I really struggle with separating the art from the artist. I don't know if it's genuinely possible. Writers put so much of themselves into the work, whether they mean to or not. Their beliefs, views, biases, etc., it all ends up on the page. It's not always blatant; it can be very obscured. But it's there. So if the author has views that are problematic, those views are highly likely to be reflected in their work. And everyone is problematic in some way. So what it really boils down to, in my opinion, is what the reader is personally able to overlook.
@@moustik31 Yes! It's like, non-queer people will expect queer people to overlook problematic queer rep so that they can enjoy the book without having to think about it at all. (that's just a general example, not alluding to anything specific)
@@Robi-Chaud Exactly, when mainstream authors f*ck up out of laziness, and/or bigotry, we are told to sh*t up bec. the authors "meant well". Meanwhile, the rest of us (from marginalised identities) get served with "hell is paved with good intentions", whenever we ask for deserved grace, forgiveness and understanding.
This means so much. It can be disheartening to know of Booktubers who *know* (have even mentioned) the harms done by certain authors, and yet still go on to recommend their work or promote them to favorites lists. And while I know these things aren't a personal attack toward the harmed, it still begs the question: to what end? What is gained by continuing to tout the works of someone with questionable integrity? After I done TOLD you... 🙄😩
I think mine is a very common one: The House in the Cerulean Sea. i loved that book and then i learned about the author using literal indigenous trauma as “inspiration” and how he never backs down on it and i immediately took down all my tiktoks about it. it was a really good book but i cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone or talk about it in a way that someone might pick it up based on my review
I feel the exact same about this one! I found out what it was "inspired" by right after finishing it and felt so uncomfortable and horrified afterwards.
100% agree. I personally loved this book when I first read it; it was the right comfort-read at the right time for me. I didn't pick up on the inspiration, and only found out afterwards and it made me uncomfortable to have liked and recommended it on my blog originally. Have since then gone back on that recommendation
When I read “and then there were none” by Agatha Christie I absolutely loved and and thought the story, characters, and twist were incredible. It became one of my top 5 books. The version i read had the poem thats the plot device as “ten little soldiers.” Thens i learned that not only had that been updated from “Ten Little Indians,” but the ORIGINAL was actally “Ten Little N--s.” There had also been a few passages that were very racist and/or colonialist that had been edited out from the original. I was very disappointed to say the least. While I still find the story and characters compelling, I can’t in good conscious recommend it without mentioning the original issues.
There's a very cool video essay about colonialism in then there were none! It discusses how accidentally it actually becomes a critique of colonial dynamics and privelege (doesn't negate other kinds of racism book did thoughand it WAS accidental)
A Little Life made me feel SO seen, its a book that will stay with me for life. But, I saw a BookTuber say the trauma & descriptions of mental illness in A Little Life was unrealistic - but you & the Instagram you quote sum up my feelings perfectly
definitely feel you. privately i intend to reread and annotate but will absolutely be choosing to rec other books over that one. i’m very much looking forward to filming a video where i recommend replacements for these books.
I do find myself struggling with separating the art from the artist. As I age, I become better at putting boundaries around things, so if I know something will be problematic for me and/or be triggering, I can let myself not "go there." Especially when it comes to reading/movies/tv. When I was younger, I might have forced myself to push through only to be left feeling angry or traumatized. I'm glad I'm able to protect myself now. I know I need to be extremely careful with books that include mental illness, self-harm and suicide. I need to do my research before I pick certain books up.
definitely feel u on this. it’s a constant struggle. i think it’s fabulous that you’re grappling and asserting boundaries where u can. it’s a beautiful thing. lmk if i can ever help w replacement book recs or if u have questions about the content of a book i’ve read, i’d be glad to tell u what i know and remember!
I am SO with y'all on the things you said on A Little Life (which I have not read, and won't, but I do know what happens cuz I purposefully read spoilers cuz I wanted to know what I would get into if i did read it). I have read several comments from people who felt seen and related to Jude and all the trauma he went through, and even before hearing about this book I've thought so many times about how there are SO many people in this world who are repeatedly traumatized and DON'T ever get to work through it healthily or get their happily ever after, etc etc. I have wondered if there was ever a story like that and if people who have been stuck in life like that could see themselves in a story like that. With that said though, and like y'all were saying, based on things that the author has said in the past, it seemed like she just wanted to write (and profit off of) trauma p0rn of a racially ambiguous queer man for the sake of it. Do it for the Shock Value (TM) or whatever. Granted, like y'all were also saying, we don't know if she's secretly queer, or heck, if she's even experienced some or similar traumas, but regardless, based on interviews, her expressed reasons and motives for writing this book are...questionable...and that's why I will not purchase and/or read it.
I totally get the feeling of connecting with a book that others find problematic due to its depiction of something triggering for them. Other readers in the romance community have been very harsh on certain books for how they handled body positivity and fatphobia, and these books happened to be some I enjoyed for how they grappled with them. But that doesn’t mean others’ feelings aren’t valid. And there are some books that tackle those issues that I refuse to pick up, because I don’t know that I want to deal with them. But fortunately with the ones I have, I’ve really connected with them.
rage of dragons makes me so mad because evan winter had the audacity to write a matriarchal society but simultaneously fall into all the misogynistic tropes, i felt so bamboozled 😭
I really enjoy that you can respectfully explain the reasons for your recommendations or your anti recommendations, explain your point of view very clearly and clarify some aspects of culture that many of us might not be exposed to. I take notes on what topics or situations to be more focused or critical, just trying to learn what's correct and what's not.
I have a possibly wild idea-hear me out: you anti-recommend a book (say A Little Life for example) and you provide an alternative, comp title with the vibes of A Little Life that you DO recommend!
Be careful with that though! Sometimes a “remake” or “more progressive” version of a controversial text doesn’t actually solve the problem. Like okay - people say Vladimir Nabokov’s _Lolita_ condones abuse (I think the opposite but it’s neither here more there), and they recommend ‘feminist’ remakes like _Lo’s Diary_ and _Roger Fishbite,_ which are technically more feminist in that they’re from the POV of the abused. The problem is that they sometimes end up kinda blaming the victim more than the original _Lolita._ So, you know. Watch out with “better alternative” recommendations for problematic texts
@@JesseOnRUclips That's so cool! It's so fun to find a book and be like, "Oh, this scratches the exact itch that other book did, but I don't have to feel weird about this one."
I’m pretty sure there is nothing similar to A Little Life out there, because I’ve been looking for a while and have never found any recommendations that were similar.
Similar to you, I feel like I often work through my personal trauma through reading (e.i. horror, or literary fiction that covers heavy topics). That being said, A Little Life is my most hated books of all time, not because of the content-matter, but the way it was handled. Whether or not something is "trauma-porn" depends on the tone and intent behind the inclusion of these topics. As a comparison: not every piece of media that contains sex is porn. To me, A Little Life is so bad and hurtful because it reads like the author was trying to write the saddest book in existance (I didn't know she literally admitted that, but it reads that way). She gleefully included included these trauma's for shock-value, as emotional manipulation of the reader, and to profit off,. It's almost voyeuristic: "look at this sad life I'm describing here, don't you pity Jude yet?", whilst clearly not coming from a pov of understanding, empathy or own-experience. It's that tone; that repeated victimisation; that lack of understanding that makes trauma-port to me, not the content itself. That being said: this is all personal opinion and I'm glad this book actually helped others, and that's valid.
I read Ender's Game in middle school and fell it love with it. It was one of my favorite books for ages. When I say I was DEVASTATED when I found out about OSC...It was not a pleasant day for me.
I do struggle with separating the art from the artist and there are several authors whose works I’ll still read because of childhood nostalgia, but refuse to purchase their books new or in any way that gives money to them, as well as not promoting their works. JKterf is one bc my siblings and I bonded over the HP series growing up. Brandon Sanderson is sadly another one because of his homophobia, even though his Mistborn series is one my fiancé and I bonded over before we were dating and were just friends. So certain pieces of art I’ll keep separate for my own sanity if they bring me comfort, but the rest I will refuse to purchase and will not support the author if they’re harmful to the community and others in any way.
i always value your opinions. i feel the same way about "separating art from the artist" in both book world and in music world. i have a hard time thinking that it can be done because it's inevitable that the artists's views are inherently in the art. that's why i've taken indefinite breaks from some bands because of the stuff they've done/said that doesn't sit right with me. i always hate finding out an author or band i like has done or said something shitty but it's better that i know it and can avoid them in the future than continue to support them. i'll appreciate what i've read/listened to, but they will not be getting my support whether intangibly from recommending them or tangibly from money.
I think it’s gross that the author of A Little Life only goal was to be traumatizing. That being said the book was a huge comfort and Jude was a huge comfort for my own experiences. I think the book was too much and accomplished what the author wanted but it also accomplished so much more. I wouldn’t recommend the book because I see how much it hurt people but I am thankful for what it did for me.
And for me, I have much more trouble separating the art from the artist when it comes to living/current authors, especially ones who are vocal about politics *cough twitter*.
I really have an issue when people tell me to separate art from the artist. And I get it, I do. I just can't do it, especially when separating art from the artist means that such person will gain money from me consuming their art. People are always surprised when they find out that I've never read Harry Potter, and not only I'm not interested in reading those books because I don't like fantasy, but also because the author is a piece of $h!t. Sometimes the author's point of view on a certain topic WILL BE reflected in their work, even if it's a small detail, it will be there
As for my own anti book recs, my first instinct is game of thrones. I LOVE that type of voice (high fantasy like faux-olden times wordyness, similar to how Priory of the Orange Tree was written), but there's a lot of icky stuff in there, that I don't want to recommend to others
going through these comments again bc we're planning another video in this series - the "faux olden times wordyness" made us cackle bc we are also such a basic bitch for that shit lmao
Thanks for talking about Rage of Dragons. I wanna read that book one day, and I hadn't heard about this aspect of it. But now if I ever pick it up, I can be conscious with it.
I recently have just fallen in love with Jemisin's works. I then proceeded to actively recommend her works because I was in love. Just this morning I learned that she has used her platform to write a very damaging opinion on a trans person which has caused said trans person to detransition, be hospitalized, gone suicidal, etc. She said she has already written an apology personally to the person. However, this is not the last time she's done this. She's very wreckless in using her platform which in turn, intentionally or unintentionally, hurt other people. The devastation I felt when I learned this rn is just beyond words. I truly did love her works. However, like you, I seem to be incapable of separating artists from their art. I've just deleted her works from my goodreads account because I just don't feel comfortable recommending any of her works anymore. I'm not yet sure if I should continue reading her works however I only borrowed them from the library. I probably will consider buying them second hand however I don't think I would ever feel comfortable supporting her. It's such a shame really because I really want to support black scifi and fantasy authors and feel really uncomfortable cancelling them because they already receive harsher treatment than white writers.
oh my god?????? thats....awful. i look up to her so so much. will look more into this situation and make a video. do you happen to have a link to the twitter thread? will do more research on this too!
@@JesseOnRUclips let me get back to you in a bit. I will do my best to post links. I'm not sure if I'm just imagining things but it seems like youtube deletes my comments everytime I post links.
@@JesseOnRUclips Thank you so much for looking in to. I've tried a dozen times to post links but it seems like youtube has been deleting them. The separate incidents are with Isabell Fall and Brooke Nelson. There are tons of articles summarizing each incident.
I tried reading Little Life when I was 15/16 it was the time that this book came out, and so many people were recommending this book but no one was talking about the TW. So silly 16 years old me picked up this book. I couldn’t finish the book I wasn’t well reading some scenes and I am glad that y’all put this book here and talk about how traumatic this book can be for so many people
I was aaaaabsolutely glued to my laptop screen watching and listening to y'all discuss these books and their nature. I feel like y'all have given so much for yourSelves in explaining why these books personally worked for y'all and why y'all wouldn't recommend them. Especially y'all's discussion on A Little Life was soooo interesting, lots of brain brain thoughts thoughts happening. I'd also be interested in a kind of reverse video where y'all talk about books y'all didn't necessarily enjoy but would still recommend???
I love how logical and thoughtful all y'alls comments on these books are- I definitely learned some new info watching, too. And I'm the same way about reading with my eyeballs versus reading via audio!
I adore what you said about the benefits and pitfalls of "own vouces" books and seeking those out/the harm that they can cause. And I would have agree that Stephen King is probably the most celebrated/well known horror author. I am not a horror reader and before I joined booktube, he was definitely a name I knew and recognized for his horror.
Wow. What a well put together video, you're so well spoken & insightful! This conversation is great & important to see. I separate the art from the artist for the most part but I can definitely be put off authors future works because of certain aspects, I have a handful of Stephen King books that I love and I still have a couple that I own by him that I want to try but as of recently I've been seeing more and more of the negatives from him and wont be picking any of his newer works up. I do agree with you, I think his legacy is too huge at this point especially with the older generations, but I am glad to say that I have seen some, not many, but a few, die hard King fans getting sick of him and his ways.
you know its bad news if even readers who like to separate artist from their art are growing sick of it haha have you read any Joe Hill? HOnestly his work is SO much better than his father's in my opinion
Wow, Ender’s Game was such a formative experience for me as a reader - I first read Enders game as a child, and was so intensely connected to ender’s world and backstory as a little kid who was personally navigating the ways I felt isolated and bullied and siloed from other kids as a child who was valued by adults for being “smart”. I read the four books in the OG series and finding out the author was homophobic felt devastating at that age, like being rejected by someone I thought understood my experience. I was also in the Harry Potter generation, and the author’s horrifically damaging views there are all over the fucking news unfortunately. I think also there were a lot of “classic” novels that I can no longer reread with any enjoyment, because the connection I felt towards them is outweighed by how othering it is to read between the lines and see my life/identity misrepresented. As an adult, I think a really liberating and genuinely empowering moment for me was when I stopped trying to like everything other people told me had merit and realized I could just. Not engage with things that I found triggering or upsetting. There’s so much wonderful art out there, and it’s made me so much happier to prioritize works that can give me a positive experience instead of a conflicted one.
I am okay with not separating the work from the author. There are a few that it hurts to know the author is trash, but cutting off problematic authors is easy. There're so many other books that don't have things that upset/harm marginalize groups.
I love the Simon Snow books. But I don't recommend them as the author wrote some pretty racist stuff in Eleanor and Park. But those books were really my trans awakening as the two main gay boys lit a gay fire in me. I own the series but I don't support the author in any other books she writes. Ya'll then totally mentioned Rainbow! I also read Landline and it was for sure a miss. I did love that book too. But I can't really unsee Rainbow's behaviors. Also I loved Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar but that also has racist remarks in it. I know it's dated but even still that makes me very hesitant to recommend.
