"Damn woman, are you Mars? Because my balls have become a prisoner of war." I dont think that pickup-line works but we'll find out soon. Will post updates.

Feyre is 21 în acofas as far as i know

Great video - as are they all! I've really enjoyed watching your content all this year - here's to an equally awesome 2025! Happy New Year!

as a swiftie I’m kinda put off by books with ts inspired titles 😂

The illustrated covers are SO much better. Parents need to look into books before buying them for their kids. My mom & grandma always looked into the books I was getting off amazon before allowing me to buy them. 16 year old me tried to get away with some spicy books hoping they wouldn't look into it lol

With the overconsumption part. I've seen people in HEATED arguments over whether or not physical books or kindles are worse morally (books because of deforestation, kindles because of the lithium batteries) and I was like "hey guys there's a simple solution.....it's called a library" and I feel like if anything going to the library to try a book you heard about and see if you like it before buying needs to be normalized more both inside and outside tiktok/booktok

the way she says ridiculous sounds like the spell (that's a good thing)

Heyo! Great topic to cover! I'll drop my thoughts below, as well as what I want to see for next year: 2024 summary, in order of your points: 1. We need to kill "publishing fan-fiction with the serial numbers filed off" once and for all. Fan-fiction is great. Fan-fiction is creative. Fan-fiction has no place in professional writing. If the author can't (or won't) come up with an original story to publish, they shouldn't be published. Wild that this is a controversial idea. 2. Yeah, leave that all behind. Current and prospective authors should refuse to cater to the lowest common denominator and either they need to learn to catch up, or they find something else to do. Sorry not sorry. 3. Ehhhh, I want this genre to evolve past just being merely "cozy." There are other, far greater ways to tell stories about finding community, peace, and healing than a "cozy" setting, and if I'm honest, I'm kinda fed up with people being all like "oh, but it's escapist" or whatever. No. Escapism does not mean "not confronting the problems we face" and I will die on this hill. 4. See point 3. 5. No 🙂 6. If it's good enough for Chuck Tingle, it's good enough for me lol 7. I hope it dies (along with TikTok, tbh. Sorry not sorry, but I am 100 percent convinced that app causes brain damage.) 8. If the book is good enough, why not? Eragon was original self-published under Paolini's parents' imprint before getting picked up by his agent and published by Random House. 9. Also no 🙂(And this goes for ALL song lyrics as titles, not just Taylor Swift's. Come up with your own that speaks to what your book is, FFS) 10. Ehhhhh, I don't wanna say no, because a really good romantic western would be AWESOME, but I'm not enthused about taking the cowboy aesthetic and pasting it over the mob boss or biker gang aesthetic, tbh. 11. Personally, I think we should just move to all illustrated covers and phase out photo-manipulated covers entirely. Illustrated covers often do a much better job of capturing the soul of a book more than just photoshopping a cover ever could. 12. Maybe let's not with this one. Give it a few years and maybe we can try it again with some more nuance. So that's my thoughts on this year. What do I want to see for next year? 1. I want to see AI-generated content (including AI-generated covers, etc.) crash and burn. Ditto with AI "presses" like Spines. 2. I want to see more actual fantasy and worldbuilding in romantic fantasy, please, I am BEGGING- 3. A wider appreciation for the difference between Plot and Story among both writers and readers. 4. Publishers push back hardcore against book bans and censorship attempts by the incoming administration and their goons. 5. Authors and readers moving further away from seeing critically looking at a work as cringe 6. More people reading books, using libraries, etc. etc. etc.

I NEED a romance between two shadow daddies... I just need that in my life

I want to read the romance in which the cute but plucky union organizer goes undercover, seduces the greedy union-busting billionaire, and then helps kidnap him to force living wages and better working conditions throughout his corporate empire...

Did the author of this book ever figure that being good at drawing would be a _relevantly useful_ skill for being the CEO of an ENTERTAINMENT corporation?!?! Also, whoever said that "real men don't draw" should have a word with the Dutch Masters. Or men who work with blueprints or schematics. Or, really, men who do any sort of masculine-coded work where diagrams would be useful.

