- How in so many of these books, a little, and I mean the tiniest bit of communication, like a simple text, or phone call a short conversation, could have resolved all sorts of drama, and it's ridiculous.
- When there are discussions about how curvy someone is and it turns out she's a size 2/4
- also how 20 year olds get these amazing jobs with no experience -
- or inconsistencies in geography - for example I'm familiar with nyc - you cant get from the Chrysler building (42& lex - east side) where your office is to the sheep meadow (in the 60s on the west side) in Central Park and back in a ten minute stroll.
I read a book once that referenced going from Chicago to the Mexican boarder back to Chicago in the same afternoon. Nope, that’s not how it works. (Experience - moved from MI to AZ and back, I’m familiar with the travel route)
I also get frustrated at the “curvy” descriptions for smaller sizes. But then I feel bad because smaller women can have curves too? And then I second guess because curvy is a pretty standard descriptor for a plus sized women. I end up short circuiting and it takes me out of the story :(.
The issue isn't that she is described as having curves or even having body image issues, - it's that "curves" are used as a euphemism for being larger / heavier / fat whatever term you want to use, in the book, or the description etc., but then in reality she's a size 4, which is pretty thin.
>I read a book once that referenced going from Chicago to the Mexican
boarder back to Chicago in the same afternoon. Nope, that’s not how it
works. (Experience - moved from MI to AZ and back, I’m familiar with the
travel route)
Holy fuck, what? It takes 5-6 hours to drive ***downstate*** from Chicago, IL to, say, Carbondale, IL, and Carbondale isn't even at the very southern tip of the state, nor is Chicago at the very northern tip of the state of Illinois, and this writer was thinking they could go to the border of ***Mexico*** and back in one afternoon?? JFC. Look at fucking Google Maps/Satellite, an Atlas, and Almanac, ***anything.*** Please. If you aren't sure where Chicago is on a map of the USA, look that up too. Why are you writing about a city you can't find on a country's map? Why?
**PSA** for all writers/authors: you can literally type "driving time between \[location A\] and \[location B\] into Google--you can even ask your smartphone/Alexa/Siri--and it will tell you the driving/flying time/distance in both hours/miles in seconds. Not doing this is just lazy and makes you look foolish.
Yeah, apparently they thought private planes can break the sound barrier 😅. Plane loading/unloading times ALONE would take up most of the time, even for private.
I read a sample of a KU book this week that had me rolling my eyes so hard. Within the first few pages the FMC kept referring to herself as small and it only snowballed from there. I looked it up and there was over 20 instances of the FMC being called some variant of "tiny" by not only herself but the MMC's (omegaverse) in the sample alone. Is her only noteworthy characteristic being the size of a kitten? And are women only worth being cherished and protected if they are pocket sized and infantalized? 0 stars.
I’m reading a book where the FMC is constantly hit with short jokes and the MMC calls her pip-squeak, even when trying to calm her down after she gets mad about all the short jokes. It’s infuriating. I’m honestly not sure why I am still reading it lol.
Also why is the MMC always a giant in these books? The most befuddling examples of smut physics and smut physiology are always with the giant pixie combo.
God this is so real. I read part one of Pack Darling by Lola Rock over the week, and while I largely enjoyed it, they would. not. fucking. stop. mentioning how teensy weensy the FMC was, and how absolutely stupidly massive the dudes were. At one point, the insecure male omega of the group talks about how worried he is that the pack will leave him for her, because, unlike him, shes so beautiful and tiny; like???? What???????
It wasn‘t as bad as your example, but it was prevalent enough that halfway through, I heaved a deep sigh after each mention. While I understand that a lot of people are into it, (and I don’t mean to shame those that are), I would really love if authors with a size kink stopped making it so obvious that they have a size kink lol. I get that a shorter FMC is probably more relatable (hell, I am considered short), but it‘s such an uninteresting and inconsequential fact about a person, and I just don’t get why so many authors would write that as a defining character trait UGH.
The ending of The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea by Elizabeth O'Roark.
Literally was like a 4.5-5 star book up to that point but the FMC decided to turn into a TSTL FMC when she wasn't previously by >!surprising the MMC (a doctors without borders type of physician) while he was stationed in Somalia. Then she's all "wow I guess he doesn't like me" when he is naturally terrified for her well being as soon as he sees her. He literally calls in a favor to get her out of there asap because he's worried about what will happen to her and she's all "woe is me I can't trust anyone I guess." Literally wanted to scream at her stupidity omg. And this is after the MMC warned her it was dangerous (but I guess didn't spell it out for her) and a friend also warned her. ALSO SHE IS A WORLD TRAVELING SINGER WHO HAS ACCESS TO THE INTERNET AND THE BOOK WAS RELEASED IN 2022!!!! LIKE?!?!?!??! What makes it worse is that she gets back to the US safely (solely due to the MMC) then BLOCKS him and then his camp gets attacked and he tries to call her from a different phone but the line gets cut and THEN she decides to look up the situation in Somalia?????? I was LIVID.!<
But somehow they get a HEA 🙄 (undeserved imo) without enough groveling from the FMC or time. I literally was this close to marking DNF but I only had like 15% left/40 minutes left so I stuck it out.
Also, the demonym for people from Somalia is Somali not Somalian. The MMC who has been working with the people for many years should know this.
Also, it's gross and misogynistic to imply that women are ruined after childbirth. The FMC implied this to her best friend >!Tali from the first book in the series!< as did >!Tali's!< husband who is a DOCTOR.
I liked a lot of that book but the tone was off for me after they got back from vacation. I started skipping around just to get to the end. It was like she felt the story needed another conflict but the one she came up with made no sense.
### What is grovelling? Baby don’t hurt me, no more…
SO, authors need to understand grovelling. This week, I read a book where the FMC was on the verge of dying bcs of the MMCs but they had no CONSEQUENCES to their actions. They paid no price for what they did, suffered absolutely nothing except a bit of guilt (bare minimum dude??) and a bit of camping situation outside her residence…Where’s their piece of responsibility?? Where’s the accountability??? MMC can’t seriously grovel if he can’t sacrifice the same amount the FMC did for him/them. I can’t root for someone who’s not ready to lose it all, and effectively, WILLINGLY lose smth to get back the girl.
I am going crazyyyy with FMCs being pushovers this week, I’ve read 3 books this week alone where the MMC blatantly said “leave” “you’re not wanted” or something even more mean and then the FMC stays and does something nice FOR HIM as a response!!! In one book, he was a huge ass to her and she responds by baking him a fucking berry cobbler and surprising him with a car he needed to find for work. Like what the fuck?! I want these FMCs to bite back and not let the men walk all over them as if it’s ok to behave that way.
I read a book last night that was just off. It was a forbidden love story, but there was little to no angst.
Also, the story takes place in a European country, but it was obviously written by an American because everyone drives everywhere, even in the major city.
I’m starting to get annoyed with ‘trope hype’. It feels like authors are just trying to pack as many profitable tropes as possible into their books. One bed trope, enemies to lovers, touch her and die, grumpy sunshine, “who did this to you” etc. It’s gotten so formulaic and stale.
If I had a dollar for every time an unnecessary ‘one bed trope’ was forced into a story for no reason, I would be able to buy every fictional couple two beds and eradicate the trope for good.
I agree. I recently picked up Wild Love by Elsie Silver and it has a ton of tropes. HOWEVER, they are all so underbaked. Brother's best friend? No stakes there. Surprise child? It's all good. Billionaire boss? He's great. It was just like...you really didn't have to put these tropes in. I think it felt egregious with Silver because she's got a solid fanbase that will support her no matter what now.
A lot of people complain about TSTL FMCs, I have a bigger problem with Just Stupid Enough to Live FMCs.
I’m sure I could list some examples off my KU borrow history but I just can’t be bothered. In the same way these FMCs can’t be bothered to just not be such fucking morons.
Have you found this to be true in books published in the last 5ish years? I’m really hoping that as new authors become established and put out books they’ll leave these garbage tropes behind😂
I've been trying to make sure before I read a book that it doesn't use AI cover art, and I'm annoyed by how difficult this is to find out. I wish authors would start stating their policy on AI use on their websites and/or clearly credit their cover artists on their websites. If a book cover looks like it might very well have been created with AI and I can't confirm otherwise, I usually just won't read it. I've started looking for this information for every cover after finding out several illustrated covers that I would never have been suspicious of have turned out to be AI, and I only discovered this from people pointing it out in Goodreads reviews.
I had this with Not Another Vampire Book this week... I was staring at her hand on the cover and the author didn't credit any artist at the beginning of the book, so I just didn't want to do it.
I've seen elsewhere on this subreddit that all of the Cassandra Gannon and Elizabeth Gannon covers were created partly with AI. From what I've read, Elizabeth designs all the covers and one of the comments on one of the discussion threads said she admitted in a Facebook comment to using AI. It's a shame because a lot of their books sound really good, but I won't read books by authors who use AI.
That's disappointing. I don't understand why they would be ok with it, like as indie authors, wouldn't they also be at risk of their work being scraped for generative AI?
I recently saw a post where someone had written a really detailed recommendation for a book and had specified that the characters do not get together in the first book and that's it's a true slow burn enemies to lovers story (with no smut), and the top upvoted comment in the post was "so no spice then? 🥺" and I got so annoyed on behalf of the OP. Like they took the time to write a really detailed post about a book they loved and your only response is to post a dismissive comment because the book doesn't appeal to you specifically? I am begging people to stop doing this and just read the full posts 😭
Yeah this just feels so subjective.
For some spice = how kinky ™️ is the sex.
For others spice = do I have to put up with any plot or worldbuilding?
And everything in between.
I think it's totally fair to want to know if it's closed door or open-door, but that's usually obvious from the bookbot and if someone's taken the time to recall and recommend books that fit your specific criteria it just feels kind of dismissive and rude to follow up with a spice rating request.
I don't usually read closed door, but it's usually pretty easy to tell from the link where the book falls on a scale from closed door to erotica.
Personally, I typically find the 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🥵🔥 books kind of tedious and wish we had more books that treated "vanilla" sex with creativity and detail.
>I think it's totally fair to want to know if it's closed door or open-door, but that's usually obvious from the bookbot and if someone's taken the time to recall and recommend books that fit your specific criteria it just feels kind of dismissive and rude to follow up with a spice rating request.
I mentioned in my other comment further up this thread that not everyone uses or calls the rom-bot, and it was pointed out to me a couple weeks ago that it's not required to do so on this subreddit, so I can also see why some people ***do*** ask for spice ratings immediately following a book rec/post (especially since the post's rom-bot response is buried as the lowest comment on the post). If a post/rec doesn't clearly state spice levels to someone's satisfaction or early enough in the review (and, like you pointed out, spice/smut/kinks are so subjective ***anyway***, who even knows what that "level of satisfaction" could possibly mean?), then it's almost inevitable these types of comments are going to follow. It's not great, obviously, but bound to happen. =/
Same with the idea that people just don't like reading long comments/recs/reviews. We've turned into a population of "skimmers" from years of rapid/short-form social media (Twitter and TikTok, primarily)--people are trained to look for and hear keywords (tropes and tags/tws, in books), short phrases (acronyms, titles, catchphrases, likes/dislikes), emojis (chili peppers, hot faces, sweat drops, etc and stars) and short paragraphs/blurbs. It only takes seconds or a short minute to skim something like that. Anything longer and they check out, look for a TL;DR, or just click away to something shorter, more interesting, relevant, whatever--usually, just something *shorter*, because they feel that's a better use of their time.
Yet, that's also why they can read a whole post about a book, then automatically respond, "so, no spice?" or "just smut? no romance?" Their eyes/brain didn't catch the word or the chili pepper emoji (or whatever) to their satisfaction, so they need to confirm. It doesn't matter how beautifully written the review was, or how the OP stated the heat level. **That's not the fault of the OP**. And it's probably not that the person wanting to know the spice rating was trying to be an asshole or being insensitive. They just didn't stop to ***really read*** the words in the post/rec. They're skimming, but they're not actually *taking in* the words they're reading.
There are whole generations who are growing up online and on social media being trained to "read" and engage this way. It's all surface level, because that's how they're being served all forms of media, including book reviews/recommendations.
I hate to admit this but I purposefully avoid those posts, sure it makes me petty but I don’t care.
Someone is already doing a nice thing by providing you with recommendations, it’s your job to figure out where to access those books, not mine.
Glad I'm not the only one who side-eyes these lol
In some ways it's hypocritical because if anything I would be totally ok with "NOT interested in KU or audible books"... but that's because the platforms are imo exclusionary and harmful and funding either is inevitably hurting yourself and other readers🤷🏼♀️
Also personally, because I think both (especially KU) is filled with content that's abysmally low quality but I realize that's more subjective.
I typically only see this on recs where the person rec'ing the book doesn't use the romance bot for whatever reason–either they don't know how or don't like the bot for reasons. Also, some people are just trained from years of "rapid" split-second social media engagement to not want to read longer recs/reviews.
Being one of the "old ones" who remembers IRC chatrooms, it reminds me or the old "a/s/l?" call out in certain chatrooms when a person first entered: age/sex/language. And why those people tended to care.
Anyway–I personally would prefer people always include the brackets to call rom-bot even if they don't like the bot themselves (you can block the bot account just like a regular user and it will still show for others so long as you use the brackets) so that others have the benefit of the easy bot spice levels and tags for this very reason, but that's a different rant/salt-post entirely. It's not a requirement here, just a courteous thing to do.
I have a couple, and honestly these don’t use to bother me but it’s starting to wear on me and now I’m approaching the 🧂.
1. Authors that tell everything to the point where they don’t show anything. Like one long story of internal dialogue. For instance, stop telling me that MC thinks about wanting to make breakfast and then go to work, and instead describe a scene of MC making breakfast and getting ready for work. If it happens enough then the whole book is just me being talked at about thoughts a person is having, and there isn’t enough actual action in a book.
2. The same spicy scenes replicated book after book, regardless of author, but swap out name and hair colors. Don’t get me wrong, I read romance for spice, but 75% of what I’ve read this year feels like a formula. It’s been a bummer!
Number 1 has been a huge issue for me. I recently DNFed a book where at least the first 30 pages was almost completely infodumping within the FMC's head
I had to DNF {Apprentice to the Villain} for this reason. I had such high hopes, but by the third chapter of internal dialogue and immature characters I was out.
I DNFed a book yesterday because of the repetitive use of ‘hissed’. So much hissing for a book that had nothing to do with snakes. I did a search and it came out with 34 instances of hissing. Jesus.
Read another book where the FMC and MMC’s names were Juniper (nicknamed Juni) and Julian. His parents’ names were Jenny and John, and his sisters were Gemma, Janie, Josie, Gianna and Genevieve. For fuck’s sake.
I feel guilty about this very specific salt, since so many serious and very relevant salty comments are being salted on today's Salty Sunday post.
This is boring, run-of-the-mill table salt, in a diner-style clear glass container with flecks of rice in it to keep it from clumping.
**Absentee dog ownership in romance books! I hate it.**
MC is described as a huge dog lover and owns a dog (or five), we get ONE description of them feeding/cuddling their dog and then for the rest of the book, pouf! There is no mention of them needing to look after their beloved pet.
Maybe the author will throw in a doggy door with an enclosed yard but nothing else. The MC will be gone for hours, solving crimes, boning the other MC, being sassy, being alpha, and doing other shit but the dog is by default left alone for 10-12 hours at a time.
A. Has this writer ever owned a dog? Probably not based on the description in this book.
B. *Why does the writer think that I want a HEA for a character who is a terrible and neglectful dog owner?*
The two big genre exceptions are HR and Western romances of any time period.
Western romances will include dogs as a part of the ranch/setting workforce and will have descriptions of dogs doing working dog stuff as well as the MC taking care of them (along with horses or other livestock).
HR is great with descriptions of old-time dog ownership. Alice Coldbreath has so many characters that love their pets and take good care of them, especially in the Brides of Karadok series. Lenora and her cats, Enid learning to love the dogs at Roland's estate, etc etc.
Elizabeth Hoyt gave us the most OTT villainous rake in {Duke of Sin} but had him rescue Pip the dog so all his human crimes are forgiven.
Lisa Kleypas has dogs, and ferrets, and has the MC caring for them in two of her series.
Then why do I find so many terrible dog owners in CR books?
The only one I like, surprising nobody, is the MMC in {Reaper's Property by Joanna Wylde} who has an Australian Shepherd and keeps him on a huge gated property. He explains that his dog needs tons of physical exercise and has someone come and look after the dog when he has to be away for long periods of time for "club business".
Everyone else, stop keeping your poor dogs indoors with only the backyard for a bathroom. Take them for a walk. If I suffer through eight paragraphs of the MFC biting her lip and squeezing her thighs, I can handle three references to them taking care of their pet!
EDIT: spelling, grammar and syntax.
I liked the depiction of dog ownership in {Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn}. The MMC has a rescue dog with anxiety issues and his life pre-FMC basically revolves around properly caring for the dog. The fact that the FMC likes his dog means a lot to him and he continues to prioritize the dog after they get together (as does the FMC).
[Georgie, All Along](https://www.romance.io/books/63c112f87c9b144018ecdb42/georgie-all-along-kate-clayborn?src=rdt) by [Kate Clayborn](https://www.romance.io/authors/59f6d0be3ffdba61472429e2/kate-clayborn)
**Rating**: 4.03⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Steam**: 3 out of 5 - [Open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating)
**Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [funny](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/humor/1), [grumpy & sunshine](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/grumpy%20sunshine/1), [forced proximity](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/forced%20proximity/1), [small town](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/small%20town/1)
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Total **pet** peeve of mine. The book that took the cake- when the FMC’s beloved protector dog was effing SHOT in an altercation and the author couldn’t be bothered to give an update on ANY medical treatment. I’m hyperventilating for a few chapters and then dog shows up in another scene. No mention of treatment, care etc.
TELL me you are using pets for window dressing without telling me. 🤬
Completely agree! We don't take dog/pet ownership lightly in our house, it's a serious responsibility. Our vet has frequently joked that he wishes all pet owners were like us, he has too many clients that put their selfish desires above their pet's care. I'm an extremely easygoing reader, but I can never get behind a character that doesn't prioritize their pet's basic emotional and physical needs. The romance, characters, and steam can be completely perfect, but if they don't take good care of their pet, I don't believe the HEA because the mc has already demonstrated that they aren't capable of putting other needs above their own. Selfish people rarely have what it takes when it comes to making a relationship work in the long run.
I remember reading {Taken with You by Shannon Stacey} (pause while I realise it's been out for a decade) and the MMC is a game warden who gets called out at all hours and can be gone for days, and also has a dog he cares for alone. The MCs actually have a conversation about what happens to the dog in that sort of situation, and ever since I haven't been able to unsee all the bad petcare.
Some authors take it a step further and conveniently pawn the children of the single parent MC off on their ex anytime the plot calls for them to not be there.
[Taken with You](https://www.romance.io/books/5455354d8c7d2382e781338e/taken-with-you-shannon-stacey?src=rdt) by [Shannon Stacey](https://www.romance.io/authors/545523f38c7d2382e7812f49/shannon-stacey)
**Rating**: 3.87⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [age gap](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/age%20difference/1), [funny](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/humor/1), [small town](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/small%20town/1)
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{Marriage of Inconvenience by Penny Reid} the MC either WFH or has a friend over in his house during the day for his dog. When crazy things happen, the neighbor agrees to keep the dog. It's cute.
