Rant Review | Driving My Obsession is driving me crazy

[@Inoorne]

Y’know….maybe someone should do a video about how dark romance largely seems to be Incel “romance”. Has anyone talked about that yet cause it SEEMS LIKE A PATTERN.

[@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf]

ETA: it feels like the authors that have fully drunk the patriarchy kool aid, (e.g. recreating the tropes about the man’s treatment of the women not reflecting on him, his actions being because he ~just loves her so much, she needs to butter him up and not make him mad, his ~domineering violent control is appropriate and desirable) but aren’t self aware enough to make it anything except a clumsy regurgitation of cultural nonsense. It doesn’t have to be - e.g. John Wick is not an endorsement of RL hitmen - but with a lack of craft and perspective, you end up with this. feel like with the romance genre fighting to move forward - more backlash against uncritical reproduction of r*pe culture, etc - the dregs moved here. And unfortunately most of the people that moved over seem like the kind that got REALLY angry when people asked ‘can you just be self-aware that [x] is not consensual and warn for your fetish.’ I like dark stuff when it’s well executed but Ive basically given up on trying new stuff because I’m so tired of the junk

[@PinkCatsy]

It's because of how thickly patriarchy and misogyny sit in the room.

[@daddytchaik]

I saw a post the other day saying something like that dark romance is supposed to be about the love interest doing “dark” things FOR the protagonist, not TO the protagonist. of course the genre can be broader than that definition, but I think it just goes to show that “dark romance” does not inherently mean “abusive romance”.

[@paytonnicole6510]

​@@daddytchaik omg thank you for saying this, because the idea of someone doing evil on behalf of the love interest sounds like a fun read. But TRULY every "dark" romance I've read so far I'm like.... this is not cute!? And if you think it's cute you should seek help actually?? 🙃

[@ICTmamaB]

​@@daddytchaik THIS IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE!!

[@aydawallace1883]

Sometimes like it genuinely shocks me these horribly misogynistic deeply uncomfortable books are written by actual women like haunting Adeline that’s literally trauma porn of a women being tortured but the author genuinely thought she was writing this deep sensual work it’s scares me a lot that these types of work are becoming mainstream it’s normalizing and romanticizing feminine pain

[@sage7511]

If it makes you feel any better, basically any of these authors who include trigger warnings are deliberately and knowingly writing fetish content. It's not "romance" in the traditional sense, it's just someone publishing their ao3/wattpad/whatever smut. The eroticized trauma and general nastiness is the point-it's catered to a primarily female and/or queer audience that gets off on these particular kinks.

[@ReadingWheNeva]

@@aydawallace1883 Haunting Adeline was the worst dark romance book of my life and I’m a ho for dark romance lol

[@andyareyouok]

⁠@@BBS-dl1ltI agree about sex positivity, but I don’t know how you can say this book doesn’t romanticize violence against women specifically. All the “wh0res” and talk of his mother? Seems pretty specific to me

[@bugco11ector]

@@BBS-dl1ltthe mcs are almost always written as explicitly female so thats a lie

[@weirdobookclub]

It seems like some of you are being intentionally hostile and I will be happy to block you from commenting if I need to 🤷🏻‍♀️ you don’t like my review, make one of your own. Dont go back and forth with people in my comments.

[@courtzeee]

"PUT THEM TITTIES ON DO NOT DISTURB, I BEG YOUUU" is the funniest thing to me omfg

[@kimaya4503]

😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@Priceless_Paige]

I couldn’t stop laughing at all her boob comments!😂😂

[@b.butler6740]

the TWs are very much giving ao3 tags and not actual warnings,,,,,

[@Ceruleansquid-lo3iv]

@@b.butler6740 Honestly, ppl writing tw/cw's need to learn the difference

[@RainWelsh]

That’s 100% what they are, whoever’s created this travesty saw that other books contained trigger warnings and decided that must actually be the kinks list, which is… deeply upsetting, in half a dozen ways

[@annika94323]

I was just thinking that!!!!! The fanfiction-ication of literature....

[@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf]

@@RainWelshplus I don’t get why it’s so hard to write a cheeky little forward/intro teaser - those were around before TWs were frequent - and then have a more serious TW. If you’re afraid of spoilers, put the TW list at the back and give a page number?

[@RainWelsh]

@@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf exactly, yeah, you can have your fun little intro section, then have the TWs. Even put a warning at the front that these could be considered spoilers so if you care about that more than any potential triggers don’t read on, then as you say put the warnings somewhere easily findable, nothing wrong with that. But if you’re going to do TWs, take the time to do them properly.

[@DumiNihi]

I hate how dark romance has become a place for incels, misogyny and abuse instead of a romantic pairing in dark surroundings/situations

[@katrinamillings3651]

Yeah, the early dark romance authors are pretty good. Writers just started seeing how much money they made and flooded it with books without taking to the time to really read any themselves and find out what it really is.

[@LaLaLonna]

Women are writting a lot/most of these though, which disturbs me. You find a lot of men incels writting extreme horror books, which sucks but kind of expected...

[@ZehDwarfSML]

This doesn’t sound like a dark romance. As someone who enjoys dark romance, this feels like the opening to a criminal minds episode.

[@lindseyluvinglife9259]

Def the villain’s origin story. Reid would have a hay day profiling these guys

[@anaiswinter9893]

yup......absolutely.....

