YABookgate

[Silence of the Troons]

Lol, she actually has a Goodreads list called "Fuck yeah diversity" and a list called "racist" (Blood Heir is on it despite the fact that she hasn't even read it):

 

[MW 002]

So Paige got into a little slap fight with someone who asked if she was serious with her “50 page rule”.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Does she do this professionally? as in, does she get paid for this? She should be fired, imo.

The only reason she has any saying and power is because people pay her to do this. If they get rid of her, problem solved. Hire some less problematic black lesbian and she won't complain.

 

[MW 002]

Does she do this professionally? as in, does she get paid for this? She should be fired, imo.

The only reason she has any saying and power is because people pay her to do this. If they get rid of her, problem solved. Hire some less problematic black lesbian and she won't complain.

Considering she hasn’t written an actual review in like... three years according to the YaKitten Blog she’s written for, I think it’s safe to say she isn’t a paid reviewer.

Either way, I don’t think anyone should take any of her opinions seriously since she can’t be bothered to finish a book before even deciding it’s shit.

Edit: I’m exceptional, her last review was just last week: http://www.theyakitten.net/2019/04/25/double-review-the-girl-with-the-iron-cast/

Even so, they’re not really that informative/insightful so my point still stands that her opinion seems to be worthless. She doesn’t really have any credentials and the Zhao Controversy will probably hurt her in the long run when it comes to credibility.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Considering she hasn’t written an actual review in like... three years according to the YaKitten Blog she’s written for, I think it’s safe to say she isn’t a paid reviewer.

Either way, I don’t think anyone should take any of her opinions seriously since she can’t be bothered to finish a book before even deciding it’s shit.

True.

Looking at her twitter account, it seems like she's a book hoarder. Have you ever seen those instathots who get a lot of freebies (clothes, make-up, shoes) that they only use once and only keep because it gives them "status"? Same.

 

[MW 002]

True.

Looking at her twitter account, it seems like she's a book hoarder. Have you ever seen those instathots who get a lot of freebies (clothes, make-up, shoes) that they only use once and only keep because it gives them "status"? Same.

Here’s a sample of some of her “reviews”.

Iron CastIron Cast by Destiny Soria
Harry N. Abrams (October 11, 2016)
384 pages
Source: print ARC from ALA Annual 2016

I take forever to read my ARCs and I know it, but I’ve also accepted it. Iron Cast is such a fun, unique novel that I actually feel bad for taking so long to read it–and that’s really something given my shame about such things went out the window in early 2016.

The worldbuilding and setting are vivid and unique: an alternate just-barely-pre-Prohibition Boston where hemopaths perform magic via arts like painting and poetry, racism and anti-hemopath sentiment are rife, and anyone found out to be a hemopath gets carted off to inhumane asylums. Ada and Corinne also just used their hemopathic mediums of music and poetry to con the city out of $2,000 and some elephants, so they’re very much wanted women.

If you want a book that’s more focused on a friendship than a romance, Iron Cast is it. Ada and Corinne always have each other’s backs and their dynamic evolves seamlessly with their individual journeys as a biracial girl (Ada) and a rich white girl (Corinne) surrounded by people who aren’t quite the people the ladies thought they were. The middle of the book is a bit wandering and I would have liked to see more of the place Johnny Dervish had in their lives before he disappeared vs. just reading about how things were in the past, but that aforementioned worldbuilding/setting combination is strong enough to carry the motivated through.

I also wasn’t sure what to call the climax of the book? There are four different events I’d point to as climactic sequences. Things get really busy at the end, which is understandable considering how many different things are going on throughout and the need to get all of them wrapped up before this lovely little standalone ends.

I’d love to read more of Soria’s work and I absolutely will considering I also have an ARC of her second novel Beneath the Citadel to read. People are saying it has asexual representation and that’s so exciting!

The Girl with the Red BalloonThe Girl with the Red Balloon (The Balloonmakers #1) by Katherine Locke
Albert Whitman & Company (September 1, 2017)
256 pages
Source: eARC via NetGalley, also bought the ebook later

A disclosure first: Katherine is my friend and I adore her along with her cats. I swear on my own cats that this fact does not affect my review in any manner.