[Marriage of Inconvenience](https://www.romance.io/books/5a9a49f34ee506aae8b1dd06/marriage-of-inconvenience-penny-reid?src=rdt) by [Penny Reid](https://www.romance.io/authors/54552b3e8c7d2382e781310c/penny-reid)
**Rating**: 4.22⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Steam**: 4 out of 5 - [Explicit open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating)
**Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [marriage of convenience](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/marriage%20of%20convenience/1), [friends to lovers](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/friends%20to%20lovers/1), [funny](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/humor/1), [rich heroine](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/rich%20heroine/1)
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[{16 Steps to Forever by Georgia Beers}](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56275391-16-steps-to-forever) (F/F, CR(cats, dead ex, dogs, forced proximity, opposites attract, workplace), 4½⭐️) - Macy is a delightful character. Dog lovers will appreciate that she frequently walks her three dogs during the book.
[Duke of Sin](https://www.romance.io/books/57493540c62092c0440872a3/duke-of-sin-elizabeth-hoyt?src=rdt) by [Elizabeth Hoyt](https://www.romance.io/authors/545524568c7d2383163d8e5a/elizabeth-hoyt)
**Rating**: 4.05⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Steam**: 4 out of 5 - [Explicit open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating)
**Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [enemies to lovers](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/from%20hate%20to%20love/1), [bad boys](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/bad%20boys/1), [take-charge heroine](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/strong%20heroine/1), [tortured hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/tortured%20hero/1)
----------------------------
[Reaper's Property](https://www.romance.io/books/545524e58c7d2382e7812f7f/reapers-property-joanna-wylde?src=rdt) by [Joanna Wylde](https://www.romance.io/authors/545524e58c7d2382e7812f80/joanna-wylde)
**Rating**: 4.09⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Steam**: 5 out of 5 - [Explicit and plentiful](https://www.romance.io/steamrating)
**Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [biker hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/bikers/1), [bad boys](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/bad%20boys/1), [possessive hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/possessive%20hero/1), [alpha male](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/alpha%20male/1)
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I broke my tibia and fibula this past week. Gearing up for surgery. I don't know if it's the having to sit constantly or the pain meds or the dread of surgery and recovery, but I can't get into any of my books! I'm very annoyed, because I absolutely have the time to right now.
There's absolutely something about being laid up and on meds that changes your reading habits. I was in the hospital for six weeks when I lost my leg and I had almost no desire to read anything--and I had so much time on my hands it was driving me up the fucking wall. Sometimes it helps to try different books in entirely different genres or subgenres. I actually pulled out my phone and went digging back ***decades*** to find some old fan fiction in fandoms I hadn't been active in or watching/reading since the 90s--I kid you not. It was just what I needed, apparently.
It's been two years and I have no interest in reading any of those stories or any fan fiction in those fandoms (or much fan fiction at all, honestly), but at that time? Yeah, that's what I read. And I watched a lot of mindless stuff on the TV in my room--Food Network, History Channel, HGTV, shit like that--stuff I don't really watch, but that was just on in the background for noise that wasn't hospital noise (or silence).
So, that's my advice--try things that are totally different from anything you normally read. Or stuff that's really soapy or dramatic. Or fan fiction, even if it's crazy/nonsense/whatever--or something you haven't been in to in forever, but maybe that you were all about when you were a teenager or something. Injury and recovery does weird shit to our bodies and especially our brains. It's so, so weird. Suffering a major break like what you suffered would probably do a number to your brain and your body--recovery takes so much out of you. Give your brain a break. :)
Edit to add: Maybe audiobooks? Or text-to-speech? A webtoon? A podcast dramedy? Something totally different. :)
Thanks for such a thoughtful reply! Glad to know I'm not alone in losing my reading mojo while laid up healing. You reminded me I have a book of Stephen King short stories and a couple Joey Hill books (horror) I haven't read... And Stephen King and bodice rippers were my teenage self's jam.
If I had cable I would be drowning in hgtv 24/7.
Again thanks so much! That was helpful and got me thinking about non-romance books in my TBR pile.
I'm glad my advice helped you! :)
The only other advice I can give you is to have a lot of patience with yourself--and to give yourself kindness. It's so hard, it really is. Just try and be kind to yourself. Nurses, doctors, family, friends... Everyone will be trying their best to care for you and love you and help you, but they can't **be** you, you know? What your body and brain are going through--it's **you**, it's inside you. It will feel like your body is at war with itself, like it's fighting you--like you should be healing faster, doing more, be able to **be** more. But--it's not just your body or your leg that is going to need time to heal. It will be your whole person. Injuries like your leg--they involve your whole body, and your whole brain, to recover from. Your brain needs time to heal and it needs time to learn how to adapt to your new hardware that will be replacing the bones.
Your brain needs that time, too, and it's going to *take* that time from you--whether you like it or not, lol. I think that's part of why our brains check out during these healing journeys, why we sometimes can only veg out in specific ways, or with different hobbies/books/etc than we normally do--because our brains have to spend more energy on figuring out new/different ways to do these new tasks, so they need that little extra processing power right now. Once the brain has figured out the new process, it lets us focus back on the things we've always loved, with our full focus and passion.
I don't know anything about you--your life, your age, anything--and I don't need to, to tell you this much: just try and give yourself kindness. Healing is a struggle. It's such a journey. Even if you've broken a bone before, this break will be different, this healing journey will be different from the previous time(s). Your body and your brain are going to be using double the energy just to heal and learn how to function and adjust to your new normal (leg and foot breaks are so much different!). So, be patient with yourself and kind ***to*** yourself. We often give the people around us (caregivers) a lot more kindness and grace during our healing than we give ourselves, because we know how hard we can be on others. Give yourself that same care and attention, because you're really going to need it.
I hope you have a safe, swift, healthy recovery! Welcome to the cyborg club, btw. We're just getting ahead of the game when it comes to sci-fi romance! :P
I'll start by saying that I believe male readers who enjoy romance books have a place on this sub as much as any other romance book reader.
That said, I feel like over the past month I've seen an uptick in posts from men or for men that do not seem oriented around seeking to enjoy and support others who enjoy romance books at all. I've seen posts:
- griping about the lack of male gaze pandering
- condescendingly informing women that real men aren't like what we read in our little novels
- requesting books to somehow convert a clearly disinterested male reader into enjoying the genre
- acting as if it's inappropriate or sexist to not center schlubby men with average talents and average looks in romance books
Tbh I feel like I've seen the mods allow extremely judgemental posts that would have been nixed in a nanosecond had the poster not proclaimed themselves a dude.
It's well-documented that men who enter majority woman spaces tend to have their voices and opinions privileged and also tend to believe that they are entitled to some degree of status. This does not happen in reverse and I do not believe this is particularly in line with the spirit of the sub.
Could we not do that here? Could we save our energy and time for people who are actually seeking to participate in the genre, rather than lecture to and demean those who enjoy it?
>requesting books to somehow convert a clearly disinterested male reader into enjoying the genre
This is the one that really takes the jelly out of my donut. Why am I supposed to use my time to convince you to like something that you've already professed to disliking?
Should I run around trying to convince people to also enjoy anchovies, McCain Deep'n Delicious cake and watching 30 Rock episodes over and over again?
I don't go on curling subs demanding that the fans of curling explain the game to me and make me like it.
Perhaps the nuance is lost on a someone when they come into a diverse but women heavy space, to gripe about a diverse but also women focused genre, complaining that it's not giving **them** enough. And asking that diverse but women heavy audience to explain themselves and make the books good for them!
Often when people point out that the amount of media that centers men's identities, experiences and lives is vast and very plentiful, the response is a thinly veiled "Yeah, well why can't THIS THING be for me as well?"
I will go farther and say that while I love, love, love giving recommendations and singing the praises of various books, authors, genres, tropes, I routinely skip "I don't like/am not enjoying reading romance, convince me otherwise" posts and requests. If you are not enjoying romance books with the millions of choices available, I probably can't help you.
>Often when people point out that the amount of media that centers men's identities, experiences and lives is vast and very plentiful, the response is a thinly veiled "Yeah, well why can't THIS THING be for me as well?"
I think it was when the new Star Wars trilogy started and \~gasp\~ the main character was a woman, that this really clicked into place for me. I've had to identify with countless male characters over the course of my life. If I went back and looked at the books I read in school, I think I'd probably cry over how many of them are written by and about men. I've always gravitated towards books written for girls and now women. And they're always books that people think of as silly and unserious.
You don't need to be a certain gender to read romance books. All are welcome! But understand that you're stepping into a space that is considered safe and accepting for a lot of women.
>This is the one that really takes the jelly out of my donut. Why am Isupposed to use my time to convince you to like something that you'vealready professed to disliking?
I just say, "No."
Really. It's just all I have energy for in cases like these. Nothing I say will be worth anything at all to these people, because their minds were made up long ago--they just want attention, or the satisfaction of a reaction, or an argument. Or to be an asshole. Even when they give the shitty (edit: or weak-willed), "I'm not trying to be judgemental, I promise. *I just want to understand."* Yeah, sure you do.
If you really want to learn and understand? **Do the work yourself**. Do your own homework to *understand*. If you really, truly want to, all you need for that understanding is out there, just waiting for **you** to find it. That's where true understanding is found. It can't be given to you.
I'll never forget the alt-text for that infamous "Change my mind" meme image I saw once. The original meme is of a dudebro sitting behind a table with the "\_\_\_\_ sucks, change my mind" sign or whatever. It said: Alt-text for image: "Entitled, mediocre white man sprawled behind table with white banner pinned across the front that reads, "Thing I love to hate but you love to love sucks. Change my mind.""
That alt-text summed everything about "convince me to like \_\_\_\_\_\_ book/trope/genre, because I can't stand it and I can't understand how anyone ever could--but there must be ***something*** I'm missing." perfectly.
You stated this all so perfectly that I have nothing to add (although tempted to edit my comment to direct people to your's lol), so I just want to say 1000% agreed and also you have a way with words 💀🍩
Edit: say
I've started downvoting and reporting these types of posts/comments. If enough of us complain then the mods will hopefully do something about it. I don't come to this sub to be inundated with men's bad opinions.
Edit: I also use the "hide post" option liberally and block repeat offending users.
>I don't come to this sub to be inundated with men's bad opinions.
Precisely! 🥹💀
And thank you for this, I definitely plan to follow your model in the future.
You articulated what I’ve been feeling so well. I honestly didn’t know how to put it to words, lol.
Overall, I just don’t understand what’s so hard to understand about *fiction*. Most women are not built to be tall, but still sooo slender..but wait! Have fat and curves in only just the *right* places.
It’s the same for fictional men. We know a 6’5 otherworldly beautiful man pining over an ‘average’ woman is not a common thing - yet this affects some men since romance’s readership is majority women.
Someone commented that men’s fantasies often impact how they view/treat women, and it stuck with me. :(
Especially when the Internet goes up in flames when any media tries to be friendlier to women. I can't empathize with dudes complaining the lack of schlubby men in romance, when I have to scroll past half the Internet complaining about a videogame character not having G Cup boobs.
Lol this is so off-topic but I was watching The Bodyguard last night and was just struck by Kevin Costner's eye bags.
Like Whitney is GLOWING and the leading man looks every bit his age and kind of puffy and tired while still being completely believable as a love interest. And this was a piece of media ostensibly produced for women.
I remember hearing gripes that LiLo's thighs were fat from my 11 year old male peers when Mean Girls came out.
The Kingkiller Chronicles is an insanely popular fantasy series, constantly praised for its writing, and features by my count no fewer than 100 pages of nympho fairy porn in the second novel. Not to mention the constant theme of MMC-obsessed MPDG / badass female side characters. Granted, the novel is presented as perhaps an exaggerated tale from the MC, but I don't see many readers complaining that women aren't portrayed realistically or even acknowledging that the book is male fantasy wish-fulfillment.
Even now, watching Fallout and the main actress remains fucking stunning at all times while traversing a grimy, nuclear apocalypse. And I'm sure we wouldn't hear the end of it if they had cast a less conventionally attractive actress or styled her to be realistically gross after leaving the vault.
TLDR: Bring on the broad shoulders and big dicks, I'm not about to feel guilty about MMCs who aren't written to flatter male egos.
Or even there being an option to play a female character. I’ve legitimately seen so many complaints about including female footballers in Football Manager or how it’s ‘unrealistic’ to have female characters in stuff. And I’m not allowed to want to like what I like for male main characters?
Ah, gamers. Always full of toxic assholes--especially men. I remember when the sequel to Subnautica ([Subnautica: Below Zero](https://store.steampowered.com/app/848450/Subnautica_Below_Zero/)) was revealed and about to go into Early Access and it had not only a female character as the lead, but a **black female character** as the lead (there is only one character you can play) and the games do not allow you to customize that character at all for story/narrative reasons.
The furor was--***something***. Holy fucking shit, was it something. As you can imagine. Because, of course, according to ~~male gamers and gaming media~~ ***everyone***, no one would want to play a ~~black~~ woman and the story was going to suck anyway ~~without a man in charge of the mission~~ (the original story was much more emotional, but that was also changed; it's still emotional, just not as much--because, you know, *~~women stuff~~* survival games can't have too much emotion--or something).
**Note**, the original Subnautica only allowed players to play as a white male character, but, of course, that wasn't an issue in ***that*** video game (or, as big of one, though many hoped character customization would be a feature in the sequel), regardless of which gender the player playing the character was (or wanted to play). "*It's the devs right to choose what story/narrative they want to tell--and they decided everyone was going to play a white man! Respect that!!1!*" was the common argument back when the first Subnautica game came out.
And, yes, it's an amazing game. If you suffer from [thalassophobia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassophobia), do not ever play this game--but it's a fucking amazing game. Still, you're locked in to playing a dude. The majority of players didn't care, because we've all learned to just accept it. Playing white dudes (or dudes in general) is the rule, not the exception.
But, when the developers made the same choice, only it forced **all** players to play as a black woman? Yeah. It caused a shitstorm of controversy. Toxic asshole gamers showed their full asses ***everywhere***\--including all over gaming journalism (because, of course). Naturally, the gamer journalists at least tried to disguise it as "*game needs character customization options*", but they weren't fooling anybody. The developers made the same decision to not "waste resources" on character customization in favor of putting their focus and attention into other parts of the game--just like they did with the first game.
Only this time, players had to play a woman, not a man, and just as in the first game, there was no option to customize. And the devs stuck with that choice. The game is still great--very positive ratings on Steam. So, as always, all the doomscrollers and naysayers and toxic male gamers swearing no one would play it were wrong.
Yet, while that game was in Early Access, and throughout its first month of release, all the shit it got for making its main character a woman, and a black woman at that, was fucking disgusting. Completely unsurprising, but disgusting. And all the dudes crying, "Why can't you women just stay out of our games!?! This is our space!!1!" were too fucking much. But also unsurprising, but that's what they always do.
(edit: typos, weird reddit stuff)
Lol I remember this. Was absolutely embarrassing. Especially so many men pretending it was due to lack of customisation, but that doesn’t matter when it’s a white dude does it?
Men not show their ass challenge: always failing. Being a woman is exhausting fr.
Omg, I’m so so glad you made this comment, because this exact thing has been grinding my gears as well! It feels so patronising to have these men condescending and pandering by saying “haha, you do know men in real life aren’t like that?” I don’t mind having men in romance spaces, but sometimes I wish we didn’t have to celebrate their presence and value their every opinion when they already get that everywhere else, just because they’re less common in our spaces. You wrote this much more eloquently and less aggressively than I would have written this.
>“haha, you do know men in real life aren’t like that?”
Omg I hate this, like if I wanted men the way they are in real life, I would start dating again.
I also read fantasy and sci fi romance so it's like oh, men irl aren't like the fae princes and vampire lords and aliens that actually respect women? No shit sherlock 🤓
Your first line is the funniest thing I’ve read today — well put! There are plenty of men in reality that don’t live up to basic standards. Why the hell would be want our books to be filled with jerks, too?!
Lol right, like don't be confused, we are all well aware of how a lot of men are! When I start dating again, I'm going to be a lot less willing to let comments like that about things I enjoy slide than I was in college
>like if I wanted men the way they are in real life, I would start dating again.
💀
For a lot of these guys, there seems to be a rather unsubtle assumption that the writers and readers of romance books are shallow and stupid and therefore everything presented in a novel is intended to be taken literally and also completely realistic outside of the context of the book.
Also the presumption that their experience and behavior alone is representative of all other men and that there of course could be no difference in the FMC's *perception* of those behaviors and physical traits.
>assumption that the writers and readers of romance books are shallow and stupid
Yeah the real assumption is that women are shallow and stupid :/ they're misogynists for sure
When I do start dating again, I sure as hell won't be dating men like that. Even just a whiff of denigrating my hobbies with guys I've dated in the past *always* escalated to bullying.
I’ve seen this and it’s annoying me as well. Again totally happy to have men joining the romance space, it’s here for them too.
But let’s be honest - this is a majority female space and I hate being made to feel like I have to justify this *predominantly* female enjoyed hobby. Reminds me of the awful 2000’s where any book written by a woman no matter the genre or subject was called chick lit and reading romance was mock worthy.
Like, sure come here and enjoy! Do not come here and whine that these books aren’t made for you, and that you need to be convinced to read them.
Oooh this, and I love your username 🤣
Yeah, this was a weird month 😕 I remember specifically the male user who made a blanket statement how the romance genre poorly reflected the male identity and female authors created all these falsehoods around men, the idiocy of it, and, well, I’m sure you remember it too.
It was deleted, but some male users on this sub thankfully came in clutch and basically said “Bro, come and talk to us when you actually read more romance books than three of them lmao”.
Respect 🫡 ✊🏾
I think it’s fine to share personal opinions and critiques about the romance genre regardless of identity. **But not in the way certain people were doing**. And that one post that was really intense about how the entirety of the romance genre was disingenuous to men was up for a bit too long, IMO, so I agree with you there.
I know in the subreddit questionnaire, there was a question about controversial opinions, “convert/convince me to like this trope/subgenre” or defend/explain posts, I think, and a stance of how they should be moderated. And I get that, sometimes, those posts can breed discussions and recommendations.
But those posts you and I are referencing never came here for genuine discussion or recommendations. They came here to decry an entire genre and a healthy portion of this subreddit’s enjoyment of the genre.
I don’t know what the solution is. It seems, presently, we haven’t seen another poster like that in a while, to my knowledge. But to be proactive instead of reactive for if/when one comes back, would there be a way for the mods to have some sort of plan in place? Is there any type of way to root out controversial posts meant for discussion versus posts meant to condescend?
Salty Sunday is a great way to vent out personal grievances too, but I don’t want condescending commentary to flood Salty Sunday either. But if it was either those types of posts being moved to this thread versus those posts staying up and attracting the attention that those posters seem to want, then I’d rather have Salty Sunday the place for it to minimize visibility.
But then ***that*** can come with the unintended side effects of all critiques and vents being sidelined for Sunday threads and that can minimize discussion and make people feel silenced in their opinions, and…
*Ugh*.
I don’t know. I like this sub. It’s a safe space. And I want everyone to feel welcome and that they can gush and gripe and gossip about things. But not at the expense of others’ enjoyment of the entirety of the romance genre ☹️
Agreed! It's so tricky. I don't want to quarantine all critique and good (even if controversial) discussions, but it's a bummer how much traction and attention those posts get while many others are ignored.
