Every now and again I think of that one booktok trend where, to make this short, said Nesta only had an attempted sexual assault, and her trauma wasn't nearly as much as Rhysand's therefore his actions are justified.

Then I get a full body chill.

Officially so fed up with mainstream lesbian books that I am writing my own ✌🏻

the book trend that needs to be left in the dust for the new year is greek mythology retellings. i am so sick and tired of "retellings" of greek (or roman, but mainly greek) mythology from authors that clearly have a very surface level pop cultural understanding of the myth(s) they're adapting and the culture(s) they're depicting. especially the many that market themselves as "feminist retellings" where the "feminism" is basically just "men bad sometimes", and especially when they're "feminist retellings" that take some of the few mythological women who get happy endings and take it away from them for the sake of saying "men bad sometimes". it's all so shallow and they exploded this year and i'm sick of it.

that lap around the house when a plot twist is that good but you have no one to talk to about it

not to be a hater on main but i just stumbled on a tik tok claiming that tsh both takes itself too seriously and could use more absurd comedy and it nearly made me punch a wall

[video ID: a TikTok from @bookshopsantacruz. yves.'s hands remove books from a stack of books in order (The Spiderwick Chronicles, A Tale Dark and Grimm, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Graveyard Book, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Monstrous Affections, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Bradbury Stories, Carmilla, Her Body and Other Parties) to reveal a copy of their book, Something's Not Right, which they sign. /ID]

PSIONIC WARRIORS! You see before you ^, a TikTok. It features the books that inspired mine and advertises my IN-PERSON EVENT AT BOOKSHOP SANTA CRUZ ON JANUARY 4, 2024! I do not have a TikTok, and can't psionize it there myself. However, if YOU have a TikTok (my sincerest apologies), YOU can go there and comment and like it and hype up Something's Not Right and let me know what books from my stack you've read!

I will probably regret asking this but what the hell:

I see people talking about the trend of people assuming that depiction equals endorsement or people getting mad that characters show imperfect traits. Can people point me towards specific examples of this (like, criticism of x book or y character)?

i have seen so many videos on instagram recently of people talking about how they read 300+ books in 2023 ... like 100 is considered a low goal by the booktok girlies. i feel unwell.

the real tortured poets department is actually just anyone with any formal literary understanding listening to this album

they should remake the tipping the velvet movie but they never will because the tiktok puriteens would have a heart attack

On Art

I just remembered I had this thought but forgot to write about it so making a note here before I forget again.

Okay, so this was prompted by my brain remembering, out of nowhere, V.E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and that led me down a rabbit hole of more thinking. My main point can be summarized as this:

In the 21st century, any form of art is seen as disconnected from the larger world around it.

I picked Addie LaRue because obviously, a book about art and books and literature with supposedly philosophical underpinnings would talk about the inherent connection of art to humanity. There is a tendency, I believe, in today's world to see art as an entirely separate realm: pure, beautiful, untouched by the messy realities of politics and war and humans being cruel and callous etc. It is a beautiful thing, it is a lovely thing, it is a redeeming thing. Creativity is a gift to be given for consumerism, to remind people that they are good no matter how rigged the systems are in the favour of the top 1%.

This is all true. Creativity is a gift.

But I think we forget that it depends upon the creator to utilize or manipulate it according to his own wishes. Addie LaRue presents art as this beautiful, humane thing entirely disconnected from the realities of war or politics. Actual history. The events that the main protagonist lived through are left out in favour of presenting this fairytale ideal, so wholesome that it connects all humans.

(Yes, I know I sound cynical)

Except, this fairytale-esque, profound connection was not the reality for several thousand groups for years. Yes, of course, there was joy. Everyone was creating art and writing books, all our cultures are replete with thousands of years' worth of beauty and knowledge. And of course, the book does not touch it. It is unabashedly Eurocentric, right down to its ideals of artistry and literature.

Because guess what sort of art the Europeans were also making c. 1700s-early 2000s :) You think those heroic portraits of Britannia or Germania were created for funsies :) just a cutesy little project for a cutesy little artist totally disconnected from what was happening in the larger world :)

Addie LaRue, as a protagonist, has the kind of features that allow her to move through the world with a certain level of comfort and anonymity. Had she been any other person in the world, the book would be called The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

Several other books take the same course even as they promise to tackle these prevalent issues in sff or historical fiction or any genre, really. A few familiar names pop into my mind. Even those in different genres, such as romance, seem detached from anything real, even if it's cultural joy or pride. They exist. They move towards the culmination of their arc or their love interests, quite anonymously like Addie LaRue. Their view of the world, and their art is entirely sanitized: hollowed out of any and all substance only to be pretty for an aesthetic, fit for consumption by everyone. There is this idea of appealing to an anonymous, universal gaze that is mostly white American (and quite obtrusive, because any reminders of actual history are panned and demonized, or simply brushed aside as happening in tHe OrIeNT). If you really think about it, this is how the world seems divided even today.

As Edward Said said in Culture and Imperialism (in context of the classics):

"Critics have often, I believe, relegated these writers' ideas about colonial expansion, inferior races... to a very different department from that of culture. Culture being the elevated area of activity in which they 'truly' belong and in which they did their 'really' important work."

Incredible how this is applicable to criticism in any way, shape or form today. In addition:

"Culture conceived in this way can become a protective enclosure: check your politics at the door before you enter it."

