QUICKSILVER is BOOKTOK'S WORST YET

[@ReadswithRachel]

Big thanks to Ridge for sponsoring! Here’s the site to check them out & get a gift that’ll last a lifetime - ridge.com/readswithrachel

[@vvitch-mist20]

Your smile is beautiful!

[@LaineMann]

Who is the hot guy you used for Kingfisher

[@Cakelynn6]

I am BEGGING, can we stop with characters being able to smell arousal??? No more.

[@wootwoot5486]

Fr like... please stop it sounds like an infection or that the character would be put to better use for sniffing out drugs or something.

[@imaginarylivingbody7154]

Like is the main character a cat??

[@atherisGAY]

It's a super common fanfic smut trope, I highly doubt it's ever going to stop.. All these slop novels sound like what you read in a/b/o fanfic.. Same editing level too: none 😢

[@luckyheartfemboygacha9694]

Like only you can smell your own arousal if you have a sensitive enough nose (I have autism so I can smell mine since my nose is a bit sensitive)

[@Viteaification]

anyone sexuality active can tell you its not the best smell in the world lol

[@BanjoJill]

"Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200."

[@robertmaxey5406]

"Do not buy this book"

[@woagnya]

"Do not the cat."

[@Allenxoxoxo]

"Do not yes."

[@ms.moronic9165]

"Do not let the pigeon drive the bus."

[@Staci1611]

Go Straight To Jail.

[@callmekodiak]

The 'Secrets are like a knot' analogy really shows that somebody wasn't a Boy Scout. Good knots are NOT bound to come undone. My badge says so.

[@dawnthegoblin]

Literally there are so many things knots do that you could compare to secrets. Instead we have a terrible knot maker

[@awkwardhandmovements]

I’m getting reallllll tired of the Dollar General ACOTAR’s 😑 especially because ACOTAR itself is already Five Below, at best.

[@Cakelynn6]

@@awkwardhandmovements PREACH 🫶

[@TheNumnutRandomness]

I’m at that point that the moment I even smell a _hint_ of Fae I will toss a book to the “Do Not Read” pile. It’s not fair, but I also cannot take any more omegaverse nonsense with the fur shaved off. Smelling arousal and spaying??? Please 😭

[@applebonker141]

bruh, lmao

[@Marie45610]

@@TheNumnutRandomness I hate what's been done to fae, because in mythology they're really interesting and no authors ever do anything creative with them. In mythology fae are like Dryads and made of trees and shit, but all these authors just make annoying elves.

[@tesscarlson5552]

@@TheNumnutRandomness Me with anything involving "mates." Keep that shit in the animal world where it belongs and far, far, far away from me.

[@ritualflowers]

Every time he said "Little Osha" I thought of a tiny OSHA rep

[@scapegoat13]

Little OSHA violation ❤

[@ritualflowers]

@@scapegoat13 😂😂

[@phoenixashes0013]

@@scapegoat13wish OSHA would violate meeeee 😂

[@platedlizard]

(In the tune of Pure Imagination) ~come with me ~and you'll be ~in a world of OSHA violations! (Video of a man swinging from the shovel of an excavator)

[@disgruntledmoderate5331]

​@@platedlizard😂😂

[@RimuMagica]

Seeing poorly written novels like this succed fills my amateur writers heart with optimism.

[@yarrowandlace1]

Genuinely so real. If they can get published, so can I.

[@sita9071]

Same here. I've written better screenplays in the span of like 5-10 weeks than stuff like this book (which I assume took some months or years).

[@MissShembre]

SAME! Nothing stopped them from achieving their dreams. Apparently without good editors. Because apparently those are lacking, too.

[@CrayonEater5000]

You can be a bad writer, but at least you’ll never be Penelope Douglas

[@skylarjohnson7779]

I now refuse to feel shame.

[@Im.A1ex]

“Five long days I ate in fisher’s bed, slept in fisher’s bed” why did my brain continue that sentence into “shat in fisher’s bed”

[@jaxj968]

LMAOOO

[@erinraewatson]

@@Im.A1ex I actually laughed out loud at this.

[@MissGreenTeaLady]

He deserves it for pointing out that he followed her vag stank to her ex lover.

[@starry-mantle]

Authors, I am begging you... if you must write long-winded proselytizing dialogue, PLEASE practice saying it out loud so you can at least attempt to make your characters sound like real people. That whole "the people in our ward DO deserve basic human rights actually" speech in the beginning was exhausting to listen to, which is not how I should be feeling about your underdog protagonist! Also, I am so sorry to the author, but I keep expecting that cover to come alive like a blingee.

[@the_eerie_faerie_tales]

yes exactly! how people actually talk is much different from the written version of it.

[@Viteaification]

i was waiting for the guard to shut her up. kudos to him for sitting through that weird ass rant

[@Ellisepha]

Ooooh my god, this. I was reading Vampyria by Victor Dixen (a book that got me hooked with "Sun King Louis XIV becomes a vampire and has ruled Europe for 300 years" and lost me with "fem protag goes to high school") and the book has TWO major scenes where the pacing is telling us that the characters are in a hurry, but the characters themselves take their sweet fucking time explaining backstory to each other. The first scene was literally the beginning of the book!

