Trigger Warning: This book romanticizes self harm and suicide. 

SPOILER WARNING!!!

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Here's a basic summary of the book. Boy meets ghost girl and falls in love. He has to hurt himself to see/touch her. He eventually kills himself to be with her. 

I can't believe this is being marketed as YA! I would ask if S&S have no standards or decency, but we already know they don't. 

I made this post as a warning since there are no trigger warnings anywhere for the book or even on any of the reviews. 

Now I need a shower.

In 2014, there are still people who are fine with women’s success as long as it’s not too successful. But once they hit a certain level of success, they should step back and allow others to move forward. While women can be successful within established constraints, they better not reach beyond that. Success must be met with grace – being thankful for what one has rather than striving for more – as well as the understanding that it was luck rather than hard work, drive, dedication, or, god forbid, ambition, that drove their success.

 

Once a woman dares attribute her achievement to more than just luck and suggests wanting more and wanting to do more, look out. She’s stepped too far, and people are eager —bloodthirsty, even —to show up and put her back in her place.

 

- Book Riot: Girls Ruin Everything: Stephenie Meyer, Lois Duncan, and Childhood Nostalgia by Kelly Jensen 

This Book Riot article was written in response to an article posted on Jezebel, a supposedly feminist website, titled "Stephenie Meyer is Here to Ruin Everything Good About Your Childhood" that bemoans the tragedy that Meyer is producing a film adaptation of Lois Duncan’s Down A Dark Hall. 

Mark Shrayber, the author of the piece, claimed Meyer’s involvement is “not just a blow to the work, it’s a blow to Lois Duncan’s credibility.” 

The Book Riot article does a great job of pointing out something that's been pissing me off for a while. There are a lot of faults in the Twilight books and people are free to criticizes the choices Stephenie Meyer made with them, but this Jezebel article is a great of example of how a often critique of Meyer is just thinly veiled or in this case blatantly, sexist and offensive vitriol. 

Every inch of this tone deaf article felt more like something I'd see scrawled on the wall of a men's room than in an article on a feminist blog. From Shrayber kicking off the article by calling Meyer "Head Mary Sue," to referring to her "sparkly vampire hands" and exclaiming "god help us all" at the simple announcement that Meyer is producing a film. 

Especially when there is a legitimately feminist aspect to the news, namely that Meyer is pouring her millions into projects that highlight the work of other women. Sadly, that was less important to Shrayber than making fun of female authors and even managing to get in a dig on a young actress, Emma Roberts.

There is NOTHING feminist about Jezebel posting an article where a man makes disrespectful and downright cruel remarks about a woman. I'm sick and tired of this school of fake feminism that isn't about helping women so much it is about scolding them for being the wrong kind of woman. This is just the same bullshit female authors have been facing for centuries wrapped in a shiny new package of internalized misogyny. 

Jensen points out, in the Book Riot article, that JK Rowling receives similar deriding criticism. People laughing at her for publishing in an "adult" genre, as if she's a one trick pony and can't write anything but Young Adult books. Or that she wants attention. 

For example: When Lynn Shepard asked Rowling to stop writing "to give other writers, and other writing, room to breathe.” 

Sherpard comments bring to mind a very common belief that there is only so much room for successful female authors in the industry and those who have had success and don't bow out are hurting everyone else. This is one of Media and the industries' favorite lies. Just look at how they try to create a false line of succession (from Harry Potter to Twilight to Hunger Games and now Divergent) in how they promote and report on successful female penned series. This is a way to usher out the old and bring in the new, never allowing for more than one success story at a time. Like Highlander, "There can be only one" successful female author*. After all, if multiple women were successful at once that would take away from men. 

*(People of color and LGBTQ+ authors are fed the same line of bullshit too.) 

There's a similar tone to Shrayber's comment about Meyer's involvement being "a blow to Lois Duncan’s credibility” in how its a double edge insult to both women, that revels part of a sexist subtext female authors are told every day in a million different coded ways. 

For a woman to be a successful author she not only has to be a great writer, but she also has to be the right kind of female author, and she shouldn't dare associate with the wrong kind of female authors or she will lose the tenuous position and respect the industry only begrudgingly gave her in the first place.

