A Deep Dive into the Worst Books on Booktok

This video is made possible thanks to my

patrons and the sponsor of today's

video, Rocket Money. I love reading.

I've read a lot of books. I own a lot of

books. I love supporting my local

library. I love to read. Why is that

giving? I love to tour. But every once

in a while, I read a book that fills me

with what I can only describe

as I don't know, like a pure and

visceral rage. It's rare, but it

happens. But I was thinking about all of

the books that I genuinely wish I'd

never read and almost all of them had

something in common. They're all popular

on book talk. Now, does this mean that

book talk has bad taste? Absolutely not.

I've read many books that are considered

book talk books that I absolutely love

and adore. But there are five books that

I've read that I have seen praised to

the high heavens that I think are

absolutely horrendous. Not only that, I

actually think they're quite damaging

and problematic. These books span across

genres and demographics and subject

matter. One is even a non-fiction book.

And there's not a lot of art uh in

general that I can say I

hate, but I hate these books. But this

isn't just going to be a rant video. Of

course, we're putting our critical

thinking skills to good use, whipping

out that English and film degree

knowledge to break down why I think

these are the worst books on Tik Tok.

We're going to analyze the quality of

writing, the subject matter, the

messaging, the authors, and I'm also

going to suggest why I think they're so

popular. And let

me help me help you. Let me save you

from wasting your time and money on

these god-awful books. Another thing

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rockamoney.com/l to get started for

free. Thank you, Rocket Bunny. As I

mentioned, the books I'm going to talk

about range across genre, but they

surprisingly have some common through

lines. So, I've done my best to like

weave them together. I don't know what

this is to weave them together in the

most logical order. And I want to give a

content warning right off the bat

because two of these books deal very

heavily with suicide and depression. One

of those books is A Little Life, which

deals with every possible trauma and

trigger under the sun, including SA,

including child essay, including self

harm. Two other books have what I

consider to be problematic depictions of

consent. So, I'll flag when I'm talking

about them, when these things come up.

So, just take care of yourself. Also,

I'm going to do a video on the book talk

books that I do like because contrary to

popular belief, I'm not a hater of

everything. There are a lot of things

that I really do enjoy. So, I'm going to

do a video on book talk books that I do

like over on Patreon. You can pop over

there if you're interested. If you want

to help out any other way, you can like,

comment, subscribe, but no pressure. If

you're just here to hang out, that's

okay, too. We're starting off strong

with A Court of Thorns and Roses or

Acatar as the locals call it by Sarah J.

Mass. This is the golden child of book

talk. It is impossible to exist on book

social media or maybe just normal social

media, I don't know, without some

exposure to Akatar. I initially tried

reading this a few years ago because I

read some Throne of Glass books when I

was a teenager, which are also by Sarah

J. Mass. Um, and 14 or like 15year-old

me really enjoyed them. However, I could

not get through this book as an adult at

the ripe old age of

27. Yes, guys, I'm 27. I know it's hard

to believe for my youthful, exuberant,

bubbly energy, but I am 27 years old. It

was only a couple months ago that I

actually read the whole book for a

podcast that I'm doing with my friend

Ellie who works in publishing. It's

called Why You're Reading. We follow

similar format to this. We take trending

social media books and break them down.

I do cultural context. She gives some

like insider publishing and marketing

info, but the episodes are like half an

hour long. And we do try to keep them

civil. So, I wanted to take this space

to go full hater on this book. Bill

Hater to go Bill Hater on this book. A

Court of Thorns and Roses is a retelling

of the Beauty and the Beast for the Girl

Boss Generation. The protagonist, Farah,

is the quintessential like strong female

protagonist that we saw pop up

everywhere in the 2010s. I think that

she is a poor imitation of Katniss

Everdine from the Hunger Games. And this

book is set in a fantasy universe,

allegedly, but more on that in a little.