[@Oobs212]

honest to god, my eyes started to glass over at that whole bit. Ma'am, this isn't the venue for your shower monologues

[@Staci1611]

@@Ellisephalmao 😂😂😂😔💀

[@alastair876]

Quicksilver is another name for Mercury, everyone who has it just has mercury poisoning lol

[@DustyMusician]

Oh so no wonder they all act like they have brain damage!

[@Air_Serpent]

I just think of the true Quicksilver, the x men character 😂

[@alastair876]

@@Air_Serpent I try not too because this book slanders Pietro's name 😭

[@CanonSkyrissian]

romantasy as a genre frustrates me because as a concept it should be 100% for me but all of the books in the genre feel... iffy, to put it mildly

[@leboone]

I feel the same way 😭 it's so hard to find ones that actually fit my expectations of such genre

[@MC-lm7de]

If you're looking for a recommendation, I'm a huge fan of the Saint of Steel series by T. Kingfisher: they don't fall into a lot of the typical romantasy tropes and they're really charming and cozy

[@lemurkat]

Because T Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) is a REALLY good writer, who knows how to write relatable protagonists that don't feed into cliches, and her love interests are sexy without being just broody and mysterious. I feel she comes in with a sort of tongue-in-cheek, let's subvert the cliches, kind of attitude.

[@MC-lm7de]

@@lemurkat Oh for SURE! I've loved everything I've read from her (Digger has what may be my favorite creation/fall myth ever)

[@silvercoronet]

I think it's because in theory, good romantasy is somewhat balanced 50-50, maybe variable to 25-75 either direction for taste, with focus shifting in different parts of the story. In practice, it's 85-90% romance with a bad fantasy background 95% of the time

[@dylantallman]

12:27 CARRION?! Like rotting flesh?! "Hey, how're you doin'? My name is Rotting Flesh and I'm great in bed. I'm totally not the Cassian/Aedion of this story."

[@the_eerie_faerie_tales]

mmm the smell of decomp .. 😂

[@TheNumnutRandomness]

“Hey baby.” “Omg, Pustule Van Stinkhole! What are you doing here?”

[@chellyfishing]

@@TheNumnutRandomness of the Boston Van Stinkholes??

[@KittenJune96]

And this is my lover ✨ mr Rotting flesh✨🕳️

[@atreides213]

@@TheNumnutRandomnessnow I desperately want a TikTok dark romance novel where the love interest is a greater unclean one of Nurgle

[@wasteddemise2286]

They’re dehydrating themselves with whiskey and they have no water

[@ursulaholm]

He's looking for her brother, so naturally he grabs the guy who smells like her lover. Right. Okay. I don't like that.

[@KittenJune96]

Apparently his whole knowledge of humanity comes from too many 'sweet home Alabama' jokes and 'what are you doing stepbro' adult films

[@ettaetta439]

THAT'S WHAT I SAID WHEN I HEARD THAT. He genuinely thought she was banging her brother?? So he grabbed the man who smelled of her coochie juice?? Plus, the conversations these two are having would make me die of humiliation if I were there. Within one week of meeting each other they're trying to crawl into each other's laps, this is beyond insta-lust. This is the opposite of slowburn. Plus, the fact that "arousal" is such a strong pheromone KILLS me. I can't imagine everybody knowing I'm in the mood or who I slept with, that's horrifying.

[@jaxj968]

exactly

[@net_has]

no way the sexy love interest's nickname for the protagonist is the US Occupational Safety & Health Administration

[@jesustyronechrist2330]

I mean, star wars Acolyte did it too. so... Must be one of those popular Tiktok trendy names

[@chatswithvivi]

Not even 5 minutes in but that cover…. We have Timothee Chalamet at home

[@laceys5353]

@@chatswithvivi it looks like an AI yassified onision

[@ohsarcasm]

@@laceys5353 DONT SAY THAT. DONT REMIND THE WORLD OF THE ONION.

[@jesustyronechrist2330]

Chalamet is overrated.

[@pettyella6607]

"His attitude stinks" sounds like a child's idea of swearing, not what should be on the synopsis of a dark romantasy...

[@elizabethperry2622]

It’s what some kid’s sixth grade math teacher says to his little league coach knowing coach has the power to make him run laps and potentially bench him for a game if he can’t stop cutting up and talking back in class.

[@tyler-df3wy]

So apparently ‘brand new’ isn’t about commercial brands, it’s about something being fresh out of a furnace. So I’d say for a story about metal it’s actually pretty appropriate. It’s also from the 1500s, but the phrase ‘brand spanking new’ is from the 1860s as a combination of ‘brand new’ and ‘spick and span’. Technically it would only be anachronistic if it’s set before the mid 19th century (If you can’t tell I’m procrastinating)

[@ReadswithRachel]

Is it procrastination if we all learned something new today?

[@ion6708]

@readswithrachel exactly! I for one am glad for this little factoid, may actually help my own writing efforts!

[@frankensteinlives]

1:08:45 The smell of her (months old????) *arousal* can be mistaken for the smell of her brother? What do arousal and siblings ever have to do with one another? Is that you, Cassandra Clare?