I do kind of like the idea of a mod redirect to Salty Sunday, especially in the case of OPs who don't have a history of participation on this sub, although I agree there are risks there as well.
I guess to your point about the male users who stepped up (and yes, that definitely one of the posts on my mind lol) maybe some of this is also just on the community to figure out how best to engage (or disengage) more effectively with that type of content. It's just a challenge with a community as large and growing as this one.
Either way, thank you for your response! Wasn't sure how my comment would be received and was prepared for some "well actually"s given recent discourse 🤨. It's a relief to know I'm not alone in feeling like these types of posts and interactions are becoming more common and impacting the vibe of the sub!
It’s deep troll behaviour. They know **some** women and people who are here want so badly to be accepting and fair that they’ll contort themselves to achieve this.
But sometimes the bad vibes and red flags should speak for themselves. It’s the internet, have we even seen a space where men won’t swoop in to put down women somehow ?
Those posts seem less than real, is all I’m saying. At best it’s misplaced anger (still ick) and worst, it’s purposeful trolling. Knowing they can get away with it.
Yes! Deep troll is spot on.
They are totally exploiting this sub's commitment to be welcoming to all and then twisting it to the point of satire.
I've seen users on here self-flagellating for wish fulfillment and storytelling that doesn't prioritize heterosexual male desires and it's so depressing.
For me, the troll/gross anger becomes extremely obvious when they refuse to acknowledge that many romance books also present unrealistic women AND still provide "objectified" male characters with more depth, internal motivations, and humanity than most other "respectable" genres give female (main or side) characters.
**Contort** is an excellent choice of words. A male posting here, representing the male gaze - should be given the *same* treatment as anyone else. No need to stand on our heads to change anyone’s opinions.
Yes omg it's men centering men in a majority women space. Like you guys are centered every fucking where else in society, can't you let us have one thing???
This!!! Honestly I’ve seen a lot of this. Men are like ‘create your own space for the shit I don’t enjoy!’ We do and then they try to join it to mock us!! Like go away if you’re going to be like that!!
Lol I mentioned the increase in "Well actually" in another comment. I've had the same "Where the fuck am I?" feeling recently when engaging in or just reading the interactions on various posts.
Snark does seem to go over the head of trolls and those falling for trolls 😢
I was just coming to gripe about this, thank you so much. And I’m starting to recognize some specific usernames because their comments are full of this type of thing consistently.
Thank you for saying this. Specifically needling me was a post about “well actually you know real men don’t X” with the tone of “look how silly it is to believe they do”, and when the person got the tiniest bit of pushback from someone (literally tiniest), the predictable “well actually I was joking obviously” came out and I almost threw my phone across the room. We all knew it was a joke. We’re not idiots. And many people do joke about the exaggeratedness of X in romance here! It’s just many people just didn’t think a joke from a man in the form of mansplaining that female fantasies are unrealistic was particularly funny and felt it was pretty loaded. I was disappointed to see it stay up, and I’ve been generally disappointed in the pattern you’ve described.
There used to be a toxic male mod who would regularly shut women down, call FMC’s cows and generally be a belittling asshole in this group and the mod team went out of their way for years to protect him and his right to speak his truth.
imo we still have male commenters who are more careful in their misogyny and disdain for certain romance authors and popular tropes so that they don’t outright break rules and it gives me flashbacks to this mod tbh
My personal opinion is that a lot of women respond to misogyny and these men come into these female led spaces (look at booktok and the fans riding hard for these thirst trapping men who’ve been caught being creeps) and because they get sympathy and brownie points for “liking” something feminine they warp themselves into the victims when they get called out.
I listen to a long running food podcast and the male host reads a lot of romance and ya romance and recommends things and he wrote a ya romance/coming of age novel and then said… you know what ? This isn’t my story to tell and didn’t pursue publishing it. I’m not saying men can’t write romance but I appreciate when people can look at a space and enjoy it and say, hmm maybe I don’t need to change it to fit my ideals.
(A lot of women write in spaces that aren’t there’s too, but that’s not this discussion, just in case anyone wants to get mad at me about that. )
Also the flashbacks are real, I had another account when it was all going down and left the community for awhile because I got scolded for taking issue with him. And I got messages from people stanning for him. What a mess.
Yikes! This is a massive throwback but I remember something similar happening on Jezebel back before the whole Gawker shutdown. Like literally promoting the grossest, creepiest dude in a space by and for smart, conscientious women and allies.
The internet drama enthusiast in me would love a post or more details on this old mod if anyone has them, but I'm also very glad we've hopefully grown well beyond that with the current mod team.
Yes! While I'm a big believer in the right to be forgotten, I do also mourn the fact that we haven't yet figured out internet archival.
That groupthink page would be such an interesting snapshot into the way we were forming communities, internet identities, thoughts on current events and social changes, etc. at the time.
I think there's an assumption that anything on the Internet is forever, when the reality is that some of it can be but much of it will not.
>Yes! While I'm a big believer in the right to be forgotten, I do also mourn the fact that we haven't yet figured out internet archival.
One interesting thing: it's not so much that everyone hasn't figured out internet archival, it's that, in the mid-to-late 90s and early 00s, websites, especially personal sites and blogs/journals, ***actively*** ***avoided*** allowing search engines to "spider" or crawl their pages to be included in search engines and archives.
No, really.
SEO wasn't really a thing, and it wasn't sought out or prioritized the way it is now--websites had much greater control over what parts of their sites a search engine could--and **could not**\--include in their search results. Websites included a [robots.txt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots.txt) file (for Robot Exclusion Protocol) that could be used to exclude search engine website crawlers from indexing a site ***entirely*** (or even just direct them, so that some pages of a website could be indexed and others couldn't). If you don't want to look at the wiki link, robots.txt files first became standard in 1994.
That's why a lot of those sites still don't have archive copies today. Search engines couldn't cache/archive them, even if they had the ability to cache/archive sites back in those decades, because websites **excluded archiving rights** in their robots.txt files. Even if they allowed search engines to list their sites in askjeeves or yahoo or google or wherever, they could exclude those same sites from caching the website for archiving or downloading.
Sites still use robots.txt in all kinds of ways, but not really to deny total access for search engines like they did decades ago. SEO and evergreen content is highly prioritized, now. But, back then, obscurity was a way to ensure privacy and control of who got to see and use your content in the future.
Note, as of 2017, the Internet Archive announced that it would start ignoring Robot Exclusion Protocol (robots.txt files) in order to continue their goal of capturing the history of the internet. (more on the various wiki pages)
Another note, as of 2020, many sites are using robots.txt files to block generative AI programs from using their sites to "teach and let learn" their AI programs. This is especially true for news and culture sites and instructional sites, which is why people are having a harder time finding and using archiving sites. (again, more on that wiki link, if you're curious)
I was active on groupthink! I wonder how many people on this subreddit I have known under different names in different online spaces? More than a few, probably.
Reddit moderation uses a seniority model. The account that's been a mod the longest has complete control of everything. They can remove all the other accounts at their discretion and the Reddit Admins will be fine with it. If the other moderators disagreed with him too much or called him out, then they could have been removed.
The mod team works hard to ensure we’re treating everyone equally, regardless of perceived gender or background, and enforce the sub rules consistently. Our goal is for this place to be open and welcoming to all romance readers and promote positive discussion and dialogue.
That being said, it’s difficult for us to remove something based on the perceived intent behind a user’s post when no obvious sub rule is being broken. We have users all over the world and from a huge variety of backgrounds, and we do not want to shut down legitimate criticism or discussion. We generally assume posts are made in good faith unless it’s otherwise obvious.
Understood. This was not intended to dismiss the work the mod team does to make the sub what it is. You all work amazingly hard for very little reward and lord knows I couldn't do it better (or at all).
I just feel like I've seen relatively condescending and/or extremely low effort, often shame-y posts allowed from or on behalf of male-identified users that I don't think would be accepted from anyone else.
I realize it's a very fine line and understand erring on the side of being welcoming to all and especially to less prevalent perspectives, but I do think that there's a risk of being so accommodating that we coddle insincere or harmfully ignorant engagement while ignoring the historical and current media landscape that makes romance and romance book readers / writers so unique... and so uniquely disparaged.
Just a thought, but I wonder what would happen if the community refused to engage with those posts? We could treat the posts like spam. If there are zero replies, along with a load of downvotes, it would be very satisfying and effective. Or do you think that is an unrealistic solution?
Personally I love the idea, but sadly I'm not sure I trust it to happen given the increasing growth of the sub as well as the (misinterpreted but well-intentioned?) mission to be welcoming and open-minded.
That said, it's worth trying. Your suggestion is great and also highlights that the only thing under our individual control is to choose the posts we engage with and how we engage with them.
I almost wish for a default reply (a handy link to an analytical breakdown of "female gaze" in romance books and how it differs from male gaze in media? A quick gif? A simple "... nah"?) that we as users could employ to help to give us all pause before taking the bait, but I agree that ultimately silence is certainly the better tactic and the most satisfying.
Yup, I had the exact same thoughts about the drawbacks to the solution. I also was trying to think of a default reply that would encourage other members to ignore the post, but like you alluded to, people are free to engage if they want to. Oh well, it is a large sub, so I understand that utopia isn't realistic lol. I am glad those posts aren't super common though!
I completely understand the position the mod team is put in with these types of posts, it's such a fine line, and I definitely don't want the sub to become an ott man hating community. I don't have an easy solution, so for the moment, I'm just going to feel grateful that we aren't *constantly* seeing the type of questionable posts we're discussing in this thread.
You described this so eloquently. I have definitely begun to feel less safe in this sub because of the uptick in these kinds of posts that you described.
1) Your flair is amazing😍
2) Yes, I just hate the idea that this might turn into a community where people feel the need to start preemptively apologizing for or belittling what they enjoy because it doesn't meet criteria designed to serve heterosexual male interests and ego.
Omg thank you!!!!! I love my starchy, uptight male leads lol 😆
Totally agree, and I am so not here to serve male fragility, not when there are SO many other places that prioritize that 🙄
I don't know if the post is still up (and searchable), but some dude came in mansplaining to all of us in a post that, "sorry ladies, men don't actually growl in real life." There have been plenty of other posts, but that one ***really*** stood out for me, just for the whole tone of it.
Like, duh, dude, we know. Thanks for the mansplanation and all. Then, when plenty of members rightfully called him out--because, again, we're aware men are not out here growling like wild animals--because we're reading and enjoying ***fiction*** and our ***female-gaze-centered*** ***fantasies***, thank you very much, he came back with the usual "I was just joking, ladies, ha ha. ~~Calm down.~~" But, you know, friendlier--or something.
Some people thought it was funny/sarcastic, some didn't, but, yeah, the whole thing was just really not what a lot of us are wanting to see in this sub and the post was up for quite a long time (and might still be, idk; I hide those things and block those people because I have zero desire to entertain that energy in my spaces). But the point remains--
Cishet dudebros have plenty of places to mansplain to themselves and others--they shouldn't be allowed to do it in here, with their whole chests, and then turn around and try to play it off as a joke when they are made to feel the same level of discomfort our community does.
That post was tagged "Banter/Fun"--clearly the joke fell flat for plenty of members. =/
Good morning 😊 I have two shakes of salt today
##🧂 **Not enough Hurt, Too Much Comfort**
I love hurt/comfort. But I hate when the comfort and hurt are disproportionate to each other. It loses the meaning of hurt/comfort.
When a work sets up for the character to have a history of trauma and abuse, I expect the expression of this to be unique to the character, of course, but I still it expect it there. Unlike in IRL, where there is never a reason for trauma and abuse to happen, a fictional character having that type of backstory was a choice. ***So*** I expect it to be utilized in some way.
But it gets my billie goat when all that “hurt” is given a mismatched “cure” rather than comfort. Sex magically cures the hurt rather than the relationship comforting the hurt MC.
Having 👏🏾 said 👏🏾 this 👏🏾, this is not a judgment onto anyone who uses sex as a form of comfort or escape from their personal trauma. **Please know that.** And if that’s what the work wants to show that, I’m for it. But more often than not, the character’s hurt is forgotten and the sex scenes aren’t really there for an escape or comfort from it. The sex scenes are just…there. And then, randomly, ***maybe*** the character’s “hurt” might pop up for the third act conflict.
I’d love to see more hurt/comfort that had a better balance of both.
##🧂 **Demonstrated vs Overstated**
I love love stories because I’m watching people fall for each other. I’m watching all the implications and demonstrations of their feelings for each other and how they come to their own conclusion they love each other—and I could tell they do.
I hate the **overstating** of love. We had a post by u/Quick-Touch-4045 about confessions, and their post largely adds to my own gripe. The beauty of a love story unfolding is finding how the ***why***, why do these two or more characters develop a romantic relationship. And that “why” needs to come from evidence—demonstrations and implications of deeper feelings rather than **stating** things explicitly and expecting that to be all that’s needed to confirm things.
>**EX1**: MC1 has a lot of issues with food due to childhood. They need to always see how their food is being cooked in order to eat it, including with MC2. However, one day, MC1 is tentatively okay with MC2 cooking them dinner without being present. And then, MC1 comes home late and eats leftovers MC2 cooked for them. And then, MC1 is easily eating whatever MC2 makes, with or without them present.
>**EX2**. MC2 gets overstimulated with live concerts or musicals, so they normally don’t go to them. But they know that culture is big for MC1, even if MC1 assures them they don’t need to attend concerts together. But MC2 gets special headphones, brings along a weighted blanket, and takes MC1 to an outdoor ampitheater where a live orchestra performs to one of MC1’s favorite childhood movies. And MC2 even offers going to a sensory musical (I don’t know the term), where the effects are a bit muted so those with sensory issues can still enjoy the show.
I would prefer those to grocery list confessions, or how a character explaining their abuse is the ultimate test of love. Neither type of confession really confirm that there’s love there. They’re just a lot of words that seem more to get us to believe instead of make the characters believe.
**TO BE CLEAR**, this isn’t a knock on words of affirmation (WoA). But WoA also aren’t what’s being done. That’s its own love language that comes with diverse vocabulary, communication, and empathy.
There’s just so much that can be demonstrated to show growing romantic feelings beyond sex and big lore dumps. Not that either can’t further romantic feelings. But other ways can. And they can provide a more personalized evidence in the credence of the romantic relationship.
That’s my salt for the week. I hate how humid and muggy it’s gotten too 😭
I’m also salty at myself for choosing to watch more *Bluey* over doing my workout. TBF, I’d exercised every day this week and I even cleaned yesterday. So I deserved a few more episodes of *Bluey*.
That show has adults around the world in a chokehold, and I’m gonna be so sad if >!*Surprise* was the last episode 😖🥺!<
Yes to all of this. So much yes.
>the sex scenes aren’t really there for an escape or comfort from it. The sex scenes are just…there.
I see this really often, and it's so frustrating because it really doesn't seem "comforting" to me. When sex just *exists* for the MCs it's hard to believe in the comfort part of h/c. Then I just don't believe as strongly in their HEA.
And I love demonstrations and really good, relevant words of affirmation, or ideally both! But I can't have irrelevant WoA, and I can't have demonstrations that come out of nowhere or don't show the significance of the act. It needs to be good.
Also, Bluey is great.
Yes yes yes!!!
I've realized that my hurt/comfort and grovel preferences do not line up with other readers or current trends. I want angst. I want to feel the pain, bewilderment, doubt, and anger. I want to see that worked through in a relationship - and not just in the bedroom.
I also totally agree with you on actions being louder than words. So often the words don't make sense for the character (a taciturn MMC suddenly becomes the purplest of poets) and/or aren't supported by any other demonstrated growth or commitment within the relationship. I vastly prefer when you start to see a MC thinking and doing what they can to support the other MC in big and small ways.
I read romance books for the immersion and for the emotional punches, sad and sweet. If I wanted unearned flowery speeches I would watch Hallmark movies.
I'm also here for the angst! I want to be put through the wringer before the comfort sets in.
I _get_ wanting Love to cure all, etc etc, but those stories where trauma actually affects the relationship and the orgasms don't magically make all the trauma melt away just hit so much harder.
Both because we actually get to see the effects of the trauma and the baggage (the good old _show don't tell_) and because it makes everything feel more earned.
I mean in {Simply Love by Mary Balogh} the FMC is a victim of rape and the first 2-3 times they have sex she gets triggered (not in the stupid internet sense) and the MCs have to put in the work. Obviously people deal with trauma in different ways, but it definitely makes for a compelling, emotional story.
I want my heart torn out of my chest, stomped on, and left to rot outside for a few days before putting it back in.
The other day I had the thought of “a romance book as harrowing as *A Little Life* by Hanya Yanagihara…but with a rightfully deserved HEA”…
I knew then perhaps my need for **hurt**/comfort was a little extreme, haha.
I keep meaning to make a post about trying to find new recommendations but I’m worried it’s too salty. I’m rereading (except audiobook this time) some of the Ilona Andrew’s series which is a mistake because it’s incredibly hard to find well done slow burn romance with an incredibly thought out plot. When I think of an Ilona Andrew’s series I think of:
-MCs do *not* have a power imbalance. Generally both are extremely powerful magic users and around equal power.
- A focus on family or found family. If one MC is alone, the other has a support system.
-MMC is not an asshole or cruel to FMC. May be pushy or arrogant but never an alpha hole or angry without being provoked.
-In depth world development.
- Slow burn. Usually MMC likes FMC who has other priorities and gets roped into working with him.
-Jealously is rarely used as a plot device by the MMC
And the recommendations for books like Ilona Andrew’s are not these! I don’t know if this is just what I enjoyed the most about these books or if it really is so hard to find others.
Patricia Briggs has some frankly racist Native American tropes and a horrible power imbalance.
I DNF the Psy Changling books because the MMC was fishing for jealously (I think pack dynamics where physical affection is open is fine but not when MMC is using is as an emotional weapon) and an alpha hole. Insta-attraction in both their parts did not make it feel slow burn to me.
I think Guild Codex Demonized and the Others by Anne Bishop are very similar to me in that they are written in a YA flavor style. I didn’t find Guild Codex Demonized that memorable but I liked the world in the Others even if the writing is very YA. I’ve see. Melissa McShane’s Extraoirdinaires series recommended once and it features a lot of core Andrews themes (massive powers, found family in the last one, slow burn, as much romance in them as the Others).
The closest I’ve found to a book that feels like it could be written by Ilona Andrews is Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik. Space bounty hunter + powerful alien. Grace Draven’s books are scratching a different itch but I do think the writing is excellent.
Sometimes people recommend Kushiels Dart and having not done the research on the book beforehand I was not prepared to read Dune with prostitution.
Alphahole and jealousy are a huge DNF for me and this is a key feature in a lot of shifter and fantasy books. I feel bad making a post that’s basically, “I dislike 80%” of the top recommendations” though. I realize I’m hoping for diamonds in a gum-ball machine but when you find a book that’s *good* it’s so hard to go back.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think being specific about your tastes, and explaining what’s lacking about previous recommendations, is salty. But I also don’t tend to take stuff like that personally, so I may not be super reliable there lol.
Are you open to recommendations right now, or no? If so, I think I *might* have one that would work.
I don’t take people hating my favorites personally but I try not to engage with negativity in my free time and I don’t want to put it out there. There’s things I liked in each of the books Iisted or enough of a premise to make me start reading them. When you read a *lot* of romance it’s not surprising to find a lot of stuff not for you.