And in this universe, there are fairies

who are magical monsters and they live

separate to humans who are kind of like

secondass citizens in a way. And one

day, Farah, while hunting for food,

kills a fairy that had shapeshifted into

a wolf and had crossed the dividing

wall. And so, as penants, she has to

live out the rest of her days in a

beautiful castle in the fairy realm with

the equally beautiful fairy high lord

Tamlin. And as you can imagine, over the

course of the novel, the two fall in

love.

I I Okay, I thought this book was so

poorly

written. I actually dreaded sitting down

to read it and the only reason I

finished it was because we were doing a

podcast on it. H the plot was full of

tropes. It was painfully predictable.

And listen, I don't mind a trope. I

don't mind predictability, especially in

like a romance novel where I know

exactly what I want from this book, and

I know I'm gonna get it. But this plot

was so slow and repetitive, and I just

hated all of the characters. Like, I

found them all insufferable. There were

so many instances where it was clear

that Sarah J. Mass was trying to make

them like charming, and I thought they

were grotesque.

We're told the protagonist Farah is a

strong female character, but she's so

inconsistent. She goes from like anxious

and terrified one minute to then making

these like witty quips and smirking in

the next. And I say witty because they

were just cringe. Like I can't even

think of a more sophisticated or

analytical word for it. They like it was

just cringe. This is also the book that

is notorious

for repeated mentions of like watery

bowels and like saying like my bowels

went watery if you've heard that. If

not, well, that happens in this book.

And before anyone defends this book

against my critiques and says, you know,

it gets better, the second book is way

better, blah blah blah. I, no offense,

don't want to hear it, I'm going to tell

you all now that I'm not going to read

any of these other books ever, unless

I'm forced to against my will. Agatar is

a staple of the romanty genre, which is

a term for romance novels in a fantasy

setting, as you may have guessed, and

they most often include fay, but they

can include vampires, dragons, demons,

what have you. You know, if you can

dream it, you can read it. It is

extraordinary on and offline, and Sarah

J. Mass is like the bestselling queen of

the genre. In this day's article, Eli

Kuini defines the romanty genre as the

stock formula is that a woman essential

to insert fantasy kingdom problem here

is being guarded, imprisoned, or

targeted by a man she hates, and that

this hate blossoms into sexual tension,

enemies to lovers, as BookT talk would

call it. More typical romances tend to

value lightness, escapism, and

pleasurable predictability. Romantic

values danger, twists, and immersion,

and uses violence, or the threat of it,

to build sexual tension. And this sexual

tension in Actar, in my opinion, is the

opposite of sexy. It often crosses the

boundaries of consent. And I was

actually quite surprised to find this

because Akar and his successors are

commonly labeled fairy porn. And one

thing that I had heard kind of time and

time again about the contemporary

romanty genre was how it privileges

female pleasure. That seems to be one of

the main draws for readers as well. I

will be a romanty girly until the day I

die because if I'm going to read about a

man for 600 pages, he better be

comparing me to The Sky and the Stars.

And I'm all for that. Fantasy is a genre

that has historically been very

maledominated both in terms of its

authors and characters. And female

characters are very often like

underdeveloped and/or mistreated. If you

think about like the sexual politics in

Game of Thrones, the amount of assault

that goes on there, for example, but

despite conversations about female

pleasure in Acatar, I found it quite

disturbing. The dodgy sexual dynamics

are established right off the bat before

Phah goes to the fairy kingdom. She said

that she would sleep with this guy in

their town. And Mass writes, "Those

times were hungry and empty and

sometimes cruel, but never lovely.

sometimes

cruel. Okay, I not quite sure what that

means, but um we'll move on then with

Farah and Tamlin, her love interest, the

beast, the the hairy f lord, the fairy

high lord. If we put aside the kind of

basic dynamics of the power imbalance of

captive and captor, the age gap between

the 500 and the 19-year-old, you know,

if we're to move beyond all that, just

first of all, the actual sexual

encounters are quite gross. There's

another scene where Tamlin is like high

off of this fairy sex festival and he

like kisses and then bites Farah kind of

to punish her. And then the next day he

says that he can't be held accountable

for his

actions. And this to me kind of gives

like I was

drunk. I was I was drunk. I was drunk.