[@DarwinRoger893]

We need to blame both Sarah j Maas and Cassie Clare

[@elle8786]

Oh, thank god, I'm just getting to that part and I was getting worried she was going to find out she'd been sleeping with a guy that turned out to be her half brother or something

[@blearyeyedchangeling]

@@elle8786 THAT WAS MY WORRY TOO

[@TheNumnutRandomness]

My “favorite” type of female character is one who is street-smart, sharp, and clever- relying purely on her wit and fortitude to survive in a cruel world… then gets completely stumped by basic things like “There may be magic behind the Queen living 1000 years???” Edit: Also the whole thing about “omg, that’s magic?” is why setting up a solid foundation for world building is a must for fantasy stories. As readers, how are we supposed to know the difference between a human living for 1000 years vs an immortal race?

[@Staci1611]

Yeah like we in any Romantasy or fantasy worlds we need to know what the rules of this world are and we need lore and background

[@Nockgun]

that is literally my foxgirl oc

[@Nockgun]

also the difference in an immortal and a human is you ask them to speak an old language like old english, middle english or idk

[@jesustyronechrist2330]

I'm honestly getting tired of those kinds of characters. 99% of the time they aren't smart, they're just rude. And you're supposed to clap like "yaaas queen!" It's rarely you see them plan or make good decisions or having actual street smarts. They're just a basic B who merely says how capable they are, but the only time you see this is some BS fight scene where she suddenly shows of her ultimate karate skills that allow her to throw a 300 pound evil guy over her shoulder due to "years of brawling in the undercity" or something. It's just a generic girlboss archetype at this point. It rarely brings them issues or have an interesting arc.

[@champion_soap_eater]

MY LITTLE WORKPLACE SAFETY 😍

[@jessmstephens]

My thoughts exactly! You just know she was pulling out a "Caution: Wet Floor" sign every time she got horny.

[@ReadswithRachel]

I cannot believe I didn’t make this joke in the video

[@jessmstephens]

@@ReadswithRachel I can't believe the author didn't work in a line where the MC calls a condom personal protective equipment.

[@DarlenePecker]

Lmao!!!!! This comment got me dying😂

[@frankensteinlives]

20:07 Should she... Be telling her oppressors that there's any kind of rebellion brewing? Throwing this out there, Katniss never would have told the Peacekeepers anything.

[@wattthefaqameye1146]

Malcolm has got to be the least intimidating name choice for an immortal super powerful mega-vampire.

[@JadeReloaded]

Thanks to that name I can't stop picturing Jurassic Park's Jeff Goldblum as a fantasy vampire and it weirdly works until he tries to explain chaos theory in a bad East European accent. 😅

[@redlikeroses1062]

It’s my ex’s name and he was a pretty pathetic guy so I’m even LESS intimidated

[@ms.moronic9165]

The only Malcolm I can immediately think of is a minor character from Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

[@HainekoMikemalcom]

My rottweiler was called Malcom and he was intimidating af. He's the only intimidating Malcom I've met, though 😂

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

When I hear the name Malcolm, my brain jumps to Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly-a captain who’s often gruff and tactless, but has a good heart.

[@tyler-df3wy]

I have quite a few issues with the ACOTAR series, and the popularisation of using ‘male’ and ‘female’ in romantasy is definitely up there. Like if a romantasy makes a big deal of biological essentialist language, it’s just a red flag to me that there’s gonna be some really shallow liberal feminism

[@ibbyf8442]

I totally agree. Like omegaverse has potential for interesting gender stuff but the whole male female fae thing is just weird

[@hannahk8te]

plus it’s usually used in a grammatically incorrect way!! that’s what pisses me off even more lmao

[@harlankian]

i can't hear "male" and "female" without thinking of cybertruck owners. do you know what i mean

[@ibbyf8442]

@@harlankian LMAO I know exactly what you mean😂

[@Selitos676]

Wait but the male and female thing makes sense to me when it’s fae. They’re usually depicted as quite animalistic and they aren’t human, so you wouldn’t use “man” or “woman.” And in those same books, they refer to humans as being a man or a woman, at least that I’ve seen. Though we could definitely do with more nonbinary and LGBT characters as these books tend to be written by straight cis women.

[@tyler-df3wy]

Maybe this is just me being aroace but I feel like if I found out that Fae were real and I had magic, I wouldn’t have time to thirst over a hot guy. My brain would be actively breaking apart, a guy’s partially silver iris would rank so low on my list of priorities i wouldn’t notice it for like a month

[@TheNumnutRandomness]

I know I’m not the target audience when the main character spends entire chapters going, “Ugh, he’s so aggravating but so hot! He’s so hot but infuriatingly so. I can’t stop THINKING ABOUT HIM and his SEXY LIPS.” And I’m just like… so stop it? You just found out you have magic metal powers and that your entire worldview got turned upside down. Shouldn’t you be doing… literally anything other than sniping at each other hornily?

