'I don't even want to call it vanilla because vanilla is a flavour!' I love that!

"Today, we're gonna talk about.... *heavy sigh*" Same, my guy

Oh hey that's me! I'm the essay writer! 😂 Btw, you have full permission to paraphrase/"steal" anything I say... 💜 Edit for clarification: I'm not a fan of Sarah, or the misogyny and racism rampant throughout her work. I just had thoughts on how female s-xuality is so repressed in our society, to the point where any stories that give women a space to express or explore their desires is immediately appreciated and valued highly by many women (regardless of the actual quality of those stories, or whether those stories are otherwise harmful)...

@GatekeeperGuardian-wv3cd

5 ай бұрын

Oh so I'm not crazy for thinking the same thing. Honestly I actually liked that Violet was so open with her sexuality in Fourth Wing for this reason. What I didn't like was how she went totally overboard with it and didn't have the character to match this trait or to make it stand out more as something positive.

@royalxprincessbaka6875

5 ай бұрын

This is how I feel about Sam Levinson's works although, thankfully, now more people are starting to notice how misogyny and degrading the way he writes female sexual empowerment actually is.

While we're on the subject, apparently SJM wrote a lot of Sailor Moon fanfiction when she was a teenager. Because of this, it seems to me like Amarantha is a pretty clear cut Queen Beryl expy. I mean, what other queen do you know with red hair and an obsession with a guy in a mask?

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

I never saw Sailor Moon so I’ll take your word for it

Never read this book and never will, but I love seeing reviews for it lol.

@BritneyT.

5 ай бұрын

It's kind of a subgenre of It's own, haha

Thanks for this video! I loved it. There's a very extensive critical video essay of Rhysand's character that I love and will recommend until my dying day. It's called "The Villain in the Story: Abuse, Feminism and Choice in SJM's ACOTAR Series" and goes into delightful detail about all the things that make me uncomfortable and dislike him, and by extension dislike how SJM writes men/feminism in general.

@rae3781

5 ай бұрын

One of my favorite videos on ACOTAR aside all of WithCindy's videos!

@GatekeeperGuardian-wv3cd

5 ай бұрын

Rhysand always saying "it's your choice" always felt manipulative to me and I'm glad I watched that video because it explains why: He only ever does that when he thinks the person will choose what he wants so further manipulations are easier. And you know what? It would have been amazing if SJM had Rhys be a knowing and unapologetic manipulator. Instead she went in the opposite direction and resorted to a bunch of myopic flawscrubbing that made his character insufferable.

@Cakelynn6

5 ай бұрын

I know exactly which video you are talking about, it is SO well done. Rhysand is not a good guy.

24:23 I had the same problem with it! Seeing that the slavers were vampires instantly worried me for all the same reasons. Honestly I don't see may people talk about that. Where people will say that someone's evil or a monster, as if they aren't human. Like, no, those were human actions. It has almost a "holier than thou" feeling to it too. Like they're above it all. Distancing themselves from who they they're trying to dehumanize, while also tossing all the blame to something intagible or "innate" instead of the people that did those things and the systems that uphold them. I also see a lot of people say stuff like that to justify capital punishment which is a whole different can of worms.

@wooogie672

5 ай бұрын

agree 100%!! somewhat related, this kind of dehumanization of people who’ve done/do horrible things to others has led to SO MANY PEOPLE call for literal torture? like no joke, saw an IG reel with tens of thousands of likes saying we should use ped0s and 🍇ists as lab rats? i do not support the actions of these kinds of people AT ALL, but defining who and who doesn’t deserve human rights (like with capital punishment and torture) will always be a slippery slope. the most glaring issue i saw with the rhetoric of that post was that several, most of them top comments, were calling for queer people to be included in the group (probably with ped0s more than 🍇pists). point is, dehumanization of bad never leads to the outcomes the people who engage with that dehumanization want!

"I don't wanna say it's vanilla, because vanilla is a flavor" damn

Walking in the cold with hot tea. This was perfect upload timing 🥰

10:57 Besides the power scaling bit, im 100% on the side of powers and magic being consistent and explainable. Magic in some aspect has its consistency, and there is some explaination, like if you told me the Courts were large areas of magical power then maybe there could be something, and if you told me the rulers were born using the most of this power because of blood relation then it would make even more sense, but yeah thats not even close to a thing. Lightlark made somewhat more sense when it came to segregation of each area at the least, but afaik the only reason why the courts are the way they are is because reasons.