You did a great job with this video! In regards to what you asked about Stephen King being a celebrated modern horror writer, yes, it's true. I remember I had a class in college where we had to read his mini book on writing. At the same time... I haven't read a King book in years so idk if I personally agree.
My most painful anti-rec is probably Sylvia Plath. I deeply want to recommend her work, as I adore her poetry, and The Bell Jar was such an important and helpful book to me at a very dark time of my life. It is however, a product of its time and contains some racist undertones and references that I'm uncomfortable with. It's a book I still recommend because I don't think these passages take away from the main message of the book, but I give it a big trigger-warning and disclaimer whenever i mention it, and can see why people want to steer clear of it.
I didn't even know Shutter Island was a book originally. I personally loved the movie. Also I really recognize myself in y'all relating to problematic characters. I do that too. Knowing a character or a depiction of a certain mental illness or trauma is problematic while still relating to it in some way. And knowing that what you do/did/experienced is not really like what the character did at all. Never heard it said out loud in this way before though. So, thank y'all for putting it into words!
cw: mentions of psychosis, unaliving, and s/a but without any specific details Thirteen Reasons Why would be my pick. I don't love it anymore and have a lot of issues with it now, but the book came out when I was 17, in a state of psychosis for over a month, and was very much not wanting to be alive. I had that similar thing where I wanted to read things relating to my trauma because it helped me deal with it. At the time, I didn't think Hannah's story was traumatic enough for me to care about that deeply, but I loved how she stopped existing and the plans she put into place. That was really inspirational to me and kept me alive for a few months. I didn't plan on copying her or anything, mostly because I had no trust that people would follow my instructions lol, but I did have a 'what if I did' type of journal. I wrote down who was involved in certain parts of my past, what they did, why I can or can't forgive them, and what should have realistically happened to them if they were held accountable. That journaling process was essential to my recovery. My therapist read it and it answered every single question she had about my experiences and led me to get adequate mental health help during a time when I had a lot of difficulty explaining things verbally. That lead me to the decision to record any conversations I had with people. Partly because some people took advantage of my state of psychosis and claimed wild things about me that even then I knew weren't true. They didn't know I recorded them, but I always had my phone with me ready to record and then email myself the file. I'd listen back when they weren't around and write out the things I should have said, any issues I had with them, and learn how to defend myself better if those things were said again. There were a few kind people and for them, I wrote down all the good things I wish I could have said to them. That journal and those recordings were later used in court as I was documenting a lot of bad experiences as they happened. I can't ethically recommend it because the author is gross (multiple accounts of sexual harassment) In the book I don't think the s/a or unaliving were handled that well, and it arguably romanticizes unaliving far too much considering it's written for teenagers. But I know that it really did help me when I needed help the most. It gave me a solid reason to actually talk about things and validated a lot of what I was feeling. Genuinely, I don't know who I would be or if I would be if I hadn't read that book - but I'm aware it's also caused a lot of harm to other mentally ill people, s/a victims, etc.
I can, sometimes, temporarily block out the problematic aspects of stories in order to enjoy the good parts, but i always go back to it when reviewing/talking about it. About a little life, my actual biggest problem and the main reason I'm not reading/buying it is the perspective the author has on psychology and how she approached the ca and cp in the book. Other things have summed up as it goes, obviously but that one is just something i can't deal with My book that i love but don't recommend is the all for the game trilogy
as a queer person i really hate queer speculation, and i will never openly express my own assumptions about other peoples' sexuality or romantic attraction. but with that being said, as a queer guy i really feel iffy about (straight) women writing stories about queer men, and especially mlm romance. and i sometimes feel i must question my own morals, and how i can feel my own identity is being "exploited" (its too strong of a word but the essence of it), when i like the result; because i like or can relate to the characters
I read Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King recently and oof those slurs though (though really the whole thing was pretty oof). Do you, by any chance, have any horror recs where the authors don't turn out to be problematic?
Omg I was going to mention Mr. Mercedes. I get was King was going for bacing Bradly on American Mass murderers who are typically young white men but he made Bradly so clichéd and cartoonish that when he starts saying racist stuff it felt like "a hat on a hat". Plus it made the chapters narrated by him a slog to get through. One thing that helped me get through reading the chapters told from his POV was picturing him as Butters from South Park dressed as Professor Chaos.
Some people make it sound so easy not to read 'problematic' books so I really like that y'all show how we can enjoy things but still recognise its flaws.(Though on the other side I recognise that there are enough people who brush aside any concerns of different communities and make these books their whole personality on a public platform). I struggle with my mental health but so far (and hopefully it stays that way) I don't have any traumatic experiences in my life. That's why I know picking up 'A little life' would not be something I can relate to and only make me sad, maybe even angry. On a sidenote, I'm glad that y'all prioratise boundaries over content. I recently fell back into my love for Fairy Tail (manga) but I just can't recommend it. The female characters really get too sexualised and there are so many plotholes. Also other stuff which are spoilers. Still, this manga shaped me so I will always have a soft spot for it :')
thank you for this video! i have a list of books i want to recommend because i'd love to hear other people's thoughts on them but can't due to the fact that they contain moments i know a lot of people won't want to experience....two books on that list are Earthlings by Sayaka Murata and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. finally read A Little Life last summer and it's officially on that list too. came very close to throwing it in the river at multiple points throughout the story but didn't because it was a library book...i wish the sections of this book containing so much truth and relevance hadn't been (in my opinion) overshadowed by scenes described in a way that made me want to do things i knew i'd regret. a lot of the conversations Jude has with his friends and Harold mirror exchanges i've had with people in my life, so it could be that i was just upset by the book making direct eye contact with a face i'm not comfortable wearing. the overall shape of the story frustrated me in that it seemed as though by the end, for all the paragraphs detailing the ways in which "life tethered life", all Hanya Yanagihara wanted to say was: 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘱.
As a POC, is it fine to write people of different cultures? Like I do and I never want to make them stereotypes but feel like real people. Should I have another person who is familiar and live as that culture read over it?
i don’t think i can make that call for you. i think what might be helpful is to sit with yourself and interrogate your reasonings for wanting to write folks of other cultures. that’s what i do whenever i feel on the fence about this sort of thing. i ask myself about my motives, reasonings, etc i do ALWAYS recommend using beta readers to checkout the representation you’re writing. so so important ✨💖 sorry this answer wasn’t clear cut but i really hope it helps
It by King is probably the book that hit me the most. I read it just after my dad took his life and I was also bullied really bad (no friends it ends and physical violence). The book is very much about childhood trauma as a teen and an adult and I just identified so much with the characters. However, there is so much wrong with it like opening with a grueling gay bashing scene (80ish pages), the racism and wtf underage sex scene.
Omg Ender’s Game is one of my favorite hooks that I cannot recommend because of all the issues y’all mentioned. I was so utterly gutted by finding out the author’s BS. I’m also a huge fan of IT by Stephen King but I can’t recommend that book ethically because him, because of the sexualization of children in that book and the pretty blatant stealing from Indigenous cultures (he does this in Pet Semetary and that was such a red flag to me even though I also enjoyed that one too😭) This is such a great video series, Jesse. Hearing y’all’s thoughts on such an interesting and nuanced topic is a blessing! And I can’t separate the art from the artist until the author is d*ad lmao. Because i can’t bring myself to support a living person I know is awful.
Such an intriguing conversation! I've been thinking about how to address these books that I read and might want to cover on bookstagram for example and so this is super helpful. Oh gosh yeah I read the shining because I wanted to finally watch the shining and it was so interesting to do that and compare them and then I tried to read doctor sleep but I just couldn't get into it in the same way, so I finally watched the movie in November and gosh that movie was so brilliant and Ewan and Kyliegh are so great as Danny and Abra so I'm glad I watched it. So yes appreciate y'all and def gonna keep thinking about this because so important. And oh yeah never gonna gonna read Orson even having enjoyed enders game which was summer reading before freshman year in high school.
Ok so I am really enjoying “The Terror” by Dan Simmons but I am struggling with many parts of it. As an indigenous Canadian it is very difficult to read how the Inuit people are talked about/treated. It can be argued that since it is set in the 1800s that it is historically accurate but I feel like it isn’t handled very sensitively and comes across as gratuitous. They are constantly referred to using slurs, and the Inuit people serve only for the white characters to harm or to look down on. The other issue I have with it is that the monster in the story is based in Inuit folklore but was made up by the white author. He even came up with a name that sounds Inuktitut. I am close to giving up on the book before finishing but I really love the setting and how well the claustrophobia and the tension is written. I don’t know whether putting so much of my time into a 900 page book that is problematic is worth it, even if I want to keep reading. There are so many better books that are on my list that deserve my time more. The tv series handles the racism so much better than the book so I might skip the book and watch the show instead.
I really loved "The Terror," and I think one of the elements that develops throughout the story is all of these white sailors basically thinking, "Oh, look at these dumb people," and then the novel will show that the indigenous people are both intelligent and truly acclimated to the environment, unlike the men from Erebus and Terror. Slight spoiler for an example-- There's a scene where one of the sailors figures out "Lady Silence" has made a tunnel; he follows it and ends up in a sort of lodge she's made for herself. She's in there totally naked, and his initial reaction is kind of like, "Ugh, these people are savages, look at her sitting here NAKED, UGH," and then after a minute he realizes he's really hot. And it's because this lodge is so well-built and designed so perfectly for the climate, the one can full of burning whale fat is heating the entire place. Compare that to some of the dumb choices that lead to many of the crew falling victims to the environment. I do worry that it's maybe too subtle in parts, and it definitely doesn't excuse the slurs. If it's bothering you, you will definitely still get a lot of enjoyment out of the series! It's an amazing series. (The first season, at least...) I think the novel and miniseries are neck and neck for me--there are things the novel handled better and things the series handled better, both in writing/plot and in the treatment of indigenous people. Edit to add that if anyone reading is interested in learning about the historical Franklin Expedition, Parks Canada has been working with local Inuit people to explore the wrecks and piece the history together. The website even includes information on the artifacts in both English and Inuktitut. It's fascinating, and it will probably scratch the itch if the language in the book is a no-go for you.
Thank you for the video. As always, I love your energy. On top of my mind would be "Mists of Avalon" and the Darkover Series by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Just yesterday my son asked about her works, as we stood afront of the yard of shelfspace occupied by her books in my living room. When I first read her, those were the first SFFs I've known centering on strong female characters. I think besides her personal massive shortcomings, of which I only learned after her death, she paved the way for a lot of female characters and authors in fantasy. I think it's different if an author is problematic in their personal live or in their public appearance. So, I would not buy anything from she who is not to be named, but will eventually reread the books I already own. When I'm asked about a recommendation, I will add a caveat and name the issues, I know of, whether it regards the author or the content or representation. Since I think most people aren't intentionally bad, I try to extend my caring and try to understand where they come from. From there on I hope some wouldn't stay ignorantly bad. P.S.: King is the most widely known horror author, so he tends to be mostly appreciated. We are pack animals after all. P.P.S.: How would you like to be addressed? I've seen you and y'all throughout the comments. Not being a native speaker only adds to my insecurity.
Greetings friend! big thanks for adding your perspective. i am literally so excited to make a follow up featuring y'alls' anti recs and chat about them. whew that comment about us being pack animals - precisely. to the pps, in our personal life we use y'all/y'alls exclusively. those who follow us on instagram have seen us discuss this and are used to it. but on youtube, since it can be so much more cruel and negatively impact my channel, i use the singular 'you' and am more private about being plural. we're very excited about the day when we are able to exclusively refer to ourselves in the plural. so to answer your question, it is always really appreciated when someone uses y'all instead of you for us.
i feel the same about stephen king i had never read anything from him before when i started the dark tower series and it was really good and i loved it but i just can’t ever recommend it or him. love these videos!!!
I'm already apologizing if this turns out to be an essay in your comments but you brought up a topic that I am very passionate about 😅 and the topic is the massive chokehold Stephen King has in the horror book category and how it annoys me even as a fan of his. I have read Kings books for 15 years now and i own almost all of his books. I started reading those as a teenager and i found them entertaining. Since then i have become a more critical reader and i recognize the multiple issues in his work (which I could write another essay on). Even though his last few books have been nothing but disappointing I keep picking up his books because i know he can write a good story. Maybe one day he will surprise me and write a good book again that doesn't have a 1000 slurs and his new favorite thing to write seems to be overly sexualized lesbians so i would also appreciate stopping that. Yaay. I still pick his books up because i keep hoping. Anyway, the power Stephen King has in horror fiction is very clear in translated fiction outside of the English speaking countries. I work in a bookstore in one of the biggest bookstore chains in Finland. We don't have specific horror shelves so the horror books are pretty much mixed with fantasy, thrillers or even literary fiction depending on what type of story it is. We don't have a lot of English books in our stores so we rely on what is translated into Finnish. The last English horror book we had on the shelf that wasn't Stephen King was Bunny by Mona Awad and that was only because of booktok. Every once in a while there comes a customer who wants horror recs. I read a lot of horror. But i can't recommend anything because pretty much all we have is Stephen King. And If you read horror in Finnish you have probably read all of those. Authors like Mariana Enríquez have been recently translated in here but they aren't marketed as horror. So for anyone to find these books you just have to know that they exist and that they are horror because you can't rely on the fact that everyone in the store will know every book because that is not possible. So If someone isn't familiar with bookstagram or booktube, it seems like the only horror authors that exist are Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. And there are just soooooo many better authors out there that people are missing in here because it isn't being marketed to them. So to answer your question I would say yes, Stephen King is the most widely talked about modern horror writer because no matter which country you go to, you can be sure to find his books in any language you'd like. For example if a book is translated into Finnish it means that it has done well in its original language. After that the publishers here see if it does well in Sweden. And after that there is maybe a 10% chance we might get it here. Yes, i am one of those people who reads a horror book on English and after that spams every big publishers email with "please translate this" messages because i don't want that genre to be represented by just Stephen King and even more broadly not just by white men. There are so many better writers that i hope would get the recognition they deserve.
OMG! I totally agree with Ender’s Game. I didn’t know anything about the author’s homophobia until I was reading the shadow series, and there was a scene celebrating a priest who “suppressed his urges to be with men” and married a woman instead to “do his duty of having a family.” I was so pissed!!! I immediately DNFed, and I won’t ever read anything by him again.
He does this a few times in his books. In one of his first books, Songmaster, the main character was gay, but had to remain celibate because he had been conditioned for sex to be painful. In the Memory of Earth series (not sure if that's what it's officially called) a gay man has to marry a woman as a duty to help repopulate the human race.