[@audreyturner5122]

I feel the same way! I would be spending my time using, and getting used to, my powers rather than focusing on some random guy I find "attractive"

[@indigo_scout1783]

i saw someone explain how within book prose, low key you shouldn't even mention the fine details of someone's eye unless you're super close to their face as part of the pov experience. so when she says she noticed the little silver in his eye when he comes out of the ground or whatever i'm like "okay this author doesn't know what they're doing"

[@nataliaurban2458]

RIGHT?? sometimes I wondered if it is really how allo people are when they can't stop thinking of someone but this level of tunnel vision is just damn baffling. You have fucking magic! Your life has been a lie! There's so much to discover! Nope, hot guy. Once again horniness claims the biggest part of the brain.😑

[@chellyfishing]

Been dying for you to cover this because it’s written by the same person who wrote the “published Reylo fanfic” Jenny Nicholson did a reading of years ago and I stumbled on this knowledge by accident and it’s eating me alive

[@mooninmie395]

@@chellyfishingnoooo that’s crazy!!!! The world really is small

[@LorewithouttheE]

the same person???? oh my god 😂

[@sigma5902]

Nooooooo has ACoTaR been Reylo fanfic this wole time???? How deep does this rabbit hole go???????

[@JadeReloaded]

OMG when I made my daughter look at the cover she said it gives Adam Driver and I joked how this may be a fantasy Reylo but I was just kidding!

[@mst3kharris]

WHAT. That book with the scene where Not Kylo Ren is holding the ship together with Not the Force and Jenny points out how that particular scene is so much better than anything else in the book that it’s obviously the scene the author has held in her head the longest? The book where Not Luke kills Not Leia? That book?

[@ms.moronic9165]

I've seen multiple videos on this book and I still can't believe we're supposed to simp for a guy called Kingfisher.

[@andromeda_2410]

literally one of the reasons why I dnf'd this shit (apart from horrible writing ofc)

[@mor3796]

well i did not expect the 'predatory gay' trope to rear its head im gonna be real

[@anothertwenty-something1929]

I am surprised this didn't end with "Oh, and your new body is also now magically un-spayed." Because we can never have childfree rep in these books, either.

[@bibbumblebee]

6 minutes in and hearing that the city is shaped like a wheel with elevated plates covering up the slums below…Midgar. This is just Midgar.

[@yessirde]

What's midgar? Sorry😭

[@imaginarylivingbody7154]

@@yessirde A city from Final Fantasy I think.

[@xRaiofSunshine]

@@imaginarylivingbody7154Final Fantasy 7 😊

[@bibbumblebee]

@@yessirdehaha, sorry, yeah, it’s a city from Final Fantasy 7. It’s a huge metal city in a dried out wasteland that is divided into 8 sectors. The wealthier folk live on plates elevated hundreds of feet above the slums that formed in the dust beneath them. Resources are scarce, a corporation distributes power at the cost of the planet (they’re the law of the land), and there are people who live there who have never seen the sky before. It’s a super fascinating setting! And I kinda hate that it cropped up in Quicksilver. :)

[@TyLeeslilsis]

I was hoping that was just me noticing that connection. Whelp xD

[@jaybirdcrossing]

if i had a nickel for every not-set-on-earth novel with a kylo ren-coded love interest where a character uses the term "cliff notes," i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice

[@ingamarrays]

It's the same author I think lol

[@jaybirdcrossing]

@ingamarrays i'm gonna cry i looked it up and it's NOT. THERE ARE MORE OF THESE!?!?!?!?!

[@maximilianlopez196]

Isn't a knots job to literally not come undone? In fact, it's very hard to undo a knot especially one that's been there forever 😆

[@Jess_talks_book]

I have questions: 1- Does the author know that quicksilver is mercury? 2- Carrion!? Why name a character dead meat? 3- Rachel, where does Fox from Among the Beasts and Briars rank on your list of magical foxes?

[@DarwinRoger893]

I loved Among the Beasts and Briars so much

[@Jess_talks_book]

@DarwinRoger893 it's one of my favourite books

[@Bellehashadenough558]

I think we're all just tired of romantasy for the sake of smut. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against a smutty book but a smutty book without a plot, without connection and chemistry with the two leads is just a bad romance book. There are ways to create tension that isn't insta lovey and where people do dislike each other and then slowly start to like each other. There are also better names than Kingfisher 😒 I should have known I wasn't going to like this book though. It was exactly like ACOTAR and I regretted every second of reading that, too. 😮‍💨

[@hercules1476]

Every time I think "My novel is the worst, this is dogshit," you upload a video about some popular booktok novel and I think "Ok, is not that bad, I just have work so it wont be like THIS."

[@jaxj968]

literally, abd it gives me ideas of what NOT to include, or how to make things better

[@TheSnakeh]

omg same!

[@ywlumaris]

I love how they do a world building quirk (water is sparse!) and you can't let go of how LITERALLY EVERYTHING STILL NEEDS WATER. (because same, big same) how was this missed lol

[@HelghastEnigma]

Because what's world building?

[@remem95]

*it worked in Dune so why wouldn't it here*:tm:

[@TheSnakeh]

It's like the author saw Dune, thought it looked cool but didn't think about the world for more than... 5 seconds.

