"Everybody Talks About Cutting People Off....But Nobody Talks About The Grief That Comes With Having

Average dark academia reader be like yes I'm gonna ignore the obvious point of the book (warning against elitism and living in a fantasy) and romanticise my way out of everything until i find my own group of pretentious friends. What are you gonna do, stop me??

TW: Rape, Abuse

Photo Link: Echo Wang

Why I dislike Colleen Hoover : The decline of reading critically

Colleen Hoover is an American author who rose to fame after her books got popular on “Book Tok.” Book Tok is a “side” of tik tok that reads and reviews books. Her most popular novels are November 9, Ugly Love, Verity and It ends with us. Personally I’ve only read It ends with us, but from excerpts of her novels I don’t plan on reading them. 

Anna Todd is a popular fanfic author who wrote the infamous After series. So popular it got picked up for…. How many movies? Too many. (4) Anna and Colleen both have two things in common. Both terrible popular writers who romanticize and write hard topics beyond their writing skills. 

Even though my dislike for her is strong, there are a few things that I think she has accomplished. She became a popular known-romance author. Her novels are easily accessible because of the simplicity of them. I can admit that! I believe that readers of Colleen Hoover should develop better reading comprehension skills. 

I feel so strongly about my dislike of Colleen Hoover because I’ve read many, many romances. I’m a very picky romance reader. I can’t stand abusive, toxic, possessive men. Why would I want to surround myself around men like that? Now my preference strongly influences my dislike but not fully. Colleen Hoover doesn’t believe in Trigger warnings. Trigger warnings aren’t new, but to the modern political world people don’t need them! But here's the thing, Colleen Hoover doesn’t use them! Despite her constant use of rape, abuse, violence in almost all of her novels. Now this is debatable, why would this be bad? Because she believes it “Spoils” the story. Telling me that she uses these real life traumas solely on plot twists. If you look at most of her reviews from stans most will say they LOVED the plot twists. That is what Collen Hoover is, a “Romance” writer who writes rape as a plot twists. These characters do have “Happy Endings.” Spoiler for november 9 : She gets with the guy who burned her house down. Caused the burn damage on her skin and killed her mother in the fire. If that’s not a meet cute, I don’t know what is. 

Colleen Hoover also included a rape scene in her novel November 9. Later apologizing and having it removed from the novel. She later deleted her apology from facebook and never spoke about it again. Now this is relevant to Colleen Hoover’s character. When a girl online spoke about the sexual assault against her son, Colleen Hoover blocked the girl and continued to defend her son. Now of course not everything on the internet is true, but with the way she writes men makes me wonder how she views men. She also markets her novels as romance. 

Is simplistic writing bad? Of course not, simple language is what gets people reading. Most people wouldn’t read if they started with Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I don’t hate Colleen Hoover fans, or the younger teenage girls for enjoying it. I just wish that the romance genre, although dominated by women, was less misogynistic and saw female characters as true, fleshed out characters. I believe that Colleen Hoover could improve the quality of her craft and her writing, by not calling her novels “Romance” and picking up a dictionary once in a while. 

I think the moral of this story is that not all popular writers are good, some just get lucky.  

"And you became like the coffee, in the deliciousness, and the bitterness and the addiction".

-Mahmoud Darwish

Sue Zhao

What About The Kens?

I'm already seeing guys complain about the Barbie movie end, how they wanted Kens to be equal in Barbieland but were only given a small part on the Cabinet.

That's the point.

You're meant to feel bad for the Kens. Believe me, women aren't partying over the 'Returns to Matriarch' ending. Some will be, but the ones who also clocked the meaning behind it won't. Most women will also feel bad for Kens. Because it's an exact parallel to how women are treated in reality.

Men, you're meant to be upset. You're meant to question it. Because you're meant to feel it, and feel what that is like, so you can finally understand women. You're upset at seeing it in a movie, now imagine living it in reality. That's being a woman.

Kens were shit on so you could feel what it was like for women this entire time. Kens were being used as a placement so you could see yourself in a woman's shoes. A world dominated by the opposite sex. When Ken leaves, and sees male presidents (All men) for the first time, men being doctors and lawyers, etc, realising he is more than just a prop for Barbie, that was on purpose. Because that is the feeling that Barbie gave to women. It's why you cheer for him at first before he goes a little overboard.

It's exactly why the real world was an exaggerated Partriarchy and Barbieland an exaggerated Matriarchy. Neither wins. Neither is equal. None of them change for the better. It's why you should want women in the real world to be respected, and Kens in Barbieland to be respected.

The thing is, women also didn't win. Not in the real world. In Barbieland, yes, but not anywhere else. The real world didn't change. But you didn't notice, did you? That Gloria (The mother that helped Barbie) also didn't get a position on the Mattel board? It was still all men? Her idea was ignored until it made a profit, and the men will likely get the credit? She'll still just be the receptionist? The women representing the real world didn't get anymore opportunities, neither did the men in Barbieland.

I was hoping that Gloria would be offered a position on the board, and that the Barbie Cabinet would introduce another entire Cabinet to represent the Kens, but neither happened. They're complete mirrors.

But which one did you actually notice? Which did you actually care about? Now tell me again the ending was unfair. Because it was. For both parties. That's the point.

The difference is, Barbieland is fictional. You will walk out of the theatre with the reassurance that at least it's not real. Women won't. Women can't. Companies not giving women equal opportunities or voices isn't fictional, and that was just one example. There are no women presidents (USA at least) for us to go look at in the real world. We don't have somewhere to go to realise it could be different for us like Ken did. Barbie and make believe is all we had when we were kids, or even now.

You're supposed to be mad, just not at the movie.

the secret history changed my brain chemisty

whether it was for the better or the worse, we will never truly know

'My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?'

- White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

i’m a slow reader, i feel no shame in admitting that. it takes time to appreciate the words- i want to savor them, really see them, have them penetrate my mind before going the next and doing it all over again