My alma mater in South Florida has a bustling German-American/expat German community surrounding it as well as a very busy, dedicated group of people who just love German. They brought Holocaust survivors to speak regularly while I was in school and have gone abroad every year since 2015, but one event I really remember was a showing of the German film The Lives of Others (a film about how the Stasi monitored East Berlin residents) followed by a Q&A with people who lived in East Germany/East Berlin before the wall fell. All of them said the film was terrifyingly accurate.

I know that was a long story, but it’s relevant. Reading The Girl with the Red Balloon brought that experience back in high definition. Locke evokes the setting and atmosphere vividly in such a way that anyone will still get a clear vision of how different things were in Germany just forty years ago; my own experience in college just happens to make that picture startlingly sharp. This is the novel’s greatest strength by far, making it a surefire recommendation for the the value of settings in YA. I enjoyed the worldbuilding and scientific/mathematical explanation of how the magic balloons work, but that setting.

The novel is a bit of a slow, ruminating read, so you may wander off for a while like I did in the middle of the book. Whoops? That may lay with Ellie, who isn’t a particularly noteworthy heroine but whose experiences as a modern Jewish girl in 1988 East Berlin are still so vital to the story. Something else of note: the denouncement of using the word g*psy to refer to Romani people via Kai, our sweet Romanichal love interest and co-narrator! It was a slur in the 1980s and it’s a slur now, so just stop using that word.

I bought this book’s World War II-set companion novel The Spy with the Red Balloon while still reading Girl, so yeah, I’d say I recommend this book. Also, the ebook is usually set at a good, low price, so buy The Girl with the Red Balloon to feed her and her cats? (That’s not an affiliate link I get money from, by the way. I just want to support my friend.)

Diversity Rating: 0 – What Diversity?

Racial-Ethnic: 0
QUILTBAG: 0
Disability: 1 (Lucien is missing an eye, but it doesn’t do much to impair him)
Intersectionality: 0
Ah, ACOTAR: the book so hyped up by the book blogger community that I waited seven months to read it and kept a lid on my thoughts while I did so. I needed the madness to die down a bit before I felt comfortable touching it; I did the same thing with Mad Max: Fury Road (loved it) and Hamilton (LOVE). Mentioning ACOTAR in the same paragraph as them feels a bit like an insult, though. Sometimes, the hype is absolutely justified. A Court of Thorns and Roses doesn’t justify any of its hype. It just takes tropes I remember from the heyday of paranormal YA and throws them into a fantasy novel.

The novel does start out very strongly. Feyre’s narrative voice is memorable, the opening chapters of her hunting are intense, and the initially-simple relationship she has with her family gets a few subversive twists added toward the middle of the novel. Hell, I got a five-chapter sampler of the book back when it came out to see if I really wanted to read it at all. I loved those opening chapters then and still loved them here, so ACOTAR isn’t entirely bad. I’ve read both worse fantasy and worse novels regardless of genre.

I was still hooked for about 100 pages, but then I realized nothing much was happening. Feyre wanders Tamlin’s manor, gets into trouble by going places and doing things she shouldn’t, and she and Tamlin fail desperately at having any chemistry. Another 100 pages later, something finally does happen, but by the time we reach that everything-you-knew-was-a-lie twist and the chapter-long infodump that ensues, the sluggish pacing and trope-ridden story had done me in.

About those tropes. I know paranormal YA pretty well and I love it still even though it went out of vogue around 2011. The most noticable is less of a trope and more of a pattern: the obsession with how gorgeous the paranormal creatures are. Feyre can’t shut up about how pretty the fae are to save her life. Especially Tamlin. Feyre is the Strong Female Character who is ultimately not that strong or strongly written, Rhysand is a former friend of Tamlin’s with a preoccupation for Feyre,… It’s way more than characters, but I don’t want this to go on forever. The point is, this reads like a paranormal romance novel with just rudimentary elements of fantasy.

But even with all that, I still finished the novel instead of DNFing it. I did so out of curiosity and in hopes that the second half would be better. Nope! The villain has the potential to be interesting, but she’s entirely too one-note villainous and over-the-top in her antics to be even vaguely entertaining. Rhysand’s hidden motives and why he’s so preoccupied with Feyre pique my interest, but I don’t think Maas will take him in the most interesting direction.

Plus I kind of hate him too even though he’s the only interesting character in the novel. He purrs every other line of dialogue when he’s not a cat, cat-like, or even making cat puns. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

A Court of Thorns and Roses reads like a rehash of paranormal YA in a high fantasy setting. It doesn’t do anything new. I try my best to look at a beloved book and understand its appeal, but I just don’t get it here. Sorry, friends. You won’t see me reading A Court of Mist and Fury. I guess Sarah J. Maas just ain’t an author for me and I’m okay with that.

