**spoiler alert** All I want is implausible plots and melodrama to telenovela levels. I didn't get the latter but I sure as hell got the former.
This i**spoiler alert** All I want is implausible plots and melodrama to telenovela levels. I didn't get the latter but I sure as hell got the former.
This is the premise of the book: a bull rider gets his nuts crunched by a vengeful bull and he can't get hard anymore. Doctors take a sperm sample to see if it is still viable, for future use, and it was but somehow the sample got mixed up with another gentleman's jizz and they used it to artificially inseminate this soon to be single mother who is still a virgin. They somehow figure out the mistake and informed the woman that they have to notify him so she asked for a little time and goes to work for him undercover, in I think her second trimester, as a maid so she can judge whether or not she wants to flee the country with her baby so he can't take custody. Good news: they fall in love and he has the ability to only get hard for her. They get married the day after they meet.
Try to unpack that plot, just try. This book is a piece of art. ...more
I didn't read the other books before this, Actually skipped to this one with no intention of reading the others at all because the female protagonist I didn't read the other books before this, Actually skipped to this one with no intention of reading the others at all because the female protagonist is disabled. I have been talking to disabled people, able-bodied writers, and disabled writers about how to write a disabled character and it's a pretty frustrating conversation. The ableist tropes are easy to fall into but writing a disabled character people will actually believe often leads you to do that.
I tried it myself a few years ago when I was included in a romance anthology; my protagonist was a disabled woman in a wheelchair. I thought I could make it realistic if I put her in exact situations I, also a disabled woman in a wheelchair, had been in. It went horribly. Disabled readers might have believed the probability of the things I had written but I had some able-bodied people look over the manuscript to see if it would translate to able-bodied readers and they all told me it was simply unbelievable. Even things they had been there for and experienced with me were too far-fetched for an able-bodied person who wasn't close to a disabled person to believe.
Chalk it up to lack of representation in the media. Finding a disabled characters hard. Finding a disabled female character is harder. Finding one in a wheelchair is nearly impossible.
There is also the problem that disabled people tend to not share a lot of the goings-on of their life with able-bodied people. You learn very early on as a disabled person that able-bodied people don't want to be around you if you don't pretend to be able-bodied. Sharing your life with someone as it is tends to freak able-bodied people out.
"Sorry I'm late, I had to go to the grocery store. This guy kept following me around the store and finally cornered me when I was alone in an aisle to ask me how I had sex. But they had Oreos on sell so I got you a pack."
You have to edit that down to "Sorry I'm always late, I brought cookies to make up for it"
So, given my experience I read this book with very low expectations and prepared myself to the very last word to be horribly disappointed and probably offended.
Kage really surprised me. The book worked, even for someone as cynical as I am. I don't have CP, although I had made a few friends who had it when I was in special education, so I'm not going to speak as to how realistic that was but it certainly read as if Kage actually knew what CP was. Nine out of ten times you can tell an author hasn't even googled a condition they give their character. Maybe Kage has CP or knows someone who does, I don't know, if she does it would be smart to pick that particular condition and I would really like to see her take on another character with something different.
I give this book 5 stars alone because it worked. It was over the top dramatic but that's what you expect from this genre, new adult, if it hadn't been like a soap opera it would've been a copout. There are enough reviews on the story itself so I'm just going to list the things that she did that made it work. Things that I'm definitely going to suggest to writers I work with in the future.
The protagonist had CP, a very specific type, but the condition was described very vaguely. It didn't read as avoidance, it read as if Kage actually thought her readers were intelligent. You got enough detail that it never seemed like she was watering down the disability but not that such excruciating detail that makes the character seem like an alien oddity. All the descriptions were relevant.
The protagonist was actually given a complicated life which included things that had nothing to do with her disability but were always colored by it to a certain extent. Most of the time disabled children are portrayed as having a family that feels blessed to have them, treats them like porcelain dolls, and keeps them incredibly sheltered. I've only known one disabled person who had a childhood like that (at least, it seemed that way to me) and he ended up thinking he was a prophet of God. Literally. I'm seriously not joking.
A friend of mine said she found out through Facebook that he is doing missionary work throughout Europe, so Europeans beware.
Anyway, on the other end of the spectrum we sometimes see disabled children who are resented and abused which unfortunately happens more often than not but aside from the first season of American Horror Story I've never seen it done remotely accurately.
And this is a spoiler and was a huge shocker to me: the character didn't die in the end or had a miracle cure, her condition actually got worse. Even better, the character took it in stride because that's what happens when you are disabled, you become more disabled as you go through life. The character was bummed that she lost some abilities but immediately just started brainstorming on what she needed to adjust in her life.
It is incredibly heartbreaking when you lose an ability, an aspect of your independence, but you really don't have the privilege to mourn the loss. If you don't make adjustments right now, this very second, you'll just lose more abilities and independence. The mourning happens but has to be parsed out.
Also pretty spot on was the fact that her loved ones didn't always know what to say or do for her. She constantly had to be telling them what she needed. It was great representation of the fact that your disability affects you differently every day, some of you may be familiar with what's called the spoon theory. Some days you can do your hair, sometimes you can't. Your loved ones are used to the inconsistency and don't just automatically know everything you need.
Finally, I love the clichés. The whole "the crippled girl got asked out on a dare" thing seems ridiculous but it's actually not. Sometimes it's these huge clichés that actually happen regularly to us and the fact that they seem cliché is a part of the problem that that leads to able-bodied people not knowing what our lives are like, or believing us.
"Has anyone ever… Like, has a stranger come up to you and gotten all religious? I don't mean, like, give you a faith healing or anything but – –"
Yes. Every time I leave the house I get preached at for obviously not loving Jesus enough or he would let me walk and I have been given a few faith healings against my will.