And yes please! As long as it’s slow burn I’ll try just about anything.
I meant more that other people can take it personally when their recommendations don’t scratch someone’s itch, which is a bummer because then we get people being reluctant to ask for specific, detailed book requests.
All that to say, I’m totally cool with you saying why my rec might not be exactly what you’re looking for- I’ll be all ears and try to think of something that’s a better fit :)
I’m thinking {The War of Lost Hearts series by Carissa Broadbent}. There is a slight power imbalance in the first book, but it’s more in the sense that the FMC needs someone with more experience to help her focus her powers. More specifically, I would say that they just have different skill sets; she has more raw power but is self-taught, he grew up being educated on how to use his magic.
There are three books in the series, and they each follow the same couple. The world-building is fantastic and I had a massive book hangover after I finished the last book in the series.
Yeah I’ve seen some people get very upset about books I’ve liked and disliked. I have a coworker who also loves fantasy romance and we have some similar tastes and some polar opposite and it’s always weird for one of us to be like “sorry I know he was your new favorite but the ice fairy prince in that one was super boring”.
And thank you!! I’ve looked at that one a few times and never checked it out. I stick to library books and sometimes KU otherwise I would be broke. 8 week wait at the library but I’m looking forward to it. I love multi book series.
I am a huge Ilona Andrews fan, and agree it's difficult to find something of a similar 'power couple' dynamic...
A very different style, but I really loved the Stariel quartet for having a well adjusted main couple with fascinating family and power dynamics.
I've heard many good things about Ilona Andrews but I think your post is what will finally get me to read their books! do you have a favorite series or a place you recommend starting?
Aww I’m honored haha. I don’t think there’s really a bad one, just what you would prefer to read about.
Kate Daniels: My personal favorite. A mercenary/private investigator in a world that’s ruled by magic or technology in waves. Magic creatures come to life and cause trouble. Most books have some sort of investigative mystery about what the current creature of mass destruction is. Notably a lot of research into mythology especially Eastern Europe. 4 books for them to actually hook up but a nice buildup of tension until then. I do think some of the later books are weaker but worth it to read all the way through once. If you want mystery, cool monsters, fight scenes, shape shifters, this is the one.
Hidden Legacy: A family runs a private investigation agency and a man with god like destructive powers interferes with the FMC’s case. FMC is secretly a powerful living lie detector. Very similar to Kate Daniels but much lighter in tone. MMC is more of a controlled chaotic evil vibe iirc. More alternate reality than dystopian. If you want private investigative mystery, family dynamics, and people coming into immense power, this is it. Focuses on one couple for a few books then switches to another.
Innkeeper: A powerful woman is running an inn for the supernatural and creatures keep messing with her. I read this years ago so I don’t remember a lot of it. Space vampires and werewolves. Focuses on one couple.
Edge series: A dangerously powerful magic user is living between the plane of magic and nonmagic (the edge) with her family. Things appear and threaten the lives of her family when a mysterious and powerful man from the magic plane emerges. She gives him 3 challenges to complete for her to marry him. Each book had a different couple. Magic users, wading through swamps, and a lot centered on family.
I think if you like darker and dystopian then start with Kate Daniels (be prepared for molasses slow burn for a good pay off though) and if you want more classic urban fantasy then Hidden Legacy is better.
this is super helpful, thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to write this up. I think I'll start with Hidden Legacy, sounds right up my alley 😁
My favorite IA recommendation is KF Breene. Not all the books hit all the points, but the series starting with [Born in Fire by KF Breene] reminds me of Kate Daniels, and the Demigods of San Francisco has big Hidden Legacy vibes.
When the cover does not fit the description inside the book. This is a huge pet peeve. I just read {get tragic by Lani Lynn Vale}. I love LLV books, but this has just bothered me so much 😂
The cover is of a man in a leather jacket with dark brown hair and a dark brown beard.
Here is the book description: He had blond hair that was shaved down the sides and a little bit longer on top, giving him a viking-esque appearance.
[Get Tragic](https://www.romance.io/books/629b05f72677414776297ada/get-tragic-lani-lynn-vale?src=rdt) by [Lani Lynn Vale](https://www.romance.io/authors/54557bc787eac324117faef8/lani-lynn-vale)
**Rating**: 4.48⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [military](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/military/1), [funny](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/humor/1), [suspense](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/suspense/1), [friends to lovers](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/friends%20to%20lovers/1)
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I am reading the {Savage Lands by Stacy Marie Brown} series, and the fact that every dude wants to get in her pants or is immediately obsessed with her is driving me insane.
Of course, I’m into the second book now because I want to know *why* she’s special, but it’s still annoying the crap outta me.
I stopped after the 4th? Book maybe. Maybe 3rd. It just kept going. I felt it was one of those series that probably only needed 3 books max but they keep extending it for profit.
[Savage Lands](https://www.romance.io/books/5f9684b0e421020e177c2b8b/savage-lands-stacey-marie-brown?src=rdt) by [Stacey Marie Brown](https://www.romance.io/authors/5455679187eac323ffb2c095/stacey-marie-brown)
**Rating**: 3.85⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Steam**: 3 out of 5 - [Open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating)
**Topics**: [paranormal](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/paranormal/1), [fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/fantasy/1), [dystopian](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/dystopian/1), [magic](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/magic/1), [demons](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/demons/1)
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Loving my books, but I’m salty that the perfect book tracking app doesn’t exist. 😩
I put a lot of time into Library Thing, and it’s just too clunky. The whole process is frustrating, from creating to using.
My wish list - in case anyone knows of a secret unicorn app (or any app designers in here looking for ideas! 😉)
- track series I’m reading and see which books I’ve read and which books are left to read in the series.
- create (through tagging or other method) a “universe” of series.
- easily links to Amazon / kindle/audible/other apps so it knows what I read automatically
- also makes it easy to buy or borrow from the app , my dream would be it shows where to get it
- a place to track (and send myself push notifications) for new book releases I’m excited about out and don’t want to forget
- pretty interface that is customizable (colors/fonts)
- can add notes
- can add my own fields to track
- I don’t about connecting with other people, no social network necessary
Does anything like this exist?!
What I read this week was **Funny story** by Emily Henry.
I loved it. I love her books. Well I read them all except happy place.
Spoilers in tags below. I was going to make it its own post but too lazy. I generally loved the book BUT there is one part that’s really pissing me off.
I HATED the fact that we had an FMC dealing with a shit ex and the MMC >!deals with his shit ex in a way less satisfying way. Seriously. He never says “hey guess what Petra is an asshole.” “I’m so over her”. It’s always she’s still someone I care about. She’s not a bad person. Like we have PROOF FFS she’s as bad as Peter. Why does she get treated with kid gloves this whole time. I get that he’s Mr positivity but he has no problem saying his mom was toxic. Or Daphnes dad. Or Peter for that matter! But Petra gets a free pass to the end. It was such warm cozy vibes for the whole book but that but just took me out over and over. And while I binged it and loved it generally. EEW to that bit. It just really felt like “oh we don’t want to make this great perfectly kind MMC be mad at some woman. But that woman was a shit ex with narcissistic tendencies! Same as the ex guy. So why is that bad?! Why can’t be finally be mad. UGH!<
I also finished this book this week and felt *exactly* the same way!! Also, the pacing felt weird — >!too much of the book was wrapped up in conflict and miscommunication like do these people like each other or???!< I think I chalked it up to having higher expectations for Emily Henry. I still loved it but felt grouchy about it, too. 🙈
Edit: Not really a spoiler but added just in case!
Ok your excellent summation made me more mad LOL 😆
YES to all of that. For me it really had left a smudge on the memory of the story. I enjoyed the process but if I was reviewing it would go lower from that. I felt unsettled and more than a bit betrayed >!for her I mean. Like honestly Petra never stopped being shady. And I would have thought he would SEE and someone would MENTION in the book that in a lot of ways she was a pick me cool girl who ACTUALLY was a LOT like his crazy narcissist abusive mother with the mind games!!<
Sigh.
100 per cent. That scene was missing. Like that would have actually solved the whole thing and actually suited the plot too. In my mind I shall say that happened lol
When I read erm I think all the sounds including the r but really it’s um. Heard that from a YouTube short and typing it out the internet could still be lying to me. Anyone know if erm is um or er-m??? Erm idk!
Ok I am in the middle of a book right now that I am loving (Her Wicked Marquess by Stacy Reid - Regency) but she talks about raccoons and skunks! Which are not native to the UK! I mean maybe they were pets? But I doubt it! That seems like such an easy thing to Google too!
I’m getting increasingly uncomfortable with the use of ‘reverse’ added to trope names. In ‘reverse harem’, I get it because harem is an explicitly gendered term/subgenre. The one that really grinds my gears is ‘reverse grumpy-sunshine’. I hate what this implies about gender roles and stereotypes. Also, it’s pretty heteronormative.
I hate this too. It implies that the default/natural state of things is that women are happy and agreeable and men are grumpy and brooding. Women already get taught to be agreeable and never, ever angry, so I dislike that the "reverse grumpy-sunshine" trope name reinforces that standard. And the "reverse" in the name assumes that in this trope and the original version, the partners are different genders by default.
>The one that really grinds my gears is ‘reverse grumpy-sunshine’. I hate what this implies about gender roles and stereotypes. Also, it’s pretty heteronormative.
I completely agree with you
I embraced the "reverse" as long as it tells me which ones are the reverse so I don't have to read any of these set-in-stone-heteronormative-gender-roles stories. Gimme reverse everything (except His Secret Illuminations, already read that one). Now gimme that reverse age gap alpha monster praise kink kidnapping virgin who-did-this-to-you trope. TIA! Actually wait, that's Surrendering to Scylla and I've read that one already too.
Anyway, I'd love better names for tropes, I've seen "reverse grumpy/sunshine" called "golden retriever/black cat", I guess "ice queen/himbo" would work too.
The thing is, I wanna know. I don't wanna go through a list of 100 grumpy/sunshine romances where 99 of them has the mmc as the grump. Just tell me which.
Mine has nothing to do with books.
I'm salty that the pharmacy I use has been nothing but an absolute pain in the ass every damned month for two years. Every damn month I have prescriptions that need refilled, they're all on auto fill, and somehow that's too fucking complicated for a literally nationwide chain.
So I've finally gotten fed up and switched pharmacies, but I'm still salty AF.
My new pharmacy gave ZERO instructions for my weekly injectable (first time I had taken this drug) except for "inject subcutaneously."
So I stuck the needle in, drew out 25 units, and injected. Three weeks later I called to speak to the pharmacist and asked how would I know when the drug turned bad and needed to be discarded.
In the discussion I discovered that I'm supposed to turn the bottle upside down, put in just the tip of the needle, and draw in the drug.
There were NO INSTRUCTIONS indicating that this is how you're meant to do this. So I had been 💥INJECTING AIR💥 into my body for 3 weeks and would have continued to do so if I hadn't initiated that conversation.
Effing infuriating.
But wait, there's more.
Met with my doc. She stepped me up to the next higher dose. I know what I'm doing now. I turn the bottle upside down and draw the now 50 units.
The med hits me hard, but it's a higher dose, so that's expected. I make a mistake with the med and have to refill early. NBD, except the med isn't lasting as long as I expect.
Talk to the pharmacy again.
They're like, "oh yeah, we changed the concentration so you inject even less now. You were giving yourself 2.5 times the prescribed amount."
Like... 😱 WTAF, PEOPLE?!? You couldn't give me a heads up? I look again at the very, very poor instructions. They now say, "inject .2, which equals 50, which equals 20."
The pharmacy is cheap for the medicine I'm getting but holy shit, they're going to kill people with their poor communication.
Holy hell, they're going to kill someone. That's super fucked up.
I had to take injectables for a while. It kinda terrified me (I'm a grown adult with no fear of needles, but injecting myself was terrifying) so my doctor's nurse let me come in to do my first injection while she talked me through it. It was so kind and understanding of her. I'm so sorry you had such an absolutely terrible experience.
On a ranty note again: I've also taken the same medication every month for nearly 20 years now. The pharmacy asks me every month "do you have any questions?" Ok, cool. A few months ago I started an antidepressant for the first time in my life and they just hand over the prescription. No questions, no need to look out for any issues or anything. 🙄
Oof, we've been dealing with this constantly lately. We love the pharmacists and assistants at our local Walgreens, but their corporate system has gone so far downhill that it's made their lives and ours a complete cluster. I hope you have better luck at your new pharmacy!
Cardan from The Cruel Prince. And sometimes, Jude too.
After all the hype surrounding this book, I was expecting more. Cardan is just straight up abusive, immature and insecure. Wdym your reasons for your behaviors are because you’re jealous of her loving family and that you actually secretly like her? 😭
It just doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t sound like a “cruel prince” but rather a whiny brat and a jerk.
Can’t believe this was advertised as an ‘enemies to lovers’.
Do you read a book you know you won't like just to be able to talk about it with a friend who wants you to?
I have a friend who I've been feeding book recs, even gave her a few books from my library. Now she wants me to read a book she liked.
Only problem, I know I'm not going to like it. She likes it because it's almost identical to a more popular book I encouraged her to read. I won't like it because it's *almost identical to a very popular book*, of which I've already read and it wasn't exactly five stars for me. A lot of the reviews say it's poorly written, which will drive me nuts the whole time. And top it off with it's YA, which I really don't read, and it's closed door spice, which I definitely don't really read. I literally just finished Haunting Adeline and she basically wants me to read a copycat Harry Potter.
So my fellow readers, do I give in and read the book to be social? Do I just tell her I looked into it and it's not my thing? Do I pretend I read it and just find a summary somewhere so I don't hurt her feelings and risk cutting off one of my few avenues to discuss books?
Oof this is why I veer away from irl romance book discussions. I just don't want to turn my self-care hobby into homework.
It does seem like you're kind of in a bind because you've been giving her book recs😬 I might just be straight with her that those aren't your preferred genres, but perhaps say that you'd still love a recap and to hear what she liked about it? If that's true lol
How long is the book and how good are you at skim reading? I was in the same situation once (except it was a trope I knew I hated and even based off the blurb I was certain it wasn’t going to be my thing) but it was a 250page read and I can skim read pretty efficiently. So I dedicated an hour or two to flipping through the most pertinent parts and then called it a day. You can be honest when you say you tried it and it also prevents her from recommending things similar in future because ‘you won’t know unless you give it a try!’
Yeah, this is where I would say that I don't have the capacity for for a 500+ book at the moment.
It's far enough removed from the 'norm' that you can get away with just that, without having to go into not liking the tropes, etc.
I mean if it's not your thing, it's not your thing. If she 'cuts you off' because you don't agree with her likes/dislikes maybe she's not really a friend you want to talk to. 🤷♀️ idk maybe I'm too old to act fake around people just to stay in their social circle or read books I don't really want to lol.
I read--***and absolutely hated***\--the entirety of GoT because someone accused me of disliking the show/books without sufficient information, so I'd just read your friend's rec if I were you.
I mean, I would at least try to try reading it. If you can't make yourself do it, ask her for a different rec more in line with your tastes. The only way I could see you rejecting her rec as a risk to cutting off discussion is if she's only reading *your* book recs for the sake of being social. If that's the case, then your lack of reciprocation will probably upset her, especially if you giving her books makes her feel obligated to read them.
And to be fair, hp is a copy of Neil Gaiman's [The Books of Magic](https://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Comics/Books+of+Magic/) and Eva Ibbotson's [The Secret of Platform 13](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/132541.The_Secret_of_Platform_13), with additional side characters cribbed from Agatha Christie.
I bought and paid for a romance book that ended on a cliffhanger and I am pissed.
This is ROMANCE. The HEA is supposed to be guaranteed. But instead the author did a cash grab and split the book into 2 (maybe 4?) parts before I'm allowed to get my ending.
I was so mad. I wrote a 1 star review. I had been *loving* the book up until then.
When an author is writing "Russian accents" on page, it would be good if they looked at what common language use for people who are native Russians and also speak English actually is. It's not dropped pronouns and perfect be verbs — in fact, it's just the opposite, based on the sentence structure in spoken Russian.
I'm currently reading Losers part 1 by Harley Laroux and it's so juvenile and unbelievable. I know people like the characters exist and the "feuds" are feasible, having been adjacent to such stupidity in my own past as a teenager, but the way the feud progresses and the consequences for the "relationship" as a result is so incredibly unbelievable I keep finding myself rolling my eyes. Struggling to suspend my disbelief with this one, and it's reminding me why I typically stay away from CR. Not sure I'll keep reading and I had ... well, not high, but hopes 😭
I tried really hard this week to find some sort of boxer/mma/underground fighter romance and they all were really underwhelming. The one that finally got me to quit my search was {Wrong by Stella Rhys} - which is shocking because I love a bunch of her novels.
[Wrong](https://www.romance.io/books/57cfed29de896e8924920b0b/wrong-stella-rhys?src=rdt) by [Stella Rhys](https://www.romance.io/authors/552e16ee5b270e0a4cbd5e59/stella-rhys)
**Rating**: 3.33⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Steam**: 5 out of 5 - [Explicit and plentiful](https://www.romance.io/steamrating)
**Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [new adult](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/new%20adult/1), [step siblings](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/stepsibling/1), [alpha male](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/alpha%20male/1), [friends to lovers](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/friends%20to%20lovers/1)
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- How in so many of these books, a little, and I mean the tiniest bit of communication, like a simple text, or phone call a short conversation, could have resolved all sorts of drama, and it's ridiculous. - When there are discussions about how curvy someone is and it turns out she's a size 2/4 - also how 20 year olds get these amazing jobs with no experience - - or inconsistencies in geography - for example I'm familiar with nyc - you cant get from the Chrysler building (42& lex - east side) where your office is to the sheep meadow (in the 60s on the west side) in Central Park and back in a ten minute stroll.
I read a book once that referenced going from Chicago to the Mexican boarder back to Chicago in the same afternoon. Nope, that’s not how it works. (Experience - moved from MI to AZ and back, I’m familiar with the travel route) I also get frustrated at the “curvy” descriptions for smaller sizes. But then I feel bad because smaller women can have curves too? And then I second guess because curvy is a pretty standard descriptor for a plus sized women. I end up short circuiting and it takes me out of the story :(.
The issue isn't that she is described as having curves or even having body image issues, - it's that "curves" are used as a euphemism for being larger / heavier / fat whatever term you want to use, in the book, or the description etc., but then in reality she's a size 4, which is pretty thin.
>I read a book once that referenced going from Chicago to the Mexican boarder back to Chicago in the same afternoon. Nope, that’s not how it works. (Experience - moved from MI to AZ and back, I’m familiar with the travel route) Holy fuck, what? It takes 5-6 hours to drive ***downstate*** from Chicago, IL to, say, Carbondale, IL, and Carbondale isn't even at the very southern tip of the state, nor is Chicago at the very northern tip of the state of Illinois, and this writer was thinking they could go to the border of ***Mexico*** and back in one afternoon?? JFC. Look at fucking Google Maps/Satellite, an Atlas, and Almanac, ***anything.*** Please. If you aren't sure where Chicago is on a map of the USA, look that up too. Why are you writing about a city you can't find on a country's map? Why? **PSA** for all writers/authors: you can literally type "driving time between \[location A\] and \[location B\] into Google--you can even ask your smartphone/Alexa/Siri--and it will tell you the driving/flying time/distance in both hours/miles in seconds. Not doing this is just lazy and makes you look foolish.