[@angelic_hime2639]

most booktok boyfriends would be on criminal minds episodes as unsubs lmafo

[@aesinam]

Lol it tracks as they always seem to have women who love them and do anything for them in the show as well. ​@@angelic_hime2639

[@Lilfroggyonalillypad]

“ima hold your hand- no im not don’t f*cking touch me” i laughed way to hard at that

[@dreamer9375]

I loved it😂😂

[@Fl3shMound]

10:14 "Men will do anything except go to therapy" Literally every love interest in these dark romances

[@Wizardmutt]

In art history I learned that there’s always a fetishization of women with red hair in paintings and artworks because they were seen as more sexually desirable. I always think about that when I hear about these red head protagonists

[@bishielurfer]

As a natural redhead, I can tell you it it's not just in art 🥲

[@Nigh_Temptation]

@@bishielurfer as a fellow red head, TRUE 💀

[@redlikeroses1062]

@@BBS-dl1lt I like redheads and I know a bunch of people who do. It’s such a common preference? It’s like saying I like people with blue eyes, it’s a regular preference. Unless I’m misunderstanding your comment?

[@redlikeroses1062]

@@BBS-dl1ltAlso to add on because I feel like I came off aggressive, I’m just curious and confused I’m not trying to attack you. I’m really curious in why you think that.

[@mittag983]

​@@redlikeroses1062I am a redhead no one finds me hot at all

[@jazalvarez313]

“Hand necklace” My mind: “you mean a bracelet???” 😂😂😂

[@aesinam]

😂😂😂😂

[@sallyfield2895]

I cackled at this. I literally thought of a necklace that was hands. But like metal hands.

[@silkshines00]

people REALLY gotta learn the difference between AO3 smut tags and trigger warnings. I PROMISE these are different things!

[@RainWelsh]

I’m crying laughing at the way every time you say whore you say it like WHORRRE, even when you’re not quoting someone. Perfectly normal speaking voice straight into WHORRRE, gets me every time

[@bugco11ector]

using a trigger warnings page like its the tags on ao3 is craaazy 😭😭 like maybe just try using that website first

[@Inoorne]

That was my first thought too. If you don’t know the difference between tags and TWs you probably aren’t ready to publish a book yet 😅

[@VivStarlight]

even most ao3 tags are better than this tbh!! like for the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat fics ive read the triggers are almost always thorough and if there are jokes theyre at the end. we have GOT to get a standardized list of triggers for these authors to use i swear

[@bugco11ector]

@@VivStarlight exactlyyyy

[@anaiswinter9893]

yeah......I like fanfic tags but they are something different from a straight list of trigger warnings.

[@emackenzie]

I've been seeing a lot of fanfic authors falling into this lately. Saw one that started with "Content Warning: female main character"

[@AlexandraUtschig]

How tf is this supposed to be a romance? This is just an abuse story. There's absolutely nothing the guy can do to redeem himself and make him a love interest.

[@Zanyotaku]

Seriously. When I think of the concept of a “dark romance” (moreso than the reality of it, just like as a concept) I would think “it’s like unhealthy but intense, like in reality it would be stressful but it makes decent exciting drama in the story” that would be the appeal in my mind. Like a villain who would do horrible things “for you”, that could be romantic in theory, in an unhealthy melodramatic kinda way. But this is just miserable sounding, like sometimes I can get the appeal but this book does genuinely baffle me. He’s a full on serial killer and not even a “fun” one like Hannibal or something he’s just a miserable stain with no redeeming qualities. 😂

[@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf]

@@ZanyotakuI think a lot of these authors have so much internalized misogyny/patriarchy that men have that ‘presumed humanity’ / default empathy placed above the personhood of everyone else. (So long as they’re conventionally desirable/attractive) and when they write through that filter, the logical gaps of their worldview create giant holes in the story.

[@xeenoe]

i LOATHE this trend of violently misogynistic books being written by women. these books sound like the opening to a Law and Order or Criminal Minds episode, and yet it's women romanticizing the abuse and suffering of their protagonists. not only does it play into the disgusting treatment women experience already, it teaches younger women and girls that this type of abuse is romantic or desirable or "just the way some men are." I hate it to no end.

[@ah-sh9dw]

Not to mention the men who see women writing this and then point to it when told to stop being abusive

[@xeenoe]

@@ah-sh9dw LITERALLY. I don't like talking like this but cuz it feels like a slippery slope to victim blaming, but like- these authors literally setting us back ㅠㅠ

[@kidawesomeness123]

@@xeenoe. Its not the authors fault abusive men are abusive. Shitty men will always try to shift the blame onto someone that isnt them. Dont let them convince you their actions are any womens fault or justification.

[@vvitch-mist20]

The fact this is labeled a contemporary romance on GoodReads irritates me to no end. Like it being a dark romance is also annoying because it's not romantic in the slightest. I hate it. Hate hate hate it.

[@LemonDrop-zx2ml]

This kind of book feels like the literary equivalent of putting poop in a bowl and trying to pass it off as chocolate pudding. I'm not trying to put down things like fanfiction or erotica, but these are just so icky and mind-numbing that I can't understand how people enjoy them, much less label them romances.

[@jstarstudios7110]

@@LemonDrop-zx2mlFr - you can enjoy fucked-up porn and still be a good person, but please! You must acknowledge that it's not romance! It's fucked-up porn! To responsibly consume it you need to admit that it would be fucked up if it happened, and to not romanticize it.

[@BonseyJonsey]

I think a way to do an actually fun stalker romance is to have the victim be not only aware, but really into everything going on Not Stockholm syndrome or someone starting off being terrified, but someone equally deranged but in the opposite direction. Almost like a form of consensual non consent Leaving doors unlocked, opening window blinds to give the stalker a better peek, and generally letting these terrible things happen because they're super into it Get a couple that matches each other's freak

[@sallyfield2895]

O yes! It's giving brat energy. O no! I left the door cracked. It would terrible if a big bad man come in here. Lmao

[@alexandrahernandez2768]

this book broke me and my negative review is right under the authors "review" on goodreads and its my biggest accomplishment lmao

[@aesinam]

Love that for you 😂

[@cupid2876]

I don’t think this author has interacted with a stripper in their life. 1. Absolutely no stripper is turning down a wad of cash because the guy is “ugly” and 2. Stripping requires as much effort as dancing so if Oaklyn can’t dance how can she strip????