Winter Bingo 10 ACOTAR[\quote]

[/quote]

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Here’s a sample of some of her “reviews”.

[/QUOTE]
Those books are awful and deserve that kind of mediocre review.

Or maybe, the books aren't that bad but she's just mediocre. Her review says nothing about the books except "well, there are black women in this, so it's fine... but there is also one white woman, so ew". Imagine all the actually good books that have been dismissed because people like this bitch said "not enough lesbians, next!" about them.

 

[SnarkySperg]

So Paige got into a little slap fight with someone who asked if she was serious with her “50 page rule”.
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I'm inclined to agree with Ravie. 50 pages isn't even enough to really determine how the book will go for the most part. One book she absolutely refused to read any of because in the author bio the author called herself a 'nomadic gypsy' and that's a slur and 'It's a fact that racist assholes don't get their books read'. 50 pages could be a good indication of the writing style, as if you don't like that within 50 pages, it's not going to improve, but quite often books will turn around and go a completely different direction later.

Those books are awful and deserve that kind of mediocre review.

Or maybe, the books aren't that bad but she's just mediocre. Her review says nothing about the books except "well, there are black women in this, so it's fine... but there is also one white woman, so ew". Imagine all the actually good books that have been dismissed because people like this bitch said "not enough lesbians, next!" about them.

This basically sums up the issue I have with her and, honestly, the world of reviews in general. It reminds me of when Black Panther came out and if you took the reviews at their word, it's the best movie in the history of cinema. One guy spoke out and called it overrated and got screeched at for being a racist. He didn't say it was bad, just that it wasn't a 10/10.

It's really a shame that people are so obsessed with catering to the minority that things are very unbalanced. Like, LGBT people as a whole make up about 5% of the population. But you wouldn't know it if you looked at many books, particularly YA. People want diversified writers to the point that minorities are disproportionately thrown in. Saying that perfectly good books are terrible because there's zero diversity or because there's not enough or whatever is fucking bullshit and absolutely ridiculous.

As for Paige herself....in a sane world, she'd have zero offers to read an ARC. She is very clearly biased. On that second review she even felt the need to state at the beginning that she TOTALLY WASN'T BIASED YOU GUYS just because the author was her friend. There was zero need to put that in there. Nobody cares. Also, after seeing her 50-page tests it's clear as well that certain books will basically get 5 stars automatically and others will get one star even if she doesn't read them. I don't know if you can rate books that haven't been released yet on GoodReads, but I almost guarantee you that we will see a 1-star by Blood Heir eventually on her GoodReads despite the fact that she will probably never read it. Then again, since she seems to think this woman is a very aggressive stalker she may never rate it out of fear. We'll see.

 

[Marco Fucko]

Here’s a sample of some of her “reviews”.

Those are literally worse than my book report of 1984 in middle school.

Oh well, at least most of these fuck ups won't breed, hopefully that'll sort it out.

 

[MW 002]

You should check out how many befuddled comments there are reacting to the term Allocishet on the Slate Article: https://slate.com/comments/culture/2019/05/blood-heir-amelie-wen-zhao-controversy-publication.html

You guys think we have a full blown Lolcow here?

 

[SnarkySperg]

You should check out how many befuddled comments there are reacting to the term Allocishet on the Slate Article: https://slate.com/comments/culture/2019/05/blood-heir-amelie-wen-zhao-controversy-publication.html
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You guys think we have a full blown Lolcow here?

Her sheer lack of self-awareness here is kind of terrifying. She sicced a Twitter lynch mob on someone and almost killed the woman's career, but it's soooo horrible to write about Zhao's comeback and mention Paige. You started all of this, bitch. Own up. Oh, and get over yourself. You're barely mentioned, and they linked to others too. You don't see them complaining that they're being harassed.

It almost feels like she's offended that people would dare talk to her unless it was to sing her praises for being a virtue-signalling SJW. Like, girl, you don't want people to criticize you? Stay off of social media. You put yourself out there with a public Twitter and public GoodReads and all that? Don't get offended when someone gives you a taste of your own medicine.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Allocishet is just a straight person.