Rhysand really gets characterized in Mist and Fury, and I think that's where the spice that this series is in/famous for also starts to kick in, since Thorns and Roses was actually published as YA originally. Which is neither a defense nor criticism, but just where a bunch of other romantasy tropes come from in reference to this series. Something that always made me laugh about the power scaling and world building in this series was how little Sarah clearly cared about the humans. Humans turned out to be wrong about several things about faerie weaknesses (the inability to lie, weakness to iron), seem to apparently know nothing about how faeries actually work despite living right next to them and being constantly wary of them (the life for a life thing that Tamlin just fuckin made up and no one thought to question). Even the fact that the faerie lands get the name of Prythian and Hybern but the humans just get 'the mortal lands' and 'the continent'. And also the fact that theres some faerie worshipping cult that Feyre side-eyes at the start of the book and makes fun of again later, despite her jumping ship and going full team faerie, including turning into one at the end of this book. Its honestly quite silly.

@jackrichardson9863

5 ай бұрын

He gets characterized, but not for the better. SJM just decides to flawscrub him to the point where anything that could have been interesting about him is gone.

@ccervidae

5 ай бұрын

@@jackrichardson9863 I definitely agree with you there. I know I would've liked him a lot more if (spoilers I guess) he remained even a little villainous/antagonistic like he was in this book. I doubt it would've saved the series for me, and definitely would've opened the cliche of 'night/shadow themed guy=bad', but it could've at least POTENTIALLY kept him interesting.

@jackrichardson9863

5 ай бұрын

@@ccervidae I would have found the second book completely insufferable, but it would have been great if the second book twist was that Rhys was always the bad guy and both Feyre and the reader were idiots for thinking otherwise.

@ccervidae

5 ай бұрын

@@jackrichardson9863 Oh I mean that the second book would've been entirely different if Rhysand had remained villainous and mysterious lmao. But I guess saying "I might have liked this more if it was a completely different book" is also a silly statement.

@djcobrand117

5 ай бұрын

@@jackrichardson9863agreed! If the twist in the second book was something along the lines of everything people say about Rhysand was actually true, and we find out he’s been messing with feyre’s brain the entire book, so the way she saw the world in that book was a lie. And the reason he did it was because he knew she was his mate but also knew she would never love him and he couldn’t stand Tamlin having her when he (Rhysand couldn’t). That would have been wicked!

i absolutely loved the first two books of this series. it transported me into such a mystical world & got me out of a YEARS long reading slump. i honestly loved the writing even though there were times i was kinda like ? the rest of the series was meh for me. there were some inconsistencies & some questions i had that went unanswered. i liked the smut, i liked the romance, but i understand your critiques wholeheartedly! a lot of them were the same ones i had. but i can’t sit here & lie just say i didn’t absolutely love it. it was one of those books for me that i COULD not put down & could NOT stop thinking about. i was obsessed with it

@mercycunningham2813

5 ай бұрын

You might Laurell K. Hamiltons Merry Gentry books then.

@Little_Vampiregirl

5 ай бұрын

I feel this way about the whole series, too. Books 1 and 2 were wonderful and enchanting, it went downhill since book 3 unfortunately. But maybe SJM will work things out in the future books, who knows... What bothers me most is how bad she treated Tamlin. Hope for a healing arc for him.

I also appreciate the idea of fiction being a place to explore desires/ideas that we're not meant to, allowed to, or dissuaded from in real life. I think that's a perfectly acceptable function of fiction. However, you brought up systemic issues and I think that's the crux of my issue: people who are finding release in these books AND who call Rhysand Daddy, who uplift his romance/actions as romantic or aspirational, THAT feels wrong, especially because there are insidious systemic issues which inform peoples like/dislike of those actions. There is so much covert sexism in these books that people seem to miss or just don't want to acknowledge, and a lot of it feels like it wasn't intentionally put in the book, which makes me think SJM maybe has some internalised misogyny. I mean, she has spoken openly about how she writes "feminist fiction" and to me that is not at all the case because her books very rarely push any actual real feminist ideology; she relies a lot on "choice" (or rather the illusion of it) and "badassery" (so their willingness to commit acts of violence in order to dominate, which is patriarchal) and it falls super flat and contradictory to feminism... or at the very least, it's a very shallow and narrow understanding of feminism and women's empowerment.

