Gay and/or black girls deserve to be represented in books that are actually good. I know this book isn't out yet, but the fact everyone who got the advanced copies just gush over how the protagonist is black and not on any of the much more important aspects isn't filling me with confidence.
When something gets recommended purely based on representation and importance, then it's 100% guaranteed bad. Though it can be funny watching reviewers who aren't solely SJWs try and say nice things about something they really didn't like, but it was created by, say, a black woman, so they feel they can't be too negative. It becomes an exercise in reading between the lines, like all the euphemisms in old obituaries.
Speaking for myself, since I do belong to one of the minority groups these people love pandering towards, it's honestly just patronizing to see tripe like this be fawned over and then to be expected to love it, when often it's blatantly obvious the writer didn't think beyond "I'm going to have a book with [INSERT-MINORITY] in it!"
It sucks, it's true. Especially with this forced #ownvoices bullshit. So if a character is a minority of any kind, they're either a) written by someone who can't give them any flaws because they'll get torn to shreds about how terrible they are for stereotyping the character, or b) written by someone whose only qualification is membership in that group, not necessarily any talent, so the characters are either self-insert Mary Sues, or
meant to be written as strong and empowered but always instead come off as entitled, mean and unlikable.
The future Cinderella story is a good example. Now, the idea that 200 years after she became a princess, the public version of her story has ossified from the version we know into a version where it's all about your clothes because after all, the prince only married her because he tracked her down via her shoe - that's an interesting idea of how society mythologises and makes traditions that are skewed from the truth. Not a bad starting point.
But then it has to be 'oh, if you're not picked, you disappear forever', and 'brave black lesbians are here to fight the patriarchy', and they'll undoubtedly lead a revolution that Cinderella's descendants were too frightened to do or something. Because the author is angry, and is holding a grudge, and isn't trying to build on a creative idea but write propaganda to fight in an ongoing war.
The book isn't guaranteed to be bad, though all signs point to, yes, it is, and is being fetishised by woke Beckys because black lesbians is triple oppression points. But there's absolutely no requirement for it to be good, because it ticks boxes. The characters can be one-note, but that's OK because black lesbians written by a black woman (who could also be gay). The story can waste ideas, but that's OK because black lesbians. The book as a whole can be terrible, but that's OK because black lesbians recolonising a white story and you're a racist, homophobic misogynist if you don't agree it's the best thing ever.
As an aside, there has to have started being cases of people writing books but using minorities as their pseudonyms, there just has to. Not people faking minority statuses for themselves, but just straight up a fictional person. Whether specific pen names like Francine Pascal and Ann M. Martin, or just hiding behind a black woman's photo supplied by their publisher, it
must be happening, surely.