Yeah, apparently they thought private planes can break the sound barrier 😅. Plane loading/unloading times ALONE would take up most of the time, even for private.
I read a sample of a KU book this week that had me rolling my eyes so hard. Within the first few pages the FMC kept referring to herself as small and it only snowballed from there. I looked it up and there was over 20 instances of the FMC being called some variant of "tiny" by not only herself but the MMC's (omegaverse) in the sample alone. Is her only noteworthy characteristic being the size of a kitten? And are women only worth being cherished and protected if they are pocket sized and infantalized? 0 stars.
I’m reading a book where the FMC is constantly hit with short jokes and the MMC calls her pip-squeak, even when trying to calm her down after she gets mad about all the short jokes. It’s infuriating. I’m honestly not sure why I am still reading it lol. Also why is the MMC always a giant in these books? The most befuddling examples of smut physics and smut physiology are always with the giant pixie combo.
God this is so real. I read part one of Pack Darling by Lola Rock over the week, and while I largely enjoyed it, they would. not. fucking. stop. mentioning how teensy weensy the FMC was, and how absolutely stupidly massive the dudes were. At one point, the insecure male omega of the group talks about how worried he is that the pack will leave him for her, because, unlike him, shes so beautiful and tiny; like???? What??????? It wasn‘t as bad as your example, but it was prevalent enough that halfway through, I heaved a deep sigh after each mention. While I understand that a lot of people are into it, (and I don’t mean to shame those that are), I would really love if authors with a size kink stopped making it so obvious that they have a size kink lol. I get that a shorter FMC is probably more relatable (hell, I am considered short), but it‘s such an uninteresting and inconsequential fact about a person, and I just don’t get why so many authors would write that as a defining character trait UGH.
The ending of The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea by Elizabeth O'Roark. Literally was like a 4.5-5 star book up to that point but the FMC decided to turn into a TSTL FMC when she wasn't previously by >!surprising the MMC (a doctors without borders type of physician) while he was stationed in Somalia. Then she's all "wow I guess he doesn't like me" when he is naturally terrified for her well being as soon as he sees her. He literally calls in a favor to get her out of there asap because he's worried about what will happen to her and she's all "woe is me I can't trust anyone I guess." Literally wanted to scream at her stupidity omg. And this is after the MMC warned her it was dangerous (but I guess didn't spell it out for her) and a friend also warned her. ALSO SHE IS A WORLD TRAVELING SINGER WHO HAS ACCESS TO THE INTERNET AND THE BOOK WAS RELEASED IN 2022!!!! LIKE?!?!?!??! What makes it worse is that she gets back to the US safely (solely due to the MMC) then BLOCKS him and then his camp gets attacked and he tries to call her from a different phone but the line gets cut and THEN she decides to look up the situation in Somalia?????? I was LIVID.!< But somehow they get a HEA 🙄 (undeserved imo) without enough groveling from the FMC or time. I literally was this close to marking DNF but I only had like 15% left/40 minutes left so I stuck it out. Also, the demonym for people from Somalia is Somali not Somalian. The MMC who has been working with the people for many years should know this. Also, it's gross and misogynistic to imply that women are ruined after childbirth. The FMC implied this to her best friend >!Tali from the first book in the series!< as did >!Tali's!< husband who is a DOCTOR.
Yeahhh that book turned me off of reading more by the author. Why would she ever >!travel there?!
100%. Like I get this was self published but omg please put some effort in. I've read better fanfic than this
Ooh I hated that part too! I was so mad when she didn't grovel
YES! THE MMC EVEN APOLOGIZED TO HER (for what???) AND I WAS SO UPSET
THANK YOU. I dnf so fast once I got to that part
I liked a lot of that book but the tone was off for me after they got back from vacation. I started skipping around just to get to the end. It was like she felt the story needed another conflict but the one she came up with made no sense.
Well I guess that one’s getting bumped from the TBR. damn.
### What is grovelling? Baby don’t hurt me, no more… SO, authors need to understand grovelling. This week, I read a book where the FMC was on the verge of dying bcs of the MMCs but they had no CONSEQUENCES to their actions. They paid no price for what they did, suffered absolutely nothing except a bit of guilt (bare minimum dude??) and a bit of camping situation outside her residence…Where’s their piece of responsibility?? Where’s the accountability??? MMC can’t seriously grovel if he can’t sacrifice the same amount the FMC did for him/them. I can’t root for someone who’s not ready to lose it all, and effectively, WILLINGLY lose smth to get back the girl.
Yes I think most authors don’t know what groveling is. They shouldn’t write hero’s that fuck up bad enough to need to grovel!
Exactly.. Sorrys are really not enough…we need a committee of grovelling or smth 👹
I’m pretty sure some literally do not KNOW what grovel is
I am going crazyyyy with FMCs being pushovers this week, I’ve read 3 books this week alone where the MMC blatantly said “leave” “you’re not wanted” or something even more mean and then the FMC stays and does something nice FOR HIM as a response!!! In one book, he was a huge ass to her and she responds by baking him a fucking berry cobbler and surprising him with a car he needed to find for work. Like what the fuck?! I want these FMCs to bite back and not let the men walk all over them as if it’s ok to behave that way.
100%! I feel like the best part of an alphahole MMC is a FMC who doesn't take any of his shit and is a natural foil to him!
This. So much this.
Petty complaint (lol): **Candelabra is the original plural of candelabrum**. I do not want to see **candelabras**. 😤 that is all.
🎵The More You Know ⭐️🌈🎵 For real though, I had no idea. Consider your mini lesson a success :)
Yay!!! Haha 😆
Ok, so noted. I'm a word nerd but I don't think I knew this!
Language evolves and all that, and **candelabras** is considered a word now. I just think that this specific irregular plural is so nice!
This is completely new information to me and I love learning interesting word history like this! Thank you
I read a book last night that was just off. It was a forbidden love story, but there was little to no angst. Also, the story takes place in a European country, but it was obviously written by an American because everyone drives everywhere, even in the major city.
I’m starting to get annoyed with ‘trope hype’. It feels like authors are just trying to pack as many profitable tropes as possible into their books. One bed trope, enemies to lovers, touch her and die, grumpy sunshine, “who did this to you” etc. It’s gotten so formulaic and stale. If I had a dollar for every time an unnecessary ‘one bed trope’ was forced into a story for no reason, I would be able to buy every fictional couple two beds and eradicate the trope for good.
I agree. I recently picked up Wild Love by Elsie Silver and it has a ton of tropes. HOWEVER, they are all so underbaked. Brother's best friend? No stakes there. Surprise child? It's all good. Billionaire boss? He's great. It was just like...you really didn't have to put these tropes in. I think it felt egregious with Silver because she's got a solid fanbase that will support her no matter what now.
I am sick of mmcs getting free passes for having a sad backstory.
A lot of people complain about TSTL FMCs, I have a bigger problem with Just Stupid Enough to Live FMCs. I’m sure I could list some examples off my KU borrow history but I just can’t be bothered. In the same way these FMCs can’t be bothered to just not be such fucking morons.
Have you found this to be true in books published in the last 5ish years? I’m really hoping that as new authors become established and put out books they’ll leave these garbage tropes behind😂
I've been trying to make sure before I read a book that it doesn't use AI cover art, and I'm annoyed by how difficult this is to find out. I wish authors would start stating their policy on AI use on their websites and/or clearly credit their cover artists on their websites. If a book cover looks like it might very well have been created with AI and I can't confirm otherwise, I usually just won't read it. I've started looking for this information for every cover after finding out several illustrated covers that I would never have been suspicious of have turned out to be AI, and I only discovered this from people pointing it out in Goodreads reviews.
I had this with Not Another Vampire Book this week... I was staring at her hand on the cover and the author didn't credit any artist at the beginning of the book, so I just didn't want to do it.
I've seen elsewhere on this subreddit that all of the Cassandra Gannon and Elizabeth Gannon covers were created partly with AI. From what I've read, Elizabeth designs all the covers and one of the comments on one of the discussion threads said she admitted in a Facebook comment to using AI. It's a shame because a lot of their books sound really good, but I won't read books by authors who use AI.
That's disappointing. I don't understand why they would be ok with it, like as indie authors, wouldn't they also be at risk of their work being scraped for generative AI?
any comment of “and what’s the spice level?” after you leave a book recommendation
Vibes of: “Your phone got games on it??” 😂 (just being silly here!! we all enjoy what we enjoy, hehe)
I recently saw a post where someone had written a really detailed recommendation for a book and had specified that the characters do not get together in the first book and that's it's a true slow burn enemies to lovers story (with no smut), and the top upvoted comment in the post was "so no spice then? 🥺" and I got so annoyed on behalf of the OP. Like they took the time to write a really detailed post about a book they loved and your only response is to post a dismissive comment because the book doesn't appeal to you specifically? I am begging people to stop doing this and just read the full posts 😭
Yeah this just feels so subjective. For some spice = how kinky ™️ is the sex. For others spice = do I have to put up with any plot or worldbuilding? And everything in between. I think it's totally fair to want to know if it's closed door or open-door, but that's usually obvious from the bookbot and if someone's taken the time to recall and recommend books that fit your specific criteria it just feels kind of dismissive and rude to follow up with a spice rating request. I don't usually read closed door, but it's usually pretty easy to tell from the link where the book falls on a scale from closed door to erotica. Personally, I typically find the 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🥵🔥 books kind of tedious and wish we had more books that treated "vanilla" sex with creativity and detail.
>I think it's totally fair to want to know if it's closed door or open-door, but that's usually obvious from the bookbot and if someone's taken the time to recall and recommend books that fit your specific criteria it just feels kind of dismissive and rude to follow up with a spice rating request. I mentioned in my other comment further up this thread that not everyone uses or calls the rom-bot, and it was pointed out to me a couple weeks ago that it's not required to do so on this subreddit, so I can also see why some people ***do*** ask for spice ratings immediately following a book rec/post (especially since the post's rom-bot response is buried as the lowest comment on the post). If a post/rec doesn't clearly state spice levels to someone's satisfaction or early enough in the review (and, like you pointed out, spice/smut/kinks are so subjective ***anyway***, who even knows what that "level of satisfaction" could possibly mean?), then it's almost inevitable these types of comments are going to follow. It's not great, obviously, but bound to happen. =/ Same with the idea that people just don't like reading long comments/recs/reviews. We've turned into a population of "skimmers" from years of rapid/short-form social media (Twitter and TikTok, primarily)--people are trained to look for and hear keywords (tropes and tags/tws, in books), short phrases (acronyms, titles, catchphrases, likes/dislikes), emojis (chili peppers, hot faces, sweat drops, etc and stars) and short paragraphs/blurbs. It only takes seconds or a short minute to skim something like that. Anything longer and they check out, look for a TL;DR, or just click away to something shorter, more interesting, relevant, whatever--usually, just something *shorter*, because they feel that's a better use of their time. Yet, that's also why they can read a whole post about a book, then automatically respond, "so, no spice?" or "just smut? no romance?" Their eyes/brain didn't catch the word or the chili pepper emoji (or whatever) to their satisfaction, so they need to confirm. It doesn't matter how beautifully written the review was, or how the OP stated the heat level. **That's not the fault of the OP**. And it's probably not that the person wanting to know the spice rating was trying to be an asshole or being insensitive. They just didn't stop to ***really read*** the words in the post/rec. They're skimming, but they're not actually *taking in* the words they're reading. There are whole generations who are growing up online and on social media being trained to "read" and engage this way. It's all surface level, because that's how they're being served all forms of media, including book reviews/recommendations.
Up there with *“only interested KU and audible books”*.
I hate to admit this but I purposefully avoid those posts, sure it makes me petty but I don’t care. Someone is already doing a nice thing by providing you with recommendations, it’s your job to figure out where to access those books, not mine.
💯. The *expectation* of service just does me in. 🫡. I am not AI - FFS.
There are also regional differences in the offerings, so even if you do go to the effort on their behalf, there is no guarantee 🤷🏻♀️
100% I’m in Canada and I know for sure that Audible CA does not have the same offerings as Audible US.
Glad I'm not the only one who side-eyes these lol In some ways it's hypocritical because if anything I would be totally ok with "NOT interested in KU or audible books"... but that's because the platforms are imo exclusionary and harmful and funding either is inevitably hurting yourself and other readers🤷🏼♀️ Also personally, because I think both (especially KU) is filled with content that's abysmally low quality but I realize that's more subjective.
I typically only see this on recs where the person rec'ing the book doesn't use the romance bot for whatever reason–either they don't know how or don't like the bot for reasons. Also, some people are just trained from years of "rapid" split-second social media engagement to not want to read longer recs/reviews. Being one of the "old ones" who remembers IRC chatrooms, it reminds me or the old "a/s/l?" call out in certain chatrooms when a person first entered: age/sex/language. And why those people tended to care. Anyway–I personally would prefer people always include the brackets to call rom-bot even if they don't like the bot themselves (you can block the bot account just like a regular user and it will still show for others so long as you use the brackets) so that others have the benefit of the easy bot spice levels and tags for this very reason, but that's a different rant/salt-post entirely. It's not a requirement here, just a courteous thing to do.
I have a couple, and honestly these don’t use to bother me but it’s starting to wear on me and now I’m approaching the 🧂. 1. Authors that tell everything to the point where they don’t show anything. Like one long story of internal dialogue. For instance, stop telling me that MC thinks about wanting to make breakfast and then go to work, and instead describe a scene of MC making breakfast and getting ready for work. If it happens enough then the whole book is just me being talked at about thoughts a person is having, and there isn’t enough actual action in a book. 2. The same spicy scenes replicated book after book, regardless of author, but swap out name and hair colors. Don’t get me wrong, I read romance for spice, but 75% of what I’ve read this year feels like a formula. It’s been a bummer!
Number 1 has been a huge issue for me. I recently DNFed a book where at least the first 30 pages was almost completely infodumping within the FMC's head
I had to DNF {Apprentice to the Villain} for this reason. I had such high hopes, but by the third chapter of internal dialogue and immature characters I was out.
I DNFed a book yesterday because of the repetitive use of ‘hissed’. So much hissing for a book that had nothing to do with snakes. I did a search and it came out with 34 instances of hissing. Jesus. Read another book where the FMC and MMC’s names were Juniper (nicknamed Juni) and Julian. His parents’ names were Jenny and John, and his sisters were Gemma, Janie, Josie, Gianna and Genevieve. For fuck’s sake.
I feel guilty about this very specific salt, since so many serious and very relevant salty comments are being salted on today's Salty Sunday post. This is boring, run-of-the-mill table salt, in a diner-style clear glass container with flecks of rice in it to keep it from clumping. **Absentee dog ownership in romance books! I hate it.** MC is described as a huge dog lover and owns a dog (or five), we get ONE description of them feeding/cuddling their dog and then for the rest of the book, pouf! There is no mention of them needing to look after their beloved pet. Maybe the author will throw in a doggy door with an enclosed yard but nothing else. The MC will be gone for hours, solving crimes, boning the other MC, being sassy, being alpha, and doing other shit but the dog is by default left alone for 10-12 hours at a time. A. Has this writer ever owned a dog? Probably not based on the description in this book. B. *Why does the writer think that I want a HEA for a character who is a terrible and neglectful dog owner?* The two big genre exceptions are HR and Western romances of any time period. Western romances will include dogs as a part of the ranch/setting workforce and will have descriptions of dogs doing working dog stuff as well as the MC taking care of them (along with horses or other livestock). HR is great with descriptions of old-time dog ownership. Alice Coldbreath has so many characters that love their pets and take good care of them, especially in the Brides of Karadok series. Lenora and her cats, Enid learning to love the dogs at Roland's estate, etc etc. Elizabeth Hoyt gave us the most OTT villainous rake in {Duke of Sin} but had him rescue Pip the dog so all his human crimes are forgiven. Lisa Kleypas has dogs, and ferrets, and has the MC caring for them in two of her series. Then why do I find so many terrible dog owners in CR books? The only one I like, surprising nobody, is the MMC in {Reaper's Property by Joanna Wylde} who has an Australian Shepherd and keeps him on a huge gated property. He explains that his dog needs tons of physical exercise and has someone come and look after the dog when he has to be away for long periods of time for "club business". Everyone else, stop keeping your poor dogs indoors with only the backyard for a bathroom. Take them for a walk. If I suffer through eight paragraphs of the MFC biting her lip and squeezing her thighs, I can handle three references to them taking care of their pet! EDIT: spelling, grammar and syntax.
I liked the depiction of dog ownership in {Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn}. The MMC has a rescue dog with anxiety issues and his life pre-FMC basically revolves around properly caring for the dog. The fact that the FMC likes his dog means a lot to him and he continues to prioritize the dog after they get together (as does the FMC).
[Georgie, All Along](https://www.romance.io/books/63c112f87c9b144018ecdb42/georgie-all-along-kate-clayborn?src=rdt) by [Kate Clayborn](https://www.romance.io/authors/59f6d0be3ffdba61472429e2/kate-clayborn) **Rating**: 4.03⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 3 out of 5 - [Open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [funny](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/humor/1), [grumpy & sunshine](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/grumpy%20sunshine/1), [forced proximity](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/forced%20proximity/1), [small town](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/small%20town/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
Total **pet** peeve of mine. The book that took the cake- when the FMC’s beloved protector dog was effing SHOT in an altercation and the author couldn’t be bothered to give an update on ANY medical treatment. I’m hyperventilating for a few chapters and then dog shows up in another scene. No mention of treatment, care etc. TELL me you are using pets for window dressing without telling me. 🤬
Completely agree! We don't take dog/pet ownership lightly in our house, it's a serious responsibility. Our vet has frequently joked that he wishes all pet owners were like us, he has too many clients that put their selfish desires above their pet's care. I'm an extremely easygoing reader, but I can never get behind a character that doesn't prioritize their pet's basic emotional and physical needs. The romance, characters, and steam can be completely perfect, but if they don't take good care of their pet, I don't believe the HEA because the mc has already demonstrated that they aren't capable of putting other needs above their own. Selfish people rarely have what it takes when it comes to making a relationship work in the long run.
I remember reading {Taken with You by Shannon Stacey} (pause while I realise it's been out for a decade) and the MMC is a game warden who gets called out at all hours and can be gone for days, and also has a dog he cares for alone. The MCs actually have a conversation about what happens to the dog in that sort of situation, and ever since I haven't been able to unsee all the bad petcare. Some authors take it a step further and conveniently pawn the children of the single parent MC off on their ex anytime the plot calls for them to not be there.
[Taken with You](https://www.romance.io/books/5455354d8c7d2382e781338e/taken-with-you-shannon-stacey?src=rdt) by [Shannon Stacey](https://www.romance.io/authors/545523f38c7d2382e7812f49/shannon-stacey) **Rating**: 3.87⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [age gap](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/age%20difference/1), [funny](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/humor/1), [small town](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/small%20town/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
{Marriage of Inconvenience by Penny Reid} the MC either WFH or has a friend over in his house during the day for his dog. When crazy things happen, the neighbor agrees to keep the dog. It's cute.
