one identity crisis at a time, baby

Disclaimer: I have a bad attitude and I’m right to have it.

Let me start by saying that, obviously, the things I’m about to complain about work for lots of people. Then again, I’m using the word “work” loosely, because it seems more like people have just fallen into the trend cycle. If you say you like these things or find them useful, well, I don’t know why and I think you’re wrong, but you don’t need to care about what yet another nobody on the internet says. Other people’s opinions have no bearing on what you like, actually.

*Lucille Bluth voice* I don’t care for the internet.

Anyway, onto my personal soul cleanse:

Tropes

Look, I get it—you need to whip up a quick snappy pithy pitch for a social media post, so you default to your book’s tropes. I’ve been there. But if you’re reading based on tropes alone? You’ve lost me.

I’ve gone to a listing based on a tropes post, thinking “I’m into those,” only to read the book description and say “…well, not like that,” and bounce. Because tropes don’t tell you anything about the meat of the story; it is, at best and maybe and I’m being generous here, a vague framework.

Stop me if I’ve said this before (or just, skip this paragraph because I’ve already said it and thus cannot be stopped), but “enemies to lovers” might mean actual I-want-to-kill-you enemies, or workplace rivals, or brother’s best friend you had a miscommunication with in high school that you never got over. These are fundamentally different dynamics that build completely different stories; and even when it’s the same trope, it’s all in the details to differentiate the stories, so even then they shouldn’t read the same.

Tropes work in fanfiction because we know those characters, we know where they’re coming from, we’re familiar with their whole vibe. They have a background. Your book doesn’t. Tropes are not enough, and they’re certainly not a replacement for your back cover text.

While I understand—begrudgingly—why tropes are used as a marketing tool, they Do Not lend a real idea of the content. So if you’re a reader skipping the book description, you don’t have the God-given right to complain in your minimum-star review because the book wasn’t what you expected. You could’ve figured that out from the jump and saved us all from your self-inflicted bad time.

“Let readers review however they want!” Go ahead, but you sound like an asshole, or someone who’s more interested in hitting their reading goal than the reading itself.

Segue!

Reading goals

Okay, so you read five hundred books this year. What spoke to you what moved you what made you think what did you love? What did you retain, even? I care about your thoughts, not your numbers—because our social media obsession with numbers has nothing to do with authenticity; just ask the bots who make up “impressive” follower counts on Instagram.

“I’ll never get through my TBR but I overspent at the bookstore anyway” memes

Go. To the library.

(This sentiment doesn’t always work for indie reads, as there’s no guarantee they’re stocked at the library so the option is usually to buy. As an indie author and reader myself, I get that, I’m acknowledging it, moving on—)

This promotion of overconsumption isn’t quirky cute intellectual, I don’t care how aesthetic it makes your shelves in the background of your BookToks about the same five books everyone already recommends. I know “white women writing the most aggressively heterosexual schtick that proves the straights are indeed Not Okay” is THE trending genre, but try giving your life some flavor.

Go to the library and borrow a stack of books you’ve never heard of before, lest you completely lose your mind to “book boyfriends” who read like every other guy on Tinder and/or the future subject of another Netflix true crime documentary.

(And no, I’m not even talking about dark romance heroes. Some of these romcom and other contemporary leading men are for sure incel-adjacent.)

Bookstagram BookTok Bookwhatthefuckever

This post says it better than I’m going to, but I’m gonna say it anyway.

We need these platforms to market our work (allegedly? I guess??), but not everyone’s work is marketable to their “standards.”

I often see these tags vehemently defended because “who cares what gets people to read as long as they’re READING?” Well, to broken record myself, everyone’s reading the same five books at any given time. You’re not expanding your tastes horizons mindsets, you’re just jumping onboard the SS Trendy.

And, fine, do what you feel, but just because these platforms have done something you perceive as good for you—as a reader, or possibly a writer who’s gotten popular or even gone viral—doesn’t mean it’s not also detrimental to intellectualism/critical thinking/media literacy, because everything is the goddamn same, everything relies on its tropes or its sex scenes or its “shocking twists” or “morally gray” leading men or [insert whatever the hell else y’all are talking about here].

These platforms cater to certain kinds of books—not all books, not even close, and absolutely not reading as a whole.

And, you know what, while I’m here—

The ever-shrinking scope of media literacy

Would you all perhaps perchance start thinking about what you’re reading instead of taking it at face value? “I read to escape.” Cool, I’m not interested in having a conversation with you and you probably don’t want to talk to me either, but when every book is escapism, I’d rather be a homebody.

Dig a little deeper into the show instead of the tell. Authors shouldn’t have to spell it out for you to Get It. Locate your critical thinking skills and figure some shit out for yourself, consider other viewpoints that aren’t relatable to you, stop expecting every piece of media to cater to you. Embrace nuance.

(This is sometimes and maybe even often these days the author’s fault. As much as I’d like to publicly @ specific authors to Write Better, my attitude isn’t quite that bad, and more to the point my will to live is apparently stronger than I usually give it credit for.)

Sex scenes

I have no puritanical objections to sex scenes, I’m just saying they don’t make a book worth reading. Also, some of these “steamy spicy hot pepper emoji” books y’all keep hawking make me wonder if any of you actually know what sex is.

Romance books—because this is of course the most relevant genre in this conversation—sans sex scenes aren’t “immature” or “cowardly” or “boring” or in any way sex-negative. That’s a completely shortsighted and also obnoxious way to think. Some of us are just tired of reading/writing about how a six-pack and good sex is the solution to every commitment issue. Like, he makes her Actually Come, unlike her dirtbag ex, and suddenly she believes in true love and healthy relationships. ????? Somebody get that girl a vibrator.

Where is the substance? Why should I care? Instead of orgasms, try giving your characters a personality.

Or give them both, I don’t care, but make the personality a little more preeminent. I’m sick of all these bland or fully terrible people having mind-blowing orgasms, give them some CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

Buzz words

Badass banter snark spicy steamy… My eye has developed a twitch. “Full of top-notch banter” and it’s the most embarrassing dialogue I’ve ever seen in my life, I can’t even talk about it anymore—

Illustrated covers

This isn’t an all-encompassing blast on illustrations; I’ve seen some gorgeous/dynamic/expressive ones, but you know the other ones I’m talking about. This clip art bullshit that makes everything look like YA even though it’s almost always adult romance, as if I want to envision that faceless cartoon man getting head—and absolutely no shade to YA, in fact I tend to prefer it and under no circumstances does it deserve these covers either, but my point is it doesn’t match the tone of adult romance.

Also, it’s ugly.

“Let people read what they want.”

No one’s stopping you. Adverse opinions are not sentient beings stealing your books or ice cream scooper-ing out your eyeballs or otherwise physically impeding you from reading. Criticism =/= book burning. You want critics to “just ignore” what they don’t like, meanwhile you, too, could “just ignore” these critiques. It’s like some of y’all just don’t want people to think.

And that, I think, is the Tootsie Roll center of my problem with all this. People keep saying that “reading has made a comeback,” but reading never left—it just wasn’t social media trendy.

Now it is, and frankly I can’t tell who genuinely enjoys the actual reading part.