One thing I will say about A Little Life is that, like, for example, let's say you have a story about a guy who hates his job, and his wife and kids don't respect him, and he's behind on rent, and his car breaks down and he can't afford to fix it and he gets rained on on the way to work. That's not an outlandish amount of trauma, that can and does happen to people all the time. But there's a way to write that story that's just absolutely wallowing in the misery of it all and is unpleasant or "too much". So it's not just the trauma itself, it's also the presentation of it.
OMG, I dnf'd Rage of Dragons 🙈 (really wish there was a better "covering your eyes" emoji) I couldn't with the way women were treated, and that the plot didn't start until the end of part 1 LMAO
A series I once loved but don't think I can recommend would have to be the Tiger's Curse Saga by Colleen Houck. Can't tell y'all much about it though because it has been so long since I read those books 🤣🤣
the concept for these videos is super interesting, loved both of them! but i have to say... 2:55 there is an amongus behind y'all... the only book i can think of that i would anti-recommend is kingdom of back by marie lu. i really enjoyed it but i am not forgetting the realms of ruin nft mess that happened...😵💫 not like The worst thing but it kind of was a really :/ situation and im still really disappointed about that
@@JesseOnRUclips nfts are a crypto thing and the idea behind them was to basically try to make ~exclusivity~ out of digital files but its kind of like buying a receipt that says "im the most specialest owner of this png file"...i think folding videos has a really in depth but also really long video about it, but basically just not great
I don't want to read A Little Life. I do know that a book I've really wanted to read about the foster system is Sleeping Around. I did not experience the foster system but my siblings did as soon I entered college. I am always looking for trauma stories written by people who have experienced the trauma specifically.
ooo sleeping around sounds great!!! foster narratives are often close to home for me as someone who was adopted (but never in the actual foster system); those narratives are usually the closest i get to exploring parental abandonment. its one of the reasons A.L.L meant a lot; the depiction of Jude and his foster dad really really really hit in a way nothing else ever has. (yet =])
Thank y'all for continuing to have these conversations. I think what some reviewers in the booktube, booktok, bookstagram space forget is... okay you love this book/series and you know the author or themes within it are problematic for x, y, z reason(s)... but you do not have to share everything. That's between you and your conscience if you want to continue to read harmful stuff! You're allowed to! But promoting it... not necessary. I appreciate reviewers who just like don't include the stuff they read on KU (likely because it is wild smut) but they are like... this is between me, my kindle, and god 🤣. You don't have to tell us about EVERYTHING you read. That's not a requirement. Be thoughtful.
I love this concept! For me, a book like that is "Wonder" by RJ Palacio. I loved it when I first read it and still thinkthe author did a fantastic job of telling the same story from many perspectives and portraying the way children/young teenagers see the world. However, I have heard some not-so-great things about the disability representation, and as an able-bodied person who can't judge the quality of the rep myself, I'd feel uncomfortable recommending this book. PS: Yall's necklace looks STUNNING!
omg i did a video when i first started where i read that book and watched the film and praised the shit out of it but haven’t thought about the book since or re-examined it’s depiction def appreciate this comment and u for calling that out!
I adore Stephen King and used to devour his books but I got tired of being smacked in the face with the N-word whenever I read his work. Which sucks because I love his books, especially The Stand and the Dark Tower series. There’s just no reason to use that word at all. I had the same experience with Eleanor and Park and felt like a fool for not seeing the racist ways Park was written. I tried to read A Little Life but had to stop halfway through. I was crying like Hannah!! I don’t think I’ll ever finish it because I truly don’t think I’ll recover from it. Another amazing vlog!!
ahhh tysm Janet!!! also same with E&P but i took it as an opportunity to realize i had been erasing racism against Asian folk and that i had learning to do. in short i very much relate to that uncomfortable feeling where you realize you have self work to do. it can be humbling. 💚
I am so happy you did a follow up! I have to keep the art and the artist together. At the very least, because we live in a capitalist hellscape and paying for art made by a bad person gives a bad person money and tells the market you want more of that person/content. It's more complicated for things like films where there are so many people getting a paycheque from your dollars, so I choose to limit it to directors and featured actors for my own sanity.
the reason I didn't like a little life is because of the bad disability rep (the characters physical disability, not his mental health issues). the disability is written like an able bodied person imagining what they would feel like being disabled/cripple. the character has a lot of internalized ableism and it's not addressed properly. the disability feels like a prop to make people feel more sorry for him, and nothing more. very little nuance. people talk a lot about the queer rep, her writing about a gay man suffering as a woman etc, but not many are talking about her writing about a disabled character that way. I don't know for sure if she's able bodied, but she's not cripple or an amputee like the character is
There are rainbows splashed across you from somewhere and I love it. This is the first video on this channel I've seen, and so far I am in so much agreement! I'm about a third of the way through the video so I don't know if this book will come up, but The Mists of Avalon was a book I loved that I cannot ethically recommend.
omg thank you so much!!!! welcome to the madhouse, hopefully you’ll stick around if you like the content!! what’s the issue with Mists? if u feel like sharing of course the rainbows are from this cool rainbow decal i have on the window. i received it in a feminist book club box!
@@JesseOnRUclips I have a huge issue with Mists based on several things, one its a King Arthur book which in itself has a lot of misogyny in it, but its also really offensive from a religious standpoint on my behalf. I'm Pagan, and the end message of the book basically boils down to "become a Christian because you can't fight it anyway!". I don't have a problem with Christians or Christianity, but I have received this message my whole childhood at the end of a belt and being ostracized by my family/community, and it didn't make me want to comply. Also, the author along with her husband, according to the author's daughter, was extremely abusive.
I'm the same as y'all with Ender's Game. Read it back in like 2012 and really enjoyed it (It was my first ever sci-fi and I'd carefully chosen it), but I can't rec it because of the author and what he's said and stands for.
Thank you so much for this video! Even though I disagree with some of what you said, I applaud you for opening the conversation and promoting nuance and validity of varying opinions. (And disagreement is the point of this! It’s natural to disagree, we just need to discuss in respectful conversation.)
After reading a little life I was reading a lot of articles about the book and about Hanya. One of the articles I read Hanya stated that she went to a a women’s college and that naturally she slept with women and it wasn’t anything she thought anything of since it was such normal thing to happen there. I don’t know if this has carried on to her present life but just wanted to put here what I read from one of her interviews since her being queer is in question. I wanted to ask why people have an issue with Hanya’s depiction of black characters? What are the particular issues people are bringing up? One of the issues I had was the lack of Malcolm’s character. I felt like he was the only character that wasn’t fully fleshed out and I didn’t get to know. JB was also slowly phased out and I wish he had been in the book more
A Little Life is one of my favorite book of all time - instead of traumatizing, i found it very healing in terms of my own personal sexual abuse. I also don't think that sad = traumatic, and setting out to write a sad book doesn't mean that the intention was to traumatize its readers
your perspective matters, but adding that the author stated in her own words that she sought out to write a traumatizing book, the saddest book she could. so the intention actually was to traumatize its readers :( but like i say in the video, its okay to still love something thats problematic. nuance matters, your feelings matter. we can still lvoe something and critique it. in case ur wondering why we're adding comments a year later (lmao) i'm going through comments for a follow up video that i'm filming today!
I just finished a book that I think fits perfectly into this! The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McClemore. I've read a couple of their books before with no issue but seeing this book, maybe I need a reread to double check. But then this book they use the G-slur multiple times throughout the book to portray the main character's racism. And as a white person, I can't ethically recommend a book that from my understanding is hurtful to Romani people. I loved it because it dealt a lot with generational trauma and hopes of breaking the cycle, which I related to and there were some really powerful quotes from that that I loved. But at the end of the day, as you said in your video, you shouldn't need a slur to show the hate someone has towards a minority group. And there's definitely other great books out there on the subject of generational trauma that I could recommend instead for sure that don't use slurs. (Side note: I checked to see if the author might be Romani or something despite the Latinx name, and nope. They just write deeply flawed characters because they were once a deeply flawed internalized homophobe. They say this in an interview or blog post I read.)
1. the use of the g word in books even “historical fiction” makes me feel icky af so u feel u on this 2. 90% certain the authors pronouns are they them!
My issue with A Little Life has always been this: is it FOR queer survivors of trauma, or is it just ABOUT us? Because while I could and did relate to a lot of the trauma that Jude went through in A Little Life, the message I was left with at the end of the story was that, according to Hanya Yanigaraha, people like me are literally better off dead. And boy howdy, did that infuriate me, especially when I consider how, to me, the character of Jude was also strongly coded as feminine in a way that brushes up against transfemininity in a super uncomfortable way. Granted, this may just be the result of a (presumed) cis woman writing a "gay male" character who is basically supposed to function as an audience surrogate for the cis female reader, but either way, I do NOT appreciate it. And I can't help but notice that (presumed) cis female writers have a habit of creating "punching bag characters" who are almost ALWAYS feminine gay "men" upon whom they apparently feel comfortable inflicting the worst tortures they can imagine, all whilst wallowing in the sheer tragedy of our beautiful, broken lives. And to be fair, I think many cis female writers do this because they're looking for a "safe" way to explore their own trauma. But here's the thing: what makes a character like Jude a "safe" vessel for this abuse is specifically because these writers (and readers) DON'T empathize with him as strongly, since he's not *technically* a woman. In other words, the story rests upon our tacit agreement to treat this feminine male character's pain as less real, less important, and less worthy of compassion than that of a cis female character. Which is why the abuses heaped upon these characters HAVE to be so extreme. Otherwise, the authors wouldn't connect enough with the characters to be able to get their emotional rocks off. And in writing all of this, I am in NO way suggesting that other queer (and trans) survivors of trauma are wrong if they got something valuable out of this book. If it made them feel seen or understood, I'm very happy for that. But I wish we as survivors would start demanding MORE for ourselves than just this. We deserve books that believe our lives are worth living. That's my bottom line.
everything about this comment. so much i wish i could say, but will simply thank you for your words. one thing i forgot to mention in the video (or maybe i did), but not all "own voices" rep is good rep. lets say that Hanya is queer/non-cis - just because one is a part of said community doesn't mean the depiction of queerness is automatically going to be healthy and issue-free. there are plenty of modern queer authors who i've read books from and taken great issue with the way they represented various aspects of queer communities.
I think my biggest struggle has been Jay Kristoff. I really enjoyed his characters and writing (although arrogant) in Nevernight. I even pushed aside how harmful he was to the disability community- a community I'm apart of- because I loved the story. I'm not sure if internally I wanted to be on the bandwagon for him due to his fame in the bookstagram community, but it just caused a lot of pain to me, as well as other disabled readers. My heart sinks every time I see someone rave about Empire of the Vampire.
I find the Little Life discourse so interesting. You make great points. I always found this passage of an article on her so fascinating. She has said she is straight but has slept with women. But I also agree we shouldn’t be policing how much or what kind of trauma is realistic vs trauma porn… “Being a female was never something-and continues not to really be something-that was interesting to me. . . . So it was odd that I ended up at a women’s college.” At Smith, she marched for Asian American rights, and when writing papers she spelled “women” as “womyn”-a stance that she now regards as mostly a pose. “I should have spent more time thinking critically, and not trying to scare my way into easy ‘A’s,” she said. Yanagihara slept with women at Smith-“everyone had sex with women.” When the dorm next door hosted an annual orgy she didn’t go, because if she had she would have had to help with the cleanup afterward.”
we thought about u so much during this review and our recent movie rewatch bc we know u likely feel the same. we gotta discuss privately some time. we also forgot to mention that the way this book discussed obsession was incredible. but yeah…it’s…ethically just can’t stand by it and won’t be mentioning it on our channel again lmao
This is one I don't recommend just in case. Because I don't know, and I am struggling to find information about it. I actually have a 96 page document open up about it that I am going to sit down and read and I believe I will find the answers I am looking for. But a vampire book I love is The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein. I don't know if this is a retelling of Carmilla or not, but you can see the influence the story had on it. This is about an eastern Jewish girl who is attending this boarding school and they are entering a new year. A new student arrives, another eastern jew that is even at one stage stated to have similar features to the main, and this girl is also the antagonist. As the story progresses, the main becomes convinced that this new girl is a vampire and that she only wants the main to know. The main becomes frightened for her friends and believes that the new girl is out to hurt them. I don't think I need to explain why I think it may be problematic. And I am struggling for the most part to find any information on this book. But what makes me hesitate is the fact that the new girl has a very negative view of her Jewish roots and the main character has a more positive view of it and engages with her traditions on a regular level. She also has a massive issue with the forced Christian or catholic traditions at the school that she has to take part in. So part of me wonders if it is more of a conversation and an analysis of harmful tropes in the vampire genre as a whole. But I could also be giving the book more credit than it is due and it is what it seems on the surface. But I don't recommend it because I am unsure, and this is just the big issue throughout the book. There are other things here (no slurs or anything like that, just to clarify), but it also could be a case of it just being in the book and showing it existing in the culture of the school and how it is more harmful to the students than anything. Anyway, the document I have open, and I will look for more, has a line in the abstract that says '...explore the meanings of vampirism that the novel suggests, along with the book’s critique of the anti-Semitism that has accompanied the vampire genre.' I will read through this and see what I think of the argument presented and see if it clarifies things or not. But as I said, it is a book that I do love that I just don't think I should recommend it until I get an answer here. And even if I do and it is more of a criticism than not, I still don't think I will.
hadn't heard of this book! thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and more information about it! hopefully you've found some vampire books you adore.
I really can't separate the art from the artist. If they're a terrible person and have done/said things I don't agree with, I won't be able to read their books without thinking about what they've done, and so I won't be able to get through the story. You can try and separate the art from the artist as much as possible, but by supporting the art, you're still, as indirect as you might try to be, supporting the artist.
Another issue with a little life is the shame and horrible descriptions of disabled people, specifically Jude's perception of him self and how much he hates him self for it. Imagine being a disabled person reading that and you know the writer isn't disabled themselves. It's very disheartening, so definitely hard to recommend for that reason
precisely. if one prefers to just read authors who are “out” cool, that’s their choice, but don’t bully others into confirming their sexuality for you. no one owes an explanation of their identity.