It's not my fault what happened or what

I did. Like I was drunk. I was

inebriated. That's it was kind of that

vibe and I was kind of quite disturbed

by it. Later in the book, Farah is held

captive and she is consistently drugged

by a man and like paraded around. She

like dances for him and undresses at

parties and flirts with this man. And at

the end of it all, he says that he like

drugged her for her own good so that she

wouldn't

remember. I don't really know if roofing

someone can ever be viewed as being for

their own good, but okay. He doesn't sa

her to be clear, but he says that he

would have liked to. He said, "I would

have liked nothing more than to enjoy

you." And then this character becomes

the love interest in the next book. Like

we're supposed to be charmed by his

restraint. Anyway, and also when Tamlin

gets emotional, when he's like angsty or

aroused or angry, you know, the three

primary emotions, um, he has like these

claws that start poking out, which I

don't find sexy at all. And I also feel

like it kind of plays into that like

violence danger aspect of it, but that's

just a little tiny little detail. A huge

bone that I have to pick with this

series that I have personal beef with

Sarah J. Mass over. Okay, I'm getting

heated. Okay, a beef that I have with

Sarah J. Mass that I will never be able

to overcome is its treatment of Irish

and Celtic culture. Um, remember when I

said earlier that this was allegedly a

fantasy universe? I want you to look at

the map of this realm. So, Priton is

where the action takes place in the

novel and then we have Hibburn. Look

familiar? Ring any bells?

That is a map of Britain and Ireland.

That is Britain and Ireland. First of

all, the laziness of an author to just

copy and paste real islands for their

fantasy

world grinds my gears. Also, I'm like,

if you want to draw a country, just it's

not that hard. Anyways, it gets worse.

Pritian is a beautiful land where all of

the beautiful fairies live, full of

nature and castles, and it's not without

its danger, mind you. Um, then Hibburn

is a desolate land, and its people are

brutes. They're drunken, ugly, power

hungry, poor, and they are desperate to

invade and take over Pritian. And

Hibburn is a play on Hiburnia, which is

the Latin name for Ireland. I'm also

pretty sure she refers to Hibburn as

like the an emerald isle at one point.

And the Hibburn fay embody all of the

anti-Irish stereotypes that were used by

Britain to dehumanize Irish people in

real life. And you might think maybe

it's a coincidence,

maybe. Let's look at the map

again. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. And then

literally the like the stereotypes are

one for one what British propaganda used

to purport about Irish people, but in

the book Sarah J. Mass is reversing the

very real colonial dynamics and saying

that all those stereotypes are like

actual characteristics. I posted a Tik

Tok and a real about this on our podcast

account, both of which got quite a few

views. And I got a lot of like it's

fantasy, you know, it's not that deep,

get over it kind of comments. Fantasy,

sci-fi, any genre fiction is not exempt

from political discussion or analysis.

In fact, real life politics, history,

geography often inform how we read

fantasy texts. Uh they often inform the

texts themselves. you know, if you look

at June or Game of Thrones and like the

racialized power dynamics at play there.

And I think when an author uses a map of

the UK and Ireland and calls the Irish

island, she's not only being incredibly

lazy, but she's also opening up herself

to criticism. In general, Sarah J. Mass

takes a lot from Celtic mythology and

culture. There's a festival in the novel

which in real life is an actual Welsh

summer festival and then in the book

it's just like a fairy sex festival.

This is not new. Celtic culture,

mythology and languages have been used

to make fantasy worlds seem exotic, but

often there is little to no actual

engagement with the culture. Fourthwing

author Rebecca Yaros had to apologize

after mispronouncing Scots Gallaic names

in her book. And that's a more Gaelic

spelling. So or a more pronunciation. So

that can be it can be right. I say it's

gay. Rebecca, I truly cannot believe

that you wrote a book with Gaic words in

it and you were on an interview calling

them Gaelic. Gaelic is a different

language. You did not use Gaelic in your

book. You used Gaic, babes. She goes on

to wildly mispronounce all of the Gaic

words that she used. She calls Violet's

Dragon Tanok. I have no idea who that

is. When I read the book, I read Tarn,

which means thunder. The worst one is

when she calls Meera's dragon

Tine. I don't know who that is. That

word is Chenya. Chenya and it means fire

in GI. I know people are going to say,

but she wrote the books, but this is the

way she wants to pronounce them. That is

not how minority languages work.

