Emi > Recent Status Updates

if these people don't start realizing there's an obvious villain among them I'm going to scream

Hm. Weird about women, as I was forewarned.

Is this young man a cartoon dog??? Who eats random Windowsill Cake, even without knowing there's people out to kill them???

I do find it frustrating that this allegedly world-wise woman is somehow not seeing the obviously villainous shit going on here. Should she not be more villain-conscious, with a life so full of villains.

I must say it's rare and, I guess, refreshing to read a m/f romance where the man is the painfully naive one.

I love a romance where both leads are just absolutely off the wall. Just so into each other they are behaving bizarrely and unwisely. That's real human attraction right there.

I've done some close reading and I think I understand ... legally they may or may not be half brothers but biologically they are certainly not. I mean, I still foresee some problems, honestly, but at least not the really disturbing ones.

is the setup here that the MC has just inherited and the LI appears on the scene as.......potentially the MC's dad's son? am I reading this right? so like we're all meant to believe there's a chance they are (half) brothers? ?? ?????

ugh, "not letting the disease define me" internalized ableism. ew.

uh oh! this is a little too relatable

no, sorry, I can't handle all the cousin marriage. cousins raised together, no less. it's too much. I think I'm going to go read something with 100% less cousin marriage

sorry, is this... not only incest, but like, an incestuous...breeding program? um—I—well, they're probably not first cousins, but still...?

it's just so overwhelmingly cissexist. and like I appreciate the note at the beginning that says this is a book for and about cis women, but like...that doesn't make the overwhelming cissexism any better, you know? like, why are we gendering clitorises? why "female genitals" instead of "cis women's genitals"? et cetera. it's all just too much

I think this author may simply be too white for me. why's there always gotta be racism. I'm aware white people are racist; I don't need to see it in my rom coms, even if the author is clearly aware the character is being racist. also I think this is probably not a rom com, like the other one. still I will press on because I like baking and this protagonist is unbelievably stressful and I need that stress resolved.

tbh, I'm finding the class politics difficult here. I don't read a lot of contemporary YA with rich protags and. every time they mention that they're in Nantucket or the protagonist's family...estate (???) has a name or the love interest has a summer house etc it just...pulls me out of the story. sorry to this author. it's probably a cute book, I just maybe can't read this while actively on strike for a living wage

DNF. if a white man TOOK MY JOB and then I also had to BE NAKED IN FRONT OF HIM I would simply explode with fury. certainly I wouldn't fuck him. also I wouldn't call them "rivals" tbh more like the man in question has never thought even once about how he benefits from structural oppression. absolutely not. sorry to the author I just cannot continue.

the author has just used the term "butt cheek" and I found it so deeply surprising I'm now looking up historical slang for butts. were they saying that in 1874?? it seems like such a modern way to refer to one side of a butt!

I can't keep reading this. WHY was there not a content warning for intimate partner violence. it is very much On Page and I didn't expect that from a book with a cover like this. I thought this would be a light hearted rom com! it is not!

I thought I knew what was going on here but as it turns out, I very didn't. I really, really, really wish there had been content warnings for this book, because then I wouldn't have read it (the main character stalks her ex). is she going to be accountable for her behavior and make amends to her community, in the last 20% of the book? no. but I have some hope and if I stop now, I'll surely just keep feeling gross.

this is so hard to read. I get that the protagonist is coming out of an abusive relationship but she's just so overwhelmingly cruel to herself, especially about her body, and I just...can't do it. also, there's a weird thing going on with a side character (possibly her love interest?) who she's assumed to be homeless and I don't really have the fortitude to deal with that either. maybe some other time.

one simply cannot start a romance by having the hero evict someone's whole family. I mean, I had to go and check if he really was the love interest. he is! I just have no interest in seeing this man "redeemed", or whatever. you want me to believe that the heroine, who seems perfectly nice, is going to fall for a landlord? absolutely not. I'm not having it. I refuse to keep going.

so far this is kinda like watching a train wreck. not in a bad way necessarily. the protagonist is *very* white, though

might stop reading this—the way one of the characters talks about other people's bodies is...upsetting. and also, weirdly cissexist given that body modification is her whole thing. I don't think I have the energy to stick around and find out if this is an intentional character flaw that she'll grow out of.

something about the pacing is not working for me! and I'm weirdly put off by how often he's saying her name and calling her honey. maybe I'll come back to this another time.

DNFed at...somewhere...because why is (a variant of) the r slur in this romance novel?

I gotta stop reading this. he's unnecessarily mean and manipulative and I do not like it at all. no thank you!

i'm sorry but the MCs are cuddling with wild animals and i KNOW rabies hasn't been eradicated yet in, uh, whatever year this is. i can't do this

i'm still not really sure why i should be rooting for these two to stay together. in my heart i want nora to leave jacquie (who is not & has never been a good friend to her) and get with gina

if we all ignore that words have meanings, maybe this would be good, i don't know. but. you cannot title your main character the duke of lies. you can't. i understand that convincingly ducal titles are difficult to come up with, but banbury? no. i cannot read this.

(cw: mention of sexual violence, polite misogyny)
stopping for now bc the hero has just decided that having sex w the heroine would be "robbing her of her innocence" and would, actually, make him the same as the violent antagonist trying to coerce her into sex, and I just...can't. I cannot.