[@sallyfield2895]

Maybe due to the length of time for a performance as well as the necessary practice time associated with professional dancing? That's the only thing I can think of. She maybe can twerk for 3 to 5 min and then sit down.although in my mind if she can strip with maybe physical therapy, she maybe could still dance. Really idfk

[@patriciagoncalves165]

I really don't understand why male leads always have to be super misogynistic and the author try to make it hot. It's women writing for women!

[@cassettetape7643]

Apparently the trigger warning i needed was the bit about him climbing into the back seat of his jeep to drive it... cause that used to be a recurring nightmare i had for over a decade, & i was NOT prepared to get sent back there😂😂😭

[@alisaurus4224]

My husband is so dang tall that to fit in the car he has to slide the seat base as far back as it goes and also recline the seatback, so his head is actually in the backseat area when he drives. But I don’t think this author meant that, or we would’ve had a bunch of Ali Hazelwood-type stuff about him being soooo tall and her being soooo tiny

[@sallyfield2895]

Its a super common dream usually meaning you have feelings of lack of control in your waking hours. I get a dream like that when I see a mail truck and my brain can't seem to figure out how they drive. I lived in a rural area and the mail trucks were regular trucks sometimes.

[@silkshines00]

as a writer I think it might actually serve these mediocre paper thinned plot abuse romance books to stick to the woman's POV. Like, I think *they* think they need to have the inner conflict and the change of heart on the page from the man's own head, but they do it sooo badly that I think even the floating idea that he may actually hate her/be lying/be evil would work better than ACTUALLY hearing these guy's thoughts.

[@paytonnicole6510]

YES. Like if you want to fall in love with a stalker that's on you, and there's maybe an element of that that's kind of spooky horror movie vibes that I can appreciate. But these men are evil, and they are not protagonists, and they should not be treated as such! 😭

[@bbo7002]

Yeah! Reminds me of the 50 Shades nonsense - when u read the first three books from Female MC's pov, it's pretty obvious to anyone with a lick of sense that Male MC is a massive douchcanoe. But there's still plausible deniability, u still see the guy thru FMC's eyes so u can take the "unreliable narrator" approach and assume that there are things FMC doesn't know about, therefore it's possible that MMC isn't what he seems. That leaves him room to grow as a character & change the reader's perception of him. Which.....didn't happen in 50 Shades, but that's because those books are awful 😂 Where the author rly messed up is adding three MORE books, this time from MMC's pov. Now the audience could see first-hand how repugnant MMC was WITHOUT FMC's ~softening effect~, and he was even WORSE than ppl expected!! He's calculating, self aware, and remorseless, and now we have it in print that he's a monster. All plausible deniability is gone, there's no argument to be made. He is terrible, and the author gladly told us about it!! U can't even pretend anymore, it's too blatant and obvious!! If that's the kind of character u like, no hate to u, that's totally fine! But don't LIE and tell ur audience that MMC is "a GREAT guy, really, I promise!!" & expect us to believe it when u show us that's not true. Leave a little mystery, leave room for debate and interpretation - that's one thing. But showing us a dog and insisting that it's a cat when we can clearly see that it's a dog is totally different. It's dishonest and kind of insulting, like do these authors think that their readers are stupid?? We have basic reading comprehension, thanks!! So maybe if u want a more nuanced story........u should actually WRITE ONE 😒

[@jtru0]

Thank you for the "serious cap" moments. They are greatly appreciated.

[@AlteaRoseArt]

So there was a time when Poison Ivy dated Harvey Dent (two face) and now I wanna know if this was somehow a terrible Batman fanfiction. You're amazing as always, can't wait to listen to this with my husband on our road trip soon ♡♡♡

[@secret_badass]

I haven’t read it yet, but Chances by Lee Jacquot is supposed to be inspired by Harvey Dent and the Batman universe

[@jstarstudios7110]

OMG I BET IT WAS OMG

[@merandasomnolentgamer8323]

I hate how plausible your theory is. :(

[@5dollarguccislides87]

Something that I've noticed is that a for a lot of dark romance books, a lot of the trauma, for the male MC at least, comes from the mom. They're evil, ruthless abusers who desrve everything horrible that comes to them. The fathers, on the other hand, were either absent, dead, or praised as some hero. I just think it's super interesting and shows how people percieve mothers and fathers, especially in relation to childhood trauma.

[@SilverDomainShrine7]

Legit the first character like this I thought of was Christian Grey. The mommy issues and taking it on the fem lead fits him perfectly. But oh no the tragic backstory, six pack abs, and him being occasionally doing the bare minimum makes him a good guy deep down!!! 💀

[@ah-sh9dw]

Wait, how did I never notice

[@SarahSwift-sc7hk]

But have you noticed that fictional mothers have been sculpting their (especially male) children into monsters since storytelling began? I understand WHY it makes a more realistic (because dads haven't raised kids as much) but also interesting/upsetting/and DARK (because moms are supposed to be GOOD) plot point but its EVERYWHERE and so annoying.

[@Necrovia]

What fustrates me to no end it how the TW are *not* trigger warnings! Those are like a03 tags! I don't understand how these authors struggle so badly when it comes to putting down proper warnings for their "dark romance" books. On that same note, I don't even feel comfortable calling these "romance" books. They're way closer to erotica stories then a romance and the fact that alot of authors are mixing the two genres around beacuse romance is more marketable is NOT a good thing!

[@HomegirlMontoyaDPS]

@@Necrovia somewhere along the line "dark romance" became "horror with at least one rape scene," and i struggle to understand the intended audience for these books at this point. having dark fantasies and fetishes is one thing, but do people really, truly find material like this both engaging and arousing?

[@aesinam]

​@@HomegirlMontoyaDPSbooktok is definitely the audience for these books.