I’d like to see more unique covers for romance books. Why do they all have the same colors and illustration style???

The OG shadow daddy: Dracula. (but not Nosferatu, who looks his age...)

I didn't see Alexander Kirigan as "morally grey" - he struck me as more of the "embodiment of pure evil" kinda guy. Watching Alina fall for him was annoying; hearing female fans talk about how hot he is, after having read or watched the whole series, is perplexing to me. I understand being attracted to James Dean bad-boys, but the darkling was an unrelenting sociopath destroying the world. Is that sexy?

I just saw the Pumpkin Spice Cafe one in B&N the other day.

28:04 "Maybe I just enjoy hearing your screams"......someone get Luigi-

I love that you acknowledge both ideas of “let people enjoy things the way they want to” and also “maybe you should read the whole book.” You have a great capacity for empathy and nuance in your takes, and I always really appreciate it

Your hair looks incredible ❤

When it comes to the anti intellectualism trend, I think some of the discussion stems from the way things are phrased. Stating that you prefer shorter books and that larger print with more space between the lines enhances your reading experience is not a strange thing at all. People are allowed to have preferences. But “why are there so many words in this book?!” will cause discourse. When I see these videos, they often come across (in my opinion) as being shocked that books with longer paragraphs and small print exist, rather than sharing their personal reading preferences. I also agree with you about it being related to the need to read more books and putting quantity over quality.

i think most of the tik tokers saying there is too many words on the pages were being ironic, i mean the first girl literally has a pretty good collection of books behind her that are all neatly organized.

In Japan it would just be a Shoujo + fantasy + romance, like Akatsuki no Yona.

I read one book in this genre by mistake. Regretted it ever since. I really gave it a chance by reading all of it first and not being overly sceptical. But it was still unreadable to me. In my (male) expirience the most enjoyable romanse to read is one in which love comes naturally from characters in a setting, not because author needs to show a love story. I think for this type of writting to work for me it would need to balance spiciness with a detailed plot. I love exiting stories. So if you are an author and want your book to be enjoyable to more than very narrow intended demographic make fantasy aspect of romansy equaly as exciting as romanse aspect. PS. Kai with an X killed me LOL

Does anyone have any actually good romantasy recs that aren't just porn

George RR Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" (ie, Game of Thrones) shares the naming pattern of "An X of X and X" (and may have even started it?), but it's clearly *NOT* romantasy or YA - and not just because it's 'darker' and lacks a happy ending. It's a story about political conflict, corruption, and the abuse of power, all in a fantasy setting. I think it's written for adults who can handle moral ambiguity and a world where people do bad things and go unpunished. (In that sense, it's sort of fantasy-noir.). I dislike romantasy because the tropes seem so cliche and predictable, even formulaic, and because they usually seem to be regressive anti-feminist gender stereotypes (female characters who are ruled by emotion, need rescuing / protecting, are hyperfeminine, etc.) Frankly, I find myself putting down a lot of more traditional fantasy as well, because it's heroic or epic themes (the chosen one who's destiny is to defeat the evil lord and save the realm) is essentially a juvenile mythos. I want to read about characters who have to deal with their own limitations and their PTSD, who are torn between conscience and necessity, who are ordinary, unglamorous people thrust into extraordinary situations. I'll take Arya Stark or Jon Snow over Feyre Archeron or Violet Sorrengail any day...

The trope is pedopholia.

is the personification of death in belladonna a skeleton? 'cuz if not, i'm not interested.

We should be reading more classics.

I love annotating my books, mainly because it's super helpful to read through my notes when I'm writing my book reviews.

Honestly, I hate villains who aren’t as complex as others such as Snow, where their whole entire thing is “oh I have such a sad back story now in evil.” Villains have so much potential, especially developing them.

The Office meets morally grey Wattpad rejects

Those who have a difficult time reading dense paragraphs or want to read something more dialogue-based would benefit from picking up plays and movie scripts to read, I think.