This Jezebel article shows how much this industry and media (even supposedly feminist media) policies female authors' appearance, work, behavior and even business relationships. 

I need feminism cause I am 500% done with this bullshit. 

[Another Update: Riptide has released a statement, via their Tumblr, apologizing for the promotional site and explaining that the books "are not erotica" and "do not romanticize slavery."]

[Update: Riptide has pulled down the Belonging 'Verse site and their post about it, but there are still cached versions up (and of course I have screen shots). Please let me know if any of the links are broken.] 

Trigger Warnings: This post contains graphic images and ads prompting Slavery, Rape, and Domestic Abuse. Mentions of Racism.

Riptide publishing is promoting the Belonging 'Verse novel, by Aleksandr Voinov and Rachel Haimowitz, with an ad on their main site totting the benefits of slavery. 

"Welcome to Belonging 'Verse, where we are at your service. In this modern-day alternate universe, slavery remains legal all over the world."

 

The ad links to a hyper realistic site for the Belonging 'Verse that contains recruiting ads for slaves and promotional material to entice "Freemen" to purchase slaves. The site is still under construction, but it does feature a section of testimonials from slaves.

One of the testimonials features an Asian woman saying she's "not the smartest girl in the world" and talks about how she dropped out of high school and became a drug addict. While all the other (white) slaves are educated or working class people down on their luck. This subtle racism really stands out, and is especially stinging considering that slavery affects people of color far more than white people. 

Maybe Riptide and authors are not aware that slavery is very real and is still happening today all around the world. (For more information check Anti-Slavery.org.) I'd like to think so, because it's disheartening to think that people who are aware of it would still go ahead and use it for promotional material for erotica.

Enjoying fictional books about romanticized slavery is one thing, creating promotional material that glorifies slavery is fucked up! I don't have an issue with slave fantasies or erotica fiction featuring slaves, but there is not escaping how problematic they are. I'm a fan of the genre, but I am the first to admit the ability to view the experience of slavery as titillating and desirable comes from a place of privilege. I feel, that with that privilege comes a responsibility to respect the reality of slavery and not contribute to misinformation about it. 

There's a big difference between writing a self-contained fantasy story and using a hyper realistic website, with subtle undertones of racism, to glorify slavery. 

How is the above ad any different than other disgusting, and sadly real ads and images that promote rape, domestic abuse and even slavery? 

Why is it necessary to promote and glorify slavery to sell erotica? Is this kind of advertising enticing to you as a reader? If not, how do you feel about Riptide and these authors' choices in promoting this series? 

Disclaimer: A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.

The story is short and steamy, but the characters lacked depth. I didn't really connect with them, which can be a bit of a mood killer for me. There was a bit of kinky play, but that's all it was "play." I wouldn't shelve this as BDSM. This is more of the light play that vanilla people do to feel "naughty." Meh.

It's a quick sexy read, but little else.

Additional Note: I was thrown off by the cover which clearly displays a woman of color, yet the book makes no mention of it (or at least none that I could find). So I can only assume that either the author just never bothered to put Lily's ethnicity into the story, or the cover artist assumed that by using a black & white photo of a woman of color she could pass as white, or they couldn't even tell she's a woman of color. I'm put off by all of these possibilities, especially since the cover art (which promised a woman of color) was a big reason I wanted to read the story in the first place.  

<b>Disclaimer:</b> A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.

I'm DNF'ing this one. I like the sexy bits and the writing is good, but I can't stand the characters anymore. The causal use of "bitch" and "slut," not to mention Paige slut shaming other women, when she's an exotic dancer, pretty much ruined the book for me. Aside from Paige's constant shit talking about other women, I thought she was an interesting character. I was really intrigued by Mayson, but they both dropped into these gross stereotypes of competitive catty women from time to time, especially with each other, and made it hard for me to care about them. Their ridiculous fight was the last straw. If anyone treated me the way these two women treated each other in that scene they wouldn't be allowed within fifty feet of me, much less in my bed.

It's all really disappointing to see this much hating on women in a lesbian romance of all places.