[@Baby.Puss.In.Boots.]

There's something extra frustrating for me that so many erotica writers deeply despise SWs

[@sallyfield2895]

I think it stems from the deep-seated misogyny a lot of these writers don't realize they have.

[@tornado_2063]

I've watched way too many CoHo-Rant-Reviews, bc why did I think that the female protagonist would be pregnant by the epilogue 💀

[@legsorcist]

cannot get over how disgustingly dehumanizing this writing frames SWers. the author can claim it’s not a reflection of their beliefs but i cannot imagine anyone with any actual empathy for SWers being able to write this stuff, and i can’t imagine any relating to the mc at all. it’s purely sexual fantasy for the types of women who are repulsed by actual SWers. the main character is a “real” dancer who never once empathizes with any of her coworkers and at every single turn dehumanizes their “kind”. to be fair, i couldn’t stomach any more than 45 minutes of this review, but i can’t imagine the happy ending the author mentions being both of them realizing the error of their ways, the man dying, and the woman standing by her fellow working girls. putting out a book with writing like that is genuinely so irresponsible, especially when there are so many real life victims that, because of stuff like this, are stripped of all dignity and humanity even in death, and even by people who claim that they feel bad. sorry for ranting but i don’t think i’ve ever seen a depiction of sw this degrading and vile, which is really saying something

[@rosieisawitch]

just wait till my ACTUAL dark romance toxic yuri 500 page long trainwreck of a sci fic book comes out trust ill send you a copy 🤞

[@kurokura8379]

@@rosieisawitch i NEED that in my life. Best of luck in publishing your book!

[@billiep1603]

I need it omg

[@Jazminsaysit]

NEED

[@mrspreminger]

omg yes please

[@bzzzzzzzzzz2075]

the masses are starving for your toxic yuri

[@pippycat2842]

For some reason the way the trigger warning about stripping being the only one followed up with “does not reflect the authors beliefs” makes it sound like the rest of the triggers DO reflect her beliefs. Which would be incredibly concerning if so 😅

[@SallySueSaywhatagain]

Plus, there's no way the author DOESN'T actually feel that way about sworkers, not with the way every single character who brings it up talks about the profession with so much hatred. If those truly were "not a reflection of the author's beliefs," you would expect at least someone in the story to not think and talk with so much disgust and contempt about swork.

[@emilieboudreault3887]

I DIED when linkin park's papercut started played faintly in the background 🤣🤣

[@user-mh7db7ei1s]

I'm only halfway through this video and I'm absolutely baffled that Amrose is the love interest and not the villain. Like... this is a horror novel. This is genuinely the worst fear of most women: having some rando get violently attached to you for no discernable reason. How is this a romance? Who finds this man attractive? Just... why are male leads like this so popular?????

[@kyokurasakura5193]

the way he thinks and talks is like genuinely so cringe its giving me second hand embarrassment, gosh but your voice makes it much more enjoyable

[@ingamarrays]

Oomfg made my afternoon. The voices you do are so good. They are cannon in my head for all romance characters now

[@LoFi_Punk]

@@ingamarrays the phrase "little butterfly" plays in my head several times a day and I can only hear it in her voice and it makes me giggle Everytime

[@bbo7002]

​@@LoFi_PunkSUGAR, BABY 🦋🦋🦋

[@arieldee2665]

The thing I found after being S.A'd is I could no longer find the people who did those things to me attractive, no matter how attractive I found them prior. I've found these people's very names unattractive after the fact and that's a string of letters. And while I get that some people may process that trauma different and may be drawn to someone who reminds them of that because trauma is a complicated and messy thing. But yeah, it seems like a lot of dark romance only appeals to people in the second camp and it feels a bit alienating at times.

[@cc26650]

as someone who went to college for dance and planned on becoming a professional dancer, when that didn’t happen, i started teaching dance. Oaktree easily could’ve kept dance in her life by teaching where she trained/where she worked/as a sub (especially considering it takes place in New York, one of the dance capitals of the world) but she just had to work at a sleazy club because how would 👹AMBROSE👹 start obsessing over her 🙄

[@aesinam]

She could have even gotten a completely different job and just taught part time (many adults learning dancing these days), just found a casual group for dancing etc

[@dummyberrry]

This would be so much better if the story is about a traumatised man who learns that sex workers are people too, and the mental conflict is done better. The part when he sees her at the market was a perfect occasion

[@monnie_monika]

your character voices always make me HOWL I freaking love you

[@mcdonaldsdumpsterdiver539]

**SPOILERS** my biggest thing with this book is the fact he NEVER apologizes for calling her a wh0re/s|ut even though it was said a few times that oaklyn was super upset by those terms knowing her abusive mother (WHO ABADONED HER AND LEFT HER RELATIVELY HOMELESS EVEN WHEN HER PARENTS ARE SUPERRRRRR WEALTHY) says them to her and its never brought up again. its the best worst book ive ever read, if this wasnt supposed to be romance this would just be splatterpunk levels of torture media.

[@pippycat2842]

I feel so stupid because when you said hand necklaces I was like… but isn’t that just a bracelet? 😭😭 Well, you learn something new every day

[@LeoGirl80]

Omg I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one that was confusion at first when she said that! Lol

[@catrinapintada9437]

@pippycat2842 lmaoo I thought the exact same thing

[@mudlizardz]

i really wish people would stop writing characters as disabled, scarred, disfigured, with body and limb differences as a shortcut to make them more angsty, self loathing, and ""dark"". its quite frustrating to see the same shallow portrayal all the goddamn time. i feel like this is especially prevelant with cishet male characters because there is something seen as 'tragic' in the abled cishet (often white) man being 'emasculated' by disability. is that always intentional? probably not. but grief, discrimination, alienation, self loathing, etc are experiences that can be explored in fiction without falling into the same unnuanced bs. needless to say, people with extensive scars and disfigurements are not any more edgy than those who do not lol. pls pls pls writers do better than relying on one dimensional stereotypes and embrace the multifaceted experiences of disablity and body differences (acquired or genetic).

