Conversationsauthor discovery / Best of 2021 / comfort reading / Covid / diversity / DNF / enemies to lovers / genre critique / grumpy / sunshine / LGBTQIA+ / low-angst / statistics / tropes / year in review59 Comments
Janine: I’ve noticed that my reading habits change a little from year to year. Some years I read more or fewer books than usual. Some years I discover new favorite authors. At times a genre shifts in a direction that isn’t as likely to engage me while another becomes more ... more >
Letters of OpinionCherokee / colonization / Faith Hunter / genre critique / Jane Yellowrock / Urban-Fantasy19 Comments
Recent conversation with a good friend about Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series led to this question: What do you think Jane values above everything else? My answer: independence. My friend’s: freedom. Not precisely the same, but certainly related, and the obvious connections elicited a brief but thought-provoking exchange about how Jane is consistently resisting ... more >
Letters of Opinionarchetypes / Beauty-and-the-Beast / Dracula / Fifty Shades of Grey / Frankenstein / genre critique / mythology / Transcendence / tropes / Twilight / vampires12 Comments
The idea for this essay started with a question: what is it about Twilight and its derivations, especially Fifty Shades of Grey and Transcendence, that allow these variations to represent “fresh” and “new” in the retelling? I’m not interested in whether these books are good or bad, nor am I ... more >
Letters of Opiniongenre critique / Reader Habits13 Comments
Longtime readers of this blog are aware that I am a huge sports fan and specifically a fan of the Green Bay Packers. For those unfamiliar, the Packers are a football team located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It is one of the most storied franchises of the National Football League. ... more >
Letters of Opinioncanon / classic / genre critique / History / re-reading / Romance40 Comments
This past weekend I was involved in a great email discussion about the question of whether Romance fiction faced a unique challenge that other types of fiction, including other genres don’t. Namely, does Romance reflect contemporary issues and culture in a way that makes it easy to identify the genre’s most ... more >
Letters of Opiniongenre critique / genre definition / reader expectations / Romance52 Comments
Last week I linked to an essay by Remittance Girl for the DA news, in which she argued extensively against the Clean Reader application, which replaces so-called “dirty” words with “clean” versions. Remittance Girl’s post covers a great deal of terrain, from the moral rights of authors to her frustration with what she ... more >