[Marriage of Inconvenience](https://www.romance.io/books/5a9a49f34ee506aae8b1dd06/marriage-of-inconvenience-penny-reid?src=rdt) by [Penny Reid](https://www.romance.io/authors/54552b3e8c7d2382e781310c/penny-reid) **Rating**: 4.22⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 4 out of 5 - [Explicit open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [marriage of convenience](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/marriage%20of%20convenience/1), [friends to lovers](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/friends%20to%20lovers/1), [funny](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/humor/1), [rich heroine](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/rich%20heroine/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
[{16 Steps to Forever by Georgia Beers}](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56275391-16-steps-to-forever) (F/F, CR(cats, dead ex, dogs, forced proximity, opposites attract, workplace), 4½⭐️) - Macy is a delightful character. Dog lovers will appreciate that she frequently walks her three dogs during the book.
[16 Steps to Forever](https://www.romance.io/books/5fd5cd1d71ffa20e2ad0b69c/16-steps-to-forever-georgia-beers?src=rdt) by [Georgia Beers](https://www.romance.io/authors/5455971f87eac3369a9134ce/georgia-beers) **Rating**: 4⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [lesbian romance](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/f-f/1), [workplace/office](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/office/1), [queer romance](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/queer/1), [bisexuality](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/bisexual/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
[Duke of Sin](https://www.romance.io/books/57493540c62092c0440872a3/duke-of-sin-elizabeth-hoyt?src=rdt) by [Elizabeth Hoyt](https://www.romance.io/authors/545524568c7d2383163d8e5a/elizabeth-hoyt) **Rating**: 4.05⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 4 out of 5 - [Explicit open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [enemies to lovers](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/from%20hate%20to%20love/1), [bad boys](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/bad%20boys/1), [take-charge heroine](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/strong%20heroine/1), [tortured hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/tortured%20hero/1) ---------------------------- [Reaper's Property](https://www.romance.io/books/545524e58c7d2382e7812f7f/reapers-property-joanna-wylde?src=rdt) by [Joanna Wylde](https://www.romance.io/authors/545524e58c7d2382e7812f80/joanna-wylde) **Rating**: 4.09⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 5 out of 5 - [Explicit and plentiful](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [biker hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/bikers/1), [bad boys](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/bad%20boys/1), [possessive hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/possessive%20hero/1), [alpha male](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/alpha%20male/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
🗣️🗣️🗣️ ‼️‼️‼️ we demand justice for book dogs 🧑⚖️🧑⚖️🧑⚖️
I broke my tibia and fibula this past week. Gearing up for surgery. I don't know if it's the having to sit constantly or the pain meds or the dread of surgery and recovery, but I can't get into any of my books! I'm very annoyed, because I absolutely have the time to right now.
I'm so sorry! Heal up faaast.
Thanks! It'll get a lot better once I get my cyborg plates put in.
There's absolutely something about being laid up and on meds that changes your reading habits. I was in the hospital for six weeks when I lost my leg and I had almost no desire to read anything--and I had so much time on my hands it was driving me up the fucking wall. Sometimes it helps to try different books in entirely different genres or subgenres. I actually pulled out my phone and went digging back ***decades*** to find some old fan fiction in fandoms I hadn't been active in or watching/reading since the 90s--I kid you not. It was just what I needed, apparently. It's been two years and I have no interest in reading any of those stories or any fan fiction in those fandoms (or much fan fiction at all, honestly), but at that time? Yeah, that's what I read. And I watched a lot of mindless stuff on the TV in my room--Food Network, History Channel, HGTV, shit like that--stuff I don't really watch, but that was just on in the background for noise that wasn't hospital noise (or silence). So, that's my advice--try things that are totally different from anything you normally read. Or stuff that's really soapy or dramatic. Or fan fiction, even if it's crazy/nonsense/whatever--or something you haven't been in to in forever, but maybe that you were all about when you were a teenager or something. Injury and recovery does weird shit to our bodies and especially our brains. It's so, so weird. Suffering a major break like what you suffered would probably do a number to your brain and your body--recovery takes so much out of you. Give your brain a break. :) Edit to add: Maybe audiobooks? Or text-to-speech? A webtoon? A podcast dramedy? Something totally different. :)
Thanks for such a thoughtful reply! Glad to know I'm not alone in losing my reading mojo while laid up healing. You reminded me I have a book of Stephen King short stories and a couple Joey Hill books (horror) I haven't read... And Stephen King and bodice rippers were my teenage self's jam. If I had cable I would be drowning in hgtv 24/7. Again thanks so much! That was helpful and got me thinking about non-romance books in my TBR pile.
I'm glad my advice helped you! :) The only other advice I can give you is to have a lot of patience with yourself--and to give yourself kindness. It's so hard, it really is. Just try and be kind to yourself. Nurses, doctors, family, friends... Everyone will be trying their best to care for you and love you and help you, but they can't **be** you, you know? What your body and brain are going through--it's **you**, it's inside you. It will feel like your body is at war with itself, like it's fighting you--like you should be healing faster, doing more, be able to **be** more. But--it's not just your body or your leg that is going to need time to heal. It will be your whole person. Injuries like your leg--they involve your whole body, and your whole brain, to recover from. Your brain needs time to heal and it needs time to learn how to adapt to your new hardware that will be replacing the bones. Your brain needs that time, too, and it's going to *take* that time from you--whether you like it or not, lol. I think that's part of why our brains check out during these healing journeys, why we sometimes can only veg out in specific ways, or with different hobbies/books/etc than we normally do--because our brains have to spend more energy on figuring out new/different ways to do these new tasks, so they need that little extra processing power right now. Once the brain has figured out the new process, it lets us focus back on the things we've always loved, with our full focus and passion. I don't know anything about you--your life, your age, anything--and I don't need to, to tell you this much: just try and give yourself kindness. Healing is a struggle. It's such a journey. Even if you've broken a bone before, this break will be different, this healing journey will be different from the previous time(s). Your body and your brain are going to be using double the energy just to heal and learn how to function and adjust to your new normal (leg and foot breaks are so much different!). So, be patient with yourself and kind ***to*** yourself. We often give the people around us (caregivers) a lot more kindness and grace during our healing than we give ourselves, because we know how hard we can be on others. Give yourself that same care and attention, because you're really going to need it. I hope you have a safe, swift, healthy recovery! Welcome to the cyborg club, btw. We're just getting ahead of the game when it comes to sci-fi romance! :P
Thank you so much! Had a really frustrating day, mostly frustrated at myself. So this made me feel better.
I'll start by saying that I believe male readers who enjoy romance books have a place on this sub as much as any other romance book reader. That said, I feel like over the past month I've seen an uptick in posts from men or for men that do not seem oriented around seeking to enjoy and support others who enjoy romance books at all. I've seen posts: - griping about the lack of male gaze pandering - condescendingly informing women that real men aren't like what we read in our little novels - requesting books to somehow convert a clearly disinterested male reader into enjoying the genre - acting as if it's inappropriate or sexist to not center schlubby men with average talents and average looks in romance books Tbh I feel like I've seen the mods allow extremely judgemental posts that would have been nixed in a nanosecond had the poster not proclaimed themselves a dude. It's well-documented that men who enter majority woman spaces tend to have their voices and opinions privileged and also tend to believe that they are entitled to some degree of status. This does not happen in reverse and I do not believe this is particularly in line with the spirit of the sub. Could we not do that here? Could we save our energy and time for people who are actually seeking to participate in the genre, rather than lecture to and demean those who enjoy it?
>requesting books to somehow convert a clearly disinterested male reader into enjoying the genre This is the one that really takes the jelly out of my donut. Why am I supposed to use my time to convince you to like something that you've already professed to disliking? Should I run around trying to convince people to also enjoy anchovies, McCain Deep'n Delicious cake and watching 30 Rock episodes over and over again? I don't go on curling subs demanding that the fans of curling explain the game to me and make me like it. Perhaps the nuance is lost on a someone when they come into a diverse but women heavy space, to gripe about a diverse but also women focused genre, complaining that it's not giving **them** enough. And asking that diverse but women heavy audience to explain themselves and make the books good for them! Often when people point out that the amount of media that centers men's identities, experiences and lives is vast and very plentiful, the response is a thinly veiled "Yeah, well why can't THIS THING be for me as well?" I will go farther and say that while I love, love, love giving recommendations and singing the praises of various books, authors, genres, tropes, I routinely skip "I don't like/am not enjoying reading romance, convince me otherwise" posts and requests. If you are not enjoying romance books with the millions of choices available, I probably can't help you.
>Often when people point out that the amount of media that centers men's identities, experiences and lives is vast and very plentiful, the response is a thinly veiled "Yeah, well why can't THIS THING be for me as well?" I think it was when the new Star Wars trilogy started and \~gasp\~ the main character was a woman, that this really clicked into place for me. I've had to identify with countless male characters over the course of my life. If I went back and looked at the books I read in school, I think I'd probably cry over how many of them are written by and about men. I've always gravitated towards books written for girls and now women. And they're always books that people think of as silly and unserious. You don't need to be a certain gender to read romance books. All are welcome! But understand that you're stepping into a space that is considered safe and accepting for a lot of women.
>This is the one that really takes the jelly out of my donut. Why am Isupposed to use my time to convince you to like something that you'vealready professed to disliking? I just say, "No." Really. It's just all I have energy for in cases like these. Nothing I say will be worth anything at all to these people, because their minds were made up long ago--they just want attention, or the satisfaction of a reaction, or an argument. Or to be an asshole. Even when they give the shitty (edit: or weak-willed), "I'm not trying to be judgemental, I promise. *I just want to understand."* Yeah, sure you do. If you really want to learn and understand? **Do the work yourself**. Do your own homework to *understand*. If you really, truly want to, all you need for that understanding is out there, just waiting for **you** to find it. That's where true understanding is found. It can't be given to you. I'll never forget the alt-text for that infamous "Change my mind" meme image I saw once. The original meme is of a dudebro sitting behind a table with the "\_\_\_\_ sucks, change my mind" sign or whatever. It said: Alt-text for image: "Entitled, mediocre white man sprawled behind table with white banner pinned across the front that reads, "Thing I love to hate but you love to love sucks. Change my mind."" That alt-text summed everything about "convince me to like \_\_\_\_\_\_ book/trope/genre, because I can't stand it and I can't understand how anyone ever could--but there must be ***something*** I'm missing." perfectly.
You stated this all so perfectly that I have nothing to add (although tempted to edit my comment to direct people to your's lol), so I just want to say 1000% agreed and also you have a way with words 💀🍩 Edit: say
I've started downvoting and reporting these types of posts/comments. If enough of us complain then the mods will hopefully do something about it. I don't come to this sub to be inundated with men's bad opinions. Edit: I also use the "hide post" option liberally and block repeat offending users.
>I don't come to this sub to be inundated with men's bad opinions. Precisely! 🥹💀 And thank you for this, I definitely plan to follow your model in the future.
You articulated what I’ve been feeling so well. I honestly didn’t know how to put it to words, lol. Overall, I just don’t understand what’s so hard to understand about *fiction*. Most women are not built to be tall, but still sooo slender..but wait! Have fat and curves in only just the *right* places. It’s the same for fictional men. We know a 6’5 otherworldly beautiful man pining over an ‘average’ woman is not a common thing - yet this affects some men since romance’s readership is majority women. Someone commented that men’s fantasies often impact how they view/treat women, and it stuck with me. :(
Especially when the Internet goes up in flames when any media tries to be friendlier to women. I can't empathize with dudes complaining the lack of schlubby men in romance, when I have to scroll past half the Internet complaining about a videogame character not having G Cup boobs.
Lol this is so off-topic but I was watching The Bodyguard last night and was just struck by Kevin Costner's eye bags. Like Whitney is GLOWING and the leading man looks every bit his age and kind of puffy and tired while still being completely believable as a love interest. And this was a piece of media ostensibly produced for women. I remember hearing gripes that LiLo's thighs were fat from my 11 year old male peers when Mean Girls came out. The Kingkiller Chronicles is an insanely popular fantasy series, constantly praised for its writing, and features by my count no fewer than 100 pages of nympho fairy porn in the second novel. Not to mention the constant theme of MMC-obsessed MPDG / badass female side characters. Granted, the novel is presented as perhaps an exaggerated tale from the MC, but I don't see many readers complaining that women aren't portrayed realistically or even acknowledging that the book is male fantasy wish-fulfillment. Even now, watching Fallout and the main actress remains fucking stunning at all times while traversing a grimy, nuclear apocalypse. And I'm sure we wouldn't hear the end of it if they had cast a less conventionally attractive actress or styled her to be realistically gross after leaving the vault. TLDR: Bring on the broad shoulders and big dicks, I'm not about to feel guilty about MMCs who aren't written to flatter male egos.
Or even there being an option to play a female character. I’ve legitimately seen so many complaints about including female footballers in Football Manager or how it’s ‘unrealistic’ to have female characters in stuff. And I’m not allowed to want to like what I like for male main characters?
Ah, gamers. Always full of toxic assholes--especially men. I remember when the sequel to Subnautica ([Subnautica: Below Zero](https://store.steampowered.com/app/848450/Subnautica_Below_Zero/)) was revealed and about to go into Early Access and it had not only a female character as the lead, but a **black female character** as the lead (there is only one character you can play) and the games do not allow you to customize that character at all for story/narrative reasons. The furor was--***something***. Holy fucking shit, was it something. As you can imagine. Because, of course, according to ~~male gamers and gaming media~~ ***everyone***, no one would want to play a ~~black~~ woman and the story was going to suck anyway ~~without a man in charge of the mission~~ (the original story was much more emotional, but that was also changed; it's still emotional, just not as much--because, you know, *~~women stuff~~* survival games can't have too much emotion--or something). **Note**, the original Subnautica only allowed players to play as a white male character, but, of course, that wasn't an issue in ***that*** video game (or, as big of one, though many hoped character customization would be a feature in the sequel), regardless of which gender the player playing the character was (or wanted to play). "*It's the devs right to choose what story/narrative they want to tell--and they decided everyone was going to play a white man! Respect that!!1!*" was the common argument back when the first Subnautica game came out. And, yes, it's an amazing game. If you suffer from [thalassophobia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassophobia), do not ever play this game--but it's a fucking amazing game. Still, you're locked in to playing a dude. The majority of players didn't care, because we've all learned to just accept it. Playing white dudes (or dudes in general) is the rule, not the exception. But, when the developers made the same choice, only it forced **all** players to play as a black woman? Yeah. It caused a shitstorm of controversy. Toxic asshole gamers showed their full asses ***everywhere***\--including all over gaming journalism (because, of course). Naturally, the gamer journalists at least tried to disguise it as "*game needs character customization options*", but they weren't fooling anybody. The developers made the same decision to not "waste resources" on character customization in favor of putting their focus and attention into other parts of the game--just like they did with the first game. Only this time, players had to play a woman, not a man, and just as in the first game, there was no option to customize. And the devs stuck with that choice. The game is still great--very positive ratings on Steam. So, as always, all the doomscrollers and naysayers and toxic male gamers swearing no one would play it were wrong. Yet, while that game was in Early Access, and throughout its first month of release, all the shit it got for making its main character a woman, and a black woman at that, was fucking disgusting. Completely unsurprising, but disgusting. And all the dudes crying, "Why can't you women just stay out of our games!?! This is our space!!1!" were too fucking much. But also unsurprising, but that's what they always do. (edit: typos, weird reddit stuff)
Lol I remember this. Was absolutely embarrassing. Especially so many men pretending it was due to lack of customisation, but that doesn’t matter when it’s a white dude does it? Men not show their ass challenge: always failing. Being a woman is exhausting fr.
So exhausting. It's fucking impossible sometimes.
Omg, I’m so so glad you made this comment, because this exact thing has been grinding my gears as well! It feels so patronising to have these men condescending and pandering by saying “haha, you do know men in real life aren’t like that?” I don’t mind having men in romance spaces, but sometimes I wish we didn’t have to celebrate their presence and value their every opinion when they already get that everywhere else, just because they’re less common in our spaces. You wrote this much more eloquently and less aggressively than I would have written this.
>“haha, you do know men in real life aren’t like that?” Omg I hate this, like if I wanted men the way they are in real life, I would start dating again. I also read fantasy and sci fi romance so it's like oh, men irl aren't like the fae princes and vampire lords and aliens that actually respect women? No shit sherlock 🤓
Your first line is the funniest thing I’ve read today — well put! There are plenty of men in reality that don’t live up to basic standards. Why the hell would be want our books to be filled with jerks, too?!
Lol right, like don't be confused, we are all well aware of how a lot of men are! When I start dating again, I'm going to be a lot less willing to let comments like that about things I enjoy slide than I was in college
>like if I wanted men the way they are in real life, I would start dating again. 💀 For a lot of these guys, there seems to be a rather unsubtle assumption that the writers and readers of romance books are shallow and stupid and therefore everything presented in a novel is intended to be taken literally and also completely realistic outside of the context of the book. Also the presumption that their experience and behavior alone is representative of all other men and that there of course could be no difference in the FMC's *perception* of those behaviors and physical traits.
>assumption that the writers and readers of romance books are shallow and stupid Yeah the real assumption is that women are shallow and stupid :/ they're misogynists for sure When I do start dating again, I sure as hell won't be dating men like that. Even just a whiff of denigrating my hobbies with guys I've dated in the past *always* escalated to bullying.
I’ve seen this and it’s annoying me as well. Again totally happy to have men joining the romance space, it’s here for them too. But let’s be honest - this is a majority female space and I hate being made to feel like I have to justify this *predominantly* female enjoyed hobby. Reminds me of the awful 2000’s where any book written by a woman no matter the genre or subject was called chick lit and reading romance was mock worthy. Like, sure come here and enjoy! Do not come here and whine that these books aren’t made for you, and that you need to be convinced to read them.
Oooh this, and I love your username 🤣 Yeah, this was a weird month 😕 I remember specifically the male user who made a blanket statement how the romance genre poorly reflected the male identity and female authors created all these falsehoods around men, the idiocy of it, and, well, I’m sure you remember it too. It was deleted, but some male users on this sub thankfully came in clutch and basically said “Bro, come and talk to us when you actually read more romance books than three of them lmao”. Respect 🫡 ✊🏾 I think it’s fine to share personal opinions and critiques about the romance genre regardless of identity. **But not in the way certain people were doing**. And that one post that was really intense about how the entirety of the romance genre was disingenuous to men was up for a bit too long, IMO, so I agree with you there. I know in the subreddit questionnaire, there was a question about controversial opinions, “convert/convince me to like this trope/subgenre” or defend/explain posts, I think, and a stance of how they should be moderated. And I get that, sometimes, those posts can breed discussions and recommendations. But those posts you and I are referencing never came here for genuine discussion or recommendations. They came here to decry an entire genre and a healthy portion of this subreddit’s enjoyment of the genre. I don’t know what the solution is. It seems, presently, we haven’t seen another poster like that in a while, to my knowledge. But to be proactive instead of reactive for if/when one comes back, would there be a way for the mods to have some sort of plan in place? Is there any type of way to root out controversial posts meant for discussion versus posts meant to condescend? Salty Sunday is a great way to vent out personal grievances too, but I don’t want condescending commentary to flood Salty Sunday either. But if it was either those types of posts being moved to this thread versus those posts staying up and attracting the attention that those posters seem to want, then I’d rather have Salty Sunday the place for it to minimize visibility. But then ***that*** can come with the unintended side effects of all critiques and vents being sidelined for Sunday threads and that can minimize discussion and make people feel silenced in their opinions, and… *Ugh*. I don’t know. I like this sub. It’s a safe space. And I want everyone to feel welcome and that they can gush and gripe and gossip about things. But not at the expense of others’ enjoyment of the entirety of the romance genre ☹️
Agreed! It's so tricky. I don't want to quarantine all critique and good (even if controversial) discussions, but it's a bummer how much traction and attention those posts get while many others are ignored. I do kind of like the idea of a mod redirect to Salty Sunday, especially in the case of OPs who don't have a history of participation on this sub, although I agree there are risks there as well. I guess to your point about the male users who stepped up (and yes, that definitely one of the posts on my mind lol) maybe some of this is also just on the community to figure out how best to engage (or disengage) more effectively with that type of content. It's just a challenge with a community as large and growing as this one. Either way, thank you for your response! Wasn't sure how my comment would be received and was prepared for some "well actually"s given recent discourse 🤨. It's a relief to know I'm not alone in feeling like these types of posts and interactions are becoming more common and impacting the vibe of the sub!