My last midnight release book was the cursed child script. The second to last one was a breaking dawn midnight release that was prom themed. Having worked at Barns and Nobel, one of the main reasons midnight releases were so hard was due to release dates. It was too hard to promote one and expect a good turn out if the book wasn't released on a saturday or in the summer.
i love this video concept, first of all. People are way too comfy recommending books despite knowing about the problematic content or things the author has done. A book i love but wouldn't feel comfy recommending is its kind of a funny story by ned vizzini- its been a while since i read it but its primarily set in a psychiatric hospital and looking back i remember certain characters with more stigmatized mental illness (the main character has depression) like schizophrenia being used as comic relief and not given the same respect as the main character. Its hard to remember specific examples but i just kind of get a general ick from parts of it. Also if I'm remembering correctly there was a trans character who is not portrayed very well, but i may be thinking of another book. I do love how it portrays depression and the main characters journey of growth. also the relationships he has with other characters in the book and seeing how those grow and change over his time in the hospital. I really enjoyed this book when i read it but i don't think i could recommend it.
omg. had no idea Its Kind of A Funny Story was like that. never looked into the book itself or read the synopsis but do recall seeing/hearing about it everywhere many years ago.
Oh! I also want to bring up Be More Chill, by the same author, and I think the musical version of that is better known. I loved the musical and decided to read the book. Although they were similar in plot, one thing that struck me was the S L U R S E V E R Y W H E R E. Also it just generally felt a little... weird. I think there was some racism, ableism, and I'm pretty sure misogynistic parts as well (I don't really remember that much, it's been a while). The musical has its faults, but definitely not as bad as in the book.
Sometimes it depends how bad they are, but once you know an author's real-life views, it's difficult to separate art from artist. Parts of themselves usually bleed into their week, so you subconsciously notice and look for those on a re-read. Such as with "J.K. Roachling", the lycanthropy in Harry Potter being a metaphor for AIDS, or taking her male pen name from a famed psychiatrist of conversion therapy, the signs were there long before she outed herself as the person we all know now. She and Stephen King were two people I refused to follow on social media. No nostalgic attachment to either - Harry Potter never caught my interest, and R.L. Stine was my horror man growing up.
OMG I'm SO glad that All the white spaces is y'alls bookclub peak and that y'all like it so much. I found out about it about a week ago, when I was trying to find books for a trans books challenge I follow in Storygraph but I didn't know it the author is trans themself (which I prefer when reading about trnas characters). Back to problematic books now. I loved Misery SO much, as many other books by King, but have stopped reading and recomending any of his books for about two years now cause just naahhhh. Since y'all considering to read Pet Sematary, for me it was the most scary book I had read back then (2017 manybe?) but not because the book was that scary itsself, but because of what thoughts it made me have. I litterally had to stop reading the book more than 3 times to stop my thoughts from spiralling.
Great video. I liked hearing your perspective. I read Ender's Game in the late '90s, and went on to read more than 40 of his other books. The homophobia has landed him a place on my permanent boycott list, though not until I left the hyper-conservative church I was raised in. The only author I have read more books by than Card is...Stephen King. I kind of burned out on him, but I have to admit I don't remember a lot of the problematic content you mention. I will have to pay more attention. Hanya Yanagihara is more interesting to me, maybe because I only recently read her new book To Paradise. This being the second book of hers that centers tormented gay men seemed a little odd, but also not my place to call her out. I'm not sure what other books I'd put in the "cannot recommend" camp. Maybe Michael Shermer, if we count nonfiction. His book "Why People Believe Weird Things" was instrumental in how I approach critical thinking...and it turned out he's a rapist (allegedly) and creep (well documented). For fiction, some of my other boycotts are Piers Anthony (who always seems to have books with teen girls and older men) and Dean Koontz (who is a moralizing jackass). But I don't like either of their books enough to recommend them even without the problematic aspects.
I remember taking a graduate level lit class with a professor who was REAL into the "death of the author" thing, like he really didn't like it when we brought the author's life experiences into a discussion and tried to squash it, and I never really understood that. No piece of literature (or film or TV or art or anything) springs out of a vacuum. What an author is thinking or experiencing will come out in their work in some way. Even a piece of non-fiction is never truly objective. So, while there are things that I LOVE, I also recognize when whooo, yikes, there is a problem with either the author as a person or with how the author has depicted certain elements in a book. I love old-ass Historical Romances, those big sweeping HistRom titles from the 80s and 90s and I DO NOT recommend them to anyone unless they're looking at the history of the genre and are already a pretty seasoned romance reader. Allllll sorts of wild shit coded in between the pages. Some have been reissued with some editing for content (Judith McNaught took out the horse-whipping scene in Whitney, My Love for instance) but that doesn't really make them "all fixed" (And even writing romance in this day and age there are still authors meandering around saying real dim-bulb things about BIPOC characters or LGBTQIA+ characters or - grossly - attempting to cash in on a "trend" and writing those characters very badly, etc etc etc) (And I've never managed to read more than about 2 chapters of A Little Life - I was offered a review copy of the finished hardcover by the publicst, so of course I said yes because everyone and their brother was just about salivating over this book in pre-pub...and I read those first few chapters and went "I don't think I can emotionally handle this book" because I got the feeling that it would wreck me. And seeing the discourse around the book, like, I don't think this one is for me, I can find some other books to wreck my emotional life just fine. And, as a bookseller, that book sells itself right off the table so it doesn't need me to read it to bring attention to it.)
I wanna read Pet Cemetery too and it’ll be a book that I’m never gonna post about or publicly review. I just can’t find it in myself to do that and feel good about posting it but there are some books that I just refuse to read like Lovely War (sad cuz I spent my hard earned money on it, it’s getting donated😭), House in the Cerulean Sea, and anything by Rainbow Rowell. I just love horror and I feel like Pet Cemetery would just do it for me but y’all know, quietly like very hush hush😂😂😂
literally!!! let us know if u wanna buddy read pet semetary. we can just have a private moment w it and read it under the covers lmaoooo k that sounded oddly sexual WE DIDNT MEAN IT THAT WAY WE SWEAR
@@JesseOnRUclips lmaooooo😂😂 y’all are always making innocent things sound sexual and honestly I live for it but YES! That’s such a vibe, we definitely should. When do you wanna start it? I’ll order the book right now!
Stephen King feeling soooo comfortable using slurs in his writing has been a source of contention for me for YEARS. I remember reviewing his books and brining this up years ago and having his white fans come with pitchforks to defend him saying that I was “too unintelligent to realize that he was trying to make certain characters despicable by having them use that kind of language.” As if Stephen King himself couldn’t simply use different traits to make a character despicable. I should just be cool with him taking the easy route and throwing a hard er or the f word in there. Ugh I hate it there so bad 🤢
white reviewers love using that as an excuse. its consistently the defense i've seen used for donna tartt and the gross N word use in her books/racism against nonBlack peoples as well. the excuse just doesn't fly with me. so if thats what they need to feel good about continuing to stan her work - go for it. but just know that excuse doesn't justify a damn thing.
Ok, so this question is only loosely tied to the video but to what extent can I as an author (which I'm not) tell stories of persons of different ethnicities, races, sexualities, genders without being exploitative? Where's the line between making sure there's diversity and exploitation?
there are good articles on this but my rundown response : question ur motives, get beta readers, accept you’ll receive criticism, be willing to deal with that criticism
I can't separate the author/artist/creator from their work, because to support their work on any level is to keep them in notoriety or prosperity and possibly wealth to continue to do whatever deviation or pathology in society many find offensive. It's easier to go find another entertainer or entertainment in that field or genre I can grow to appreciate. I will not support a person's livelihood that I know has created, engaged or endorsed dysfunctional, degenerate or deviant behavior on any level.
@@JesseOnRUclips Ok so all (if not most) of Olaf's Henchman are either fat, androgynous, foreign, disabled, or a combination of aforementioned identities. These identities often are described as adding to their scariness/otherness such as the man w the hook hand or the fat one described as "looking like neither a man or a woman." They actually took some of the henchman characters and changed em for Netflix TV show if I'm not mistaken. I didn't see the twin Geishas in the first ep, for example. They contrast heavily w other "good" characters in the books who are typically able, white and relatively seen as good looking by society. I'm rereading the series but the only time I remember "good" characters being disabled/marginalized were the circus folk in like book 9.
daaaamn thats heavy. just seeing this now because i'm gearing up for another video in this series and reading comments. thank you for clueing me in on this. its appreciated.
st*phen king is a guilty pleasure of mine. i was so in love with the original Carrie movie during my childhood, and i read the book in late HS/early college and really enjoyed it. i watched the movie Misery some years ago and read the book in 2020 or 2021 and also enjoyed it (except the excerpts of the Misery book that Paul was writing because 😬). i read The Shining in October as a ~spooky read~ and i really liked many aspects of it but it had the same issue of having the n-word for no reason. like it's absurd 😭 king is definitely an author that, to me, is really good when he stays in his own lane and writes what he knows. some of the most powerful aspects of The Shining were the ones of the main character struggling with alcoholism and recovery, something King has directly experienced himself. he himself has even admitted that he's really bad at writing women and characters of color. but you're so right about how he needs to get off twitter. also....the infamous scene in IT that i've heard so much about....he seems like a whole weirdo tbh 😭 he's definitely an author i can't recommend in good conscious
I cannot separate an author from their work when supporting their work will embolden the author to become more and more vocal about their abhorrent views, because they perceive professional success with validation or whatnot. Plus, knowing their personal beliefs affects the lens through which I interpret their work, and the outcome of that is uncomfortable, in a bad way, at best. However, I am happy to separate an author from their characters' views, as I don't interpret characters (autofiction aside) as a real stand ins for the author. I know that last part wasn't the question, and it's not something I have ever noticed you doing in any reviews, I've just seen it a lot recently and have been thinking about it.
Thank you for this video. I feel like education like this is super important and really helpful. Personally I quite like Colleen Hoover books but I recognise quite a few issues within them and what is being talked about and has come to light with her son and the handling of the situation at the moment I won’t recommend her.
I *loved* Enders game and was also so into the fandom. And also read some of the sequels and at the time it was the best sci-fi book I'd ever read and found it to be incredibly clever and well crafted. (Now my faves tend to be afrofuturism) but as soon as I discovered what I did about the authors views (also racism too) I couldn't read a single book further. orrecommend it at all anymore.
Hey, Jesse! How are you? First of all: I love your videos! Misery is also one of my favorite books and Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, but as you said, he does use the n and the f word too often. Being a gay guy from Brazil, it feels wrong to read those words, but I always think that he is trying to portrait people that would use them. For example: if I write a homophobic character, he would probably use a few sh*tty words (even though I'm not an homophobic person). What do you think about that? Am I just trying to justify Stephen's behavior because I love his books LOL ? Once again, great video and I love your channel! 😁
hi hi! so glad you like the content and thank you for asking. personally i feel there are hundreds of ways to show a character is homophobic without using slurs. i know because i read books that show a character is homophobic/racist without using slurs ALL THE TIME. he writes them because he wants to. and he profits from it. so personally its inexcusable. again, these are just my personal ethics. i wouldn't force them to be yours as well. But for me as a Black queer and Trans person, its a hard and firm line for me.
I’d add the Broken Empire trilogy to this. Read it when I was younger, absolutely loved the mix of historical fantasy, dystopian sci-fi and future world setting and was fascinated at how it was like practically watching a story through a complex and villainous main character devoid of empathy bc of trauma and scheming his way to a crown, very much with a teenager point of view during an epic medieval plot. Nowadays I just know I wanna spare anyone from feeling sick reading it, even more knowing it was a grown man writing agressive scenes, sometimes sexually charged, with teenagers involved- and surprising! The author is a complete misogynistic asshole to fellow female writers I’m not even sure if I should read it again just to know if like 4 years later I’d still enjoy the book, but I used to love it
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I really struggle with separating the art from the artist. I don't know if it's genuinely possible. Writers put so much of themselves into the work, whether they mean to or not. Their beliefs, views, biases, etc., it all ends up on the page. It's not always blatant; it can be very obscured. But it's there. So if the author has views that are problematic, those views are highly likely to be reflected in their work. And everyone is problematic in some way. So what it really boils down to, in my opinion, is what the reader is personally able to overlook.
wow, this. well said.
Yes!
Plus, it's only a privilege demanded of us, regular people, for the benefit of people, whose identity is at the top of the social hierarchy.
@@moustik31 Yes! It's like, non-queer people will expect queer people to overlook problematic queer rep so that they can enjoy the book without having to think about it at all. (that's just a general example, not alluding to anything specific)
@@Robi-Chaud Exactly, when mainstream authors f*ck up out of laziness, and/or bigotry, we are told to sh*t up bec. the authors "meant well". Meanwhile, the rest of us (from marginalised identities) get served with "hell is paved with good intentions", whenever we ask for deserved grace, forgiveness and understanding.
This means so much. It can be disheartening to know of Booktubers who *know* (have even mentioned) the harms done by certain authors, and yet still go on to recommend their work or promote them to favorites lists. And while I know these things aren't a personal attack toward the harmed, it still begs the question: to what end? What is gained by continuing to tout the works of someone with questionable integrity? After I done TOLD you... 🙄😩
I think mine is a very common one: The House in the Cerulean Sea. i loved that book and then i learned about the author using literal indigenous trauma as “inspiration” and how he never backs down on it and i immediately took down all my tiktoks about it. it was a really good book but i cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone or talk about it in a way that someone might pick it up based on my review
the “inspiration” behind Cerulean disgusted me. it’s why i refuse to read it
I read it before hearing any of the controversy, and have 💯 refrained from rec'ing it since then...
I feel the exact same about this one! I found out what it was "inspired" by right after finishing it and felt so uncomfortable and horrified afterwards.
100% agree. I personally loved this book when I first read it; it was the right comfort-read at the right time for me. I didn't pick up on the inspiration, and only found out afterwards and it made me uncomfortable to have liked and recommended it on my blog originally. Have since then gone back on that recommendation
I hadn’t even heard about this one yet! Guess I’m taking this off my TBR. Why do so many authors suck 😭
When I read “and then there were none” by Agatha Christie I absolutely loved and and thought the story, characters, and twist were incredible. It became one of my top 5 books. The version i read had the poem thats the plot device as “ten little soldiers.” Thens i learned that not only had that been updated from “Ten Little Indians,” but the ORIGINAL was actally “Ten Little N--s.” There had also been a few passages that were very racist and/or colonialist that had been edited out from the original. I was very disappointed to say the least. While I still find the story and characters compelling, I can’t in good conscious recommend it without mentioning the original issues.
There's a very cool video essay about colonialism in then there were none! It discusses how accidentally it actually becomes a critique of colonial dynamics and privelege (doesn't negate other kinds of racism book did thoughand it WAS accidental)
oooo late responding but do you happen to have a link to that? also, hi :)
A Little Life made me feel SO seen, its a book that will stay with me for life. But, I saw a BookTuber say the trauma & descriptions of mental illness in A Little Life was unrealistic - but you & the Instagram you quote sum up my feelings perfectly
definitely feel you. privately i intend to reread and annotate but will absolutely be choosing to rec other books over that one. i’m very much looking forward to filming a video where i recommend replacements for these books.
