#Rebecca Hoover

[oberlinoswald]

if I had a nickel for every time one of the teenage bounty hunters twins was in a humans vs superpowered people themed show where they were in a superpowered team vs superpowered team fight on the side that is against regular humans, ended up starting a murder spree only to have to be stopped (and subsequently physically hurt) by one of the few people they care about:

i would have 2 nickels

[the-feral-gremlin]

What was your opinion on Rebecca Hoover?? I was always torn between trying to justify her and then being horrified by her actions

Okay so I’m currently on season one in my The Gifted rewatch so I don’t really have a full grasp on her character yet (bc she hasn’t been introduced) but I feel like she deserved better. Don’t get me wrong her actions were horrible but also she was turned into sentinel services by her parents when she was a literal teenager and also she’s around the same age as Andy??? Like?? that’s a whole ass SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL?? I would’ve really loved to have seen a redemption arc (or any arc tbh) for her.

[esmefrosts]

Most people can move things up, down, sideways... for me, there's another direction.

[wingsdippedingold]

controversial take, but if I’m looking for books to read and the cover is drawn by Charlie Bowater I’m immediately ignoring it

Not because I hate her art, I think it’s lovely, but because I know what kind of books she draws for and the typical quality of content

[rebelumbrella46]

I just watched a YouTube video about A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and there was something this guy said that really stood out to me.

He said that after seeing the first Hunger Games movie, he loved it so much that he asked his mother to buy him the books, and if he hadn't done that… he would never have picked up a book and read it… and how now, he loves reading...

It doesn't matter if people didn't like the Mortal Instrument movie… I loved it… i loved the storyline, i loved the characters, i love the Institute... and I would never have read the books if it hadn't been because I wanted to know how it continued after finding out about the cancellation of the sequel

And now I love to read… I can't imagine not reading and missing out on so many fantastic worlds, stories and characters that had made me laugh and cry… and dream...

[1800naveen]

Authors who are opps.

Sarah J. Maas (You already know I had to put her as number one. Her ass ain't seeing the pearly gates.)

Collen Hoover (Never getting over "We laughed at our son's big balls")

H.D. Carlton (Creating Zade Meadows should be a crime. Trust, she ain't seeing the pearly gates either.)

Penelope Douglas (I heard Damon does SA but I don't know shit about this series. Still don't trust it).

Rebecca Yarros (I just hate fourth wing, can someone let me know what's the controversy around her? One of them is her stance when it comes to Palestine and I think another one is her being pro military. Correct me I got something wrong!)

Zade Meadows 🤝🏾 Rhysand: assaulting their girls and have their fans defend said action🥰

[satorugojjo]

I don’t think there’s a single book BookTok has promoted in the last couple years that’s turned out to be an actually good “you cannot miss this read” which now makes me and so many others I know avoid it as a whole.

A lot of BookTok books seem to be specific for very young or very new readers who haven’t cut their teeth on fanfic or haven’t been reading from a young age. The writing style is either a really profound Instagram metaphorical caption kinda overwrought and over flowery language, or it’s trying so hard to be edgy and sardonic and ends up being completely tell and almost zero show. This Is How You Lose The Time War is a PERFECT example of this - where the flowery and poetic language actually takes AWAY from a scene and distracts you from it rather than adding anything to it in the moment, and for those who do like poetic fiction this will be up their alley but if you don’t and you pick it up because of badly marketed hype when you normally wouldn’t, it’s gonna turn you off reading in general!

There’s nothing wrong with starter fiction to help get readers engaged and then find their way into actually good books, but my gripe is that it’s never ever marketed as that and as if it it’s just generically good fiction. Nothing Colleen Hoover has ever written is objectively good - the writing style is mediocre and she romanticises taboo topics which will seem spicy to the average population who doesn’t READ. And yet she takes up every bookshelf which I promise you will end up turning many readers who ARENT on booktok away from reading altogether.

YA is another genre that has declined a lot in recent years because it’s full of marketers trying to fit all the buzzword tropes into their books and getting young readers to buy it because it’s “enemies to lovers pirate cyberpunk found family” or whatever - and it feels more like focus group fiction rather than actual writing. I LOVE YA but nothing that’s been released post 2020 has had any depth, plot, character development or any style to it.