[@mittag983]

No I'm feeling bad for having a disfigured mercenary/contract killer character in my book 🙈 (He might want revenge but he's a goofball I swear! Oh and he's also not the MCs love interest he's a side character... 😅) Edit: Not because of his looks, but because one of the MCs (possesed) friends killed his wife. I don't like Dabi types of characters lol.

[@aesinam]

I think some of the authors feel like they're being 'inclusive' by having disabled or disfigured main characters. The stupid part is they make that their entire personality or reason for their actions. There are some good books where the characters just happen to be disabled or disfigured but that's not all there is to them or reasons for their actions even if they might be self conscious sometimes (this is natural)

[@Hyzentley]

It is so ableist and its not talked about enough

[@m4l613]

right! it really really sucks, even if every individual author isnt intentionally setting out to be like "well having a disabled body means you are evil automatically", there really needs to be some reflection in this genre why SO MANY of these authors set out to design a fucked up evil guy and immediately cover him in scars. (and make him ""psychotic"" too, but let me not stray) i mean, criminal activities danger blah blah blah, but theres never anyone who is just.. scarred. its always a visual shorthand for being fucked up! like this guy didnt even get his scars in the fighting ring theyre from when he was a baby so theyre just a visual signifier that hes a bad guy and a reason to STUFF this book with ableism! as common as this stuff is THIS book really struck me with the ableism, goodness gracious, and im sure the author would say well those are just both of their inner thoughts and insecurities but like... jesus. pages and pages of complete vitriol towards disabled and visually different people its like actually bonkers. most, i would easily venture to say nearly all, heavily scarred people are not evil and they also like, live their lives, not every second of every day thinking of how anguished they are about being scarred and unloveable. and frankly, i think people only dont think of it as odd because they imagine disabled people as these constant burning pyres of suffering? imagine if he was this constantly obsessed with having like. moles. it would feel weird! hes had those scars essentially his whole life, and theyre still nearly the #1 thing on his mind! but obviously no one can be happy, or even just content or used to their own life theyve lived their whole life, AND disabled! of course hes constantly obsessed with his scarring and of course her life is over and dreams dead because she lost some of her mobility! thats how disability works, silly. 0 sensitivity readers in sight. i just have to imagine they all immediately fled!

[@m4l613]

@mittag983 you dont have to feel bad, just make sure you give him a personality and character outside of being visually different. (and try to avoid the word "disfigured", if you dont mind!) just like writing any sort of character from a minority population or an experience you dont personally have, the offensive part isnt them existing, its the portrayal! badly written disabled characters are often fetishized for their misery. just make him a person who has scars :) if you want to go the extra mile, seek out some info on what being scarred might actually be like for him from people who are! maybe he experiences flareups of chronic pain, or numbness or itchiness, and indeed he may face discrimination and may feel insecure for being visually different. just dont do..... uh, what this book did, or what any of these dark romance books tend to do, and if you are worried about overdoing it you can always just simply let him be a person who looks different. especially for a side character, he really doesnt need to be obsessed on every page with how horrible being scarred is. hes got that dead wife to worry about anyway, doesnt he! :P

[@bishielurfer]

Your breakdown of the numbers made me realize that, if she's that desperate for a car, there's no reason she couldn't have gotten one at this point. A few years ago, my car suddenly stopped turning on. I needed another one right away to get to and from work. I was able to get a used car for just over 2,000 (and it's still running). So like... The whole premise of her just working there to get a car doesn't really hold up. Her motivations make very little sense. Like maybe it could have become an exploration of her conflicted feelings but it mostly just seemed like the author just really didn't seem to have a consistent idea of what this character is supposed to be other than a victim of a trauma train.

[@alisaurus4224]

I’m halfway through so this may happen later, but “i need a car to leave this deadend town” is totally understandable. “I work a shit job to get a car for uhhh reasons” when car ownership brings expenses like gas and insurance is dumb

[@bbo7002]

​@@alisaurus4224yeah esp if she's in nyc, we have taxi cabs & the subway at nearly all hours, plus there's uber, bus & express bus, even a ferry depending on where ur heading. I don't doubt that a car COULD be helpful depending on where she lives specifically, but even tho the public transport isn't perfect, it's still reliable enough that not having a car isn't rly a problem. Maybe the author has never been to NY and is basing her setting off a different city?? Or maybe she never meant NYC at all, maybe she was imagining one of the the smaller, more suburban or rural parts of the state?? 🤨

[@daniellehershey4731]

The voices you add to these characters is actually the greatest thing and helps accentuate how dumb it all is Lolol

[@icarus4549]

a lot of dark romance books seem to just be the author imagining every possible trauma and taboo kink and then throwing them together in a word document and at a certain point it kind makes you think, like, why don't they just write horror? is it because romance has broader appeal? because they want to write sex scenes that are meant to be sexually gratifying? i feel like half the books i see talked about wouldn't be criticized nearly as much if they were advertised as being horror or thriller and it baffles me why the authors just... don't do that lol

[@aesinam]

Because, like you mentioned, romance sells better. That's why Colleen Hoover books are marketed as romance when they're chic lits

[@suunnnnyd]

3:21 "some scars run deeper than the eye can see-" *maniacal laughter* A little disappointed we didn't get the acorn clip from chicken little 😔

[@weirdobookclub]

That’s because I’ve never seen chicken little. I’m sorry!!!!