I do find myself struggling with separating the art from the artist. As I age, I become better at putting boundaries around things, so if I know something will be problematic for me and/or be triggering, I can let myself not "go there." Especially when it comes to reading/movies/tv. When I was younger, I might have forced myself to push through only to be left feeling angry or traumatized. I'm glad I'm able to protect myself now. I know I need to be extremely careful with books that include mental illness, self-harm and suicide. I need to do my research before I pick certain books up.
definitely feel u on this. it’s a constant struggle. i think it’s fabulous that you’re grappling and asserting boundaries where u can. it’s a beautiful thing. lmk if i can ever help w replacement book recs or if u have questions about the content of a book i’ve read, i’d be glad to tell u what i know and remember!
I am SO with y'all on the things you said on A Little Life (which I have not read, and won't, but I do know what happens cuz I purposefully read spoilers cuz I wanted to know what I would get into if i did read it). I have read several comments from people who felt seen and related to Jude and all the trauma he went through, and even before hearing about this book I've thought so many times about how there are SO many people in this world who are repeatedly traumatized and DON'T ever get to work through it healthily or get their happily ever after, etc etc. I have wondered if there was ever a story like that and if people who have been stuck in life like that could see themselves in a story like that.
With that said though, and like y'all were saying, based on things that the author has said in the past, it seemed like she just wanted to write (and profit off of) trauma p0rn of a racially ambiguous queer man for the sake of it. Do it for the Shock Value (TM) or whatever. Granted, like y'all were also saying, we don't know if she's secretly queer, or heck, if she's even experienced some or similar traumas, but regardless, based on interviews, her expressed reasons and motives for writing this book are...questionable...and that's why I will not purchase and/or read it.
yes yes yes yes THIS!!!!!!
I totally get the feeling of connecting with a book that others find problematic due to its depiction of something triggering for them. Other readers in the romance community have been very harsh on certain books for how they handled body positivity and fatphobia, and these books happened to be some I enjoyed for how they grappled with them. But that doesn’t mean others’ feelings aren’t valid. And there are some books that tackle those issues that I refuse to pick up, because I don’t know that I want to deal with them. But fortunately with the ones I have, I’ve really connected with them.
def feel u on the 'that doesnt mean others' feelings arent valid' absolutely. love this. ty for sharing your thoughts - its extremely appreciated
rage of dragons makes me so mad because evan winter had the audacity to write a matriarchal society but simultaneously fall into all the misogynistic tropes, i felt so bamboozled 😭
fuck yes!!!!!!!! exactly
also wanna be our patreon guest host for sprints in march?!
@@JesseOnRUclips yesss I'm down!!
I really enjoy that you can respectfully explain the reasons for your recommendations or your anti recommendations, explain your point of view very clearly and clarify some aspects of culture that many of us might not be exposed to. I take notes on what topics or situations to be more focused or critical, just trying to learn what's correct and what's not.
thank you :( i do try hard to provide a nuanced discussion. it’s important to me. so your acknowledgment means a lotttt
I have a possibly wild idea-hear me out: you anti-recommend a book (say A Little Life for example) and you provide an alternative, comp title with the vibes of A Little Life that you DO recommend!
that’s actually the plan!! i will be closing out this series with replacement recommendations for the books i discussed! love how u think :)
I forgot his name but another booktuber said he preferred Tomorrow Tomorrow Tomorrow over A Little Life
Be careful with that though! Sometimes a “remake” or “more progressive” version of a controversial text doesn’t actually solve the problem. Like okay - people say Vladimir Nabokov’s _Lolita_ condones abuse (I think the opposite but it’s neither here more there), and they recommend ‘feminist’ remakes like _Lo’s Diary_ and _Roger Fishbite,_ which are technically more feminist in that they’re from the POV of the abused. The problem is that they sometimes end up kinda blaming the victim more than the original _Lolita._
So, you know. Watch out with “better alternative” recommendations for problematic texts
@@JesseOnRUclips That's so cool! It's so fun to find a book and be like, "Oh, this scratches the exact itch that other book did, but I don't have to feel weird about this one."
I’m pretty sure there is nothing similar to A Little Life out there, because I’ve been looking for a while and have never found any recommendations that were similar.
Similar to you, I feel like I often work through my personal trauma through reading (e.i. horror, or literary fiction that covers heavy topics). That being said, A Little Life is my most hated books of all time, not because of the content-matter, but the way it was handled. Whether or not something is "trauma-porn" depends on the tone and intent behind the inclusion of these topics. As a comparison: not every piece of media that contains sex is porn. To me, A Little Life is so bad and hurtful because it reads like the author was trying to write the saddest book in existance (I didn't know she literally admitted that, but it reads that way). She gleefully included included these trauma's for shock-value, as emotional manipulation of the reader, and to profit off,. It's almost voyeuristic: "look at this sad life I'm describing here, don't you pity Jude yet?", whilst clearly not coming from a pov of understanding, empathy or own-experience.
It's that tone; that repeated victimisation; that lack of understanding that makes trauma-port to me, not the content itself. That being said: this is all personal opinion and I'm glad this book actually helped others, and that's valid.
reeeeeally love this comment
Jesse: Not me talking about ads. I'm a whole RUclipsr-
*When I started promoting my business with WIX-*
No ad has ever been more perfectly timed
lmaoooo
I read Ender's Game in middle school and fell it love with it. It was one of my favorite books for ages. When I say I was DEVASTATED when I found out about OSC...It was not a pleasant day for me.
woof i feel this
I do struggle with separating the art from the artist and there are several authors whose works I’ll still read because of childhood nostalgia, but refuse to purchase their books new or in any way that gives money to them, as well as not promoting their works. JKterf is one bc my siblings and I bonded over the HP series growing up. Brandon Sanderson is sadly another one because of his homophobia, even though his Mistborn series is one my fiancé and I bonded over before we were dating and were just friends. So certain pieces of art I’ll keep separate for my own sanity if they bring me comfort, but the rest I will refuse to purchase and will not support the author if they’re harmful to the community and others in any way.
i do plan on reading sanderson at some point just to see what all the funking obsession is about. love this comment btw
i always value your opinions. i feel the same way about "separating art from the artist" in both book world and in music world. i have a hard time thinking that it can be done because it's inevitable that the artists's views are inherently in the art. that's why i've taken indefinite breaks from some bands because of the stuff they've done/said that doesn't sit right with me. i always hate finding out an author or band i like has done or said something shitty but it's better that i know it and can avoid them in the future than continue to support them. i'll appreciate what i've read/listened to, but they will not be getting my support whether intangibly from recommending them or tangibly from money.
thank you for the support, friend ✨❤️ also, i definitely hear you!
I love this video so much. I could listen to y'all talk about books for HOURS. Soooo much insight that I would've otherwise missed. Love y'all! ❤
god we love u
I think it’s gross that the author of A Little Life only goal was to be traumatizing. That being said the book was a huge comfort and Jude was a huge comfort for my own experiences. I think the book was too much and accomplished what the author wanted but it also accomplished so much more. I wouldn’t recommend the book because I see how much it hurt people but I am thankful for what it did for me.
god i feel u on this, friend
And for me, I have much more trouble separating the art from the artist when it comes to living/current authors, especially ones who are vocal about politics *cough twitter*.
LITERALLY
I really have an issue when people tell me to separate art from the artist. And I get it, I do. I just can't do it, especially when separating art from the artist means that such person will gain money from me consuming their art. People are always surprised when they find out that I've never read Harry Potter, and not only I'm not interested in reading those books because I don't like fantasy, but also because the author is a piece of $h!t. Sometimes the author's point of view on a certain topic WILL BE reflected in their work, even if it's a small detail, it will be there
really love this comment and agree w u
As for my own anti book recs, my first instinct is game of thrones. I LOVE that type of voice (high fantasy like faux-olden times wordyness, similar to how Priory of the Orange Tree was written), but there's a lot of icky stuff in there, that I don't want to recommend to others
FAIR OMG
going through these comments again bc we're planning another video in this series - the "faux olden times wordyness" made us cackle bc we are also such a basic bitch for that shit lmao
Thanks for talking about Rage of Dragons. I wanna read that book one day, and I hadn't heard about this aspect of it. But now if I ever pick it up, I can be conscious with it.
I recently have just fallen in love with Jemisin's works. I then proceeded to actively recommend her works because I was in love. Just this morning I learned that she has used her platform to write a very damaging opinion on a trans person which has caused said trans person to detransition, be hospitalized, gone suicidal, etc. She said she has already written an apology personally to the person. However, this is not the last time she's done this. She's very wreckless in using her platform which in turn, intentionally or unintentionally, hurt other people. The devastation I felt when I learned this rn is just beyond words. I truly did love her works. However, like you, I seem to be incapable of separating artists from their art. I've just deleted her works from my goodreads account because I just don't feel comfortable recommending any of her works anymore. I'm not yet sure if I should continue reading her works however I only borrowed them from the library. I probably will consider buying them second hand however I don't think I would ever feel comfortable supporting her. It's such a shame really because I really want to support black scifi and fantasy authors and feel really uncomfortable cancelling them because they already receive harsher treatment than white writers.
oh my god?????? thats....awful. i look up to her so so much. will look more into this situation and make a video. do you happen to have a link to the twitter thread? will do more research on this too!
@@JesseOnRUclips let me get back to you in a bit. I will do my best to post links. I'm not sure if I'm just imagining things but it seems like youtube deletes my comments everytime I post links.
@@JesseOnRUclips Thank you so much for looking in to. I've tried a dozen times to post links but it seems like youtube has been deleting them. The separate incidents are with Isabell Fall and Brooke Nelson. There are tons of articles summarizing each incident.
I tried reading Little Life when I was 15/16 it was the time that this book came out, and so many people were recommending this book but no one was talking about the TW. So silly 16 years old me picked up this book. I couldn’t finish the book I wasn’t well reading some scenes and I am glad that y’all put this book here and talk about how traumatic this book can be for so many people
I was aaaaabsolutely glued to my laptop screen watching and listening to y'all discuss these books and their nature. I feel like y'all have given so much for yourSelves in explaining why these books personally worked for y'all and why y'all wouldn't recommend them. Especially y'all's discussion on A Little Life was soooo interesting, lots of brain brain thoughts thoughts happening. I'd also be interested in a kind of reverse video where y'all talk about books y'all didn't necessarily enjoy but would still recommend???
omg that’s a brilliant video suggestion! we adore that idea 💡 big kisses to ur beautiful brain lmaoooo
@@JesseOnRUclips y'all are gonna make me blush 😳🙊
Happy to see The Faithless as your March entry for nb book club. I adored The Unbroken and cannot wait for the next installment in the series!
thrilled as well!!! what do you think of the cover?! it’s incredible
@@JesseOnRUclips The cover art looks beautiful. Luca is depicted very much how I imagined her.
I love how logical and thoughtful all y'alls comments on these books are- I definitely learned some new info watching, too.
And I'm the same way about reading with my eyeballs versus reading via audio!
I adore what you said about the benefits and pitfalls of "own vouces" books and seeking those out/the harm that they can cause.
And I would have agree that Stephen King is probably the most celebrated/well known horror author. I am not a horror reader and before I joined booktube, he was definitely a name I knew and recognized for his horror.
Wow. What a well put together video, you're so well spoken & insightful! This conversation is great & important to see. I separate the art from the artist for the most part but I can definitely be put off authors future works because of certain aspects, I have a handful of Stephen King books that I love and I still have a couple that I own by him that I want to try but as of recently I've been seeing more and more of the negatives from him and wont be picking any of his newer works up. I do agree with you, I think his legacy is too huge at this point especially with the older generations, but I am glad to say that I have seen some, not many, but a few, die hard King fans getting sick of him and his ways.
you know its bad news if even readers who like to separate artist from their art are growing sick of it haha
have you read any Joe Hill? HOnestly his work is SO much better than his father's in my opinion
@@JesseOnRUclips I have! Agreed, I loved N0S4R2 😊
just read Heart Shaped Box by him and sjflkaj he's so brilliant!!!!!!
Wow, Ender’s Game was such a formative experience for me as a reader - I first read Enders game as a child, and was so intensely connected to ender’s world and backstory as a little kid who was personally navigating the ways I felt isolated and bullied and siloed from other kids as a child who was valued by adults for being “smart”. I read the four books in the OG series and finding out the author was homophobic felt devastating at that age, like being rejected by someone I thought understood my experience. I was also in the Harry Potter generation, and the author’s horrifically damaging views there are all over the fucking news unfortunately. I think also there were a lot of “classic” novels that I can no longer reread with any enjoyment, because the connection I felt towards them is outweighed by how othering it is to read between the lines and see my life/identity misrepresented.
As an adult, I think a really liberating and genuinely empowering moment for me was when I stopped trying to like everything other people told me had merit and realized I could just. Not engage with things that I found triggering or upsetting. There’s so much wonderful art out there, and it’s made me so much happier to prioritize works that can give me a positive experience instead of a conflicted one.
I am okay with not separating the work from the author. There are a few that it hurts to know the author is trash, but cutting off problematic authors is easy. There're so many other books that don't have things that upset/harm marginalize groups.
I love the Simon Snow books. But I don't recommend them as the author wrote some pretty racist stuff in Eleanor and Park. But those books were really my trans awakening as the two main gay boys lit a gay fire in me. I own the series but I don't support the author in any other books she writes. Ya'll then totally mentioned Rainbow! I also read Landline and it was for sure a miss. I did love that book too. But I can't really unsee Rainbow's behaviors. Also I loved Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar but that also has racist remarks in it. I know it's dated but even still that makes me very hesitant to recommend.
thank you for sharing 💚
You did a great job with this video! In regards to what you asked about Stephen King being a celebrated modern horror writer, yes, it's true. I remember I had a class in college where we had to read his mini book on writing. At the same time... I haven't read a King book in years so idk if I personally agree.
My most painful anti-rec is probably Sylvia Plath. I deeply want to recommend her work, as I adore her poetry, and The Bell Jar was such an important and helpful book to me at a very dark time of my life. It is however, a product of its time and contains some racist undertones and references that I'm uncomfortable with. It's a book I still recommend because I don't think these passages take away from the main message of the book, but I give it a big trigger-warning and disclaimer whenever i mention it, and can see why people want to steer clear of it.
thank you for sharing💚
I didn't even know Shutter Island was a book originally. I personally loved the movie.