A great example is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros - i tried reading 2 chapters as a sample and it was shocking to see how illogical, overdramatic, overedgy and exceptionally “this happened then this then this then that” it was. There was absolutely zero nuance and it felt so “I’m telling you all this but I’m not gonna prove any of it”. And yet it’s rated either 5 stars or 1 star. I’m sure it’s a great starter middle grade/teen book but it is definitely not deserving to be on the same pedestal as other YA books like Hunger Games or Six of Crows. I used to think that perhaps I’ve just outgrown YA but considering I can pick up YA from 2018 that I haven’t read before with no problems, it’s so specific to BOOKTOK YA.

It’s getting to the point that if I see a book that’s being overpromoted on tiktok, I’m more likely to believe the bad reviews because there hasn’t been a SINGLE book where I’ve disagreed with them, and then go find a different book in the same genre that hasn’t been on booktok - it’s getting hilarious actually that the books that are actually incredible get zero screen time and traction on booktok because they aren’t just cheap easy airport reads. Once again - nothing wrong with an easy airport CH book or YA book, but we aren’t going around parading a Lee Child book as peak literature no matter how enjoyable they are.

I don’t even have a conclusion to this entire rant - I’m sick of books like Babel getting steamrolled because it was “too sad or too hard” in favour of the latest SJM book, and getting even more sick of the decline of media literacy due to books getting easier and more spoonfeedy. When they aren’t? They mistake flowery metaphors for complexity and depth.

[satorhime]

finally committing to writing my book <3

[blondie20000]

Books I have read in 2023. Rating out of 5 🌟

Drama

Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor. 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Rebel Robin (Stranger Things Novel) by A.R Capetta 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Runaway Max (Stranger Things Novel) by Brenna Yovanoff 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Rise of The Governor (The Walking Dead 1) by Jay Bonansinga 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Road to Woodbury (The Walking Dead 2) by Jay Bonansinga 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Fall of the Governer Part 1 (The Walking Dead 3) by Jay Bonansinga 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Fall of the Governer Part 2 (The Walking Dead 4) by Jay Bonansinga 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Mrs England by Stacy Halls 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry 🌟 🌟 🌟

Palace Rogue by William Coles by 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Romance

The Ex Hex (Ex Hex 1) by Erin Sterling 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Kiss Curse (Ex Hex 2) by Erin Sterling 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Hex Appeal by Kate Johnson 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Just Like Magic by Sarah Hogle 🌟 🌟 🌟

This Christmas by Emma Heatherington 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Thriller

Take Your Breath Away by Linwood Barclay 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Godspeed by Nickolus Butler 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Breathless by Amy McCulloch 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Shadow House by Anna Downes 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Watching You by Lisa Jewell 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

I Found You by Lisa Jewell 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Down by the Water by Elle Connel 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Chain by Adrian Mckinty 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Island by Adrian Mckinty 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Too Late by Colleen Hoover 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Verity by Colleen Hoover 🌟 🌟 🌟

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben 🌟 🌟

Mystery

The Other Mother by Michel Bussi 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Sanatorium (Detective Elin Warner 1) by Sarah Pearse 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Retreat (Detective Elin Warner 2) by Sarah Pearse 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Christmas Killer (DI James Walker 1) by Alex Pine 🌟 🌟 🌟

Killer in the Snow (DI James Walker 2) by Alex Pine 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Winter Killer (DI James Walker 3) by Alex Pine 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Darkness on the Edge of Town (Stranger Things Novel) by Adam Christopher 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Silent Cry (Detective Gaby Darin 1) by Jenny O' Brien 🌟 🌟 🌟

Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar 1) by Harlan Coben 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Drop Shot (Myron Bolitar 2) by Harlan Coben 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Fade Away (Myron Bolitar 3) by Harlan Coben 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Coffin Road by Peter May 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Cove by L.J. Ross 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Horror

This House Is Haunted by John Boyne 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

The Whistling by Rebecca Netley 🌟 🌟 🌟

Haunted by James Herbert 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

[catsnebulareads]

I read 11 books during the month of July! These are physical books I read! The rest were on Kindle. ❤️

[llady-in-red]

✨Hey guys!✨ I've been disconnected and haven't been reading lately, work has taken over my days. But I hope to be able to return soon. In the meantime, I created a TikTok account for visual content, if you want, follow @ladyinredreads. While I don't review new books, there will be some content there that may be interesting.