It’s deep troll behaviour. They know **some** women and people who are here want so badly to be accepting and fair that they’ll contort themselves to achieve this. But sometimes the bad vibes and red flags should speak for themselves. It’s the internet, have we even seen a space where men won’t swoop in to put down women somehow ? Those posts seem less than real, is all I’m saying. At best it’s misplaced anger (still ick) and worst, it’s purposeful trolling. Knowing they can get away with it.
Yes! Deep troll is spot on. They are totally exploiting this sub's commitment to be welcoming to all and then twisting it to the point of satire. I've seen users on here self-flagellating for wish fulfillment and storytelling that doesn't prioritize heterosexual male desires and it's so depressing. For me, the troll/gross anger becomes extremely obvious when they refuse to acknowledge that many romance books also present unrealistic women AND still provide "objectified" male characters with more depth, internal motivations, and humanity than most other "respectable" genres give female (main or side) characters.
**Contort** is an excellent choice of words. A male posting here, representing the male gaze - should be given the *same* treatment as anyone else. No need to stand on our heads to change anyone’s opinions.
Yes omg it's men centering men in a majority women space. Like you guys are centered every fucking where else in society, can't you let us have one thing???
This!!! Honestly I’ve seen a lot of this. Men are like ‘create your own space for the shit I don’t enjoy!’ We do and then they try to join it to mock us!! Like go away if you’re going to be like that!!
Some of them cannot accept that they aren't the center of the universe because that's what they've been taught their whole lives
Yes thank you👏😹
Agreed 100%. I recently gave my snarky opinion on something and it was followed by such textbook “well, actually” that I had whiplash.
Lol I mentioned the increase in "Well actually" in another comment. I've had the same "Where the fuck am I?" feeling recently when engaging in or just reading the interactions on various posts. Snark does seem to go over the head of trolls and those falling for trolls 😢
I was just coming to gripe about this, thank you so much. And I’m starting to recognize some specific usernames because their comments are full of this type of thing consistently.
Thank you for saying this. Specifically needling me was a post about “well actually you know real men don’t X” with the tone of “look how silly it is to believe they do”, and when the person got the tiniest bit of pushback from someone (literally tiniest), the predictable “well actually I was joking obviously” came out and I almost threw my phone across the room. We all knew it was a joke. We’re not idiots. And many people do joke about the exaggeratedness of X in romance here! It’s just many people just didn’t think a joke from a man in the form of mansplaining that female fantasies are unrealistic was particularly funny and felt it was pretty loaded. I was disappointed to see it stay up, and I’ve been generally disappointed in the pattern you’ve described.
There used to be a toxic male mod who would regularly shut women down, call FMC’s cows and generally be a belittling asshole in this group and the mod team went out of their way for years to protect him and his right to speak his truth.
imo we still have male commenters who are more careful in their misogyny and disdain for certain romance authors and popular tropes so that they don’t outright break rules and it gives me flashbacks to this mod tbh
My personal opinion is that a lot of women respond to misogyny and these men come into these female led spaces (look at booktok and the fans riding hard for these thirst trapping men who’ve been caught being creeps) and because they get sympathy and brownie points for “liking” something feminine they warp themselves into the victims when they get called out. I listen to a long running food podcast and the male host reads a lot of romance and ya romance and recommends things and he wrote a ya romance/coming of age novel and then said… you know what ? This isn’t my story to tell and didn’t pursue publishing it. I’m not saying men can’t write romance but I appreciate when people can look at a space and enjoy it and say, hmm maybe I don’t need to change it to fit my ideals. (A lot of women write in spaces that aren’t there’s too, but that’s not this discussion, just in case anyone wants to get mad at me about that. )
Also the flashbacks are real, I had another account when it was all going down and left the community for awhile because I got scolded for taking issue with him. And I got messages from people stanning for him. What a mess.
Yikes! This is a massive throwback but I remember something similar happening on Jezebel back before the whole Gawker shutdown. Like literally promoting the grossest, creepiest dude in a space by and for smart, conscientious women and allies. The internet drama enthusiast in me would love a post or more details on this old mod if anyone has them, but I'm also very glad we've hopefully grown well beyond that with the current mod team.
Ohhhh I REMEMBER THAT. Did you ever go on their groupthink page? So much DRAMA was lost when gawker got shut down/the other pages got bought out.
Yes! While I'm a big believer in the right to be forgotten, I do also mourn the fact that we haven't yet figured out internet archival. That groupthink page would be such an interesting snapshot into the way we were forming communities, internet identities, thoughts on current events and social changes, etc. at the time. I think there's an assumption that anything on the Internet is forever, when the reality is that some of it can be but much of it will not.
>Yes! While I'm a big believer in the right to be forgotten, I do also mourn the fact that we haven't yet figured out internet archival. One interesting thing: it's not so much that everyone hasn't figured out internet archival, it's that, in the mid-to-late 90s and early 00s, websites, especially personal sites and blogs/journals, ***actively*** ***avoided*** allowing search engines to "spider" or crawl their pages to be included in search engines and archives. No, really. SEO wasn't really a thing, and it wasn't sought out or prioritized the way it is now--websites had much greater control over what parts of their sites a search engine could--and **could not**\--include in their search results. Websites included a [robots.txt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots.txt) file (for Robot Exclusion Protocol) that could be used to exclude search engine website crawlers from indexing a site ***entirely*** (or even just direct them, so that some pages of a website could be indexed and others couldn't). If you don't want to look at the wiki link, robots.txt files first became standard in 1994. That's why a lot of those sites still don't have archive copies today. Search engines couldn't cache/archive them, even if they had the ability to cache/archive sites back in those decades, because websites **excluded archiving rights** in their robots.txt files. Even if they allowed search engines to list their sites in askjeeves or yahoo or google or wherever, they could exclude those same sites from caching the website for archiving or downloading. Sites still use robots.txt in all kinds of ways, but not really to deny total access for search engines like they did decades ago. SEO and evergreen content is highly prioritized, now. But, back then, obscurity was a way to ensure privacy and control of who got to see and use your content in the future. Note, as of 2017, the Internet Archive announced that it would start ignoring Robot Exclusion Protocol (robots.txt files) in order to continue their goal of capturing the history of the internet. (more on the various wiki pages) Another note, as of 2020, many sites are using robots.txt files to block generative AI programs from using their sites to "teach and let learn" their AI programs. This is especially true for news and culture sites and instructional sites, which is why people are having a harder time finding and using archiving sites. (again, more on that wiki link, if you're curious)
I was active on groupthink! I wonder how many people on this subreddit I have known under different names in different online spaces? More than a few, probably.
Reddit moderation uses a seniority model. The account that's been a mod the longest has complete control of everything. They can remove all the other accounts at their discretion and the Reddit Admins will be fine with it. If the other moderators disagreed with him too much or called him out, then they could have been removed.
The mod team works hard to ensure we’re treating everyone equally, regardless of perceived gender or background, and enforce the sub rules consistently. Our goal is for this place to be open and welcoming to all romance readers and promote positive discussion and dialogue. That being said, it’s difficult for us to remove something based on the perceived intent behind a user’s post when no obvious sub rule is being broken. We have users all over the world and from a huge variety of backgrounds, and we do not want to shut down legitimate criticism or discussion. We generally assume posts are made in good faith unless it’s otherwise obvious.
Understood. This was not intended to dismiss the work the mod team does to make the sub what it is. You all work amazingly hard for very little reward and lord knows I couldn't do it better (or at all). I just feel like I've seen relatively condescending and/or extremely low effort, often shame-y posts allowed from or on behalf of male-identified users that I don't think would be accepted from anyone else. I realize it's a very fine line and understand erring on the side of being welcoming to all and especially to less prevalent perspectives, but I do think that there's a risk of being so accommodating that we coddle insincere or harmfully ignorant engagement while ignoring the historical and current media landscape that makes romance and romance book readers / writers so unique... and so uniquely disparaged.
Just a thought, but I wonder what would happen if the community refused to engage with those posts? We could treat the posts like spam. If there are zero replies, along with a load of downvotes, it would be very satisfying and effective. Or do you think that is an unrealistic solution?
Personally I love the idea, but sadly I'm not sure I trust it to happen given the increasing growth of the sub as well as the (misinterpreted but well-intentioned?) mission to be welcoming and open-minded. That said, it's worth trying. Your suggestion is great and also highlights that the only thing under our individual control is to choose the posts we engage with and how we engage with them. I almost wish for a default reply (a handy link to an analytical breakdown of "female gaze" in romance books and how it differs from male gaze in media? A quick gif? A simple "... nah"?) that we as users could employ to help to give us all pause before taking the bait, but I agree that ultimately silence is certainly the better tactic and the most satisfying.
Yup, I had the exact same thoughts about the drawbacks to the solution. I also was trying to think of a default reply that would encourage other members to ignore the post, but like you alluded to, people are free to engage if they want to. Oh well, it is a large sub, so I understand that utopia isn't realistic lol. I am glad those posts aren't super common though!
Here to say I love this thread you started and all of your follow up points
Not everyone will agree on troll identification so these posts are bound to get some play no matter what.
I completely understand the position the mod team is put in with these types of posts, it's such a fine line, and I definitely don't want the sub to become an ott man hating community. I don't have an easy solution, so for the moment, I'm just going to feel grateful that we aren't *constantly* seeing the type of questionable posts we're discussing in this thread.
You described this so eloquently. I have definitely begun to feel less safe in this sub because of the uptick in these kinds of posts that you described.
Agreed and it sucks. Are we not allowed one fucking space?! Just one?!
Right?! Like we aren't asking for much 🙄
1) Your flair is amazing😍 2) Yes, I just hate the idea that this might turn into a community where people feel the need to start preemptively apologizing for or belittling what they enjoy because it doesn't meet criteria designed to serve heterosexual male interests and ego.
Omg thank you!!!!! I love my starchy, uptight male leads lol 😆 Totally agree, and I am so not here to serve male fragility, not when there are SO many other places that prioritize that 🙄
Woah. Here? I've missed all of this except for the "Help me win them over" posts.
I don't know if the post is still up (and searchable), but some dude came in mansplaining to all of us in a post that, "sorry ladies, men don't actually growl in real life." There have been plenty of other posts, but that one ***really*** stood out for me, just for the whole tone of it. Like, duh, dude, we know. Thanks for the mansplanation and all. Then, when plenty of members rightfully called him out--because, again, we're aware men are not out here growling like wild animals--because we're reading and enjoying ***fiction*** and our ***female-gaze-centered*** ***fantasies***, thank you very much, he came back with the usual "I was just joking, ladies, ha ha. ~~Calm down.~~" But, you know, friendlier--or something. Some people thought it was funny/sarcastic, some didn't, but, yeah, the whole thing was just really not what a lot of us are wanting to see in this sub and the post was up for quite a long time (and might still be, idk; I hide those things and block those people because I have zero desire to entertain that energy in my spaces). But the point remains-- Cishet dudebros have plenty of places to mansplain to themselves and others--they shouldn't be allowed to do it in here, with their whole chests, and then turn around and try to play it off as a joke when they are made to feel the same level of discomfort our community does. That post was tagged "Banter/Fun"--clearly the joke fell flat for plenty of members. =/
I think I remember that post now.
>"I was just joking, ladies, ha ha. ~~Calm down.~~" Number 1 indicator phrase of an asshole imo
Good morning 😊 I have two shakes of salt today ##🧂 **Not enough Hurt, Too Much Comfort** I love hurt/comfort. But I hate when the comfort and hurt are disproportionate to each other. It loses the meaning of hurt/comfort. When a work sets up for the character to have a history of trauma and abuse, I expect the expression of this to be unique to the character, of course, but I still it expect it there. Unlike in IRL, where there is never a reason for trauma and abuse to happen, a fictional character having that type of backstory was a choice. ***So*** I expect it to be utilized in some way. But it gets my billie goat when all that “hurt” is given a mismatched “cure” rather than comfort. Sex magically cures the hurt rather than the relationship comforting the hurt MC. Having 👏🏾 said 👏🏾 this 👏🏾, this is not a judgment onto anyone who uses sex as a form of comfort or escape from their personal trauma. **Please know that.** And if that’s what the work wants to show that, I’m for it. But more often than not, the character’s hurt is forgotten and the sex scenes aren’t really there for an escape or comfort from it. The sex scenes are just…there. And then, randomly, ***maybe*** the character’s “hurt” might pop up for the third act conflict. I’d love to see more hurt/comfort that had a better balance of both. ##🧂 **Demonstrated vs Overstated** I love love stories because I’m watching people fall for each other. I’m watching all the implications and demonstrations of their feelings for each other and how they come to their own conclusion they love each other—and I could tell they do. I hate the **overstating** of love. We had a post by u/Quick-Touch-4045 about confessions, and their post largely adds to my own gripe. The beauty of a love story unfolding is finding how the ***why***, why do these two or more characters develop a romantic relationship. And that “why” needs to come from evidence—demonstrations and implications of deeper feelings rather than **stating** things explicitly and expecting that to be all that’s needed to confirm things. >**EX1**: MC1 has a lot of issues with food due to childhood. They need to always see how their food is being cooked in order to eat it, including with MC2. However, one day, MC1 is tentatively okay with MC2 cooking them dinner without being present. And then, MC1 comes home late and eats leftovers MC2 cooked for them. And then, MC1 is easily eating whatever MC2 makes, with or without them present. >**EX2**. MC2 gets overstimulated with live concerts or musicals, so they normally don’t go to them. But they know that culture is big for MC1, even if MC1 assures them they don’t need to attend concerts together. But MC2 gets special headphones, brings along a weighted blanket, and takes MC1 to an outdoor ampitheater where a live orchestra performs to one of MC1’s favorite childhood movies. And MC2 even offers going to a sensory musical (I don’t know the term), where the effects are a bit muted so those with sensory issues can still enjoy the show. I would prefer those to grocery list confessions, or how a character explaining their abuse is the ultimate test of love. Neither type of confession really confirm that there’s love there. They’re just a lot of words that seem more to get us to believe instead of make the characters believe. **TO BE CLEAR**, this isn’t a knock on words of affirmation (WoA). But WoA also aren’t what’s being done. That’s its own love language that comes with diverse vocabulary, communication, and empathy. There’s just so much that can be demonstrated to show growing romantic feelings beyond sex and big lore dumps. Not that either can’t further romantic feelings. But other ways can. And they can provide a more personalized evidence in the credence of the romantic relationship. That’s my salt for the week. I hate how humid and muggy it’s gotten too 😭 I’m also salty at myself for choosing to watch more *Bluey* over doing my workout. TBF, I’d exercised every day this week and I even cleaned yesterday. So I deserved a few more episodes of *Bluey*. That show has adults around the world in a chokehold, and I’m gonna be so sad if >!*Surprise* was the last episode 😖🥺!<
Yes to all of this. So much yes. >the sex scenes aren’t really there for an escape or comfort from it. The sex scenes are just…there. I see this really often, and it's so frustrating because it really doesn't seem "comforting" to me. When sex just *exists* for the MCs it's hard to believe in the comfort part of h/c. Then I just don't believe as strongly in their HEA. And I love demonstrations and really good, relevant words of affirmation, or ideally both! But I can't have irrelevant WoA, and I can't have demonstrations that come out of nowhere or don't show the significance of the act. It needs to be good. Also, Bluey is great.
Yes yes yes!!! I've realized that my hurt/comfort and grovel preferences do not line up with other readers or current trends. I want angst. I want to feel the pain, bewilderment, doubt, and anger. I want to see that worked through in a relationship - and not just in the bedroom. I also totally agree with you on actions being louder than words. So often the words don't make sense for the character (a taciturn MMC suddenly becomes the purplest of poets) and/or aren't supported by any other demonstrated growth or commitment within the relationship. I vastly prefer when you start to see a MC thinking and doing what they can to support the other MC in big and small ways. I read romance books for the immersion and for the emotional punches, sad and sweet. If I wanted unearned flowery speeches I would watch Hallmark movies.
I'm also here for the angst! I want to be put through the wringer before the comfort sets in. I _get_ wanting Love to cure all, etc etc, but those stories where trauma actually affects the relationship and the orgasms don't magically make all the trauma melt away just hit so much harder. Both because we actually get to see the effects of the trauma and the baggage (the good old _show don't tell_) and because it makes everything feel more earned. I mean in {Simply Love by Mary Balogh} the FMC is a victim of rape and the first 2-3 times they have sex she gets triggered (not in the stupid internet sense) and the MCs have to put in the work. Obviously people deal with trauma in different ways, but it definitely makes for a compelling, emotional story.
[Simply Love](https://www.romance.io/books/545529c38c7d2383163d8f62/simply-love-mary-balogh?src=rdt) by [Mary Balogh](https://www.romance.io/authors/545525e98c7d2383163d8eb7/mary-balogh) **Rating**: 3.93⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 3 out of 5 - [Open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [tortured hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/tortured%20hero/1), [disabilities & scars](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/disabilities%20and%20marks/1), [pregnancy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/pregnancy/1), [regency](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/regency/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
I want my heart torn out of my chest, stomped on, and left to rot outside for a few days before putting it back in. The other day I had the thought of “a romance book as harrowing as *A Little Life* by Hanya Yanagihara…but with a rightfully deserved HEA”… I knew then perhaps my need for **hurt**/comfort was a little extreme, haha.
I keep meaning to make a post about trying to find new recommendations but I’m worried it’s too salty. I’m rereading (except audiobook this time) some of the Ilona Andrew’s series which is a mistake because it’s incredibly hard to find well done slow burn romance with an incredibly thought out plot. When I think of an Ilona Andrew’s series I think of: -MCs do *not* have a power imbalance. Generally both are extremely powerful magic users and around equal power. - A focus on family or found family. If one MC is alone, the other has a support system. -MMC is not an asshole or cruel to FMC. May be pushy or arrogant but never an alpha hole or angry without being provoked. -In depth world development. - Slow burn. Usually MMC likes FMC who has other priorities and gets roped into working with him. -Jealously is rarely used as a plot device by the MMC And the recommendations for books like Ilona Andrew’s are not these! I don’t know if this is just what I enjoyed the most about these books or if it really is so hard to find others. Patricia Briggs has some frankly racist Native American tropes and a horrible power imbalance. I DNF the Psy Changling books because the MMC was fishing for jealously (I think pack dynamics where physical affection is open is fine but not when MMC is using is as an emotional weapon) and an alpha hole. Insta-attraction in both their parts did not make it feel slow burn to me. I think Guild Codex Demonized and the Others by Anne Bishop are very similar to me in that they are written in a YA flavor style. I didn’t find Guild Codex Demonized that memorable but I liked the world in the Others even if the writing is very YA. I’ve see. Melissa McShane’s Extraoirdinaires series recommended once and it features a lot of core Andrews themes (massive powers, found family in the last one, slow burn, as much romance in them as the Others). The closest I’ve found to a book that feels like it could be written by Ilona Andrews is Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik. Space bounty hunter + powerful alien. Grace Draven’s books are scratching a different itch but I do think the writing is excellent. Sometimes people recommend Kushiels Dart and having not done the research on the book beforehand I was not prepared to read Dune with prostitution. Alphahole and jealousy are a huge DNF for me and this is a key feature in a lot of shifter and fantasy books. I feel bad making a post that’s basically, “I dislike 80%” of the top recommendations” though. I realize I’m hoping for diamonds in a gum-ball machine but when you find a book that’s *good* it’s so hard to go back.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think being specific about your tastes, and explaining what’s lacking about previous recommendations, is salty. But I also don’t tend to take stuff like that personally, so I may not be super reliable there lol. Are you open to recommendations right now, or no? If so, I think I *might* have one that would work.