I think this idea has become extremely predominant in modern culture too. Art is equated to a disconnected aesthetic with no bearing on reality. And while I acknowledge that this approach is useful in reviewing a work without personal biases or based purely on our own enjoyment, completely stripping a text of its socio-political realities does not serve any purpose. The goal, to borrow Said's words again is to admire works for the pleasure and profit they give us while simultaneously observing "the imperial process of which they were manifestly and unconcealedly a part; rather than condemning or ignoring their participation in what was an unquestioned reality in their societies..."

To sum up, our constant struggle to achieve a pure and untouched aesthetic is ultimately fruitless because art is not created in a vacuum. It never will be. Art is born of human hands. You cannot run from its history any more than you can run from your own reality.

Unpopular opinion re. Cait Corrain drama: some of y'all should chill it, especially with 'mental illness doesn't do this she's just a trash person' kinda comments.

Did she do A Bad Thing? Most definitely.

Did she get her just desserts and then some? Very much so. In the grand scheme of being terrible online (or, hell, being terrible IRL), what she did was relatively mild, and it blew up in her face very severely. A lot of people have done a lot worse and nothing at all happened. This time, justice was served! Yay!

But just maybe, we could do the gracious thing and put away the popcorn and stop dancing on her grave. Substance abuse sucks, and mental illness does too, and combined with the consequences of Cait's actions, I think that's already plenty of misery that we don't need to contribute to any further. She made her own bed, and it seems plenty uncomfortable without us picking it apart and adding to it.

Disclaimer: I'm not in the booktok or fandom scene at all. I haven't read a speculative fiction book in almost ten years, which is really sad and I'm working on changing that. But there's been a lot of gleeful reposting of this drama on my dash, and a lot of comments give me a very naïve vibe. I'm not saying this could happen to anyone (she made some EXTREMELY bad decisions there), but I'm old enough to know how thin a line between a Perfect Girl and a Terrible No Good Fuckup can be. And if it does happen that you cross it (because it does, and it's sometimes not even up to you), and you can't fix it, and your life goes up in flames like Cait's did, I hope you - we all - get the grace of being left alone once it all falls apart. Believing her about her issues doesn't absolve of anything she did, or make it better, but I truly think it's the gracious thing to do.

just had sort of a disheartening conversation with a new friend

we have stuff in common but we're still in that stage of new friendships where we don't know that much about eachother but know enough to wanna hang out

so we were chatting about hobbies and she mentioned she really likes reading, especially fantasy and adventure so I immediately !!!! sat up with excitement saying "me too!!!! In fact! I'm reading the Discworld books now, do you know them?" And she went "nope", which is perfectly fine cause I love introducing stuff to people, so I excitedly asked "do you know Terry Pratchett?" But instead of getting a "yeah, sure" or "no, who's that?", the answer I got was

"Oh I only read books from like booktuber, bloggers, booktok, and such"

(〒﹏〒)

Idk if I managed to disguise my disappointment... I tried to mention some books that I read that I remember being popular on social media, cause you know, I also read stuff that's new and written by young authors who are often pushed to promote on socials. My problem was the only in her phrase

you like reading but you only read books from booktube? You don't even want to know about the books that I'm reading cause they're not on booktok??

bestie, that's so. fucking. sad.

idk but saying jennifer lynn barnes sucks at writing romance because your ship wasn't canon is beyond hilarious to me like okay???? HAHHAHAHA. everyone has their own preferences of course but the vehement hatred for jlb and the belittlement of her writing on booktok and bookstagram (sometimes on here) has been ASTOUNDING.

a note about the "poorly done romance/love triangle" in tig: jlb never said it was going to be "even". no one ever said that. personally pioneering the idea that one character was "not given a chance" does not make it a poorly written love triangle or a poorly written romance. in love triangles, there is usually ALWAYS one option who is simply NOT a real option. look me in the eye and tell me characters jeremiah fisher, aspen in the selection series, gale hawthorne, adam kent, jacob black, and i'm sorry but grayson hawthorne amongst a myriad of others were actual contenders for the main character. if you believed they are/wanted them to be, that's great! but all of these characters are in well known love triangles and at the end of the day, books with love triangles WILL sell because they generate conversation and hype around the book. it is a marketing tactic and you are NEVER promised equal opportunity from both love interests. you losing the love triangle or that you believe there is wasted potential doesn't mean bad writing has occurred. also, for the love of god, while you are supposed to relate to a character, you are not the main character!! belly, america, katniss, juliette, avery, what have you, all chose based on who they are as characters. and also, female characters don't have to "experience" both love interests to make a decision. if they want to, that's totally fine, but specifically about avery bc this is what this blog is all about, she absolutely knows what she's "missing out" on with grayson and she doesn't care. shipping averygrayson just blatantly feels like ignoring avery's wants and needs.

anyway, if you want to call jlb's writing poorly done bc you didn't get your way, that's totally fine. you are entitled to your own opinion. it's just funny that you say that bc had grayson and avery been randomly thrown together in the epilogue of tfg or something, i have a feeling you wouldn't be of this opinion.

tldr; love triangles are a marketing tactic and you are neither entitled to a win nor is is poorly done/executed if you lose. love triangles, more often than not, have a clear winner from the beginning (coughcough "see? you're already his") but the debate and drama of another character sells the book.

live reaction of me reading the whole part of jack's pov in If Only I Had Told Her: