you can buy us a kofi.

#Romance review #contemporary romance #new adult romance #faleena hopkins #billionaire romance #musician romance #cockygate #this is so bad #like I want my life back bad #one star #I wish I could give it negative stars #it's that bad #Rose and Lark review books #book review

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nerdygaymormon · 5 years

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This might be a weird question, but here goes. So I’ve recently come to terms with being gay. Most of my family doesn’t know, and they’re all pretty by-the-book Mormons. So if I ever dated or anything I would probably be facing a Lot of opposition from them, and I don’t think I could handle that. But I also don’t think I can handle living my whole life without loving and being loved the way I so desperately want to. So my way of coping is just. Convincing myself that the church will change (1/2)

its policies and attitudes in the next two or three years so I won’t have to face conflict from either side anymore. My question is, do you think trying to delude myself like this is unhealthy? Like part of me fully believes it, but the other part of me knows how unlikely it is. I feel like I have to believe this though because I don’t know how to cope otherwise.

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Congratulations. I know it’s been a journey to accept yourself. And your journey isn’t over, so much in your life will change over the next few years.

I can really relate to this question about dating and the church changing.

I think your time frame of 2 or 3 years is really optimistic. However, I know people who I’d consider leaders in the LDS LGBT community and they think in the next 5-10 years, so maybe you’re not far off. As for me, I don’t see anything indicating such a big change will occur in the next few years.

That being said, I don’t think it’s unhealthy or deluding yourself. You’re still looking at the future and being optimistic. Our dreams and plans never quite work out exactly how we imagine, but that doesn’t mean we were wrong for having those dreams.

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I have an analogy for you, that of a pregnant woman. Early on she is excited at learning she’s pregnant, she is hopeful of what this means. She goes through a period of morning sickness and real uncomfortableness but presses on. But she tends not to want to think about the birth because that’s a bit scary in the pain it will entail.

After a while, the pregnancy keeps progressing but she’s past the phase of morning sickness. She lives her life with some accomodation of her growing belly and feeling tired, but things are pretty good. However, the birthing process still is something she might try to avoid thinking about.

Towards the end of her pregnancy, she’s really uncomfortable. Her back hurts, she has to go to the restroom a lot, parts of her body are tender, the baby is kicking and moving around, she’s tired all the time. She is ready to have the baby come out. She’s ready to deal with birth if that will end this growing misery.

Why am I telling you about a pregnant woman? At some point the discomfort at the difference between who you are and who you present to the world will grow great enough that you’ll want to come out. One day the pain of loneliness versus a possibility for love might be enough for you to take the step forward, even if it disappoints your family.

For now, you’re in those early stages, you can hope for a swift and painless delivery or even just skip ahead to having a cute baby in your arms.

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When I was a freshman in college, I would go to the temple and hear the words that every creature is meant to have joy, that it isn’t good for man to be alone, and I’d hear the law of chastity defined in a way that makes sex within a same-sex marriage fit. And every once in a great while I’d get a very strong impression, more like a voice in my ear, that it’s okay to pursue a relationship.

I interpreted that to mean one day the church would change and I could then get married and have the family I dream of. I waited many years for this. That small voice would give me that same message, “it’s okay to date,” “it’s okay to have a relationship,” and I’d think, “Good, soon God will change the church.”

This was in the 1990′s, gay marriage was first going through the courts and I saw marriage equality as the answer to how I could marry and remain a member in good standing. It was disconcerting to see the church fight so hard against marriage equality because it seemed counter to the revelation that God had given me.

It took many years, until 2015, for me to live somewhere with marriage equality. And still our church hasn’t changed it’s position. It’s very frustrating to me.

But one day I realized, I was putting qualifiers on the message, God never said, “One day I’m going to change the church and then it’s okay to seek a relationship.”

So I think this life story of mine has 2 lessons. The first is, if you feel something is right, or you have some sort of impression it’s okay to proceed, take it for what it is and don’t add conditions and qualifiers to it.

The second is that perhaps I wasn’t ready to pursue a relationship for most of those years. I was in the closet to virtually everyone but myself. I had one person I’d have left my church and family to be with, but he rejected me and after that I stayed pretty much frozen in not pursuing relationships. There’s nothing wrong in not yet being ready for that next step.

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There’s no need to rush things and get ahead of where you are. I know our tendency is to worry about the future, but it gets here no matter how much we fret.

Take care of yourself. Be kind to yourself. Make some queer friends, even better if they have an LDS background because they’ll get you in a way others don’t.

Develop yourself. Open yourself to meeting others who are different from you and hearing their experiences and why they have stayed or left the church, how their families reacted when they came out, and so on.

And about your family, once you come out, they also will go on a journey. The opposition they might give you today if they found out you’re dating could change a lot in a short time as they go on their own path of acceptance and love.

This is a story from the MormonandGay website about a mom & dad who came to terms with their son’s life. He is now dating and living a normal, healthy life, and they love and welcome him to their home.

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Btw, if you live in Utah, next week is the Affirmation conference in Provo. There’s a session Friday night, all day Saturday, and then Sunday morning. If there’s a chance you could attend part of it, let me know. I’d love to greet you there, and I think it will astound you to be around so many queer people whose lives have some connection to the LDS church.

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Wishing you all my best!

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