[@st4r_k1ll3r]

everytime he uses the nickname for her i just think OSHA like occupational safety and health administration

[@HiyyihLouvre]

14:15 This is so incredibly lazy!!!! This author could have come up with a plant similar to tequila agave. Or even come up with a moonshine-like situation where they use "cactus juice" (insert ATLA joke here) to brew terrible liquor that can cause sickness, but because of the scarcity of water (and it's tendency to go bad if left untreated) they mix this liquor in to preserve it. People who like the buzz or are just really poor could also drink this bathtub brew on its own, since its not really legal and is risky it'd be cheaper. They could even be illegally processing sewage into irrigation and fertilizer for their secret cactus farms. Bonus points if they use this to hide corpses too and even nobles or rich city folk pay them for their "disposal" services.

[@erinraewatson]

"I found our love interest! He's always the tallest one." This makes me want to start writing something new where the love interest is the *shortest* man in the room. Short kings need more love.

[@jaxj968]

please yes!!

[@talbrun]

Do it!

[@nooneofnote8453]

In the new Dragon Age game one of the romancable male characters is a total short king, like I don’t think he’s even 5’4”, it’s awesome

[@erinraewatson]

@nooneofnote8453 lol, yes he is ❤️

[@gingerbreadandtea]

Spell for a Smith, it's a romance comic on Webtoons...it's absolutely amazing.

[@lilyab-z9p]

"Ewww, David!" does, in fact, summarize everything I'm feeling about this book. Your sacrifice in reading this dreck so we don't have to is greatly appreciated.

[@bib4eto656]

So it's not only "how did they produce alcohol if they have no water", but also, if you don't have a sustainable source of clean drinking water, why would you drink alcohol, something that famously dehydrates you a lot?

[@svtless12]

This book being titled "Quicksilver" is like blasphemy for an X-Men fan like me. Put some respect on my boy Pietro Maximoff's name.

[@serenaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

The guy on the cover even looks like the discount "Fietro" from WandaVision, played by Evan Peters, lol

[@Werewolf.with.Internet.Access]

@@serenaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Oh You mean Eric Boner? Cos d*ck jokes instead of honoring the Goat that is Quiksilver is funnier to marvel, I guess

[@RainaVerlaine]

I knowww 😭

[@Staci1611]

🤔 Ok. Low key didn’t think of that but now I can’t unthink it lmao 😔😔😢😒😒

[@Staci1611]

@@serenaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa DISCOUNT PIETRO

[@mmarrrow]

@ SJM and this lady--the hell do you MEAN fae women just DIE in childbirth like regular humans?? There is nothing in the world to me more boring than otherworldly creatures--like fairies--who are basically humans and have a society that is also basically human. Susanna Clarke spoiled me on fairies fr😭💛

[@kymar4810]

Yes!!! The fae in JSaMN were delightfully inhuman, like they're supposed to be!

[@no-thanks-to-you]

Goddd Booktook is just a rotating series of totally alpha Timothee Chalamets saying the same porny/corny dialogue and leading the same porny/corny scenes as the other totally alpha Timothee Chalamets. Sometimes there's shifters or dragons instead of fae- wow! An absolute sea of indistinguishable "spicy" slop, haha. at this point the cheesy dudebro fantasy of the 80's & 90's literally feels less misogynist than this current crop of stories but that's a wholeass can of worms

[@manfredking]

for real, i wish more reviewers would be openly critical about the insane levels of misogyny permeating every level of these things- but also whenever that happens people in the comments always crawl out of the woodwork to cry Kinkshaming and You Just Hate Female Authors, so. i understand why somebody might be hesitant. it just always blindsides me when i come to one of these reviews and Musclebound Alpha Love Interest #56431 tells the main character nearly word for word that even if she says no he knows she actually wants it 😭

[@mst3kharris]

I’m now stuck trying to picture Timothée Chalamet as Willy Wonka dominating someone, and it is NOT WORKING

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

@mst3kharris Thank you so much for that image. 😐

[@h2o2630]

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌 “feels less misogynist than this current crop of stories” I can not express how much I feel so valid rn, because I’ve been screeching this since the rise of booktok!

[@no-thanks-to-you]

@@mst3kharris if it helps, i saw someone else describe the Stock Romantasy Guy as yassified Onision and-- wait no that's so much worse aaaa

[@justokayemilay6029]

"blech, boring. Bad! You're lazy!" - Rachel screams

[@Ceruleansquid-lo3iv]

4:17 N.B. stands for nota bene, which means note well. basically it means something you have to pay attention to, but its kind of old-fashioned, so i don't know why they would be using it here.

[@queencharlene]

Everyone who's had an ancient college professor learns what N.B. stands for. It does seem out of place here

[@eaglestown4609]

@@queencharleneancient professors and Italians hahaha you’re right

[@Marigold-Ro]

I learned about N.B. in a biography of Lord Byron. Publically infamous man-wh*re Byron signed papers as "N.B." ( i.e. Noel Byron), being well aware it also meant "nota bene." A total knee-slapper in 1816!

[@redpandameemai]

I know the beginning may as well be ignored for its total irrelevance to the rest of the book, but it has me so irritated. The Queen complains her land is barren, how on earth do they have whiskey (requiring irrigated crops), tempered metals with no sign of mining or quarrying, a sewer system (thats something that requires water), woven fabrics or animal based skins when they dont have enough water to feed the city... The list goes on. In fact, why are they settled in a fully built city at all in somewhere that provides nothing for any of the people? Even if the Queen had taken/bargained for the land from they Fae, why didn't the people just... Leave and become nomadic? Or find somewhere sustainable to actually settle?