I love ACOTAR but your review is so honest and I love it

i finally caved and read it last month, i was similarly unimpressed. it was fine. it didn’t make me want to read more. great review as usual, put some of my feelings to words

Just found your channel via your Iron Widow review. Can't wait to see more subscribers come in, love your content.

Sometimes I read something and I'm like I enjoyed some aspects of this or it was easy to read but it leaves me with like... a yucky feeling? or like there are aspects of this that are coming from a place that I do not like, and I was pressured to read this entire series as well as Fourth Wing and the Crave books and while they were books, and I did read them it left me feeling a little weird. It's almost like these books are made to consumed at breakneck speeds and not analyzed or critically thought about. I really appreciate your content for putting words to my very weird feelings about things, especially since your content aligns with my values and can help me unpack why something did not sit right with me.

16:46 Tom and Luke sent me 😂😂😂

Actually I know of someone who oddly like ACOTAR, but hates the rest of the series for retconning it's own on page lore, characters, and events (and the fact people in the fandom call her an "abuse apologist" for liking book 1 Tamtam but say to her that shadow boo Rapesand is a "respecter of women" despite on page evidence of this being demonstrably not very true) and she thinks one reason ACOTAR has such devout fanatics is that the Books and its author are trying to claim its "high art" that subverts patriarch and is feminist liberation story and whatnot (but really is just a collection of what the author feels like is cool to write at the time without much thought and doesn't want to admit it) so some of the most die hard readers fall into this idea that the books are meaningful purposefully with a important message that needs to be taken seriously, but at the same time when you look at seriously or how poorly executed its message is or the protagonist (author's pet character) centered morality where there are only good teams and bad teams not bad actions and good actions then it's just an "escapist fantasy" and you hate women even though most people who are saying there are problems in the stories intention and execution for the longest time were mostly women of color or queer people.

What frustrates me most about the whole acotar trilogy (yes i somehowe made trough all the books) is that there seems to be so much interesting stuff that happens off page. Feyre is so passive that other characters need to tell her storyrelevant stuff. She doesn’t make plans she needs other people to take charge.

I normally don’t read fantasy nor romance but this book got me out of a 10 year slump it was easy to read and I was not into beauty and the beast I almost didn’t buy it based on that. I didn’t give book 1 a five star but book two was 5star due to dialogue and tamlin being the loser 😂I do wish they’d release a version with romance descriptions removed. They honestly don’t need it. The rest of the series is NOT beauty and the beast .

one book club I was part of started hating reading this book...even in that context I could not get past the writing, don't think I made it past the fifth chapter? ! so excited that you're going to be reviewing Mob Psycho100! one of my favourite shows :') it's so earnest and funny at the same time!

I have not read any SJM and don’t plan to because of many reasons, but my first reason was that I hate love triangles. I’m just now finding out about all the other questionable stuff. That reinforces my ‘I don’t need to read this’ stance. With that out of the way, I had a thought to share. I wonder if this book and others like it provide some young women with a chance to read about a protective guy without the fear of violence being perpetrated on them and others. This is just a book so they can read about being protected without the stress of what else might come with that in actual real life.

two and a half mins in and this video is already🔥

I’m so glad I found your content. I did read these books…and was wholly aware that they sucked as I did so

24:49 I know you haven’t read Harry Potter. But part of me wants you to just so you can fully appreciate something that is my favorite commentary. But I saw on your community tab that you’re still under the weather, so I’m still going to recommend. Lily Simpson has a 10 hour Hp video (“A brief look at Harry Potter”). And I know! I wouldn’t recommend it unless I thought it was worth your time. But specifically, I’d recommend the intro (because yeah and it’s maybe 10 minutes long) and then the section on racism. The sections on wizard cops and hate crimes, wizard segregation, and magical eugenics are also top tier too. But I’d highly recommend. Again, not lightly but worthwhile. And if those are up your alley, Novum has one on Midsommar that heavily explores white nationalism and is enthralling. Alsoooo if you really need another that’s a fav of mine, and because I know you read lightlark, crow caller has a video essay that also ranks among my favs and I haven’t even read the book. .. hope you get to feeling better! And I’m brand new but making my way through your backlog. And also going to join your Patreon right after hitting send on this comment ❤

Yay, i love rant reviews. I haven't read any SJM and I don't plan to, mostly because I've always been a contrarian, but i still have fomo so... here i am 😅

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

Personally, I don’t think you’re missing out.