[boomgers]

Para encontrarlo hay que sufrir peripecias… “¡Qué Duro Es El Amor!”

Natalie Bauer, una chica de Los Ángeles sin suerte en el amor, conoce al chico perfecto en una app de citas y decide cruzar el país para sorprenderlo en Navidad, solo para descubrir que cayó en un engaño.

Estreno: 5 de noviembre de 2021 en Netflix.

La película está dirigida por Hernán Jiménez García y protagonizada por Nina Dobrev, Jimmy O. Yang, Darren Barnet, Matty Finochio, James Saito, Harry Shum Jr., Mikaela Hoover, Heather McMahan, Kwasi Thomas, Sean Depner y Rebecca Staab.

[bellemorte79]

[sexcromancy]

young adult, new adult, and fantasy fiction: the audience of a book is who reads it

title clumsily based on the purpose of a system is what it does.

before we begin, I want to focus a bit on defining our terms. young adult, new adult, adult, science fiction/fantasy, speculative fiction, contemporary romance - all of the terms I will use in this post are created by marketing companies and readers, and all of them have fuzzy and subjective applicability to any given book. there is no objectivity in cataloging, which is the lens through which I approach knowledge organization projects like this. there is no definitive answer to what any given book or genre "is", because these categories are not fixed values. instead, their values are expanded and developed by what gets placed in which category, by whom, and what criteria they base that decision on. that's what I want to discuss.

to provide some context: debates over age categories and who is reading what books for which age ranges currently dominate discussions among publishers, authors, librarians, and readers. ages of characters in YA are skewing up, sales are slowing down. young adult as a category has existed for 50+ years, but it is currently undergoing some growing pains. here's one more article for good measure. new adult is a term created by the publishing industry in 2009, which developed in fits and starts despite multiple bestselling authors publishing under the category. oh well. in 2015, sarah j mass published her new book, a court of thorns and roses, which is widely regarded as a turning point for the popularity of new adult (more on the classification of ACOTAR itself in a moment). NA stalled out for many years, but has recently very quickly grown in popularity, especially for romance readers on booktok. some of the most popular books listed under new adult on goodreads are colleen hoover's it ends with us and it starts with us, ali hazelwood's check & mate, and rebecca yarros' fourth wing.

I want to look at two of these currently very popular authors as case studies to really dig into what new adult has come to mean.

in this 2014 interview, SJM discusses her currently running throne of glass series and the upcoming release of ACOTAR in 2015. she notes that the book is intended for "a slightly older YA crowd (aka steamy times ahead!)". earlier in the interview, she dodges a question about whether throne of glass will be YA or NA by saying she appreciates her teen and adult readers - if I had to guess, the label was still too new and publishers didn't want to alienate anyone. in 2023, I can't find anything on her website or bookseller sites that specifically identify the series (or any of her series) as YA, NA, or adult. however, Goodreads (which relies on user generated tags and is, to put it lightly, a mess wrt information organization) firmly classes ACOTAR as YA - almost 9k tags in young-adult and ya (lack of authority control is just one aspect of the mess), as opposed to about 3.5k new-adult. the thing is, though, ACOTAR comes up in essentially every blog post and article I read on the definition of new adult. it is a flashpoint in the discussion: it either did or didn't restart the term, it is or isn't too sexually explicit to be classed for teens, the writing is filled with young adult tropes and this does or does not matter. the answers to these questions aren't particularly important to me, but it's very interesting to see how people are attempting to draw those boundaries. I took a quick census of how SJM's series are classed in my library system. her throne of glass series is uniformly shelved in YA; ACOTAR is mostly YA with a few copies in adult, and her newer crescent city series is mostly adult with a few copies in YA. I do think that any discussion of ACOTAR is partially colored by this divisive relationship to the new adult category itself, so I'd also like to bring in a much newer book facing similar conversation.