[@TheNumnutRandomness]

I can't stand world building where everyone acts like The Big Catastrophy happened recently only for readers to find out that it's been like this for A MILLENNIA. Do you know how much we've developed since literal BIBLICAL TIMES? Hell, even 50 years ago? And you're telling there's literally NO INFRASTRUCTURE in place for water scarcity other than people bartering for it? Yet you have whiskey? Leather? Sewers??

[@Link-dx1lx]

The only way it kind of makes sense is if their water supply only recently dried up, but that's not what it sounds like

[@HoHoMyLad]

I love when revolutionary protagonists give long-winded speeches laden with self important metaphor. Tell me you’ve never been around any activist or anarchist spaces without telling me etc. First rule is Don’t Talk To [Royal Guards] (ARGAB?)

[@davidchess1985]

"What are the turkeys drinking if there's no water?" :D perfect

[@legendaryfrog4880]

Once you rain in a horse, it's reined in forever. It'll let you ride it even in the reign.

[@venihiam1591]

The fact that the blood pact is active even though this fey dude didn't actually hold up his end of the bargain. He didn't get her brother and yet she is still bound to her side of the deal. Thats not how deals work

[@katgreer6113]

🤦‍♀️

[@taylorlmoore]

Sorry but the Cliff Notes is unforgivable

[@Kaiheart]

This author has used this anachronism before - look up Jenny Nicholson reading black moon rising, the author's knock-off reylo fanfic. She wrote it under a pen name, but it's her.

[@ReadswithRachel]

CALLIE HART AND FRANKIE ROSE ARE THE SAME PERSON?!!!!!!!!

[@Kaiheart]

@ReadswithRachel I'm so sorry Rachel. Also thank you for all you do.

[@Cakelynn6]

“It’s called sweat equity, David” I am deceased now 🤣🤣🤣

[@peaches41575]

If I ever write a book I will be questioning every couple of paragraphs if I just wrote anything Rachel would say once, look at the camera and emphasize it's stupidity by saying it a second time slightly louder 😂

[@Moony1568]

When you explained how he can smell her lust or whatever, I immediately thought “what is she a cat? She got an estrus cycle?” Smelling lust is some furry shit 😂 Edit: oh my god not spayed!!! She is a cat!

[@rebeccaweaver2460]

I'm gonna need "how strange, a bench" merch

[@jabberwockybooks]

i wanted to dnf this book at 5%, and 10%, 25%, almost threw my kindle at 45% when she referenced a "singularity" as if the concept of blackholes existed in her world. and then again at like 50% when she called fisher "the devil" because WHO IS THE DEVIL TO YOU??? i almost would have excused it all if it had been revealed that humans as a species had actually come from OUR real world thousands of years ago through the quicksilver and these were just lingering parts of the lexicon, but that would require authorial forethought. my last straw was when she revealed she'd been sterilized because it felt like it was a "plot thread" that came out of them having sex (to excuse the unprotected nature of it) and not an actual attempt at world building. Which made me realize a pattern that so much of this felt as if it were being built as it went, as if this were the skeleton draft where you just write it all out and she hadn't gone back to build out the flesh of the story before she decided to publish it.

[@alexis_95474]

listening to this while playing fortnite and i’m literally hiding to comment on the “smells her arousal” thing BROTHER EUGH

[@silvercoronet]

Huhh? She's only been cold once? First - cold is variable, she would have a relative cold based on normal temperatures but also. She lives in a desert and has notably incredibly low humidity - temperatures should absolutely plummet when those suns go down Edit: Got to the part where you mention they don't have night in her realm. Soooo, how does the physics do the physics? But also if it's a sometimes one, sometimes both sun system, it should still get slightly colder when one sun is gone

[@ChaosSolEternal]

I can't lie when I hear carrion I think of warrior cats cause that's where I first learned the word. I can't take a character seriously with a name that not only means rotten flesh but also reminds me of warrior cats.

[@ellarasei4404]

@@ChaosSolEternal at least a cat in warrior cats being named carrion makes slightly more sense than a whole human

[@bunnyellabell]

nah my mouth dropped open at cliffs notes...

[@gabrielleduplessis7388]

One of my favorite quotes in this video, “oh yes, a forest at midnight smells differently than the forest at 11:30 pm”. Still can’t stop laughing at this. Your sarcasm and humor makes these books a delight.

[@iFlutterbye]

Deserts are freezing at night. Why’d you have to reference a rain… that one time? Omg I love how whenever Rachel reads the MC’s voice she sounds so whiny.

[@Docypher]

About the river thing- it’s a part of the folklore that vampires can’t go through running water. Usually running water is clean compared to still water, so it repels them, the same way that garlic and silver would.

[@GremlinScribe]

Gosh, I wish I could discard aches and pains in my body.

[@grimdarkmalarkey5402]

Everyone, remember to support your local TNR programs! Kittens are adorable, but we don't need more of them living on the streets!

[@bluebirdeyes]

Don't worry about not knowing "fae" lore. Very little of it has anything to do with traditional folklore.