Minority languages, particularly Celtic

languages, deserve respect, especially

from Americans. Fantasy American authors

who co-opt them to add a little bit of

spice and magic to their fantasy books

because they can't come up with their

own names for things. This is a touchy

subject for me as an Irish person

obviously because it is my culture and

I've thought a lot about this kind of

appropriation of Celtic Irish mythology,

aesthetics, language, etc. And I wonder

if this kind of like soft cultural

colonization happens because if white

authors stole from other cultures like

Latin American or African or Asian

cultures, which don't get me wrong, as

they have done and continue to do, but

like I wonder with that there's more of

a risk of being cancelled. So nowadays

it might just be less risky or more

acceptable to like steal from white

cultures that are not your own. I don't

know. That's just a theory. But like

Ireland was colonized for 800 years. Our

native language is at risk of dying out.

And if you're going to take elements of

our culture or of Celtic culture instead

of making the effort to do proper world

building of your own, um, at least pay

it the respect that it deserves and like

don't just like take a name and like a

shell of an idea and just fill it with

your own sludge. And it's so clear in

Akar and Fourthwing that this does not

spring from an author's genuine interest

in the mythology or languages, but is

instead just a shortcut to exoticize

their fantasy realm. I don't think

there's anything wrong with writing

outside your culture. But I think the

issue is when you're not paying any

respect to that culture. I'm popping

back in because I want to make my point

a bit clearer here. anti-Irish

sentiments, stereotypes, you know,

stealing from Irish culture, doesn't

have nearly the same detrimental impact

to us as it would to other communities,

particularly, you know, like communities

of color. Ireland nowadays is a wealthy

nation. We benefit from white privilege.

It's not a level playing field at all. I

just point it out because I'm Irish and

it pisses me off when I see it. But also

after, you know, 800 years of

colonization and oppression, obviously

the like the remnants of that is still

going to linger in culture and politics

and etc. I think it's still worth

pointing out, you know, like if you see

something, say something. And I read an

account of Sarah J. Mass from 2016 where

she praises Israel and she talks about

her birthright trip. She talks about her

grandmother serving in the Israeli army.

From that article, a lot of people say

that she is a Zionist. I couldn't find

any more recent info, but even that

speaks a lot for itself than the fact

that she's not condemning the genocide

that's currently happening. And if it is

the case that she's a Zionist, then it

doesn't surprise me that she would

create this fantasy land where Ireland,

the historically oppressed, is actually

trying to be a colonial oppressor to

Britain. Oh, that's in the sense that

that checks out to me. I also discovered

that at one point she used the murder of

Briana Taylor, a black woman who was

murdered by police, to promote her

book. I didn't think it could get any

worse. She posted a cover reveal for A

Court of Silver Flames and said in the

caption, "I hope it's a bit of light for

you guys today given the appalling lack

of justice for Briana

Taylor." And from reading what other

people have said about her books, it

seems like she often falls into harmful

racialized stereotypes in regards to the

like POC coded characters in her books,

often using their suffering to further

the development of white characters. So

with all of that, why do I think people

are reading these books? I think the

wider turn to the fantasy genre and the

popularity of it is from people who grew

up reading Harry Potter, Percy Jackson

and Twilight who lived through the kind

of 2010s romanty waves of Vampire

Diaries and Twilight and all of its

spin-offs. All of those people are now

adults and maybe looking to find fantasy

again and fantasy that is not

male-dominated. Some other factors that

I think play a part are that there's a

huge community online, so people can

discuss theories, their fan favorites,

and who they ship. With a rise of

e-readers, people can read whatever they

want in public without fear of judgment.