if you follow this blog you might already know that I have an entirely non-neutral relationship to ali hazelwood; I love her books both as books and as cultural objects deserving of study. previously, she published three adult romance novels and a set of adult romance novellas, which all fall firmly and inarguably into those defined categories, based on age range and content (I have an argument for the love hypothesis being a horror story, but that's a different conversation). last year, she published her newest book, check & mate, as a young adult romance. it was widely marketed as such by the young readers imprint at putnam. however, on reading it, I (and many goodreads commenters) were surprised to find that it aligned more with some hallmarks of new adult. the characters are out of high school, and the challenges and growth moments are more focused on evolution, rather than coming of age. one blog post I read made the argument that YA is about high school firsts and NA is about adulthood firsts. this is amorphous, partially because there is no real one life path into adulthood by which to judge this, so let's switch focus to something more concrete: sex. in each of Ali's adult novels, there are a few explicit sex scenes. they're not as explicit as other romance novels, but they're definitely not fade-to-black. in check & mate, characters have sex, but it happens entirely off-screen and any discussion is fairly chaste or, at most, relying heavily on implied content. this is a real disconnect to me. much of NA lit (ACOTAR included) is quite sexually explicit. among those most popular NA books on goodreads, there are many books that get marketed specifically for their sexual content (spicy🌶️ to the tiktokers, smut to everyone else). to me, this cements check & mate as a YA novel - if she was going to write a book with explicit sex, like her others, she could've. she's mentioned in interviews that her chess novel concept originally featured older characters, and she aged them down once she realized what kind of story she wanted to tell. to me, it is telling that moving from adult to YA creates more clumsy caution around the handling of sex, as opposed to SJM, whose books "aged" upwards over time.

another interesting example I've noticed in the emerging NA space is how the age category intersects with genre. YA as a category has a pretty expansive genre playing field - we've all read YA fantasy, contemporary romance, historical fiction, action/adventure, issue novels, etc. NA so far seems pretty exclusively limited to romance as a main focus, especially in the most popular offerings as discussed above.

I've seen many a tiktok alleging that despite the drawn out fight scenes, extensive lore, and huge interconnected web of characters, the ACOTAR books are not "real fantasy." even more so for the fourth wing books. I've seen these books compared to Tolkien, as if to say, well, if you didn't invent a language, you're not really on the same level. that's entirely unfair, imo - plenty of fantasy doesn't engage at that level. but there is a wide array of contemporary fantasy I do think we can contrast with ACOTAR and other popular NA series.

we've discussed some of the hallmarks of YA and NA as categories: the age range of characters, coming of age, explicit sex for NA. i'd add fast-paced, immersive writing, especially in first person or close third, because so much of the appeal described on booktok is a book sucking you in completely. now, i want to bring up a few books that, on the surface, might check several of these boxes: dune by frank herbert has an 18yo protagonist, and the first book is very much a coming of age story. eragon (christopher paolini) and the name of the wind (patrick rothfuss) focus on a young person coming into their magical abilities through school/mentorship, a similar setting to many YA series. mistborn (brandon sanderson) and game of thrones (george r.r. martin) both have prominent protagonists that are 18 or younger when the story starts. of all these series, only eragon has young-adult as its most popular age-related tag on goodreads, and eragon was, at the time of release, very specifically marketed to and shelved in young adult in bookstores and libraries. some of these books have explicit or non-explicit sexual content, but only GOT has even close to as much as your average NA novel (to my knowledge).

i am not alleging that any of these books should be classed as YA, necessarily. but the glaring difference in their marketing and readership does point to one thing: these books are largely about men, and they are all written by men. i am not the first person to point out this gender gap in fantasy writing, and i don't have anything particularly new to say about it, except to bring it back around to my original point. none of these novels "are" adult fiction, and plenty (plenty!) of teenagers read them, in an interesting reversal of the trends in YA. who is making the decisions about where these books go, and why? what can we draw out about the books and their marketing? how is the future of "adult fantasy" shaped when these are the benchmarks by which we measure new entries?