Sooooo if you’re interested in reading about a protagonist standing over a stack of bodies, it brought to mind The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on that one

Please read the cruel prince, its not spicy, it has fae, and politics, and its not sexist, please i love that book 😂

I had no idea that this is what these books were about. The videos I've seen were about the sex scenes and the ridiculousness. I haven't read this or any SJM book. I don't plan to. But I like watching videos on it.

Hey! Heard my name while listening to this and making a commission lmfao. My comment section was INSANE during that one tiktok

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

lol it’s always jarring when folks say your name.

I gave up the moment I saw how SJM was treating Feyre's father. Distilled ableism at its finest.

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

You are so right.

Read SJM books? Nah, no thanks. Listen to smart people critique them for an hour? Every damn day (on 1.5 speed 😉)

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

You calling me smart? Thank you that’s so nice 😅

@76kilosofshade81

5 ай бұрын

@@dontfretreadbooks 😅 I think I typed clever at first but some people really take that descriptor poorly...

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

@76kilosofshade81 well I’m taking it as a compliment 😁

@76kilosofshade81

5 ай бұрын

Excellent. @@dontfretreadbooks ✌

I had to simple accept that her books just aren’t for me. I’m okay with people loving them but I can’t read them without rolling my eyes.

I haven't read anything by this author, but after watching your segment, learning the author used the unaliving of others & social injustices issues to amplify her sails, I'm not going near her work. But with that said, thank you for another entertaining analysis.

Haha sometimes you have to read a book you’re not particularly interested in just to be a more informed part of the conversation. 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️ that’s why I read Jada’s memoir. I wasn’t particularly interested but I wanted to compare it to Will’s memoir.

I sorta have a personal beef with author only cause she keeps touting that she writes only Lady Empowerment in where the men respect women and how she "subverts" gender norms in interviews, but it is very obvious she still ascribes to very narrow definitions of gender norms and behaviors and doesn't actually challenge the status quo at all. Like many said if she just admitted she just wanted to write erotica and that's all it would be far less of an issue than pretending to be writing groundbreaking "feminist" work that has one of the books in the ACOTAR series where the shadow boo man literally lie to his pregnant wife (Feyre) that the baby she will have will kill her, but it becomes all about how he did to protect her cause she wouldn't be able to handle it and how it would hurt him to hurt her and it's so patronizing to Feyre who I hate dearly, but goodness Feyre deserved so much better than a lying husband who promised he wouldn't do that $h1t anymore. Spoiler in Book 2 of this series the MC gets together with the shadow boo man who S3xually As5ualts her and leaves with with on page PTSD and retcons the few half decent things Book 1 has going for it to prop up the shadow boo man and complete switches the personality of Tamtam into the very opposite of his book 1 personality (like in book 1 he openly says her wants to reject the old repressive ways of his father then in book 2 claims he will continue the repressive ways without acknowledging that he literally said the opposite and the books will just pretend that this was always the case somehow). This makes is very hard for anyone who wants continuity to have any as the author just changes her mind at any time.

“edgy shadow boo” 😂😂😂

Comparing SJM's writing to steamed carrots is so accurate 😂

Make a video on a book you love!

@dontfretreadbooks

23 күн бұрын

I have!

😅😢When I read this book last year. I wondered why people love it so much and the character Rhysand. The most tolerable one was Lucien TBH But this is nothing like Beauty and the Beast☠️ I also loved Lion King and the Jungle Book🐅🦁🐆

@ElinWinblad

5 ай бұрын

I think they said that due to tamlin being able to transform into monster and stuck with his mask (curse) but the book should not be described that way as the series isn’t about that

fr fr. Why are all these romantasy books so much more violent than normal fantasy?