And the Actar series covers aren't super

obviously fantasy either. And finally, I

think throughout co there's been a

strong desire for escapism, for worlds

that are completely unlike our own. And

that really saw a rise in genre fiction,

fantasy or romanty being one of them.

And I have no doubt that despite my best

efforts to raise awareness against the

Sarah J. Mass, she will continue to

thrive. We are now taking a sharp pivot

away from genre fiction to the

non-fiction self-help book Atomic Habits

by James Clear. When I posted that I was

going to talk about this on my community

tab, some people were surprised that it

was a bad book and I too was surprised

because I have seen this book all over

my feed for years in productivity videos

in Tik Toks. Everyone seemed to be

reading this book and it became like the

productivity bible of the internet. And

when I finally read it a couple months

ago, again for the podcast, I was

um well, well, there's a reason that it

is in this video. The book's thesis is

that our lives are the sum of our habits

and that by making changes to that kind

of granular level of our habits, we can

then transform our entire lives. Clear

proposes four laws for creating good

habits and breaking bad ones. and he

goes through each law with loads, I

would say too many anecdotes and

examples. This book is so incredibly

repetitive and waffly. It is full of

pointless diagrams and clear will like

cite an animal study in a chapter and

then will try to kind of bring it back

to like a point about human habits, but

it doesn't actually improve your

understanding of anything and it just

ends up being really confusing. And

there's also a summary at the end of

every single chapter, even if that

chapter is five pages long. That's not

an exaggeration. Like this book could

have been a Buzzfeed list, a 500word

article at most. I tried to go into this

book with an open mind because I am not

a self-help girly in general. I do think

a lot of self-help consists of the same

empowerment message or the same like few

nuggets of advice repackaged and sold

back to you in order to like get these

few grifters money. But that's an issue

with the genre that's not just this

book. If books could kill is a great

podcast kind of all about these grifter

books. They actually did an episode on

atomic habits. But I understand that

self-help and self-improvement books can

be helpful to some. But as someone with

ADHD and autism, I find that the

conventional tips of like make a routine

or do a little bit of tidying every day

or just try doing this one little thing.

It does not work for me. And that's

okay. That it just it does not work for

my brain. I'm not here to like tear down

that aspect of the book because I

understand that that might just not be

for me. But why should we listen to Mr.

James Clear and his advice? He is not an

expert. He's not a psychologist, not a

neurologist, actually nothing of any

sort really. He has a blog and a

newsletter,

but he's branded himself an expert on

habits and decision-m.

Okay. At the beginning of the novel, he

he tells us a little bit about himself

and he says that he has always been

organized regimented and

self-disciplined. Habits have never been

a problem for Mr. Clear.

Okay. Well, why then why would we listen

to you? The lack of his struggle with

like self-discipline, routine, etc.

really comes through in his advice

because if you have never struggled to

wake up early or go to the gym or what

have you, you're not going to understand

why those things are difficult. So,

you're not going to have good advice.

And that's exactly what happens because

James Clear's advice ends up being very

like just do it or it's just very like

common sense. And this extends to much

larger issues as well. In a lot of

productivity media, whether it's like

books, videos, TED talks, whatever, the

advice tends to exist in a vacuum that

ignores class, health, gender,

disability, systemic issues. It's very

easy to tell someone that they need to

like go for a walk every day or go to

the gym for 5 minutes a day, which is

what James Clear says in his book. But

that's a lot harder if you are a working

parent, if you live in an unsafe area,

if you are depressed, if you're not able

to walk for long periods of time or at

all, if you're not able to afford a gym

membership. But because this advice is

so simplistic and like common sense, it

can make you feel like your inability to

reach this kind of baseline standard is

a personal flaw. And Clear also has this

weird tendency to inflate everything to

a habit. And this includes everything

from making your bed to smoking to doing

heroin. He reduces addictions to habits.