Even by doctors.
When I was 13 and in a Children's Hospital a priest from the connected chapel wandered into my room and without warning grabbed me and gave me a faith healing.
God told him I would walk out of the hospital.
I didn't.
Even if I could have I wouldn't, when you are released they insist that you use a wheelchair to get from your room to your vehicle home.
This is actually a pretty good example of how being a pagan Mormon works, I wonder why it wasn't marketed as such?This is actually a pretty good example of how being a pagan Mormon works, I wonder why it wasn't marketed as such?...more
I like Valenti's books, she makes feminism approachable for those interested in participating in the third wave but she does have a problem with interI like Valenti's books, she makes feminism approachable for those interested in participating in the third wave but she does have a problem with intersectionality. When she talks about women of color and queer women it tends to come off as something that was edited in after the first draft and she never talks about disabled women.
That really stuck out to me in this book because she listed a factoid that one in eight women (white women) are raped at least once in their lifetime; the point would've really hit home if she'd acknowledge disabled women because eight in 10 disabled women will be raped in their lifetime. ...more
I love dystopias, and for some reason a future therapist will have to figure out I find the post–apocalypse very romantic. The problem with this genreI love dystopias, and for some reason a future therapist will have to figure out I find the post–apocalypse very romantic. The problem with this genre, though, is most of the characters that survive are the ones that seem to be doing the best before things went to hell. It doesn't make sense to me why the survivors would all be white/able-bodied/cis–straight (and when they aren't that gets "fixed" when they make it into a movie) so what I absolutely love about this book is that the stories are about people who aren't poster children of the privileged from our world....more
I've been a lifelong fan of superhero comic books and am excited to see the genre breakthrough into traditional literature arenas, but I feel that I'mI've been a lifelong fan of superhero comic books and am excited to see the genre breakthrough into traditional literature arenas, but I feel that I'm about to be sorely disappointed because nothing will reach the bar that this book has raised.
Not only were the best aspects of the superhero genre represented (the adventure, the ambitious sci-fi, and the no holds barred world building) they also brought what this publishing company was founded on, great stories featuring great representation of marginalized people. It was so exciting to read about my familiar superhero worlds with real people, people of different races and sexualities and genders.
I'd recommend this to not only people who like comic books, or romance, but people were looking for stories with realistic characters. You won't be disappointed....more
This book scared me like no other work of fiction has. Many reviewers are skeptical as to the likelihood of the premise but nothing presented in it isThis book scared me like no other work of fiction has. Many reviewers are skeptical as to the likelihood of the premise but nothing presented in it is something that hasn't been in Western socio-political policies at one point, and to those of us who live as the least privileged sect of women these things aren't imaginary, they just aren't ALL completely legal yet. The reason the book scared me so much is because it not only resonated with my fears but reflected my experiences even as I read it.
I set down the book to take a call from a friend who spent the night listening to her neighbor beat his girlfriend then found a trail of blood leading from his doorstep out into the street; the girlfriend couldn't be found and the police told my friend and the girl's family they simply weren't interested and refused to take the photos of the blood that my friend took before the boyfriend cleaned it up.
This is the safest story I can tell. Much worse happened to other friends during my reading and the fact that reviewers underplay the seriousness of this premise scares me as much as the book itself. ...more
This book has a strong premise and an interesting yet uncommon format, for that alone I would usually give a good rating. It sells itself as urban horThis book has a strong premise and an interesting yet uncommon format, for that alone I would usually give a good rating. It sells itself as urban horror and that's exactly what it delivers, and although I was happy to see some ambitious social commentary it lost a lot of its impact when presented with cliché characters. Not to say that the characterizations aren't well done, but they are all extremely obvious; you'll see identical ones in any book of this genre. But like I said, that's not necessarily a bad thing as it's delivering exactly what it says it will.
The problem is that there were too many women.
Well, that's not exactly true… I guess I should say there are too many women for an average male author to handle.
You expect a book like this to have very few women, or very few women that aren't corpses were simply mentioned to establish that, yes, women exist within this universe but you just won't see them. Lucia has very few female characters in relation to the males but there are quite a few and they hold a lot of responsibility for advancing the plot. That sounds great. Unless you actually care about female representation.
I realize we had a problem when I got excited at the mention of a female character having had a conversation with her mother but quickly reread the line and realize the conversation was about her father. We almost passed the Bechdel test. Usually I wouldn't apply the Bechdel test to a novel (not because it isn't completely relevant, but because I'd rather enjoy the astonishment of finding one that does pass instead of continually getting my hopes dashed) but Lucia set himself apart by actually trying to involve women so it was so glaringly obvious that none of them had relationships with each other and although they were essential to advancing the plot the advancement was, in most part, for a male character's story.
I made it to about the middle of the book because once I became hyper aware of the potential this book had and yet page after page I continued to see the failure of representation it became insufferable. If I quit too soon, let me know. If a miracle happened and two women, identified enough to be given names, conversed about anything other than a man let me know. I'll congratulate Lucia on being one of the very few authors to achieve the bare minimum in female representation....more
Like most cops, Bigfoot kills a lot of innocent people, but unlike most cops, he means well.
And unlike most buddy cop stories this is so much more. IfLike most cops, Bigfoot kills a lot of innocent people, but unlike most cops, he means well.
And unlike most buddy cop stories this is so much more. If you want humor and fun, it's here, but as the story goes on it transcends the gimmick. It will outsmart you, so don't expect some bizarro beach read.
Shamel has an incredible talent that sets him apart from his peers: he can create a premise as outrageous or simply silly as any other weird fiction author but when you open his books you find so much heart you can damn near feel the pages beat in your hands....more
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