i did also look into a few of my own favorite sci-fi series by women to see how they ranked by similar parameters. parable of the sower by octavia butler, featuring an 18yo protagonist and sexual content, has no age category at all in the top 20 most popular goodreads tags. it's in adult fiction in every library in my system that owns a copy. ive seen gideon the ninth (18yo protag, and yeah lets go ahead and say explicit sexual content) on YA shelves in bookstores, but its adult tag on goodreads is more popular, and almost every library in my system has it in adult. in my opinion, these books are important in rejecting the "women write YA, men write adult" narrative around speculative fiction, but they're not necessarily an exception to a different trend. it is not difficult for me to think of more adult scifi/fantasy books by women, because i actively seek them out. however, almost every single one of them has a protagonist under 25, as is the case with so much of the adult fantasy written by men listed above. last year, i read the adventures of amina al-sirafi, by s.a. chakrabotry, which was (i believe) the first non-contemporary/realistic fiction book ive ever read with a middle aged mother as the main protagonist. the book club at my library branch, mainly composed of middle aged and older women, read it, and expressed such genuine joy and excitement over a fantastic, adventurous book featuring a woman they saw themselves in. representation really does matter, and it matters to everyone, not just young people. but that's a different soapbox.

young readers are extremely picky. i've watched many a teenager (or younger) browse the YA section and turn up their noses at books with a cringey cover, an overly dramatic blurb, or just because. marketing books to teens is hard. booktok is an incredibly powerful marketing tool and divisive social force. it skyrockets an author one day and by the next week, other accounts are tearing that same author to shreds. in this environment, its no surprise that the sensationalized books - extremely good or extremely bad, blatantly sexual, shocking, consumable - become flashpoints of discussion. who should be reading ya? who is it for? what is inappropriate for young teenagers to read? what is inappropriate for adults to read? i think about these topics a lot, especially as what the publishing industry terms a "gatekeeper" - i'm a children's librarian; i control the access teenagers in my community have to these books. i take that role seriously, and i want to be thinking deeply about the books i put in my YA section and who will read them. our decisions, about where we class books, how we label and present them, how we discuss them: that is part of what dictates what genre and age classification a book "is", in addition to marketing.

[2dfd-simp]

Sissy Interests

You know the saying. You are what you eat. That doesn’t just apply to food. It applies to anything you intake. Surround yourself with certain influences and you WILL be influenced. So don’t you think it’s time to surround yourself by sissy influence? To alter your intake of media so that you find yourself liking it? That trashy girly stuff just feels normal? You’ll gradually find yourself getting addicted to reality TV’s drama or having an opinion on what’s going on with the latest celeb and sharing it before realising how it makes you look. Don’t worry sissy. Everybody thinks you’re a fairy anyway. You sing Tay-Tays latest song out as loud as you can…

So…here’s some suggestions of what to start filling your mind up with as it pushes belting big interests out…

Music

1. Ariana Grande

2. Taylor Swift

3. Britney Spears

4. Little Mix

5. Katy Perry

6. Beyoncé

7: Cardi B

8 Avril Lavigne

9. Girls Aloud

10. Kim Petras

TV

1. The Kardashians & Keeping Up With The Kardashians

2. Love Island

3. Pretty Little Liars

4. Sam & Cat

5 My Super Sweet 16

6. Teen Mom

7 Real Housewives Of…

8. And Just Like That/Sex And The City

9. Emily In Paris

10. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

Film

1. Mean Girls

2. Bridesmaids

3. New York Minute

4. The Notebook

5. Sex And The City & SATC 2

6. The Devil Wears Prada

7. Clueless

8 Twilight (The Saga)

9. Bring It On

10. Step Up

Authors

1. Colleen Hoover

2. Jackie Collins

3. Sophie Kinsella

4. Rebecca Chance

5. Tasmina Perry

6. Jojo Moyes

7. Lauren Weisberger

8. Cecelia Ahern

9. Milly Johnson

10. Lucy Diamond

Magazines

1. Vogue

2. Cosmopolitan

3. Elle

4. Glamour

5. OK

6. Hello

7. Heat

8. Seventeen

9. Grazia

10. Look

Celebs & Role Models

1. The Kardashians

2. Jordyn Jones

3. Breckie Hill

4. Lauren Conrad

5. Vicky Pattison

6. Paris Hilton

7. Polly Marchant

8. Gigi Hadid

9. Amber Heard

10. Bella Thorne

Social Media Influencers

1. Beauty By Carli Bybel

2. Anyuta Rai

3. Chrisspy

4. Makeupshayla

5. NikkiFrenchmakeup

6. Still GlamourUs

7. Stxph.h

8. Alessya Farrugia

9. Jeffree Star

10. Sugarandspice