And he tries to say that everything in

our lives is about habits. It seems to

me like he's reducing everything to a

habit in order to fit his thesis and to

like justify the book's existence. It

would be okay if James Clear is not an

expert himself on habit making despite

the fact that he did brand himself as

one. But maybe, you know, maybe he did

the research. Maybe he did the

work. Do you think he did the research?

Do you think he did the work? The

research that this book depends

on, I like actually struggle to call it

research because you might be fooled

when reading it by the references and

the footnotes. But then if you actually

look at those references, you will see

there's a strange amount of Twitter,

Reddit, and Wikipedia links. This man

literally went against like everything

that we're taught in school as teenagers

about academic referencing. And like

sometimes he uses references like

sometimes he'll reference a tweet for

something that doesn't even need

referencing. But the worst are the

Reddit anecdotes where he like obviously

just went through Reddit threads and

plucked out anecdotes and put them in

his book as if that these were like hard

facts, but he he takes one Reddit

anecdote and frames it as if it is like

his own. He says, "I once heard a story

about a man in a wheelchair. When asked

if it was difficult being confined, he

responded, I'm not confined to my

wheelchair. I am liberated by it. If it

wasn't for my wheelchair, I would be

bedbound and never leave the house. This

shift in perspective completely

transformed how we lived each day. So,

that is actually not a story that he

heard once. It is a response to the

Reddit thread, what is something that

someone said that forever changed your

way of

thinking? This book has sold 20 million

copies. Which is, by the way, when I see

people recommend or promote this book, I

wonder how much they remember or if

they've actually read it because once

you remove maybe like the two useful

anecdotes or tips that you got from this

novel, it is a it is a bad book. It is

bad. It is problematic, poorly written,

and it's bad. And I think that we see it

so often on social media because the

like basic framework of habit formation

is easily kind of summarized and

regurgitated to audiences. And there are

some tips in there that people might

find useful. But I think if you've ever

watched a video about this book, you

have all the information you need. Do

not waste your time and do not waste

your money. What if bad self-help were

fiction? That is the question I imagine

Matt Hey asked when he decided to write

The Midnight Library. This is another

book and this is actually a library

copy, hence why it's covered in plastic

because I don't own this book. But it is

another book that I tried reading years

ago, but it filled me with such visceral

rage and frustration that I stopped less

than halfway through. and I knew that I

wanted to include it in this video, but

I felt like I had to do my due diligence

and actually read it if I were going to

tear it to shreds. So, 4 years after I

initially abandoned it, I picked it up

and read it from the start to the

end. And you know what? It's actually

not that

bad. Just kidding. It's terrible.

Content warning for suicide and

depression in this novel. This book is

about a 34 year old woman named Nora

from Bedford, England. After one

particularly bad day, she looks around

at her life and she decides this is not

worth living. So, she tries to kill

herself. She wakes up in this library

with her school librarian as this kind

of guru guide figure. Mrs. Elm tells her

that every book in this infinite library

is an alternate reality where her life

is different. So she can try out

different lives. She can undo her

regrets and she can try to find a life

worth living. And that's exactly what

she does. In one life she's a rock star.

In another she's an Olympic swimmer. In

one she's a glaciologist in the Arctic.

And in each trial run, in each free

trial of these lives, she lives out her

fantasies only to discover that not

everything is perfect and that she's

never 100% satisfied with her life. And

then by the end of the novel, spoiler

alert, I mean, you could probably see

where it was going to go. She realizes

that she does want to live again.

The first time I tried reading it, I

think I gave up when I saw that it was

chapter after chapter of Nora just

trying on different lives, and it had

the same repetitive formula of her

asking like, "What if this were

different?" And then she's like, "Oh,

things are different. Oh, there are

still bad things in my life." And after

like the third or fourth time reading

that, I got I was like, I get the point.

I do not feel the need to carry on. But

this time I did. And the chapters got no

less repetitive. I was kind of expecting

maybe there will be a change in the

formula. Maybe there will be a twist.

But it ended up super tropey and just

cliche after cliche. And in a lot of the

alternate realities, the drawbacks are

really dramatic. like, "Yeah, you're an

Olympic swimmer, but your mom's dead."