[@omgmo1962]

"fae" being used at all is a red flag for me :D

[@kirathecat]

Another book in the "Omegaverse tropes should have NEVER become mainstream" case study. Why are we treating Fae like werewolves? Especially when their enemy this time are VAMPIRES?! Either write werewolves or write fairies or find a better way to do them both! This is like four different AU plots rolled into one man.

[@kaijuhunting]

the thing that gets me about omegaverse becoming mainstream is how cishet they've managed to make it. i mean it was always very ciscentric of course but it's just kind of weird to me how het it's become too

[@kirathecat]

@@kaijuhunting Can't even disagree with you there. Like at least give me some LGBT+ Omegaverse stuff if y'all are gonna keep using it outside fanfics. At least I can count on fanfics to keep it non-het.

[@morganmcinroy4211]

Decorated a cake for my daughter's fifth bday while listening to this. I'm exhausted but it was a good distraction, thank you! Also this book is very silly.

[@ReadswithRachel]

You were doing the real work today 🎂 ❤️

[@morganmcinroy4211]

@@ReadswithRachel Thanks! It was a bluey cake 😂. I also laughed when you mentioned making the cake with everything in it! It was like you knew

[@t.j.dominguez]

I think Bilbo and Frodo have a few things to say about talking jewelry...

[@The_Distractinator]

Hahahaha, if no one’s told you today, you’re amazing 😂😂

[@t.j.dominguez]

@@The_Distractinator Thank you. I may or may not be currently watching the LOTR movie trilogy for the first time right now, and the second she said that the MC didn't react to talking jewelry, I was like, What?!

[@amyallen6863]

As someone who reads and writes books with fae, I hate this trend so much. Show me pixies, banshees, dullahans, black hounds, all of it!! Or else they're just sexy vampire analogues!!

[@mst3kharris]

I got angry reading a series _set in Ireland_ involving the fae that used very little Irish lore.

[@TheNumnutRandomness]

Fae books that only show elf analogues is the equivalent of Batman media that only uses the Joker. Like PLEASE use literally ANYTHING else

[@applebonker141]

dullahans are so cool, I wish they were in more fantasy books

[@lilithhuntress]

The queen is named Madra (sp?), which is Irish for dog? I'm exercising my right to imagine her as a decrepit immortal chihuahua then, since our love interest is a gangly bird

[@weirdandproudofit1]

Did they mean NB like nota bene? Its used in drafting documents to mean pay attention to this in particular

[@Gretelsbetterhalf]

The people eating these books up must be reading them with their eyes closed, because how did we get here??? 🤦🏾‍♀️

[@Ceruleansquid-lo3iv]

25:15 No! Don't do these things! curse my monologuing, why do i always explain exactly what I don't want my enemies to do?! i need to stop giving people the exact description of things they need to do to defeat me!

[@kathgreen385]

“Wow, that is…certainly…words” I’ve never cackled so loudly 🤣🤣🤣

[@Keter9793]

"I'm not like other girls, I wear pants!" "I'm not like other girls, I wear skirts!" And everyone else will have to make do with shorts and leggins 💛

[@kaytoomuchsalt5100]

Just shorts, Feyre from ACOTAR called dibs on the leggings lol

[@Keter9793]

@@kaytoomuchsalt5100 oh no )

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

I am like other girls; I like shorts! They’re comfy and easy to wear! (Yes, that is a Pokémon reference.)

[@kaytoomuchsalt5100]

@@tsifirakiehl4250 I’m glad someone else had this thought 😂

[@MissGreenTeaLady]

I'm like...are we really still doing this in 2024? Also it's not like women didn't work hard and wear dresses for...oh idk...thousands upon thousands of years?

[@angryotter9129]

💛 I think the “century years” thing was probably a find & replace mishap. Like it probably said a hundred years, but the author thought century sounded better. They just didn’t check to make sure they replaced it correctly. That’s my theory anyway.

[@tsifirakiehl4250]

Search and replace can be helpful, but you have to proofread after you use it. Otherwise you’ll try to change a character’s name from David to Steve and end up with someone riding a Harley Steveson motorcycle.

[@rachel6186]

a 2 hour rant review by Rachel is my favorite thing ever

[@ReadswithRachel]

Hi name twin

[@Misa.misato]

Nooooo, not the “you spayed my mate”!!! Omg, I’m dying, this can’t be real. What is this clownery? 🤡😭

[@reading_faerie]

15:29 id like to also point out that water is commonly used in smithing metals 🤣 so how can they have a world that has all these metals and no water lol the metals get dunked in water after smithing to rapidly cool them and that’s what makes them durable soooo this world makes even less sense 😂

[@ItKnowsYou]

I’m sorry but the queens name is wayyy to close to Madara and all I can think is “wow Naruto has gone downhill”

[@alexandrahoward3686]

Madra is the Irish Gaelic word for "dog" so read from that what you will

[@alyssum130]

That is really far-fetched

[@vanilla_cream5198]

im starting to believe its near impossible to make a good romantasy

[@jaxj968]

oh it’s certainly possible. it seems that no one knows how to though 😭

[@TheSnakeh]

I think it's because these books seem to mainly focus on the romance aspect only... instead of actually working on literally anything else. It's too bad because it's such a good idea on paper

[@allbutperfect]

It's because nothing works, not the fantasy or the romance, you have people entirely unskilled in both trying to blend them while also ripping off the latest slop

[@isaacbenrubi9613]

Every time I hear Fisher call her "Osha," I just think he's being grossly inappropriate with a workplace safety official. I hate it. I hate all of it.