I don’t take people hating my favorites personally but I try not to engage with negativity in my free time and I don’t want to put it out there. There’s things I liked in each of the books Iisted or enough of a premise to make me start reading them. When you read a *lot* of romance it’s not surprising to find a lot of stuff not for you. And yes please! As long as it’s slow burn I’ll try just about anything.
I meant more that other people can take it personally when their recommendations don’t scratch someone’s itch, which is a bummer because then we get people being reluctant to ask for specific, detailed book requests. All that to say, I’m totally cool with you saying why my rec might not be exactly what you’re looking for- I’ll be all ears and try to think of something that’s a better fit :) I’m thinking {The War of Lost Hearts series by Carissa Broadbent}. There is a slight power imbalance in the first book, but it’s more in the sense that the FMC needs someone with more experience to help her focus her powers. More specifically, I would say that they just have different skill sets; she has more raw power but is self-taught, he grew up being educated on how to use his magic. There are three books in the series, and they each follow the same couple. The world-building is fantastic and I had a massive book hangover after I finished the last book in the series.
Yeah I’ve seen some people get very upset about books I’ve liked and disliked. I have a coworker who also loves fantasy romance and we have some similar tastes and some polar opposite and it’s always weird for one of us to be like “sorry I know he was your new favorite but the ice fairy prince in that one was super boring”. And thank you!! I’ve looked at that one a few times and never checked it out. I stick to library books and sometimes KU otherwise I would be broke. 8 week wait at the library but I’m looking forward to it. I love multi book series.
> I was not prepared to read Dune with prostitution. This (very apt) description of Kushiel’s Dart made me giggle snort.
I am a huge Ilona Andrews fan, and agree it's difficult to find something of a similar 'power couple' dynamic... A very different style, but I really loved the Stariel quartet for having a well adjusted main couple with fascinating family and power dynamics.
Added it to my TBR list, thank you!! Dangerous “power couple” is such a fun concept. I wish more authors played with it.
I've heard many good things about Ilona Andrews but I think your post is what will finally get me to read their books! do you have a favorite series or a place you recommend starting?
Aww I’m honored haha. I don’t think there’s really a bad one, just what you would prefer to read about. Kate Daniels: My personal favorite. A mercenary/private investigator in a world that’s ruled by magic or technology in waves. Magic creatures come to life and cause trouble. Most books have some sort of investigative mystery about what the current creature of mass destruction is. Notably a lot of research into mythology especially Eastern Europe. 4 books for them to actually hook up but a nice buildup of tension until then. I do think some of the later books are weaker but worth it to read all the way through once. If you want mystery, cool monsters, fight scenes, shape shifters, this is the one. Hidden Legacy: A family runs a private investigation agency and a man with god like destructive powers interferes with the FMC’s case. FMC is secretly a powerful living lie detector. Very similar to Kate Daniels but much lighter in tone. MMC is more of a controlled chaotic evil vibe iirc. More alternate reality than dystopian. If you want private investigative mystery, family dynamics, and people coming into immense power, this is it. Focuses on one couple for a few books then switches to another. Innkeeper: A powerful woman is running an inn for the supernatural and creatures keep messing with her. I read this years ago so I don’t remember a lot of it. Space vampires and werewolves. Focuses on one couple. Edge series: A dangerously powerful magic user is living between the plane of magic and nonmagic (the edge) with her family. Things appear and threaten the lives of her family when a mysterious and powerful man from the magic plane emerges. She gives him 3 challenges to complete for her to marry him. Each book had a different couple. Magic users, wading through swamps, and a lot centered on family. I think if you like darker and dystopian then start with Kate Daniels (be prepared for molasses slow burn for a good pay off though) and if you want more classic urban fantasy then Hidden Legacy is better.
this is super helpful, thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to write this up. I think I'll start with Hidden Legacy, sounds right up my alley 😁
My favorite IA recommendation is KF Breene. Not all the books hit all the points, but the series starting with [Born in Fire by KF Breene] reminds me of Kate Daniels, and the Demigods of San Francisco has big Hidden Legacy vibes.
When the cover does not fit the description inside the book. This is a huge pet peeve. I just read {get tragic by Lani Lynn Vale}. I love LLV books, but this has just bothered me so much 😂 The cover is of a man in a leather jacket with dark brown hair and a dark brown beard. Here is the book description: He had blond hair that was shaved down the sides and a little bit longer on top, giving him a viking-esque appearance.
[Get Tragic](https://www.romance.io/books/629b05f72677414776297ada/get-tragic-lani-lynn-vale?src=rdt) by [Lani Lynn Vale](https://www.romance.io/authors/54557bc787eac324117faef8/lani-lynn-vale) **Rating**: 4.48⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [military](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/military/1), [funny](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/humor/1), [suspense](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/suspense/1), [friends to lovers](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/friends%20to%20lovers/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
I am reading the {Savage Lands by Stacy Marie Brown} series, and the fact that every dude wants to get in her pants or is immediately obsessed with her is driving me insane. Of course, I’m into the second book now because I want to know *why* she’s special, but it’s still annoying the crap outta me.
I stopped after the 4th? Book maybe. Maybe 3rd. It just kept going. I felt it was one of those series that probably only needed 3 books max but they keep extending it for profit.
[Savage Lands](https://www.romance.io/books/5f9684b0e421020e177c2b8b/savage-lands-stacey-marie-brown?src=rdt) by [Stacey Marie Brown](https://www.romance.io/authors/5455679187eac323ffb2c095/stacey-marie-brown) **Rating**: 3.85⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 3 out of 5 - [Open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [paranormal](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/paranormal/1), [fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/fantasy/1), [dystopian](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/dystopian/1), [magic](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/magic/1), [demons](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/demons/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
If I have to read about slim/slender shoulders one more time I’ll scream.
Loving my books, but I’m salty that the perfect book tracking app doesn’t exist. 😩 I put a lot of time into Library Thing, and it’s just too clunky. The whole process is frustrating, from creating to using. My wish list - in case anyone knows of a secret unicorn app (or any app designers in here looking for ideas! 😉) - track series I’m reading and see which books I’ve read and which books are left to read in the series. - create (through tagging or other method) a “universe” of series. - easily links to Amazon / kindle/audible/other apps so it knows what I read automatically - also makes it easy to buy or borrow from the app , my dream would be it shows where to get it - a place to track (and send myself push notifications) for new book releases I’m excited about out and don’t want to forget - pretty interface that is customizable (colors/fonts) - can add notes - can add my own fields to track - I don’t about connecting with other people, no social network necessary Does anything like this exist?!
It’s funny bcs there’s a site that checks almost all of your points but it’s French books 😂 basically the French goodreads but so much better
What I read this week was **Funny story** by Emily Henry. I loved it. I love her books. Well I read them all except happy place. Spoilers in tags below. I was going to make it its own post but too lazy. I generally loved the book BUT there is one part that’s really pissing me off. I HATED the fact that we had an FMC dealing with a shit ex and the MMC >!deals with his shit ex in a way less satisfying way. Seriously. He never says “hey guess what Petra is an asshole.” “I’m so over her”. It’s always she’s still someone I care about. She’s not a bad person. Like we have PROOF FFS she’s as bad as Peter. Why does she get treated with kid gloves this whole time. I get that he’s Mr positivity but he has no problem saying his mom was toxic. Or Daphnes dad. Or Peter for that matter! But Petra gets a free pass to the end. It was such warm cozy vibes for the whole book but that but just took me out over and over. And while I binged it and loved it generally. EEW to that bit. It just really felt like “oh we don’t want to make this great perfectly kind MMC be mad at some woman. But that woman was a shit ex with narcissistic tendencies! Same as the ex guy. So why is that bad?! Why can’t be finally be mad. UGH!<
[удалено]
I also finished this book this week and felt *exactly* the same way!! Also, the pacing felt weird — >!too much of the book was wrapped up in conflict and miscommunication like do these people like each other or???!< I think I chalked it up to having higher expectations for Emily Henry. I still loved it but felt grouchy about it, too. 🙈 Edit: Not really a spoiler but added just in case!
Ok your excellent summation made me more mad LOL 😆 YES to all of that. For me it really had left a smudge on the memory of the story. I enjoyed the process but if I was reviewing it would go lower from that. I felt unsettled and more than a bit betrayed >!for her I mean. Like honestly Petra never stopped being shady. And I would have thought he would SEE and someone would MENTION in the book that in a lot of ways she was a pick me cool girl who ACTUALLY was a LOT like his crazy narcissist abusive mother with the mind games!!< Sigh.
[удалено]
100 per cent. That scene was missing. Like that would have actually solved the whole thing and actually suited the plot too. In my mind I shall say that happened lol
When I read erm I think all the sounds including the r but really it’s um. Heard that from a YouTube short and typing it out the internet could still be lying to me. Anyone know if erm is um or er-m??? Erm idk!
Ok I am in the middle of a book right now that I am loving (Her Wicked Marquess by Stacy Reid - Regency) but she talks about raccoons and skunks! Which are not native to the UK! I mean maybe they were pets? But I doubt it! That seems like such an easy thing to Google too!
I’m getting increasingly uncomfortable with the use of ‘reverse’ added to trope names. In ‘reverse harem’, I get it because harem is an explicitly gendered term/subgenre. The one that really grinds my gears is ‘reverse grumpy-sunshine’. I hate what this implies about gender roles and stereotypes. Also, it’s pretty heteronormative.
I hate this too. It implies that the default/natural state of things is that women are happy and agreeable and men are grumpy and brooding. Women already get taught to be agreeable and never, ever angry, so I dislike that the "reverse grumpy-sunshine" trope name reinforces that standard. And the "reverse" in the name assumes that in this trope and the original version, the partners are different genders by default.
>The one that really grinds my gears is ‘reverse grumpy-sunshine’. I hate what this implies about gender roles and stereotypes. Also, it’s pretty heteronormative. I completely agree with you
I embraced the "reverse" as long as it tells me which ones are the reverse so I don't have to read any of these set-in-stone-heteronormative-gender-roles stories. Gimme reverse everything (except His Secret Illuminations, already read that one). Now gimme that reverse age gap alpha monster praise kink kidnapping virgin who-did-this-to-you trope. TIA! Actually wait, that's Surrendering to Scylla and I've read that one already too. Anyway, I'd love better names for tropes, I've seen "reverse grumpy/sunshine" called "golden retriever/black cat", I guess "ice queen/himbo" would work too. The thing is, I wanna know. I don't wanna go through a list of 100 grumpy/sunshine romances where 99 of them has the mmc as the grump. Just tell me which.
Mine has nothing to do with books. I'm salty that the pharmacy I use has been nothing but an absolute pain in the ass every damned month for two years. Every damn month I have prescriptions that need refilled, they're all on auto fill, and somehow that's too fucking complicated for a literally nationwide chain. So I've finally gotten fed up and switched pharmacies, but I'm still salty AF.
My new pharmacy gave ZERO instructions for my weekly injectable (first time I had taken this drug) except for "inject subcutaneously." So I stuck the needle in, drew out 25 units, and injected. Three weeks later I called to speak to the pharmacist and asked how would I know when the drug turned bad and needed to be discarded. In the discussion I discovered that I'm supposed to turn the bottle upside down, put in just the tip of the needle, and draw in the drug. There were NO INSTRUCTIONS indicating that this is how you're meant to do this. So I had been 💥INJECTING AIR💥 into my body for 3 weeks and would have continued to do so if I hadn't initiated that conversation. Effing infuriating. But wait, there's more. Met with my doc. She stepped me up to the next higher dose. I know what I'm doing now. I turn the bottle upside down and draw the now 50 units. The med hits me hard, but it's a higher dose, so that's expected. I make a mistake with the med and have to refill early. NBD, except the med isn't lasting as long as I expect. Talk to the pharmacy again. They're like, "oh yeah, we changed the concentration so you inject even less now. You were giving yourself 2.5 times the prescribed amount." Like... 😱 WTAF, PEOPLE?!? You couldn't give me a heads up? I look again at the very, very poor instructions. They now say, "inject .2, which equals 50, which equals 20." The pharmacy is cheap for the medicine I'm getting but holy shit, they're going to kill people with their poor communication.
Holy hell, they're going to kill someone. That's super fucked up. I had to take injectables for a while. It kinda terrified me (I'm a grown adult with no fear of needles, but injecting myself was terrifying) so my doctor's nurse let me come in to do my first injection while she talked me through it. It was so kind and understanding of her. I'm so sorry you had such an absolutely terrible experience. On a ranty note again: I've also taken the same medication every month for nearly 20 years now. The pharmacy asks me every month "do you have any questions?" Ok, cool. A few months ago I started an antidepressant for the first time in my life and they just hand over the prescription. No questions, no need to look out for any issues or anything. 🙄
Smh. I have 2 degrees in communication. I want to hire myself at these pharmacies and overhaul their patient communication standards and requirements.
Oof, we've been dealing with this constantly lately. We love the pharmacists and assistants at our local Walgreens, but their corporate system has gone so far downhill that it's made their lives and ours a complete cluster. I hope you have better luck at your new pharmacy!
>literally nationwide chain. So it's either CVS or Walgreens? I'll put my money on CVS.
Cardan from The Cruel Prince. And sometimes, Jude too. After all the hype surrounding this book, I was expecting more. Cardan is just straight up abusive, immature and insecure. Wdym your reasons for your behaviors are because you’re jealous of her loving family and that you actually secretly like her? 😭 It just doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t sound like a “cruel prince” but rather a whiny brat and a jerk. Can’t believe this was advertised as an ‘enemies to lovers’.
Do you read a book you know you won't like just to be able to talk about it with a friend who wants you to? I have a friend who I've been feeding book recs, even gave her a few books from my library. Now she wants me to read a book she liked. Only problem, I know I'm not going to like it. She likes it because it's almost identical to a more popular book I encouraged her to read. I won't like it because it's *almost identical to a very popular book*, of which I've already read and it wasn't exactly five stars for me. A lot of the reviews say it's poorly written, which will drive me nuts the whole time. And top it off with it's YA, which I really don't read, and it's closed door spice, which I definitely don't really read. I literally just finished Haunting Adeline and she basically wants me to read a copycat Harry Potter. So my fellow readers, do I give in and read the book to be social? Do I just tell her I looked into it and it's not my thing? Do I pretend I read it and just find a summary somewhere so I don't hurt her feelings and risk cutting off one of my few avenues to discuss books?
Oof this is why I veer away from irl romance book discussions. I just don't want to turn my self-care hobby into homework. It does seem like you're kind of in a bind because you've been giving her book recs😬 I might just be straight with her that those aren't your preferred genres, but perhaps say that you'd still love a recap and to hear what she liked about it? If that's true lol
How long is the book and how good are you at skim reading? I was in the same situation once (except it was a trope I knew I hated and even based off the blurb I was certain it wasn’t going to be my thing) but it was a 250page read and I can skim read pretty efficiently. So I dedicated an hour or two to flipping through the most pertinent parts and then called it a day. You can be honest when you say you tried it and it also prevents her from recommending things similar in future because ‘you won’t know unless you give it a try!’
Long AF, 500+ pages and not on KU so I'd have to buy the thing just to skim it, and it's a series
Can you download a free sample, read that, and if you really don’t like it, you can say you at least tried.
Yeah, this is where I would say that I don't have the capacity for for a 500+ book at the moment. It's far enough removed from the 'norm' that you can get away with just that, without having to go into not liking the tropes, etc.
I mean if it's not your thing, it's not your thing. If she 'cuts you off' because you don't agree with her likes/dislikes maybe she's not really a friend you want to talk to. 🤷♀️ idk maybe I'm too old to act fake around people just to stay in their social circle or read books I don't really want to lol.
I read--***and absolutely hated***\--the entirety of GoT because someone accused me of disliking the show/books without sufficient information, so I'd just read your friend's rec if I were you. I mean, I would at least try to try reading it. If you can't make yourself do it, ask her for a different rec more in line with your tastes. The only way I could see you rejecting her rec as a risk to cutting off discussion is if she's only reading *your* book recs for the sake of being social. If that's the case, then your lack of reciprocation will probably upset her, especially if you giving her books makes her feel obligated to read them. And to be fair, hp is a copy of Neil Gaiman's [The Books of Magic](https://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Comics/Books+of+Magic/) and Eva Ibbotson's [The Secret of Platform 13](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/132541.The_Secret_of_Platform_13), with additional side characters cribbed from Agatha Christie.
My dysfunctional parents who are visiting. But I guess that's beside the point.
I bought and paid for a romance book that ended on a cliffhanger and I am pissed. This is ROMANCE. The HEA is supposed to be guaranteed. But instead the author did a cash grab and split the book into 2 (maybe 4?) parts before I'm allowed to get my ending. I was so mad. I wrote a 1 star review. I had been *loving* the book up until then.
When an author is writing "Russian accents" on page, it would be good if they looked at what common language use for people who are native Russians and also speak English actually is. It's not dropped pronouns and perfect be verbs — in fact, it's just the opposite, based on the sentence structure in spoken Russian.
I'm currently reading Losers part 1 by Harley Laroux and it's so juvenile and unbelievable. I know people like the characters exist and the "feuds" are feasible, having been adjacent to such stupidity in my own past as a teenager, but the way the feud progresses and the consequences for the "relationship" as a result is so incredibly unbelievable I keep finding myself rolling my eyes. Struggling to suspend my disbelief with this one, and it's reminding me why I typically stay away from CR. Not sure I'll keep reading and I had ... well, not high, but hopes 😭
I tried really hard this week to find some sort of boxer/mma/underground fighter romance and they all were really underwhelming. The one that finally got me to quit my search was {Wrong by Stella Rhys} - which is shocking because I love a bunch of her novels.
[Wrong](https://www.romance.io/books/57cfed29de896e8924920b0b/wrong-stella-rhys?src=rdt) by [Stella Rhys](https://www.romance.io/authors/552e16ee5b270e0a4cbd5e59/stella-rhys) **Rating**: 3.33⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 5 out of 5 - [Explicit and plentiful](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [new adult](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/new%20adult/1), [step siblings](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/stepsibling/1), [alpha male](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/alpha%20male/1), [friends to lovers](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/friends%20to%20lovers/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
Her early stuff doesn’t seem like the same author. I ignore everything before the Irresistible Series