Dnf'd this series. I wanted good fantasy and got Hot fairy porn. I tried to give it a good go hoping it would get better... it just didnt

SJM is not really my cup of tea, don't like the genre that much aka "Romantasy". That being said I am reading the Throne of Glass series, but I WILL NOT be reading the ACOTAR series just nope. I did read Fourth Wing unfortunately and although I guess we got told that Violet was SO intelligent, got no vibes of that....... didn't get shown to me at all personally lol. I do also want to say that even though some books are not for me personally, I am happy for anyone who enjoys a book and or/genre that I don't! If you are vibing and loving your reading experience that is what it's about above everything else :o) OMG I keep editing one thing I keep noticing in the Throne of Glass series is that the characters in that series are constantly "sighing out of their nose" lmao

"Welcome to a segment I'm gonna call: And *Another* Thing" you're so funny skdbdjsj I fell out of keeping up with popular fantasy novels for like, ten whole years after i burned out of school, and i made the decision to try to get back into it by starting with this book, completely blind to current book meta. It DID shock me to realize that the book world had been slurping on watered-down straight-lady vanilla dom ABO-for-normies since 2013, but once the giggling wore off and i tried to read book 2, the *abysmal* pacing and personality retconning (for both Tam AND Rhys) had me DNF like a third of the way through. There are so many better ways to read erot*ca than sitting through this mess 😂

Welcome to the madness that is 50 Shades of Fey. I suspect you need to read book two if you want the full brainpain effect. I totally get the need of a magic system that works. But I don't remember much. Could be that it's just common knowledge fey lore. BTW. Please take a look at Laurell Hamiltons books. She wrote "feyporn" before SJM and urban fantasy before Jim Butcher.

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

I don’t know if I’ll read the second one. I have a bunch of books on my immediate TBR I wanna get through.

@colleen6644

5 ай бұрын

I'm not a fan of LKH's version of smut. I don't think you're missing out!

@colleen6644

5 ай бұрын

Misread! Mist and Fury isn't important if you weren't sold on the first book imo. There's so much more of what you already highlighted as problematic and not enjoyable.

Is SJM really pro-Israel, though? The most I can find is her saying she's part Jewish and liked the visits to Israel she took.

I've read better prose from a 13 yo on fanfiction in 2011.

I agree with the things you said in this video but let me give my pov as a SJM enjoyer. The writing isnt anything exceptional but i like it because it reads like fanfiction to me which is a positive because i love fanfics. The reason why a lot of people like toxic characters in fiction is because it fiction and those characters cant hurt you in any way. Theres also a certain aspect of mystery to them and wondering why they are the way they are. For me personally i feel like i can relate better to a toxic character than to a non toxic one most of the time because they go through traumas like i do but they are able to express their anger and frustration outwardly. Thats something i wish i could do but i know that doing so would lead to hurting people around me. I dont see toxic characters as role models for anything at all and id argue that most people who like them dont. I know some people lack the media literacy skills to know the difference tho which can become a problem. Id never want someone whos like my favorite characters in real life

lol Ryan, the Kyle of this universe. You know that bland bro-dude.

A great way to sum it up is “painfully mediocre”.

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

It was painful alright.

@Little_Vampiregirl

5 ай бұрын

I wish I would've felt like it was mediocre, but I loved it so much that it's hard for me to move on to other novels.

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

Sometimes you can’t help but love what you love what you love.

You hate Taylor Swift? How dare you. I'm unsubscribing 😠🤣

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

It’s been real ✌🏽 all the best

@JessieWinterspring

5 ай бұрын

@@dontfretreadbooks oh well, to be honest the only song I like from her is August and Love Story. Everything else is meh... haha

@dontfretreadbooks

5 ай бұрын

@JessieWinterspring labyrinth does a cover of shake it off and I like that a lot

@JessieWinterspring

5 ай бұрын

@@dontfretreadbooks Labyrinth? I haven't heard of them before now. I'll go look it up. 🥰 PS: love this video 😆 I love ACOTAR when I first read it (although always hated Feyre for being a hypocrite, in second book forward especially)... now after some distance... I don't know anymore. 😕 haha

beauty and the beast “retelling” is a generous term lmao i don’t understand how people can consume such mediocrity with such fervor, but ig we all have our vices. i’ll never support a racist & a zionist tho lol anyways i like your honesty and thank u for the video!! 🫶🏼