[@suunnnnyd]

@@weirdobookclub HELP MOTHER RESPONDED, I FORGET HOW TO ACT (great movie tho, highly recommend lol)

[@Topboxicle]

The kitty reveal and the cake smoosh was honestly so needed after this train wreck of a book

[@SilverDomainShrine7]

When the main chick made that Uber comment- I relate so much. Legit Uber prices will SKY ROCKET cause of so many people needing Ubers all at once, especially after busy events. Like I’m just trying to go homeeeeeee

[@kma937510]

"Not a reflection of the author's beliefs" is craaazy given how much he hates sex workers. 😂😭 also I think authors are starting to confuse content warnings and trigger warnings. 🤧

[@andiman44]

There’s a difference? I didn’t know that

[@ettaetta439]

​​​@@andiman44there is. A content warning would be "this book has explicit scenes." A trigger warning would be "this book has death of a child in it." One is just something that people may want to avoid, the other is something that will trigger someone. A book having somnophilia, BDSM, gore, etc, is worthy of a content warning. These plot points in themselves are not triggers, but they will help a person decide whether they want to read the book or not. However, depictions of SA, miscarrying, mental health disorders-- aka things that cause actual trauma in real life, require a trigger warning for those who are sensitive to those traumas.

[@maryjunewrites]

This isn’t dark romance. This feels like extreme horror.

[@_decaysea]

Didn't expect to catch strays for being blonde today 😭😭

[@ah-sh9dw]

That was so weird. I thought she was gonna say something about blonde being overly fetishized, especially by white supremacists, but instead she pulls out a new spin on the classic "blondes are stupid"

[@weirdobookclub]

Nah just a completely unserious and baseless theory that if fictional blonde men don’t outgrow their baby blonde hair, maybe they don’t emotionally grow up either.

[@ah-sh9dw]

​​@@weirdobookclublmao, your jokes are too believable

[@weirdobookclub]

I should’ve been an actress I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@Topboxicle]

I already knew the author wasn't going to take these topics seriously when the trigger warnings read more like Ao3 tags. But I wasn't prepared for how unhinged this is. The only thing getting me through this is the 'frat voice' and the humour. My favourite (In a thanks I hate it kinda way) unhinged moments. -Main dude crushing is own thing when he realises the woman he's jacking it to is a stripper. -Main dude thinking of mother in horny situations (multiple times) -The entire lead up and the 'revenge acorn' scene -Main women hoping the dude that sa'd her (nearly worse) goes for the barely adults -Main dude calling anything he does humane -Main dude having a crisis trying to comprehend consent at the bathroom -At some point after pee being mentioned roughly the third time, I realise it's probably the author's barely disguised fetish -Main dude can excuse murder if the main women had fake tits -Main woman seeing anything in Main dude other then violence -Main woman gets revenge in the worse way possible, literally the worst, and it becomes a bonding experience because we're in hell -It's nearly the end of the book and main dude is still comparing his mother to someone he's attracted too -Main dude buys out the club for some kill and chill, main woman is all in, it's framed as romantic -Main dude gets the fight club, because god forbid this man faces a single consequence.

[@maddstermind11037]

legitimately, this is so close to the plot of so many forensic files episodes - which, yknow. are REAL CASES. this author looked at sex workers being targeted by people like this and went "well isnt that romantic!"

[@mst3kharris]

When you said “Asterisk,” I thought of the French comics character Astérix, who is blond, and I was bewildered as to what Astérix could have done to make you hate blond men so much 😆 My brain goes odd places sometimes.

[@hb37d]

cindy's part two and this back to back is exactly what i needed in this political climate

[@amonrawya3064]

Oh wow this is.... this is so unbelievably vile 😭 I was not expecting it to be worse than Haunting Adeline

[@joyc.e.7511]

The only impressive thing about it, tbh

[@gabrielaferreira3381]

"She smells like defeat with a hint of vanilla" OMG girl that's literally my perfume she's so me 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@Prizzlesticks]

The phone drop at the end. 🤣 You know, it's kinda sad that the best book you've read on this channel so far seems to be about an erotic encounter with a literal door, and no other book can measure up ...

[@aesinam]

Says a lot about the authors in the genre she reads doesn't it?

[@alymarie3512]

Idk when I was a stripper I never went to grocery stores, I just subsided off the souls of men, as most SWers do 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

[@weirdobookclub]

😂😂😂

[@spoonsforkever]

Lol. Current stripper here, can confirm. 😂

[@sage7511]

Posion Ivy.... more like Poison Oak(lyn)

[@LeoGirl80]

‘Revenge acorn’ shouldn’t have made me cackle as hard as it did, but here we are 😂😂😂😂 As always, thank you for your continued service of reading terrible books and telling us about them. ❤

[@JayReadsAndRants]

oh my god "so quiet i can hear a mouse piss on cotton" i didnt know anyone else used that phrase! i'm from south AL and we use that all the time here lol. amazing vid as usual!!!

[@sageveinot]

i feel like at any point during this book you could have played the law and order SVU intro and it would have made sense

[@aesinam]

Criminal Minds too lol

[@07tthom]

"Defeat with a hint of vanilla" 😂😂😂😂😂

[@HunterKeris-jh6qs]

I read another book in this series, it was so bad, I gave up reading for like 6 months. I was like wow, if this is where we’re at, I really need new hobbies. Love your reviews, thank you posting!!

[@likeitspinkscoob]

The trigger warnings really got me this time lmfao usually it takes a little longer before I'm questioning everything. Love these videos!!

[@Reno-jd2fe]

Everyone shut up…….. OUR QUEEN HAS ARRIVED.

[@andchimeras]

eads With Rachel reviewed a dark romance with jokey-joke "trigger warnings" the other day too. I think a lot of DR writers struggle with taking content notes seriously because you have to reflect on what's in the story and what a reader might want to know so they can miss your book. You have to think about what you're writing, why, and for whom. Self-reflection is hard 😥. And/or these writers don't actually take TW seriously at all and only do them because they think they have to 🤷

[@aesinam]

I think it's more likely they don't understand what trigger warnings are and how to connect the right ones to their writing. They read books, see tropes and decide to pump all in one book without any understanding

[@clueless1504]

I also despise blonde love interests, your theory is the most accurate explanation of my problem i’ve ever heard

[@zpurplex]

I lost it at 'watching, waiting' because that's exactly the song that played in my brain!