[@rachelcriswell229]

The whole “centuries years” thing is absolutely from when the author was writing her first draft and either didn’t have a set timeline in her mind yet, or did and changed her mind later. It was probably originally an actual number, ‘300 hundred years’ or a placeholder word, ‘ELEPHANT years’ and she f5’d for the placeholder and changed it to centuries without noticing that she left behind years. This book was for sure not edited well or at all

[@miraisoo5514]

Oml I’m DYING at the censor sounds 😂😂😂😭😭😭

[@ctrlswift]

was interested in this book when I heard 'alchemy' (rip) but thank you for your sacrifice. please do a video on magical animal companions 🥺my tbr is ready!

[@ReadswithRachel]

I’ll get on that magical animal companions video ASAP!

[@eseverud18]

I can’t believe this book has at least 3 instances of “used the wrong word”. I wonder if these books are actually edited.

[@porcelainchips6061]

Dodos --- They are no longer available

[@fionamclary7631]

That phrasing got me good 😆

[@The_Distractinator]

404 Aves not found 😂

[@palamedes4740]

Out of stock, if you will.

[@antheathetiefling8581]

Can we for once, have a love interest who doesn't have Shadow magic, is of average height and who would support the plucky hero by baking a cake after finding out they had a bad day?

[@akaylaraine6075]

Peeta enters the chat 😂

[@Link-dx1lx]

Not exactly this, but I found one of the love interests in Iron Widow really refreshing in a similar way. Beware though, that book is brutal (I mean literally, lots of violence)

[@antheathetiefling8581]

@@Link-dx1lx I've read Iron Widow and enjoyed it. 😃

[@disgruntledmoderate5331]

The only romance men I know of that come close to that are in Regency romances by Georgette Heyer. It would be nice to have some in the Romantacy genre, or even in the romance genre in general that has been written in the past couple of decades.

[@sanakimchi88]

also has blonde, strawberry blonde, red or normal brown hair? I’m so sick of the black haired 4th wing/shantel tessier/acotar copy paste of literally every single male mmc. blonde men are hot too especially in fantasy!!!!?

[@jo_aspen]

Thanks for talking me through doing the dishes, wrangling a 12 year old who doesn't wanna do any of his homework, and making dinner (shakshuka and naan bread). Please know that your suffering is keeping me going over here. You da real MVP 😘

[@laurenpaulin7421]

pretty sure the "century years" is a the result of a find/replace for "hundred" to "century"

[@imaginarylivingbody7154]

Wait so the love interest is crying out MERCURY???

[@ReadswithRachel]

He sure is

[@mst3kharris]

I thought for a second the author might do something interesting with the name “Kingfisher” by having it turn out to be a misreading or mistranslation of “Fisher King,” the symbol from Arthurian myth of a disabled king whose persistent wound is a cause and mirror of a blight affecting the land. I thought maybe the mercury poisoning would be the wound, making him too volatile and cruel to assume the throne. It’s probably not going that way.

[@Artbyhurricanyounot]

This book really is one big osha violation then huh?

[@TheNumnutRandomness]

I just got the part of the video where this joke makes sense and now I wish I didn’t know how to read😭

[@fionamclary7631]

Okay but I actually have a student (grad student TA) named Osha and on my second quarter of teaching them I am finally getting desensitized to the name

[@Meggie24]

All these sub par romantasy books are gonna be this generation’s ya dystopian post Hunger Games cash grabs

[@kaytoomuchsalt5100]

It’s Divergent all the way down

[@caioticc2213]

at this point if I see a book with fae in it…. its an immediate no. like I cannot do it anymore ☠️☠️☠️

[@ReadswithRachel]

Fair enough

[@monster-enthusiast]

I am so beyond sick of edgy mmcs in books like this. The horse was already dead but booktok resurrected it so they could beat it some more.

[@LorewithouttheE]

the zombie horse is swiftly turning to paste at this point 😮‍💨 give me more sincerely kind/supportive/etc MMCs, i *beg*

[@Julia-lq4wy]

I gotta think "century years" is an issue with the replace function, did ANYONE read this before it was published?

[@lemonlyartistry]

This may be a hot take, but I find it really annoying that authors make someone go to a website for trigger warnings. If your story is spoiled by trigger warnings, imo, it's probably not very well written. Just let readers know what sort of experience they're getting into, like damn 😭

[@LorewithouttheE]

saaaaame like how hard is it to just take a page or two at the front of the book to list them??? i've seen trigger warning lists be decently done in books, IMO it doesn't "spoil" any of the events - cause it's just a matter of 'graphic'/'non-graphic' & 'on-page'/'off-page' - so authors who claim it does are relying on pure shock value 😮‍💨 as you say, not very well written

[@lemonlyartistry]

​@@LorewithouttheEI AGREE COMPLETELY they're relying on shock value and honestly, it's unethical and poor craftsmanship