She thinks she wrote a beautiful love story? I’m sorry, but I don’t think this author is right in the head.

Ok you confinced me 😂 buying it asap! 🖤

I don’t think it is unfair to input judgement for the author when the way they’ve handled things is actually dangerous. If a crime is committed, intentions matter to an extent, but there’ll always be consequences. This is at least an analogous situation. I don’t care how risqué or taboo you want your writing to be, but if the text itself doesn’t condemn the actions taken, the bare minimum is ensuring readers’ safety. There are no excuses for such behaviour, ESPECIALLY when most abused children suffer by the hands of entrusted adults. It’s such an unfortunately common trauma, and to go the extra mile to try and hide it? It’s even more insidious. Either way, this was the first time I’ve stumbled across your channel. I like the way you articulate your thoughts, and I hope to see more of your content! Much love to you always and thank you for sharing.

I've listened to other reviews of this book and I find yours to be most entertaining. I am finding a low tolerance for abuse disguised as kink. I realize it is fiction but some people's first interaction with kink can be through books or movies. Most people don't do research and end up thinking abuse is ok. Thank you for your dark humor and delivery. I'm here for it all 😂

Read it twice and re-read my favourite parts a few times. Its a lot of fun.

The way you talk is so pretty, it made me even more interested in your channel, congratulations! 🎉🎉

Isnt this just an inferior reimagining of Dostoevsky then? Is this the book where the kid carries around C&P? A little on the nose but... Did you notice? Im surprised you didnt bring it up.

I'm shocked at how irresponsible this author is with trigger warnings.

I just stumbled across your channel. I've been out of it for a while, due to health issues, and have wondered what happened to Meg LaTorre. I thought she was a delightful KZbin writing instructor. I'm finding it rather common that writing coaches don't always mean they're good authors. It doesn't invalidate their advice, it just means they need to more practice on using their own guidance. Best wishes to you, Efi, and all your endeavors.

Loved this one, fun read!

One of my favorite book tubers covered this like twice and I'm living for it bc it sounds gross

Many of the greatest boxing coaches can't professionally fight. Many of the worlds greatest boxers can't teach boxing worth a damn. They're really not correlated. I think it's totally ok to give advice if you know a field, especially if you're gifted with the ability to teach and communicate. Do you think Greg Jackson could beat Jon Jones in a fight? Alan Watts is famous for giving insightful spiritual and philosophical advice, yet his own life was a bit of a disaster. The teacher's actions do not discredit the teachings. That's a very long winded way of saying, I think Meg should still write, she seemed to have so much fun doing it -- and, even if her output isn't Pulitzer prize winning, she should still teach as well. I think she did a great job covering a lot of the basic, yet easily overlooked aspects to writing. Great for people just getting into it.

Really liked this book. 😊

I am in the process of writing of getting a book published like a lot of people. Something I did with the sex scenes is wrote the book with the sex scenes there so they feel natural. If you were to cut them, it would fade to black and you should see the couples after the sex.

Late to the party. Male here. I still think Reed was over the line with Sabrina. Sabrina is a tragic case. The author could have used sorrow and dead and cold bedroom to contrast the mayhem Reed causes with Devon. Same outcome, and Devon is with someone less angry. Instead his treatment of Sabrina acts as the tone check for his character. This is why dark stories aren't my deal. The male erotic lead is often insufferable.

Oh honey, the baby being a boy doesn’t save him from incest. There’s I think two books revolving around him and the other two kids that Devon and Reed have all banging each other. At least, that’s what it seems like based on the book blurbs on Webster’s website Also I’m wondering: Do you think you’ll ever read/review the other books in this series? I’ve been looking around for a review of The Free since there is no way I’m paying actual money for it, but am morbidly curious and love seeing how desensitized to incredibly screwed up stuff I really am. No pressure obv, just wondering :]

25$😮

So I am reading it now and I think you missed something. We don’t know the name of the first darling. The first darling was killed by tink. And the sister was in the closet and saw her die and where the shadow was hidden. That is why they were looking for the memory in her bloodline. You find out about Wendy in the other books

I took the office IT drama as Caroline taking and applying Rosamund attitude in real life. As in "What Would Rosamund do?" Then she did it. As far out of her comfort zone as it was...she did it. She didn't accept the "Thanks for bringing this to our attention, we'll deal with it from here." Which maybe she would have, before "interacting" with Rosamund. Fewer people than one realizes actually step up and step in and do something these days. Many shy away from even dialing 911, as they are so reluctant to extend themselves even that much....for a litany of excuses.

You perfectly explained the things I liked and the frustrations I had with this book. Great video!

I used to watch you play overwatch like 8 years ago, crazy to see your still doing content after these years lol, looks great keep it up!

After seeing the hundresd of 5 stars under the review of this book at Amazon all I can think is that the acopalyspe is no longera a fear but a source of hope for humanity lol.

I am going to be in KC later this month. Will visit Prospero's!

This sounds adorable and a super fun read! I'll keep it in mind for a reading/mental slump 😍

Sounds like a fun adventure!

According to Jill, the Shorts came first and people were "pestering her" to write a book as far as I know. When is the read-along? :D

Woo! Glad you enjoyed this one. I know two people who read it and seemed to enjoy it, both of them were also fans of he channel and the shorts.

I'd hope you read this one between Lolita and Tampa. It sounds like a nice 'sanity saver' book.

I have this one, just haven't read it yet. I'm a former fencing teacher and it sounded like silly fun.

How does someone like this get an agent and i can't get agents to read my books or even look at my trailer?

I think this was a mislabeled extreme horror story 😳

5:54 I disagree Zade never hurt women and children, and the only woman he did hurt was hurting other women and children. This book was just written terribly and used way too many explicits without providing any kind of love story. There really was no plot in this book.