[@KazMorg2198]

Just started your video and honestly the MC's names sounding like breakfast cereals had me 😂😂

[@alisaurus4224]

“Oaklyn & Ambrose” sounds like a deep South law firm

[@crowley.blackwood]

"primal" in the trigger warnings is probably supposed to be referencing the kink, so like predator prey dynamics basically

[@isaacbenrubi9613]

20K! Congratulations! That's, like, a lot of K's, my dude.

[@alisinclaire9021]

I've never liked the word "wh*re," but I giggle every time you say it that way😅

[@Oobs212]

We, as a society, need to come together and put a stop to this insistence that every romance protag needs to have a "cute" nickname. Tragedy? This ends here.

[@jaginaiaelectrizs6341]

Your inserted graphics and movie clips and such have me rolling with laughter! I love it-please, never stop😊💖

[@applebonker141]

Serious 🎩on: (probably going to be long) So, I became introduced to your channel through Reads with Rachel and I've been following along since about..."Pawn and the Puppet"? I think that was my first rant review of yours I watched. going back and forth from yours and her rant reviews, I've had a lot of thoughts about the bad books you've talked about and maybe overthinking to some degree and it kind of caused me to unpack a lot of stuff on my end. I had a lot of life changes in the last couple of years including pulling myself out of a toxic one-side parasocial relationship with an Internet personality (I won't say who), my mother passing from cancer in 2020 and coming out as non-binary (my pronouns are shey/they, they/them. it depends on the situation) and in just thinking about these stories as you rant and talk about them caused me to actually think about my own desires. Initially I didn't think coming out as non-binary was that big of a shift but I was kind of in a place of not really reading/consuming a lot of sexually explicit stories and allowing myself to just acclimate back into "safer" thoughts and those thoughts made me realize how much I sort of normalized/repressed/downplayed like being raised Mormon, being bullied in school and feeling "othered" for a lot of reasons, never feeling much desire or attraction to guys and when I did, feeling intense guilt and shame about those feelings, being (for lack of a better term for it) groomed online as a teenager through chat rooms and IMs...like being in a place to look at those feelings in hindsight with some kind of clarity, kind of realizing "oh, I was straight up scared of my own desire because it felt 'unnatural' and it made me vulnerable to being preyed on because that's what always happened and I was made to go along with these roleplay situations because well, I did ask for it. I did message them first. I'm complicit. it's my fault. I should just get used to it." and how much of this compulsory heterosexual attitude I had was just "I should just get used to this." but never knowing why it felt gross and weird and uncomfortable. (Sorry if that's too TMI. The past couple of months have been a LOT for me to process) I like horror movies, spooky and dark things. In a weird way, horror movies did help me process the grief of my mother's passing in its own way and I believe in the potential of dark media to give words or voice to uncomfortable, touchy subjects or just evoke a concept or idea in a way that's more figurative or symbolic. Granted, I am on the spectrum and sometimes I have to mull over something because I have a hard time not interpreting things overly literally and also granted, the rant reviews you do are only a small slice of a bigger genre I myself haven't explored on my own but I have this honestly kind of deflated feeling of "this is all these authors can do? it's just toxic gender roles with extra steps." With everything 'dark romance' could encapsulate, why is it just a man brutalizing a woman in different ways, and she just gets used to it? where's the variety? female domination? PEGGING? Sapphic stuff? or just horror stuff, like psychological horror? Body horror? COSMIC horror? With the wishy-washy attitude towards trigger warnings (either trying to be cutesy or just straight up leaving things OUT of a trigger warnings list), poor writing, typos, flat characters, poor plotting, it comes off less like a romance genre in its own right and more like grindhouse shit. I'm just annoyed because like I said, the potential is there! You can do so much more, even just explore different kinds of fantasies. Not everyone has stalking fantasies or abduction fantasies or r@pe fantasies, just saying. Or just have them be written better. tl;dr to bring it back around, I do appreciate the care and consideration to talking about the dark heavy subjects on your channel and your sense of humor and jokes make the upsetting stuff go down easier. Istg, I can't listen to "Butterfly" by Crazy Town without being like "hahaha ewww" thinking about "Wings of a Butterfly". Granted, I'm in recovery for a lot of things and still in some kind of healing journey but in a way, your videos being so entertaining and watching them over and over again has caused me to think about things I maybe would never have asked myself so thank you for that. 🥲

[@weirdobookclub]

I appreciate you sharing all this with me and I’m so happy to hear my videos have been something good for you. Whether just being entertaining or causing you to think on things you otherwise weren’t, it means a lot to hear that the seemingly silly little videos I make are doing more for folks. I’m sorry you had so much come at you at once but it sounds like you’re taking care of yourself and taking time to figure out how to best do that! I wish you all the best 🥰💕

[@SaraGrossaint]

"Magical Mits" absolutely fucking SENT me, thank you so much for that lol

[@nenakarra2579]

THANK YOU THANK YOU. Your "he's hot so it's okay" rant and how hypocritical and lazy it is, is spot ON.

[@GigglyVirtuoso]

Everybody CALM DOWN new rant review just dropped 🗣🗣🗣

[@flabershlap101]

I like to write. I write fanfic. It's easy and indulgent. In fact, I love writing and reading it both, and I kinda love how ridiculous it can be. That TW list was literally a list of AO3 tags, and it's embarassing. Imagine publishing a whole book, not knowing the difference between content tags consistent with chronically online teenagers and actual trigger warnings for real traumatic subjects. It makes criminal behavior seem like "it's just kinky!!" and like a lack of consent is cute and fun. Less importantly, of course, it paints fanfiction and fic writers as ignorant and unable to actually write with care and consideration. Hate it

[@Starrclown]

12:35: As a blonde dude who's hair stayed dirty blonde, you're probably not that off

[@EvasiveMuse]

I'm a big fan of the male main character voice. Makes it more hilarious to hear them all sound like characters from an episode of Sonic the hedgehog animated series.