Also I really recognize myself in y'all relating to problematic characters. I do that too. Knowing a character or a depiction of a certain mental illness or trauma is problematic while still relating to it in some way. And knowing that what you do/did/experienced is not really like what the character did at all.
Never heard it said out loud in this way before though. So, thank y'all for putting it into words!
Loving your thoughts 💭 tysm for sharing them
cw: mentions of psychosis, unaliving, and s/a but without any specific details
Thirteen Reasons Why would be my pick. I don't love it anymore and have a lot of issues with it now, but the book came out when I was 17, in a state of psychosis for over a month, and was very much not wanting to be alive. I had that similar thing where I wanted to read things relating to my trauma because it helped me deal with it. At the time, I didn't think Hannah's story was traumatic enough for me to care about that deeply, but I loved how she stopped existing and the plans she put into place. That was really inspirational to me and kept me alive for a few months.
I didn't plan on copying her or anything, mostly because I had no trust that people would follow my instructions lol, but I did have a 'what if I did' type of journal. I wrote down who was involved in certain parts of my past, what they did, why I can or can't forgive them, and what should have realistically happened to them if they were held accountable. That journaling process was essential to my recovery. My therapist read it and it answered every single question she had about my experiences and led me to get adequate mental health help during a time when I had a lot of difficulty explaining things verbally.
That lead me to the decision to record any conversations I had with people. Partly because some people took advantage of my state of psychosis and claimed wild things about me that even then I knew weren't true. They didn't know I recorded them, but I always had my phone with me ready to record and then email myself the file. I'd listen back when they weren't around and write out the things I should have said, any issues I had with them, and learn how to defend myself better if those things were said again. There were a few kind people and for them, I wrote down all the good things I wish I could have said to them. That journal and those recordings were later used in court as I was documenting a lot of bad experiences as they happened.
I can't ethically recommend it because the author is gross (multiple accounts of sexual harassment) In the book I don't think the s/a or unaliving were handled that well, and it arguably romanticizes unaliving far too much considering it's written for teenagers. But I know that it really did help me when I needed help the most. It gave me a solid reason to actually talk about things and validated a lot of what I was feeling. Genuinely, I don't know who I would be or if I would be if I hadn't read that book - but I'm aware it's also caused a lot of harm to other mentally ill people, s/a victims, etc.
no one has said 13 reasons yet and i'm glad you brought it up. thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts ❤️
I love how I know I'll enjoy everything you post.
awww John tysm
reread this comment and it brought joy all over again
I can, sometimes, temporarily block out the problematic aspects of stories in order to enjoy the good parts, but i always go back to it when reviewing/talking about it.
About a little life, my actual biggest problem and the main reason I'm not reading/buying it is the perspective the author has on psychology and how she approached the ca and cp in the book. Other things have summed up as it goes, obviously but that one is just something i can't deal with
My book that i love but don't recommend is the all for the game trilogy
as a queer person i really hate queer speculation, and i will never openly express my own assumptions about other peoples' sexuality or romantic attraction. but with that being said, as a queer guy i really feel iffy about (straight) women writing stories about queer men, and especially mlm romance. and i sometimes feel i must question my own morals, and how i can feel my own identity is being "exploited" (its too strong of a word but the essence of it), when i like the result; because i like or can relate to the characters
I read Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King recently and oof those slurs though (though really the whole thing was pretty oof). Do you, by any chance, have any horror recs where the authors don't turn out to be problematic?
omg yes! i have a playlist called spooky content and it’s full of recs!
oh also i made this guide to autumnal thrillers that i wish got more love! ruclips.net/video/DG0nWEHafZA/видео.html
@Bowties & Books oh bless!! I guess I will have to regularly search your playlists/videos. Thanks! ❤️
Omg I was going to mention Mr. Mercedes. I get was King was going for bacing Bradly on American Mass murderers who are typically young white men but he made Bradly so clichéd and cartoonish that when he starts saying racist stuff it felt like "a hat on a hat". Plus it made the chapters narrated by him a slog to get through.
One thing that helped me get through reading the chapters told from his POV was picturing him as Butters from South Park dressed as Professor Chaos.
Some people make it sound so easy not to read 'problematic' books so I really like that y'all show how we can enjoy things but still recognise its flaws.(Though on the other side I recognise that there are enough people who brush aside any concerns of different communities and make these books their whole personality on a public platform).
I struggle with my mental health but so far (and hopefully it stays that way) I don't have any traumatic experiences in my life. That's why I know picking up 'A little life' would not be something I can relate to and only make me sad, maybe even angry. On a sidenote, I'm glad that y'all prioratise boundaries over content.
I recently fell back into my love for Fairy Tail (manga) but I just can't recommend it. The female characters really get too sexualised and there are so many plotholes. Also other stuff which are spoilers. Still, this manga shaped me so I will always have a soft spot for it :')
thank you for this video! i have a list of books i want to recommend because i'd love to hear other people's thoughts on them but can't due to the fact that they contain moments i know a lot of people won't want to experience....two books on that list are Earthlings by Sayaka Murata and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.
finally read A Little Life last summer and it's officially on that list too. came very close to throwing it in the river at multiple points throughout the story but didn't because it was a library book...i wish the sections of this book containing so much truth and relevance hadn't been (in my opinion) overshadowed by scenes described in a way that made me want to do things i knew i'd regret. a lot of the conversations Jude has with his friends and Harold mirror exchanges i've had with people in my life, so it could be that i was just upset by the book making direct eye contact with a face i'm not comfortable wearing. the overall shape of the story frustrated me in that it seemed as though by the end, for all the paragraphs detailing the ways in which "life tethered life", all Hanya Yanagihara wanted to say was: 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘱.
As a POC, is it fine to write people of different cultures? Like I do and I never want to make them stereotypes but feel like real people. Should I have another person who is familiar and live as that culture read over it?
i don’t think i can make that call for you. i think what might be helpful is to sit with yourself and interrogate your reasonings for wanting to write folks of other cultures. that’s what i do whenever i feel on the fence about this sort of thing. i ask myself about my motives, reasonings, etc
i do ALWAYS recommend using beta readers to checkout the representation you’re writing. so so important ✨💖
sorry this answer wasn’t clear cut but i really hope it helps
It by King is probably the book that hit me the most. I read it just after my dad took his life and I was also bullied really bad (no friends it ends and physical violence). The book is very much about childhood trauma as a teen and an adult and I just identified so much with the characters.
However, there is so much wrong with it like opening with a grueling gay bashing scene (80ish pages), the racism and wtf underage sex scene.
very much understand 💖✨ and relate.
Omg Ender’s Game is one of my favorite hooks that I cannot recommend because of all the issues y’all mentioned. I was so utterly gutted by finding out the author’s BS.
I’m also a huge fan of IT by Stephen King but I can’t recommend that book ethically because him, because of the sexualization of children in that book and the pretty blatant stealing from Indigenous cultures (he does this in Pet Semetary and that was such a red flag to me even though I also enjoyed that one too😭)
This is such a great video series, Jesse. Hearing y’all’s thoughts on such an interesting and nuanced topic is a blessing!
And I can’t separate the art from the artist until the author is d*ad lmao. Because i can’t bring myself to support a living person I know is awful.
That last sentence = me. H.P. Lovecraft was pretty awful, but I feel less bad about reading his stuff because he is long dead, LOL.
25:22 right after you said "not again", i also got an ad for this video lol
i timed it that way lmaoooo
help an ad popped up when y'all were saying "get your coin" 😭😭😭
Such an intriguing conversation! I've been thinking about how to address these books that I read and might want to cover on bookstagram for example and so this is super helpful. Oh gosh yeah I read the shining because I wanted to finally watch the shining and it was so interesting to do that and compare them and then I tried to read doctor sleep but I just couldn't get into it in the same way, so I finally watched the movie in November and gosh that movie was so brilliant and Ewan and Kyliegh are so great as Danny and Abra so I'm glad I watched it. So yes appreciate y'all and def gonna keep thinking about this because so important. And oh yeah never gonna gonna read Orson even having enjoyed enders game which was summer reading before freshman year in high school.
Ok so I am really enjoying “The Terror” by Dan Simmons but I am struggling with many parts of it. As an indigenous Canadian it is very difficult to read how the Inuit people are talked about/treated. It can be argued that since it is set in the 1800s that it is historically accurate but I feel like it isn’t handled very sensitively and comes across as gratuitous. They are constantly referred to using slurs, and the Inuit people serve only for the white characters to harm or to look down on. The other issue I have with it is that the monster in the story is based in Inuit folklore but was made up by the white author. He even came up with a name that sounds Inuktitut. I am close to giving up on the book before finishing but I really love the setting and how well the claustrophobia and the tension is written. I don’t know whether putting so much of my time into a 900 page book that is problematic is worth it, even if I want to keep reading. There are so many better books that are on my list that deserve my time more. The tv series handles the racism so much better than the book so I might skip the book and watch the show instead.
ty for sharing your perspective. truly appreciate it and know it isn’t easy to dig into these feelings
I really loved "The Terror," and I think one of the elements that develops throughout the story is all of these white sailors basically thinking, "Oh, look at these dumb people," and then the novel will show that the indigenous people are both intelligent and truly acclimated to the environment, unlike the men from Erebus and Terror. Slight spoiler for an example--
There's a scene where one of the sailors figures out "Lady Silence" has made a tunnel; he follows it and ends up in a sort of lodge she's made for herself. She's in there totally naked, and his initial reaction is kind of like, "Ugh, these people are savages, look at her sitting here NAKED, UGH," and then after a minute he realizes he's really hot. And it's because this lodge is so well-built and designed so perfectly for the climate, the one can full of burning whale fat is heating the entire place. Compare that to some of the dumb choices that lead to many of the crew falling victims to the environment.
I do worry that it's maybe too subtle in parts, and it definitely doesn't excuse the slurs. If it's bothering you, you will definitely still get a lot of enjoyment out of the series! It's an amazing series. (The first season, at least...) I think the novel and miniseries are neck and neck for me--there are things the novel handled better and things the series handled better, both in writing/plot and in the treatment of indigenous people.
Edit to add that if anyone reading is interested in learning about the historical Franklin Expedition, Parks Canada has been working with local Inuit people to explore the wrecks and piece the history together. The website even includes information on the artifacts in both English and Inuktitut. It's fascinating, and it will probably scratch the itch if the language in the book is a no-go for you.
Thank you for the video. As always, I love your energy. On top of my mind would be "Mists of Avalon" and the Darkover Series by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Just yesterday my son asked about her works, as we stood afront of the yard of shelfspace occupied by her books in my living room. When I first read her, those were the first SFFs I've known centering on strong female characters. I think besides her personal massive shortcomings, of which I only learned after her death, she paved the way for a lot of female characters and authors in fantasy. I think it's different if an author is problematic in their personal live or in their public appearance. So, I would not buy anything from she who is not to be named, but will eventually reread the books I already own. When I'm asked about a recommendation, I will add a caveat and name the issues, I know of, whether it regards the author or the content or representation. Since I think most people aren't intentionally bad, I try to extend my caring and try to understand where they come from. From there on I hope some wouldn't stay ignorantly bad.
P.S.: King is the most widely known horror author, so he tends to be mostly appreciated. We are pack animals after all.
P.P.S.: How would you like to be addressed? I've seen you and y'all throughout the comments. Not being a native speaker only adds to my insecurity.
Greetings friend! big thanks for adding your perspective. i am literally so excited to make a follow up featuring y'alls' anti recs and chat about them.
whew that comment about us being pack animals - precisely.
to the pps, in our personal life we use y'all/y'alls exclusively. those who follow us on instagram have seen us discuss this and are used to it. but on youtube, since it can be so much more cruel and negatively impact my channel, i use the singular 'you' and am more private about being plural. we're very excited about the day when we are able to exclusively refer to ourselves in the plural.
so to answer your question, it is always really appreciated when someone uses y'all instead of you for us.
i feel the same about stephen king i had never read anything from him before when i started the dark tower series and it was really good and i loved it but i just can’t ever recommend it or him. love these videos!!!
I'm already apologizing if this turns out to be an essay in your comments but you brought up a topic that I am very passionate about 😅 and the topic is the massive chokehold Stephen King has in the horror book category and how it annoys me even as a fan of his.
I have read Kings books for 15 years now and i own almost all of his books. I started reading those as a teenager and i found them entertaining. Since then i have become a more critical reader and i recognize the multiple issues in his work (which I could write another essay on). Even though his last few books have been nothing but disappointing I keep picking up his books because i know he can write a good story. Maybe one day he will surprise me and write a good book again that doesn't have a 1000 slurs and his new favorite thing to write seems to be overly sexualized lesbians so i would also appreciate stopping that. Yaay. I still pick his books up because i keep hoping.
Anyway, the power Stephen King has in horror fiction is very clear in translated fiction outside of the English speaking countries. I work in a bookstore in one of the biggest bookstore chains in Finland. We don't have specific horror shelves so the horror books are pretty much mixed with fantasy, thrillers or even literary fiction depending on what type of story it is. We don't have a lot of English books in our stores so we rely on what is translated into Finnish. The last English horror book we had on the shelf that wasn't Stephen King was Bunny by Mona Awad and that was only because of booktok. Every once in a while there comes a customer who wants horror recs. I read a lot of horror. But i can't recommend anything because pretty much all we have is Stephen King. And If you read horror in Finnish you have probably read all of those. Authors like Mariana Enríquez have been recently translated in here but they aren't marketed as horror. So for anyone to find these books you just have to know that they exist and that they are horror because you can't rely on the fact that everyone in the store will know every book because that is not possible. So If someone isn't familiar with bookstagram or booktube, it seems like the only horror authors that exist are Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. And there are just soooooo many better authors out there that people are missing in here because it isn't being marketed to them.
So to answer your question I would say yes, Stephen King is the most widely talked about modern horror writer because no matter which country you go to, you can be sure to find his books in any language you'd like. For example if a book is translated into Finnish it means that it has done well in its original language. After that the publishers here see if it does well in Sweden. And after that there is maybe a 10% chance we might get it here.
Yes, i am one of those people who reads a horror book on English and after that spams every big publishers email with "please translate this" messages because i don't want that genre to be represented by just Stephen King and even more broadly not just by white men. There are so many better writers that i hope would get the recognition they deserve.
OMG! I totally agree with Ender’s Game. I didn’t know anything about the author’s homophobia until I was reading the shadow series, and there was a scene celebrating a priest who “suppressed his urges to be with men” and married a woman instead to “do his duty of having a family.” I was so pissed!!! I immediately DNFed, and I won’t ever read anything by him again.