Personally, I don't feel that the baby being a boy changes anything because Devon was so heart set on the taboo of her relationship with Reed so if there's a sequel where something happens to Reed and he dies, she may seek comfort elsewhere and she won't look far.

Way to many pedo books coming out lately. I find it gross.

Wow, this book just shouldn't exist and definitely not marketed as romance. So gross.

I see her book all over in bookstore and library.

Great author. For anyone who has not tested the waters, he has amazing series (Stormlight Archive & Mistborn) and stand-alones like Elantriss. He also has youtube recordings on his lectures, teaching writing, that even a non-author like me got really into at one point😅

<3 LOVE what he did, and love that you've covered it

I wouldn't be able to do an audiobook. It'll be a stretch just getting the edits done. Sanderson's integrity is inspirational. He's always finding ways to give back not just to the community of readers, but to writers everywhere. I've only read Way of Kings, but I have gone over synopses of the other books in that series. (It was one my nephew's favorites.) He has a gift for making his world lived in, and there are some pretty cool variations of terrestrial kinds of sea life that fascinated me. His prose is written to be accessible to all age ranges of readers, and he fades to black on adult scenes which helps keep it kid friendly. He was one of the first Epic Fantasy writers I'd read who captured what it feels like to be depressed without it becoming so bleak you quit reading. Worth a read, for that alone.

Brandon Sanderson is an amazing author actually. Taking on any of his series is an undertaking however.

Yes! I had recorded a a reading of a short story and tried to upload it to audible. My audio engineer followed the instructions and recorded everything like they wanted. When i uploaded the files they said we messed up. I sent the engineer the email and he tweaked the files and changed them like Audible wanted. They rejected them again. At the end of it, I am glad I tried to upload and failed. I paid 400 dollars to rehearse a future reading. Audible also feels like they are more of a production company than a publisher. They try to push you into using their readers and producing your recordings.

"What a frigging mess." *Proceeds to sip tea like an absolute queen* I'm an author and my book isn't very popular (No one knows of it). I would never dream of doing this to anyone. We small authors have to stick together and big each other up!

😬 nope 😬

i'm very tired of these kind of stories being sold as "romance". I read a book earlier this year with pdf files and grooming presented as a beautiful romance born of tragedy or w/e like this one is. Please be honest and stop calling these things beautiful romances. There's a place in fiction to explore these stories but I don't really think it's the romance shelves. I read a lot of dark romance and dark fiction and I don't want to be the kind of person who is like "don't romanticize bad things!" but there's just something about The Wild and this other book I read (All the Ugly and Wonderful Things) that just...something about it is not sitting right with me.

I havent heard anyone bring it up until now, but why was there so much age regression? Like she acts like a literal child despite already being only barely legal at the tail end of the story, why was *this* a constant? I've been told that I shouldn't attribute aspects to an author based on the content of their books, but besides the fact that Webster made a 5 book series on what started as pedophile romance, its weird how no one questions *why* she's writing this. This can be about anything else, it could be about actual age play and ddlg but no, it's about a middle aged man and his adopted daughter smashing every 20 pages, which we only found out she was adopted likely because the author had nothing interesting to add besides the guy adding more and more life sentences to his list of charges. And I know for a fact that this is kink, the characters themselves get off on the fact that this relationship is dangerous, illegal and prone to some type of abuse, there's absolutely no way someone can say its okay or that it's supposed to be like Lolita or something but the author and her audience is fine with it. God I hate this. Like actually just fuck Webster, I hope someone checks her hard-drive and gets her an ankle monitor.

10:57 Which is why I'll never read this book. I listened to YOTA's review of it, and that was as far as I could stand. Another book that had severely emotionally stunted characters was the His Name is Augustin series. The protagonist in that book behaved like a nine year old. The only good thing about it was the author never marketed it as a YA book. This one uses 'negative' publicity to market itself, another thing I don't agree with.

i remember YotA going over this with similar points, and she was uncomfortable even though she reads/likes dark romances

I BEEN WAITING to hear your thoughts on this one. I also read some dark stuff in a variety of categories. Usually when I review or talk about a book, I'm responding to the characters and situation in particular or sharing how I read a situation and what I think of it. Authors can write and explore a lot of terrible and extreme situations and I don't think that reflects on them in a negative way specifically. I mean, look at Lolita. Pending on which "commentary" you look at, I've seen some say Lolita glorifies pedophilia while others said obviously it shows a tragedy and an unreliable narrator and others have supposed it expresses some experiences an author has. For me, I think where this book specifically bothered me was the eroticism and romanticism of grooming and pedophilia. It did feel like pedo porn, it wasn't a tragedy or for a point other than titilation that is eroticizing the ages and the relationships. On top of that, while I think that books stand on their own in reader interpretation during the reading, I personally look to the author for intent to compare my experience with what the stated goal was. Webster saying this is a love story and purposefully trying to hide the elements of pedophilia and grooming make the book much more dubious than "just a book with taboo elements." It's the calling it a love story and wanting to expose more people to it to try and convert people that makes it read... a certain really gross way. While authors can't control how readers respond to their stories, if an author writes something and then in personal commentary glorifies it, that's the thing that makes me question a book's purpose and what the author was trying to do. I've seen way too much true crime content that shows how normal SA and CSA actually are and too much normalization and CSA tbh that the commentary of "this is a romance story" is.... something that makes my eyes squint.

I'm taking a step back from dark romance to get back into painting again. Thank you for these reviews, it keeps my brain where it needs to be.

Odd question: what is that caged light behind you on the bookshelf? Is it an old lantern? Looks neat.