#it's cheesy it's boring it's pretentious it's problematic

[lycanthropicture]

"people have got to learn the difference between i liked it and it was good" how about. people should just learn to understand why they like something and what they liked about it. and often that will lead to you saying "oh actually it WAS good. and here's why". or vice versa, if you understand why you dislike something you can say "it WAS bad and heres why". and bc those are opinions theres no objective or technical way to judge art as good or bad. you can say the lighting or editing or music is bad but like. someone somewhere is gonna disagree with you babe. are they wrong?? what if i thought the hunger games used the appropriate amount of shaky cam. then what.

[alexstorm]

guys, let’s understand that people have different tastes and because you don’t enjoy arthouse indie films doesn’t mean they’re boring or bad. Some people find your cheesy romcoms boring. Also you can like a movie without liking or agreeing with its problematic parts. Apparently Bach was a misogynist, does that make you hate his music? // my point was just that I know my taste in cheesy rom-comes could definitely be seen as basic or cringe by pretentious film bros but who actually cares because that’s what I enjoy. I’d rather just tell the truth about what I enjoy than pretend to have pretentious, niche tastes in the way that someone like Louise seems to.

Also I feel like there’s a difference between a movie being somewhat “problematic” like for example the fatphobia in the Bridget Jones films that I can just laugh at and move on because it’s aged absolutely terribly and was definitely indicative of the awful diet culture at the time. However literal blackface and racism is not something I could just look past because the rest of the film was alright. I don’t care if that was “of it’s time”, it was still inexcusable and that’s a pretty major disgusting element to gloss over and I wouldn’t be comfortable watching the rest of a film knowing those scenes exist

☝🏻

Yeah, I had that same feeling with one of those Alain Delon films where they had only Black strippers dancing for them and you could see it was because of some "exotic" fetish and I believe they even used the n-word.

[spaceshipkat]

I'm reading CC:HoEaB. God is it terrible.

I’ll begin by stating that I’m reading a friend’s copy of Crescent City see whether SJ/M’s mended her ways. (Again, at the friend’s insistence).

She hasn’t. 

It’s actually become worse.

I won’t lie, I’m hating every inch of it. Not to mention how big of a bore the book is. I’ve been told that the climax is good - I don’t know, I’m still in Chapter 40 - but is it worth it to go through all the pain? 

MARY SUE PROTAGONIST

Let’s begin with Bryce Quinlan. She’s such a pretty, curvaceous, perfect, perfect girl who always has men drooling over her (actually. Men are always ogling her)! Sarah’s actually stated that she has big boobs and a big ass. She always (ALWAYS - let me stress that, because Sarah’s mentioned that at least a dozen time) wears skin-tight clothing and scandalises her potential love interest with lingerie (sound familiar?). Oh - and heels too. Always heels.

Who am I kidding? She’s just Aelin Galathynius ripped off and amplified so much that it gets almost disgusting. 

[Also, every other female character in CC apart from potential love interests have been written as hateful and vapid. There’s also a female villain who’s given zero dimension - lol, what’s new?]

“FEMINIST” BOOKS WITH ONE FEMALE LEAD

My biggest issue with the book is the fact that she’s working ONLY WITH MEN (males, rather, in Sarah’s language) to solve a mystery. Only with men. OnLy MeN, do you hear me? For a girl who had a very, very strong bond with her best friend enough that it can be considered a “galmance”, she has no female company/friendships apart from a fricking sprite. Her so-called female friends Juniper and Fury (lol, that’s actually a name), seem to exist only to ensure Sarah doesn’t get called out for the lack of females in the story. 

WRITING

The writing - her writing is degrading plot-wise, I think. I don’t care that I’ve heard that there are plenty of twists to come. There are too many contrived plots in this book, and events driving the plot JUST HAPPEN without a build up to it. At one point, one of the characters actually called up Bryce to tell her that he’d somehow discovered a legend relating to something they’re searching for. 

Kingdom of Ash was definitely her worst book, but I can say that at least Crescent City has improved language-wise. A little. As a writer myself, the broken sentences were really, really painful to read, as well as the grandiose plot (not to mention that whole Yrene scene where she destroyed a certain villain - a woman who’d existed in the series for exactly one book, not counting the novellas.)

WORLDBUILDING

Done via info dumping. It actually seemed pretty interesting, you know? All the Houses and stuff? But the worldbuilding SJ/M’s done is not only unnecessary, it’s very badly explained. As the book progresses, it actually begins to feel a little pretentious.

“DIVERSITY”

Why does everyone have golden skin? Everyone? Is it SJ/M’s way of trying to get diversity points? Or is something to do with the fact that in the cheesy/problematic books SJ/M reads men with muscular chests and tan/golden skin are sexualised and considered attractive?

I think SJ/M’s publisher finally pushed her for representation too, because she’s casually mentioned - only in passing that one of Hunt’s colleagues has a boyfriend.There’s also another lesbian romance mentioned LATER in the book, but it felt flat to me. And contrived. And ridiculous.

Yep, definitely representation. Yep yep yeppity yep.

THE VOMIT-WORTHY ROMANCE

Anyway, getting back. That slow-burn romance between Rowan and Aelin? It was kinda good, actually, if you overlooked some of the more problematic aspects which was easier back then. But Crescent City’s romance is plain stupid. EVERYTHING IS SEXUALISED. EVERYTHING. And that’s me saying this after having just begun Chapter 40. Sarah’s relationships always seem to have a lot do with the sexual aspect, with a man - oh, excuse me, male - always admiring Bryce’s ass, generous curves, smooth thighs and ogling her chest. VOMIT. Vomit, vomit, vomit. 

I don’t know about others, but if a man were ogling me like that - even if it were someone I had a crush on - I’d classify him as a creep and call the cops.

WRITING ADULT BOOKS

You can’t mix in swearing, graphic sex and substance abuse to call it adult. SJ/M thinks she can throw in a “f*ck” potentially in every sentence and in between phrases just to make it adult. An adult book is when the protagonist deals with real-world problems - it’s what YA-ish authors Leigh Bardugo (Ninth House) and Samantha Shannon (The Priory of the Orange Tree) wrote.The former involves a protagonist who  deals with drug abuse, sexual abuse, and trauma from a best friend’s brutal murder -and it’s handled really, really well. Well enough that Amazon decided to pick it up to produce a TV show. 

SJ/M didn’t research into drug abuse, because it shows. 

CC is definitely her worst book of all time.

Gosh, I have so much more to say, but I’m ending it here because I’m not feeling good anymore.

Please send your thoughts and prayers.

[Also, @spaceshipkat, sending my thoughts and prayers to you too.]