He does this a few times in his books. In one of his first books, Songmaster, the main character was gay, but had to remain celibate because he had been conditioned for sex to be painful. In the Memory of Earth series (not sure if that's what it's officially called) a gay man has to marry a woman as a duty to help repopulate the human race.
@@walksuphills Ugh. I can hardly believe the homophobia. I'm glad that I won't be reading from him again.
One thing I will say about A Little Life is that, like, for example, let's say you have a story about a guy who hates his job, and his wife and kids don't respect him, and he's behind on rent, and his car breaks down and he can't afford to fix it and he gets rained on on the way to work. That's not an outlandish amount of trauma, that can and does happen to people all the time. But there's a way to write that story that's just absolutely wallowing in the misery of it all and is unpleasant or "too much". So it's not just the trauma itself, it's also the presentation of it.
oooo this
OMG, I dnf'd Rage of Dragons 🙈 (really wish there was a better "covering your eyes" emoji)
I couldn't with the way women were treated, and that the plot didn't start until the end of part 1 LMAO
the! sexism!!! was! outrageous!!like????
100% agree, I dnf'd it too!
right?! and the society is supposedly matriarchal?!
A series I once loved but don't think I can recommend would have to be the Tiger's Curse Saga by Colleen Houck. Can't tell y'all much about it though because it has been so long since I read those books 🤣🤣
the concept for these videos is super interesting, loved both of them! but i have to say... 2:55 there is an amongus behind y'all...
the only book i can think of that i would anti-recommend is kingdom of back by marie lu. i really enjoyed it but i am not forgetting the realms of ruin nft mess that happened...😵💫 not like The worst thing but it kind of was a really :/ situation and im still really disappointed about that
what is nft?
@@JesseOnRUclips nfts are a crypto thing and the idea behind them was to basically try to make ~exclusivity~ out of digital files but its kind of like buying a receipt that says "im the most specialest owner of this png file"...i think folding videos has a really in depth but also really long video about it, but basically just not great
I don't want to read A Little Life. I do know that a book I've really wanted to read about the foster system is Sleeping Around. I did not experience the foster system but my siblings did as soon I entered college. I am always looking for trauma stories written by people who have experienced the trauma specifically.
ooo sleeping around sounds great!!! foster narratives are often close to home for me as someone who was adopted (but never in the actual foster system); those narratives are usually the closest i get to exploring parental abandonment. its one of the reasons A.L.L meant a lot; the depiction of Jude and his foster dad really really really hit in a way nothing else ever has. (yet =])
@@JesseOnRUclips We need more books with a variety of representation on this topic. What is A.L.L?
a little life!
Thank y'all for continuing to have these conversations.
I think what some reviewers in the booktube, booktok, bookstagram space forget is... okay you love this book/series and you know the author or themes within it are problematic for x, y, z reason(s)... but you do not have to share everything. That's between you and your conscience if you want to continue to read harmful stuff! You're allowed to! But promoting it... not necessary. I appreciate reviewers who just like don't include the stuff they read on KU (likely because it is wild smut) but they are like... this is between me, my kindle, and god 🤣. You don't have to tell us about EVERYTHING you read. That's not a requirement. Be thoughtful.
THIS COMMENT OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! exactly !!!!!!!!!
between me kindle and god took us out
God am I late, but so grateful for y'all's advice as always! ❤
I love this concept!
For me, a book like that is "Wonder" by RJ Palacio. I loved it when I first read it and still thinkthe author did a fantastic job of telling the same story from many perspectives and portraying the way children/young teenagers see the world. However, I have heard some not-so-great things about the disability representation, and as an able-bodied person who can't judge the quality of the rep myself, I'd feel uncomfortable recommending this book.
PS: Yall's necklace looks STUNNING!
omg i did a video when i first started where i read that book and watched the film and praised the shit out of it but haven’t thought about the book since or re-examined it’s depiction
def appreciate this comment and u for calling that out!
I adore Stephen King and used to devour his books but I got tired of being smacked in the face with the N-word whenever I read his work. Which sucks because I love his books, especially The Stand and the Dark Tower series. There’s just no reason to use that word at all. I had the same experience with Eleanor and Park and felt like a fool for not seeing the racist ways Park was written. I tried to read A Little Life but had to stop halfway through. I was crying like Hannah!! I don’t think I’ll ever finish it because I truly don’t think I’ll recover from it. Another amazing vlog!!
ahhh tysm Janet!!! also same with E&P but i took it as an opportunity to realize i had been erasing racism against Asian folk and that i had learning to do. in short i very much relate to that uncomfortable feeling where you realize you have self work to do. it can be humbling. 💚
@@JesseOnRUclips Agreed!! That’s exactly how I felt. It definitely opened my eyes and has made me more aware of the harm that kind of writing can do.
I am so happy you did a follow up!
I have to keep the art and the artist together. At the very least, because we live in a capitalist hellscape and paying for art made by a bad person gives a bad person money and tells the market you want more of that person/content. It's more complicated for things like films where there are so many people getting a paycheque from your dollars, so I choose to limit it to directors and featured actors for my own sanity.
this!!!
the reason I didn't like a little life is because of the bad disability rep (the characters physical disability, not his mental health issues). the disability is written like an able bodied person imagining what they would feel like being disabled/cripple. the character has a lot of internalized ableism and it's not addressed properly. the disability feels like a prop to make people feel more sorry for him, and nothing more. very little nuance.
people talk a lot about the queer rep, her writing about a gay man suffering as a woman etc, but not many are talking about her writing about a disabled character that way. I don't know for sure if she's able bodied, but she's not cripple or an amputee like the character is
There are rainbows splashed across you from somewhere and I love it. This is the first video on this channel I've seen, and so far I am in so much agreement! I'm about a third of the way through the video so I don't know if this book will come up, but The Mists of Avalon was a book I loved that I cannot ethically recommend.
omg thank you so much!!!! welcome to the madhouse, hopefully you’ll stick around if you like the content!! what’s the issue with Mists? if u feel like sharing of course
the rainbows are from this cool rainbow decal i have on the window. i received it in a feminist book club box!
@@JesseOnRUclips I have a huge issue with Mists based on several things, one its a King Arthur book which in itself has a lot of misogyny in it, but its also really offensive from a religious standpoint on my behalf. I'm Pagan, and the end message of the book basically boils down to "become a Christian because you can't fight it anyway!". I don't have a problem with Christians or Christianity, but I have received this message my whole childhood at the end of a belt and being ostracized by my family/community, and it didn't make me want to comply. Also, the author along with her husband, according to the author's daughter, was extremely abusive.
@@JesseOnRUclips also, I think I'm sticking around, I loved the video!
ahhh thank you!
definitely a big no. yikes
I'm the same as y'all with Ender's Game. Read it back in like 2012 and really enjoyed it (It was my first ever sci-fi and I'd carefully chosen it), but I can't rec it because of the author and what he's said and stands for.
Thank you so much for this video! Even though I disagree with some of what you said, I applaud you for opening the conversation and promoting nuance and validity of varying opinions. (And disagreement is the point of this! It’s natural to disagree, we just need to discuss in respectful conversation.)
i think disagreements are generally pretty healthy to have. so i love this comment
also thank you for watching :) hope you enjoyed it despite our deviations in perspective!
@@JesseOnRUclips of course, thank you!
After reading a little life I was reading a lot of articles about the book and about Hanya. One of the articles I read Hanya stated that she went to a a women’s college and that naturally she slept with women and it wasn’t anything she thought anything of since it was such normal thing to happen there. I don’t know if this has carried on to her present life but just wanted to put here what I read from one of her interviews since her being queer is in question.
I wanted to ask why people have an issue with Hanya’s depiction of black characters? What are the particular issues people are bringing up? One of the issues I had was the lack of Malcolm’s character. I felt like he was the only character that wasn’t fully fleshed out and I didn’t get to know. JB was also slowly phased out and I wish he had been in the book more
yeah those are the critiques we've heard! i think maybe another but i cant recall.
A Little Life is one of my favorite book of all time - instead of traumatizing, i found it very healing in terms of my own personal sexual abuse. I also don't think that sad = traumatic, and setting out to write a sad book doesn't mean that the intention was to traumatize its readers
ty for sharing ur perspective
your perspective matters, but adding that the author stated in her own words that she sought out to write a traumatizing book, the saddest book she could. so the intention actually was to traumatize its readers :(
but like i say in the video, its okay to still love something thats problematic. nuance matters, your feelings matter. we can still lvoe something and critique it.
in case ur wondering why we're adding comments a year later (lmao) i'm going through comments for a follow up video that i'm filming today!
I just finished a book that I think fits perfectly into this! The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McClemore. I've read a couple of their books before with no issue but seeing this book, maybe I need a reread to double check. But then this book they use the G-slur multiple times throughout the book to portray the main character's racism. And as a white person, I can't ethically recommend a book that from my understanding is hurtful to Romani people. I loved it because it dealt a lot with generational trauma and hopes of breaking the cycle, which I related to and there were some really powerful quotes from that that I loved. But at the end of the day, as you said in your video, you shouldn't need a slur to show the hate someone has towards a minority group. And there's definitely other great books out there on the subject of generational trauma that I could recommend instead for sure that don't use slurs. (Side note: I checked to see if the author might be Romani or something despite the Latinx name, and nope. They just write deeply flawed characters because they were once a deeply flawed internalized homophobe. They say this in an interview or blog post I read.)
1. the use of the g word in books even “historical fiction” makes me feel icky af so u feel u on this
2. 90% certain the authors pronouns are they them!
@@JesseOnRUclips Oh! I didn't know that. I will edit my comment to reflect that. Thank you for letting me know.
My issue with A Little Life has always been this: is it FOR queer survivors of trauma, or is it just ABOUT us?
Because while I could and did relate to a lot of the trauma that Jude went through in A Little Life, the message I was left with at the end of the story was that, according to Hanya Yanigaraha, people like me are literally better off dead. And boy howdy, did that infuriate me, especially when I consider how, to me, the character of Jude was also strongly coded as feminine in a way that brushes up against transfemininity in a super uncomfortable way.
Granted, this may just be the result of a (presumed) cis woman writing a "gay male" character who is basically supposed to function as an audience surrogate for the cis female reader, but either way, I do NOT appreciate it. And I can't help but notice that (presumed) cis female writers have a habit of creating "punching bag characters" who are almost ALWAYS feminine gay "men" upon whom they apparently feel comfortable inflicting the worst tortures they can imagine, all whilst wallowing in the sheer tragedy of our beautiful, broken lives.
And to be fair, I think many cis female writers do this because they're looking for a "safe" way to explore their own trauma. But here's the thing: what makes a character like Jude a "safe" vessel for this abuse is specifically because these writers (and readers) DON'T empathize with him as strongly, since he's not *technically* a woman. In other words, the story rests upon our tacit agreement to treat this feminine male character's pain as less real, less important, and less worthy of compassion than that of a cis female character. Which is why the abuses heaped upon these characters HAVE to be so extreme. Otherwise, the authors wouldn't connect enough with the characters to be able to get their emotional rocks off.
And in writing all of this, I am in NO way suggesting that other queer (and trans) survivors of trauma are wrong if they got something valuable out of this book. If it made them feel seen or understood, I'm very happy for that. But I wish we as survivors would start demanding MORE for ourselves than just this. We deserve books that believe our lives are worth living. That's my bottom line.
everything about this comment. so much i wish i could say, but will simply thank you for your words. one thing i forgot to mention in the video (or maybe i did), but not all "own voices" rep is good rep. lets say that Hanya is queer/non-cis - just because one is a part of said community doesn't mean the depiction of queerness is automatically going to be healthy and issue-free. there are plenty of modern queer authors who i've read books from and taken great issue with the way they represented various aspects of queer communities.
I think my biggest struggle has been Jay Kristoff. I really enjoyed his characters and writing (although arrogant) in Nevernight. I even pushed aside how harmful he was to the disability community- a community I'm apart of- because I loved the story. I'm not sure if internally I wanted to be on the bandwagon for him due to his fame in the bookstagram community, but it just caused a lot of pain to me, as well as other disabled readers. My heart sinks every time I see someone rave about Empire of the Vampire.
Yasss! I’m one of the people who said I’d love another of these videos, so I’m glad to have more!
awesome! it makes me happy to deliver hehe
I find the Little Life discourse so interesting. You make great points. I always found this passage of an article on her so fascinating. She has said she is straight but has slept with women. But I also agree we shouldn’t be policing how much or what kind of trauma is realistic vs trauma porn…
“Being a female was never something-and continues not to really be something-that was interesting to me. . . . So it was odd that I ended up at a women’s college.” At Smith, she marched for Asian American rights, and when writing papers she spelled “women” as “womyn”-a stance that she now regards as mostly a pose. “I should have spent more time thinking critically, and not trying to scare my way into easy ‘A’s,” she said. Yanagihara slept with women at Smith-“everyone had sex with women.” When the dorm next door hosted an annual orgy she didn’t go, because if she had she would have had to help with the cleanup afterward.”
whew so much to unpack here
tysm for sharing
truly.
Love everything y’all brought up about Shutter Island
we thought about u so much during this review and our recent movie rewatch bc we know u likely feel the same. we gotta discuss privately some time. we also forgot to mention that the way this book discussed obsession was incredible. but yeah…it’s…ethically just can’t stand by it and won’t be mentioning it on our channel again lmao
@@JesseOnRUclips Yes, we have to discuss!
this still needs to happen
This is one I don't recommend just in case. Because I don't know, and I am struggling to find information about it. I actually have a 96 page document open up about it that I am going to sit down and read and I believe I will find the answers I am looking for. But a vampire book I love is The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein. I don't know if this is a retelling of Carmilla or not, but you can see the influence the story had on it. This is about an eastern Jewish girl who is attending this boarding school and they are entering a new year. A new student arrives, another eastern jew that is even at one stage stated to have similar features to the main, and this girl is also the antagonist. As the story progresses, the main becomes convinced that this new girl is a vampire and that she only wants the main to know. The main becomes frightened for her friends and believes that the new girl is out to hurt them. I don't think I need to explain why I think it may be problematic. And I am struggling for the most part to find any information on this book. But what makes me hesitate is the fact that the new girl has a very negative view of her Jewish roots and the main character has a more positive view of it and engages with her traditions on a regular level. She also has a massive issue with the forced Christian or catholic traditions at the school that she has to take part in. So part of me wonders if it is more of a conversation and an analysis of harmful tropes in the vampire genre as a whole. But I could also be giving the book more credit than it is due and it is what it seems on the surface. But I don't recommend it because I am unsure, and this is just the big issue throughout the book. There are other things here (no slurs or anything like that, just to clarify), but it also could be a case of it just being in the book and showing it existing in the culture of the school and how it is more harmful to the students than anything. Anyway, the document I have open, and I will look for more, has a line in the abstract that says '...explore the meanings of vampirism that the novel suggests, along with the book’s critique of the anti-Semitism that has accompanied the vampire genre.' I will read through this and see what I think of the argument presented and see if it clarifies things or not. But as I said, it is a book that I do love that I just don't think I should recommend it until I get an answer here. And even if I do and it is more of a criticism than not, I still don't think I will.
hadn't heard of this book! thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and more information about it! hopefully you've found some vampire books you adore.