[@schmacker101]

not the sam and dean mention 😭😭😭😭 i was always thrown by the fact that dean fit the prophecy's definition of a "good man" after watching him like. be racist LOL

[@Vampgurl202]

@schmacker101 so not that I don't believe you, but it's been a hot minute since I've watched Supernatural and I don't remember Dean being racist. Is there a specific episode you could point me to to rewatch, or like a video on yt you could recommend?

[@schmacker101]

@Vampgurl202 well it's nothing severe lol i just feel like fetishizing asians isn't holy. specifically i think it was the episode where the girl wished for her bear to come to life? but i also think there were several episodes of him w dirty magazines so i could be wrong

[@Vampgurl202]

@@schmacker101 ah, the "Busty Asian Beauties" repeated reference, I gotcha.

[@Inoorne]

Deadass this whole scar business heavily reminds me of a character in the black dagger books. One of the twins. Can’t remember which one but it’s like this guy is him on dark “romance” steroids.

[@samauthor342]

Lol. Haven’t heard of that series for years! So much nostalgia 😅

[@ravenglebsky9404]

@@Inoorne wow, u triggered some memories here

[@Catlady_plays_the_sims]

Omg it was Zsadist. I used to love this series and have not thought about it in years.

[@Inoorne]

@@samauthor342haha right? It’s been a minute. I remember cringing at the time with all the repeated mentions of wearing leather and listening to rap (I guess that’s was shorthand for bad boy in the 00s) but at least the guys turned out decent…mostly, by the end.

[@Inoorne]

@@ravenglebsky9404you are welcome haha. I would bet money at least some of these writers read those books, or at least read fanfiction written by people who read those books. Let me not be too generous.

[@thepalindromeemordnilapeht1267]

I honestly do like stories that are legitimately dark. I think "romance" is the wrong tag for the dark themes I want to explore because I want to explore dark things happening and then for the protagonist/victim to come out the other side at the end. So we get the catharsis of bad things happening and then being able to move on from it. My JAM jam is when we get the sexy villain doing deplorable shit, and then another character who has NOT harmed the MC is the real love interest. I was so young, so naive, when at nineteen I found "wow, dark stories? finally, somewhere I can read about unfortunate things in a safe space". And then bam, story after story where I got the thrill of horror from an MC getting HORRIBLY mistreated by someone they had a crush on or whatever..... and then at a certian point in the story... the villain gives the MC a cup of water or some useless shit and now suddenly everything's ok and we're in love. So I guess I do want to read sad abuse stories, like you said at 1:38, but I don't want to read a story that then acts like the abuse is something that can be excused. I want the catharsis of the abuse being CONDEMNED and for there to be JUSTICE.

[@kitstarz]

50:01 “He’s a trilobite of a man” WOAH WOAH WOAH… Don’t insult trilobites like that :(

[@nodoubtmisa]

tbh, if someone held me at gunpoint and I had to decide to read either this or Haunting Adeline...I would chose the latter, this book makes it look 100% better xD

[@brooke_0414]

AHHHHH NEW RANT REVIEWWWWW

[@Galaxia7]

13:23 I never saw a childhood trauma/parent issue lacking such complexity in a character before... Is it just 'ugh i'm angryy' the whole book? I'm sure the Moon Knight boys would like a word with this 'Ambrose' guy...

[@re-becca]

I LOST IT when you played the red hot chili peppers. AMAZING!

[@ro_pp]

at around 47:45..... the thought that he's already busy, but then stops to print a picture, so he can fuck a picture, which sounds so uncomfortable!!!!! is really funny to me. thats the most unsexy thing ever. i love it so much

[@ah-sh9dw]

All this talk of catharsis has made me realize something, lolita is what would happen if you took the romance out of dark romance and had a better author write it. I find glorification of abuse really upsetting but unlike in dark romance, lolita never glorifies anything and the constant acknowledgement of how awful it was, combined with the mult-faceted abuse exploration was so cathartic to me. I think thats what I like about these negative dark romance reviews too. I get the exploration of abuse from the book, and then the destruction, of the idea that this is okay, from the reviewer

[@alisaurus4224]

Name him Booktok. Then when he acts up you can yell “GODDAMMIT BOOKTOK!”

[@carouselparty]

I'd love to see a book where the love interest isn't pretty/handsome. There's an attacker or enemy who IS pretty/handsome but they're so obviously not good that it doesn't mean anything. I'm tired of this "oh he's hot so it's fine" when someone who isn't conventionally attractive could do the same thing and it would be a horrific act of violence.

[@nilbog972]

I asked my husband how he would write a “dark romance” and I don’t know why I bother because he only said, “it sounds like you want to tell me your ideas.” Which was not the case but I did settle on a pumpkin man. That’s pretty dark.

[@spoonsforkever]

"Real" dancer AND stripper here. This book is truly deranged. It is ridiculous strippers are portrayed. But i can definitely confirm that scars are NOT the reason I'd turn down a bunch of cash lol. 😅 43:13 definitely not part of the job.

[@nyxarcana1226]

Your dark romance "man voice" is *chefs kiss* Audio book narrating career when?

[@colleen6644]

1:54:51 I appreciate this. It's so hard to explain to people who don't want to address negative aspects of things they enjoy.

[@Monster_ghoul]

Let me just say I love the voices you always do for the characters in dark romances cause it’s just as unsexy as I read it in my mind and I feel so validated 🙏