RatCreature (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratcreature) wrote2021-03-31 07:00 pm
ratcreature) wrote2021-03-31 07:00 pm
Entry tags:
Wednesday Reading Meme
What I Just Finished Reading
I finished At Her Command by Joey W. Hill, and as seems the usual with their books, some parts really worked for me, and some really didn't. I enjoyed the main couple, the femdom and service kink bits and their relationship, was indifferent to the "rich business people whose life revolves around some exclusive BDSM sex club" trope (but I knew that going in), but what really bugged me were some of the supporting sequel-bait characters...
The heroine's best friend has a family history of schizophrenia, and is afraid she might manifest the illness, and we are told that both her mother and her grandmother were both violently abusive during psychotic episodes, her mother to the point of trying to murder her as a child. And sure, I guess such a thing is possible, but the idea that people with schizophrenia are often violent and dangerous to others is also one of the most toxic prejudices, especially in media depictions of the illness. Like, I get it's possible people can become aggressive against family due to their psychosis, just like for example Alzheimer patients can get aggressive against carers due to their dementia and frustration, but violent outbursts aren't afaik a defining or even common thing with schizophrenia. So to perpetuate that trope for some character background angst is kind of awful.
On top of that apparently the friend made a kind of suicide pact with the heroine, that the heroine would support her to kill herself if she became mentally ill, and the heroine tells the hero about this agreement and he apparently sees nothing from with this either, and just WTF. I'm not categorically against assisted suicide or self determined death/right to die or such under some circumstances, but everyone just being apparently fine with euthanasia rather than treatment as solution for mental illness is a big DNW for me, even if no actual suicide happens because presumably that friend will get her own book eventually.
I also read a whole bunch of shifter and A/B/O romances with some original M/M thrown in over the last week:
* The Beta's Test (The Protection of the Pack, #3) by Dessa Lux (solid A/B/O shifter novella)
* Mated to the Meerkat by Lia Silver (fun m/f shifter romance novella, doesn't do the insta-mate thing)
* Alpha & Omega by Isabelle Arden (A/B/O shifter romance with a priest, that didn't really do much for me, which I might have guessed as apparently I had read a another novel by this author previously, but completely forgot about that)
* Guardsmen series by Cooper West (M/M dog shifter romance, the first The Protector was okay, I really enjoyed the second Parker's Sanctuary, while the novella Mismatched worked less for me)
* Vespertine by Leta Blake (enjoyable contemporary m/m romance between a rockstar and a priest, no shifters or such, actually less angst and melodrama than I expected from the setup, though there's some of both)
* Until the World Stops by L.A. Witt (a m/m romance set during COVID times, and I found the getting together for convenience during lockdown premise intriguing enough to check out, but had mostly a meh reaction)
* We Have Till Dawn by Cara Dee (a case of Not My Kink, but well written enough that I finished it despite that. But I forgot again that this author is way more into daddykink and daddykink-adjacent relationships than I am, even if it is not prominently mentioned in every summary. I actually had the same reading experience with another of her novels, and then forgot again.)
* Slow Heat (Heat of Love #1) by Leta Blake (non-shifter A/B/O romance with age gap angst thrown in)
What I'm Reading Now
The second of that Leta Blake A/B/O series, Alpha Heat. So far does what it says on the tin, i.e. angsty and somewhat overwrought illicit alpha/alpha romance in A/B/O world.
What I'm Reading Next
My copy of What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch finally arrived yesterday (for some reason, maybe Brexit related? it was out of stock for a while at the German Amazon), so I probably will read that soon, once I scratched that A/B/O dynamic mood I'm in sufficiently.
I finished At Her Command by Joey W. Hill, and as seems the usual with their books, some parts really worked for me, and some really didn't. I enjoyed the main couple, the femdom and service kink bits and their relationship, was indifferent to the "rich business people whose life revolves around some exclusive BDSM sex club" trope (but I knew that going in), but what really bugged me were some of the supporting sequel-bait characters...
The heroine's best friend has a family history of schizophrenia, and is afraid she might manifest the illness, and we are told that both her mother and her grandmother were both violently abusive during psychotic episodes, her mother to the point of trying to murder her as a child. And sure, I guess such a thing is possible, but the idea that people with schizophrenia are often violent and dangerous to others is also one of the most toxic prejudices, especially in media depictions of the illness. Like, I get it's possible people can become aggressive against family due to their psychosis, just like for example Alzheimer patients can get aggressive against carers due to their dementia and frustration, but violent outbursts aren't afaik a defining or even common thing with schizophrenia. So to perpetuate that trope for some character background angst is kind of awful.
On top of that apparently the friend made a kind of suicide pact with the heroine, that the heroine would support her to kill herself if she became mentally ill, and the heroine tells the hero about this agreement and he apparently sees nothing from with this either, and just WTF. I'm not categorically against assisted suicide or self determined death/right to die or such under some circumstances, but everyone just being apparently fine with euthanasia rather than treatment as solution for mental illness is a big DNW for me, even if no actual suicide happens because presumably that friend will get her own book eventually.
I also read a whole bunch of shifter and A/B/O romances with some original M/M thrown in over the last week:
* The Beta's Test (The Protection of the Pack, #3) by Dessa Lux (solid A/B/O shifter novella)
* Mated to the Meerkat by Lia Silver (fun m/f shifter romance novella, doesn't do the insta-mate thing)
* Alpha & Omega by Isabelle Arden (A/B/O shifter romance with a priest, that didn't really do much for me, which I might have guessed as apparently I had read a another novel by this author previously, but completely forgot about that)
* Guardsmen series by Cooper West (M/M dog shifter romance, the first The Protector was okay, I really enjoyed the second Parker's Sanctuary, while the novella Mismatched worked less for me)
* Vespertine by Leta Blake (enjoyable contemporary m/m romance between a rockstar and a priest, no shifters or such, actually less angst and melodrama than I expected from the setup, though there's some of both)
* Until the World Stops by L.A. Witt (a m/m romance set during COVID times, and I found the getting together for convenience during lockdown premise intriguing enough to check out, but had mostly a meh reaction)
* We Have Till Dawn by Cara Dee (a case of Not My Kink, but well written enough that I finished it despite that. But I forgot again that this author is way more into daddykink and daddykink-adjacent relationships than I am, even if it is not prominently mentioned in every summary. I actually had the same reading experience with another of her novels, and then forgot again.)
* Slow Heat (Heat of Love #1) by Leta Blake (non-shifter A/B/O romance with age gap angst thrown in)
What I'm Reading Now
The second of that Leta Blake A/B/O series, Alpha Heat. So far does what it says on the tin, i.e. angsty and somewhat overwrought illicit alpha/alpha romance in A/B/O world.
What I'm Reading Next
My copy of What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch finally arrived yesterday (for some reason, maybe Brexit related? it was out of stock for a while at the German Amazon), so I probably will read that soon, once I scratched that A/B/O dynamic mood I'm in sufficiently.