Put it this way: we humans are born with five fingers, right? someone who was born with four fingers got so fed up at the 99.99% of the population that s/he decided to create a name for them, something like "fivers". Why? because s/he wants to "otherize" us for making him/her feel inadequate.

The absolute state of Social Justice Warriors.

You guys think we have a full blown Lolcow here?

thread! thread! thread! thread!

Or maybe one full thread for Young Adult Reviewers. I'm sure this person is exactly like the rest of her kin.

 

[Marco Fucko]

I really wish I was able to live so blissfully dumb as our friend Paige. No gays, no women? No watchy!

Trouble is whenever I consume fiction, even if it sucks, there's always at least one thing I feel like I can learn from it. There's so much revelation on an author's personal perspective and history that comes with reading their work.

Why is violence the default even if ancient times did have unspoken decorum for warfare? Well that wasn't followed all the time and this author was a 'Nam protesting hippie in his youth, of course he's going to interpret an older system of government as unnecessarily cruel. Why is the only guy who doesn't chainsmoke secretly the main villain of this book? Well, this book was written in the 50s, of course there's something off about a weak nerd who doesn't engage in social rituals like smoking.

But no, just judge books on a fucking checkbox. "Oh wow the main character is a transsexual with a very open minded partner and the villain has no explicit sexuality but I personally interpret him as a straight guy, so progressive!"

thread! thread! thread! thread!

Or maybe one full thread for Young Adult Reviewers. I'm sure this person is exactly like the rest of her kin.

It's mostly middle class white bitches that like "analyzing" fiction, yeah. A few minorities here and there obviously, but it's scary how much projection goes into SJWs complaining about 'white saviors'.

 

[SnarkySperg]

Allocishet is just a straight person.

Put it this way: we humans are born with five fingers, right? someone who was born with four fingers got so fed up at the 99.99% of the population that s/he decided to create a name for them, something like "fivers". Why? because s/he wants to "otherize" us for making him/her feel inadequate.

The absolute state of Social Justice Warriors.



thread! thread! thread! thread!

Or maybe one full thread for Young Adult Reviewers. I'm sure this person is exactly like the rest of her kin.

I thought the 'allo' part implied that every character was cishet, though I don't know if it'd matter if there was some diversity if the main character was cishet, idk.

I mean, I'm fine with a thread, but I'm not sure there'd be enough for one. We don't even have a last name for her. I'm all for making a Community Watch thread for her ilk. Be it for 'sensitivity readers' or 'Book SJWs' or whatever. I'm just not sure we have enough at the moment for her specifically. I think figuring out her surname could send us down a rabbit hole and find all sorts of shit.

Honestly, I kinda hope there is enough though because I want to see her rage when she inevitably finds out.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

I thought the 'allo' part implied that every character was cishet, though I don't know if it'd matter if there was some diversity if the main character was cishet, idk.

I mean, I'm fine with a thread, but I'm not sure there'd be enough for one. We don't even have a last name for her. I'm all for making a Community Watch thread for her ilk. Be it for 'sensitivity readers' or 'Book SJWs' or whatever. I'm just not sure we have enough at the moment for her specifically. I think figuring out her surname could send us down a rabbit hole and find all sorts of shit.

Honestly, I kinda hope there is enough though because I want to see her rage when she inevitably finds out.

Allosexual is the opposite of an asexual and because asexuality is considered a sexuality (jesus christ...), then they aren't part of the lgbt+ community.

This person is also asexual and aromantic... an aromatic is someone who doesn't have feelings for anybody. Asexuality is well, not normal in humans... no wonder she's such a bitter bitch. These are just euphemisms for being a frigid cunt.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

This Paige twat probably would rate The Good Earth one star and label it as "racist" just because it was written by a white woman who lived her childhood and young adult life in China and advocated for women's and minorities' rights. But she wouldn't touch it anyway because it's too adult for her.

 

[Someone in a Tree]

This Paige twat probably would rate The Good Earth one star and label it as "racist" just because it was written by a white woman who lived her childhood and young adult life in China and advocated for women's and minorities' rights. But she wouldn't touch it anyway because it's too adult for her.

She's the literary equivalent of 30 year old guys who proudly say that they only watch cartoons and post on Twitter how the latest episodes of Steven Universe and Duck Tales devastated them.

 

[Finrod Felagund]

So Paige got into a little slap fight with someone who asked if she was serious with her “50 page rule”.
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Translation: "I bought these titles on impulse so I could go home and go KonMari to see if they don't spark joy to me!"
Any sane reader would do that 50-page rule in the bookshop (or take to the previews in ebook shops) but methinks it's not so with this woman. I bet she's been doing a lot of weeding as she goes.