I really can't separate the art from the artist. If they're a terrible person and have done/said things I don't agree with, I won't be able to read their books without thinking about what they've done, and so I won't be able to get through the story. You can try and separate the art from the artist as much as possible, but by supporting the art, you're still, as indirect as you might try to be, supporting the artist.
completely agree, personally
Another issue with a little life is the shame and horrible descriptions of disabled people, specifically Jude's perception of him self and how much he hates him self for it. Imagine being a disabled person reading that and you know the writer isn't disabled themselves. It's very disheartening, so definitely hard to recommend for that reason
agreed
I'm not gonna read a little life, I know I wouldn't enjoy it, but I HATE when people assume someone is straight because they haven't said otherwise
precisely. if one prefers to just read authors who are “out” cool, that’s their choice, but don’t bully others into confirming their sexuality for you. no one owes an explanation of their identity.
You are respected and loved
My last midnight release book was the cursed child script. The second to last one was a breaking dawn midnight release that was prom themed. Having worked at Barns and Nobel, one of the main reasons midnight releases were so hard was due to release dates. It was too hard to promote one and expect a good turn out if the book wasn't released on a saturday or in the summer.
i miss those :(
i love this video concept, first of all. People are way too comfy recommending books despite knowing about the problematic content or things the author has done. A book i love but wouldn't feel comfy recommending is its kind of a funny story by ned vizzini- its been a while since i read it but its primarily set in a psychiatric hospital and looking back i remember certain characters with more stigmatized mental illness (the main character has depression) like schizophrenia being used as comic relief and not given the same respect as the main character. Its hard to remember specific examples but i just kind of get a general ick from parts of it. Also if I'm remembering correctly there was a trans character who is not portrayed very well, but i may be thinking of another book. I do love how it portrays depression and the main characters journey of growth. also the relationships he has with other characters in the book and seeing how those grow and change over his time in the hospital. I really enjoyed this book when i read it but i don't think i could recommend it.
omg. had no idea Its Kind of A Funny Story was like that. never looked into the book itself or read the synopsis but do recall seeing/hearing about it everywhere many years ago.
Oh! I also want to bring up Be More Chill, by the same author, and I think the musical version of that is better known. I loved the musical and decided to read the book. Although they were similar in plot, one thing that struck me was the S L U R S E V E R Y W H E R E. Also it just generally felt a little... weird. I think there was some racism, ableism, and I'm pretty sure misogynistic parts as well (I don't really remember that much, it's been a while). The musical has its faults, but definitely not as bad as in the book.
Sometimes it depends how bad they are, but once you know an author's real-life views, it's difficult to separate art from artist. Parts of themselves usually bleed into their week, so you subconsciously notice and look for those on a re-read. Such as with "J.K. Roachling", the lycanthropy in Harry Potter being a metaphor for AIDS, or taking her male pen name from a famed psychiatrist of conversion therapy, the signs were there long before she outed herself as the person we all know now.
She and Stephen King were two people I refused to follow on social media. No nostalgic attachment to either - Harry Potter never caught my interest, and R.L. Stine was my horror man growing up.
hoping to read the campfire collection by stine next month for Camp Organ! love that you are a fan too :)
Stephen King. I read one book and couldn't stand the way he wrote women and then the slurs?! No thank you no thank youuuuu I was gone
OMG I'm SO glad that All the white spaces is y'alls bookclub peak and that y'all like it so much. I found out about it about a week ago, when I was trying to find books for a trans books challenge I follow in Storygraph but I didn't know it the author is trans themself (which I prefer when reading about trnas characters).
Back to problematic books now. I loved Misery SO much, as many other books by King, but have stopped reading and recomending any of his books for about two years now cause just naahhhh. Since y'all considering to read Pet Sematary, for me it was the most scary book I had read back then (2017 manybe?) but not because the book was that scary itsself, but because of what thoughts it made me have. I litterally had to stop reading the book more than 3 times to stop my thoughts from spiralling.
completely agree that its the peak of our club. its such a stellar fucking work omg.
@@JesseOnRUclips I just now realized that I wrote peak instead of pick 😂 Sorry y'all. English is not my first language.
Great video. I liked hearing your perspective. I read Ender's Game in the late '90s, and went on to read more than 40 of his other books. The homophobia has landed him a place on my permanent boycott list, though not until I left the hyper-conservative church I was raised in. The only author I have read more books by than Card is...Stephen King. I kind of burned out on him, but I have to admit I don't remember a lot of the problematic content you mention. I will have to pay more attention. Hanya Yanagihara is more interesting to me, maybe because I only recently read her new book To Paradise. This being the second book of hers that centers tormented gay men seemed a little odd, but also not my place to call her out. I'm not sure what other books I'd put in the "cannot recommend" camp. Maybe Michael Shermer, if we count nonfiction. His book "Why People Believe Weird Things" was instrumental in how I approach critical thinking...and it turned out he's a rapist (allegedly) and creep (well documented). For fiction, some of my other boycotts are Piers Anthony (who always seems to have books with teen girls and older men) and Dean Koontz (who is a moralizing jackass). But I don't like either of their books enough to recommend them even without the problematic aspects.
learned a lot from this comment!!! thank you
I remember taking a graduate level lit class with a professor who was REAL into the "death of the author" thing, like he really didn't like it when we brought the author's life experiences into a discussion and tried to squash it, and I never really understood that. No piece of literature (or film or TV or art or anything) springs out of a vacuum. What an author is thinking or experiencing will come out in their work in some way. Even a piece of non-fiction is never truly objective. So, while there are things that I LOVE, I also recognize when whooo, yikes, there is a problem with either the author as a person or with how the author has depicted certain elements in a book. I love old-ass Historical Romances, those big sweeping HistRom titles from the 80s and 90s and I DO NOT recommend them to anyone unless they're looking at the history of the genre and are already a pretty seasoned romance reader. Allllll sorts of wild shit coded in between the pages. Some have been reissued with some editing for content (Judith McNaught took out the horse-whipping scene in Whitney, My Love for instance) but that doesn't really make them "all fixed" (And even writing romance in this day and age there are still authors meandering around saying real dim-bulb things about BIPOC characters or LGBTQIA+ characters or - grossly - attempting to cash in on a "trend" and writing those characters very badly, etc etc etc)
(And I've never managed to read more than about 2 chapters of A Little Life - I was offered a review copy of the finished hardcover by the publicst, so of course I said yes because everyone and their brother was just about salivating over this book in pre-pub...and I read those first few chapters and went "I don't think I can emotionally handle this book" because I got the feeling that it would wreck me. And seeing the discourse around the book, like, I don't think this one is for me, I can find some other books to wreck my emotional life just fine. And, as a bookseller, that book sells itself right off the table so it doesn't need me to read it to bring attention to it.)
love this comment
@@JesseOnRUclips 💓
I wanna read Pet Cemetery too and it’ll be a book that I’m never gonna post about or publicly review. I just can’t find it in myself to do that and feel good about posting it but there are some books that I just refuse to read like Lovely War (sad cuz I spent my hard earned money on it, it’s getting donated😭), House in the Cerulean Sea, and anything by Rainbow Rowell. I just love horror and I feel like Pet Cemetery would just do it for me but y’all know, quietly like very hush hush😂😂😂
literally!!! let us know if u wanna buddy read pet semetary. we can just have a private moment w it and read it under the covers lmaoooo
k that sounded oddly sexual WE DIDNT MEAN IT THAT WAY WE SWEAR
@@JesseOnRUclips lmaooooo😂😂 y’all are always making innocent things sound sexual and honestly I live for it but YES! That’s such a vibe, we definitely should. When do you wanna start it? I’ll order the book right now!
Stephen King feeling soooo comfortable using slurs in his writing has been a source of contention for me for YEARS. I remember reviewing his books and brining this up years ago and having his white fans come with pitchforks to defend him saying that I was “too unintelligent to realize that he was trying to make certain characters despicable by having them use that kind of language.” As if Stephen King himself couldn’t simply use different traits to make a character despicable. I should just be cool with him taking the easy route and throwing a hard er or the f word in there. Ugh I hate it there so bad 🤢
white reviewers love using that as an excuse. its consistently the defense i've seen used for donna tartt and the gross N word use in her books/racism against nonBlack peoples as well. the excuse just doesn't fly with me. so if thats what they need to feel good about continuing to stan her work - go for it. but just know that excuse doesn't justify a damn thing.
Ok, so this question is only loosely tied to the video but to what extent can I as an author (which I'm not) tell stories of persons of different ethnicities, races, sexualities, genders without being exploitative? Where's the line between making sure there's diversity and exploitation?
there are good articles on this but my rundown response : question ur motives, get beta readers, accept you’ll receive criticism, be willing to deal with that criticism
I can only separate the art from the artist when the artist is dead
thanks for adding this, i don’t think anyone else has said this!
I can't separate the author/artist/creator from their work, because to support their work on any level is to keep them in notoriety or prosperity and possibly wealth to continue to do whatever deviation or pathology in society many find offensive. It's easier to go find another entertainer or entertainment in that field or genre I can grow to appreciate. I will not support a person's livelihood that I know has created, engaged or endorsed dysfunctional, degenerate or deviant behavior on any level.
thisss
A Series of Unfortunate Events (I notice little things throughout the book but the henchman's portrayal kinda says it all)
oooo i always wondered if i missed out on that series? what’s wrong w the henchman? if ur ok sharing
no pressure if not
@@JesseOnRUclips Ok so all (if not most) of Olaf's Henchman are either fat, androgynous, foreign, disabled, or a combination of aforementioned identities. These identities often are described as adding to their scariness/otherness such as the man w the hook hand or the fat one described as "looking like neither a man or a woman." They actually took some of the henchman characters and changed em for Netflix TV show if I'm not mistaken. I didn't see the twin Geishas in the first ep, for example.
They contrast heavily w other "good" characters in the books who are typically able, white and relatively seen as good looking by society.
I'm rereading the series but the only time I remember "good" characters being disabled/marginalized were the circus folk in like book 9.
daaaamn thats heavy. just seeing this now because i'm gearing up for another video in this series and reading comments. thank you for clueing me in on this. its appreciated.
st*phen king is a guilty pleasure of mine. i was so in love with the original Carrie movie during my childhood, and i read the book in late HS/early college and really enjoyed it. i watched the movie Misery some years ago and read the book in 2020 or 2021 and also enjoyed it (except the excerpts of the Misery book that Paul was writing because 😬). i read The Shining in October as a ~spooky read~ and i really liked many aspects of it but it had the same issue of having the n-word for no reason. like it's absurd 😭
king is definitely an author that, to me, is really good when he stays in his own lane and writes what he knows. some of the most powerful aspects of The Shining were the ones of the main character struggling with alcoholism and recovery, something King has directly experienced himself. he himself has even admitted that he's really bad at writing women and characters of color.
but you're so right about how he needs to get off twitter. also....the infamous scene in IT that i've heard so much about....he seems like a whole weirdo tbh 😭 he's definitely an author i can't recommend in good conscious
whats your fav carrie adaptation?
I’m sending you love❤❤❤
I cannot separate an author from their work when supporting their work will embolden the author to become more and more vocal about their abhorrent views, because they perceive professional success with validation or whatnot. Plus, knowing their personal beliefs affects the lens through which I interpret their work, and the outcome of that is uncomfortable, in a bad way, at best. However, I am happy to separate an author from their characters' views, as I don't interpret characters (autofiction aside) as a real stand ins for the author. I know that last part wasn't the question, and it's not something I have ever noticed you doing in any reviews, I've just seen it a lot recently and have been thinking about it.
Thank you for this video. I feel like education like this is super important and really helpful. Personally I quite like Colleen Hoover books but I recognise quite a few issues within them and what is being talked about and has come to light with her son and the handling of the situation at the moment I won’t recommend her.
I *loved* Enders game and was also so into the fandom. And also read some of the sequels and at the time it was the best sci-fi book I'd ever read and found it to be incredibly clever and well crafted. (Now my faves tend to be afrofuturism) but as soon as I discovered what I did about the authors views (also racism too) I couldn't read a single book further. orrecommend it at all anymore.
why are we the same person!!!!
Hey, Jesse! How are you? First of all: I love your videos! Misery is also one of my favorite books and Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, but as you said, he does use the n and the f word too often. Being a gay guy from Brazil, it feels wrong to read those words, but I always think that he is trying to portrait people that would use them. For example: if I write a homophobic character, he would probably use a few sh*tty words (even though I'm not an homophobic person). What do you think about that? Am I just trying to justify Stephen's behavior because I love his books LOL ? Once again, great video and I love your channel! 😁
hi hi! so glad you like the content and thank you for asking. personally i feel there are hundreds of ways to show a character is homophobic without using slurs. i know because i read books that show a character is homophobic/racist without using slurs ALL THE TIME. he writes them because he wants to. and he profits from it. so personally its inexcusable.
again, these are just my personal ethics. i wouldn't force them to be yours as well. But for me as a Black queer and Trans person, its a hard and firm line for me.
Knowing y’all said y’all don’t recommend these but adding them to my list anyway 💃🏼💃🏼
im SCREAMING 😂
feel free to come discuss sometime if you’d like to. even if i don’t support them i’m still down to chat about your thoughts
addendum - so long as we have the emotional capacity at that moment 💚
@@JesseOnRUclips when I start my own booktube channel finally I’m gonna make the first video “y’all traumatized me by recommending these books”
looking forward to it :)
I’d add the Broken Empire trilogy to this. Read it when I was younger, absolutely loved the mix of historical fantasy, dystopian sci-fi and future world setting and was fascinated at how it was like practically watching a story through a complex and villainous main character devoid of empathy bc of trauma and scheming his way to a crown, very much with a teenager point of view during an epic medieval plot.
Nowadays I just know I wanna spare anyone from feeling sick reading it, even more knowing it was a grown man writing agressive scenes, sometimes sexually charged, with teenagers involved- and surprising! The author is a complete misogynistic asshole to fellow female writers
I’m not even sure if I should read it again just to know if like 4 years later I’d still enjoy the book, but I used to love it