I am seriously considering getting a framed poster that says 'Let's all be a bit more critical about what we're reading. Unless it's a spicy novel about a doorknob.'. Epic.

all books are fanfiction :D why someone ever use it like argument ?

Watching this has been pain

1:00 vi in arcane is looking at you👁👄👁

Yes romantasy is ruining fantasy. Most of the people who are saying it isn’t are women or gay men, which, funnily enough, is also the target audience of romantasy. Go figure.

Thank you for saying smth about politics in books. Like 💀 isn't women reading. Writing and interpreting political? Before, we weren't even allowed education. Wars are still going on, and if that is going to be supported in books, count me out of it. Like, stop saying how "booktok is not supposed to be political" LIKE BRO, LITERATURE HAS ALWAYS BEEN POLITICAL

It's kind of wild to me that people would skim read everything and then claim reading is their hobby. If reading is difficult, maybe try using audiobooks to get through more books. It also feels like if they are "reviewing" or promoting books on a platform it's their job/gig and that's a different situation from it just being something they privately do for their own enjoyment, its either for fake internet points or money. I actually like the illustrated cover trend (to an extent) because I really don't want to have a book with a headless naked torso or a scantily clad couple erotically embracing on the cover, that just gives me the ick. At the same time, the ones I have read it didn't feel out of place to have an illustrated cover, I didn't read any bodice rippers or whatever.

i would like to recommend The Last magician (Lisa Maxwell), its a fantasy with a romance subplot, kinda allies to lovers, magic in NY 1900's!, i feel that the balance between romance and fantasy works really good in this one (its a 4 part series btw), for me its one of my favorite series, sometimes i littleeee slow but i never stop reading, i just love it hahaha

The way I completely forgot abt the inheritance the second it was mentioned 😅

I don't know why, but seeing written notes on a book is soooo triggering! Maybe that's why I read on ebooks. :P

I actually fucking hate Romantasy. It ruined Fantasy for me. Get that shit out of our genre. Doesn’t even deserve to be on the same shelf. Should be in its own or even better, the discount shelf.

where is kyoraku from bleach :D

every one loves elfs :D

I love the illustrated covers! People need to look up books and trigger warnings if they want to know what's the deal. I get really upset when people complain they need trigger warnings.... ummm... you can google it faster than complaining on social media and pointing fingers! Be responsible for yourself!!!! Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. 😅

I read a lot (usually 20 to 25 books a year) and I often get asked by coworkers how many I read in a week or a month. I usually say that it depends on the book. I tend to go for longer books, so it can take three weeks to a month sometimes to finish a book. Others I breeze through in a day or two. I bring it up because a lot of these people are surprised to find that I read as few books as I do, as I’m usually reading when people see me in the break room. Some of these people claim to read 100 books a year, and I can only imagine that they’re either reading books that are under 100 pages long or just skimming. To me, it’s not about how many books you read, but about enjoying one book right now. Edit: I only mentioned how many books I read a year to give you an idea of what I consider “reading a lot”. I’m not interested in competing with other people. If you read more books than I do, or fewer, that’s fine. It’s not a race.

Im sorry, is this not a snape x yn/harry/Hermione fic?? The voices would track (didn't harry hear voices or smth?) Like, don't tell me that's not snape, ive seen your game fanfic authors (The tower scene seems familiar if you think of hp. Mh.. I wonder who else famously gets yeeted off a tower and who famously was to blame for it) (Also, isn't the friend plot twist literally barty crouch jr in the 4th book?)

First 20 seconds: please brain stop me from getting her same haircut. You know it will be too much to maintain!

The MC's love interests can be either 25 yr old or 5000 yrs old... but they can't be 50 yrs old cuz everything suddenly becomes too realistic and readers can fully grasp the age gap.

The lack of critical reading skills is so detrimental to society. It increases polarization (because people misread/misreport information), encourages toxic relationships (because some people reading Colleen Hoover, for example, don’t recognize the abuse), and harms academia in particular (because professors are struggling to get students to read anything).