Anyway, here's what I could understand reading this thread: it's a bunch of people using the power of exceptionalism and lack of self-awareness to decide the fate of the book industry like it's something out of Fahrenheit 451. I can't really say a lot about this industry, but the fact that publishing houses are relying on the likes of fanfic authors and woke minorities to write books really makes me wonder if the book industry is beginning just to be too lenient to tally up those socio-political brownie points (spoiler: it already is). I want to feel optimistic that there are good minority/fanfic writers out there that I just hadn't found out, otherwise I'll have to stick to seeing what's big in store.
Meanwhile, it blows my mind that there are people like Paige who treat literature like a disposable. Yes, publishing houses do the same, and that was due to low readership from its inability to hold itself up at retailers. It's sometimes a sentimental minefield for libraries because again, low readership and usage lead to weeding those books out, except that they'll be archived (if they have the power to), never to be read or seen by the public and remain a ghost in the bibliography for years on end. Book "critics" and "reviewers" like those in the YA community are one of those reasons some books make or break in the market. It's often why we get bad titles and see flame wars like this rising behind the scenes.

Beauty is in the eye of its beholder, they said. But seems to me the beholder is far more problematic at perceiving that beauty.

 

[SnarkySperg]

Trouble is whenever I consume fiction, even if it sucks, there's always at least one thing I feel like I can learn from it. There's so much revelation on an author's personal perspective and history that comes with reading their work.

Even the Fifty Shades series, which is possibly the worst series to ever sell over 100 million copies, has a really valuable lesson in it: the signs of an abusive relationship. I was reading an in-depth review recently and the reviewer wrote her opinion on EL James in the review of Freed's epilogue, and she had a good point. I never read the whole series (I tried and kept getting irrationally angry that it managed to get published despite sounding like a horny 13 year old wrote it) and while I'd heard it showed very well an abusive relationship (albeit unintentionally), I hadn't seen how bad it was until I read that woman's reviews.

Allosexual is the opposite of an asexual and because asexuality is considered a sexuality (jesus christ...), then they aren't part of the lgbt+ community.

I'm not sure I ever understood how they are either. Especially since supposedly asexuality is its own spectrum as well. I once said to someone that I don't understand why demisexual is considered LGBT+ because it just sounds normal to me to only fuck someone after you get to know them and I was essentially crucified for saying that because I was 'invalidating' asexual people. Like, WTF? Asexual at this point seems to encompass anyone who isn't out fucking everyone in sight. That's like 99.99% of the population. And if you're truly, fully asexual and never want sex or feel any attraction to anyone, does it even count as a sexuality?

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Even the Fifty Shades series, which is possibly the worst series to ever sell over 100 million copies, has a really valuable lesson in it: the signs of an abusive relationship. I was reading an in-depth review recently and the reviewer wrote her opinion on EL James in the review of Freed's epilogue, and she had a good point. I never read the whole series (I tried and kept getting irrationally angry that it managed to get published despite sounding like a horny 13 year old wrote it) and while I'd heard it showed very well an abusive relationship (albeit unintentionally), I hadn't seen how bad it was until I read that woman's reviews.

Kinda OT but Jenny Trout herself deserves her own thread, or at least, being included in the whole YA shenanigans. She was the one who completely sperged a couple of years ago about killing Trump and her supporters. She writes "feminist romance novels".

I agree with her reviews of 50 Shades, but, IICR, she changed one of her articles saying that "all men are in fact abusers" because I can't find it anymore and I remember she said that.

And if you're truly, fully asexual and never want sex or feel any attraction to anyone, does it even count as a sexuality?

It's kinda like how empty set belongs to all groups of numbers, maybe?

At this point, any sexuality that is not "ordinary" (as in men/women) is an special sexuality because who wants to be like those boring straights? Correct me if I'm wrong but asexuality ain't a sexuality: it's a disorder. A young person who has no sexual drive ain't healthy either physically or emotionally. There must be some cases of quite healthy people who feel no attraction for anybody, but those are rare. And simply not feeling attracted to anyone isn't being asexual. Asexuality is having zero sexual reactions to people. Many so called "asexuals" say things like "omg, that actor is kinda hot". Well, that's being fucking sexual.