Or like, "Yeah, you're a rock star, but

your brother's dead." It's just, if

there's infinite books in this library,

can she not pick one where she's an

Olympic swimmer and her parents are

alive?

Then Matt Hig like kind

of I guess world builds and he throws in

some weird lore about the library and

quantum physics and alternate realities

and it brought up all these questions

that are never properly answered and

actually kind of took away from my

enjoyment of the book. I feel like the

attempts at world building only muddied

the waters. As a protagonist, I did not

like Nora. I don't mind. an unlikable

protagonist as long as they're

interesting. I I can excuse

unlikability, but I draw the line at

boring. Nora is so bland. Her sense of

regret and you know what could have been

is something that does resonate, but

then her character development and like

life lessons were about as subtle as

like a hammer to the head. And the

exposition is so clunky as well because

main Nora doesn't have any memories of

these other lives. So she goes in and

tries to kind of like piece the context

together. So it ends up with a lot of

characters saying things like, you know,

you remember your brother, you know, the

one that you haven't spoken to for 2

years since that fight that you had in

London about that song and that thing

that you did and then he did and then

you went off really upset 3 weeks later

to like a lot of stuff like that. And a

lot of the novel felt like there were

just things happening to Nora, but it

didn't feel like she had any agency or

was like actively learning anything. All

of the life lessons were spelt out by

the like librarian. Beyond the like

structure and the characters and

everything, it was just not written

well. Hey uses so many similes and

they're pointless and weird and

distracting. For example, a librarian's

smile curled at its edges like a fallen

leaf. Mhm. Cars sliding by like

forgotten

lives. All right. Dust fell in thin

wisps from the ceiling, from cracks

fishering and spreading like spiderw

webs woven at unnatural speed. At one

point, he describes a fragment of

ceiling as roughly the shape of

France. I don't think these descriptions

add anything. There's also an entire

chapter in the middle called the many

lives of Norah Seed that is literally in

one life she only ate toast. In one life

she was a travel blogger, in one life a

catsitter, in one life a volunteer in a

homeless shelter. And it goes on and on

and on like that for an entire chapter.

I was really put off by the ending of

the novel because the life that makes

Nora decide, you know, life is worth

living is one where she has a husband

and a child. So this woman's life is now

complete with a husband and a

child.

Okay. Okay. Gender roles. Sure. I feel

like that's such a trope that we always

see in real life and in media of like a

woman is incomplete unless she has a

child. I was surprised to see that Matt

Hey previously wrote a

memoir/self-help book called Reasons to

Stay Alive where he discussed his own

experiences with anxiety, depression,

and suicidal ideiation. Because the

depiction of mental health in this novel

is so simplistic and halfbaked, I feel

like it's like a novel for children, but

it's not. But despite my qualms, The

Minute Library was a bestseller and it

was voted the favorite fiction of 2020

on Goodreads. And I think it became so

popular because it's a very inoffensive

take on mental health. And you know,

it's a like feel-good life is worth

living message. So, love the message.

Knock on on the delivery. And another

argument for the book is that maybe it

inspires other people out there who are

struggling with their mental health or

it opens up conversations around it,

which is great. If it helped people,

that's great. Cool. It also came out in

2020, famously the year of Miss Corona

virus. And so I think that desire for

like a simple comfort was at an all-time

high. I don't think it's the worst book

in the world.

I think it could have been 100 pages

shorter, but its treatment of mental

health is nothing compared to the next

book. If The Midnight Library is like,

"Don't kill yourself." A Little Life is

kill yourself.

Ah, it literally is. A Little Life came

out in 2015. And don't let the blurb

fool you because she says on the back,

"A Little Life follows four college

classmates as they move to New York in

search of fame and fortune." lies.

Absolute lies. It is about one man, Jude

St. Francis, and all of the trauma and

abuse that he has endured, the

depression self-loathing selfharming

and suicidal ideiation that comes from

it. So, with that, you can imagine that

we're going to be covering some very

dark themes here. Content warning, and

it pervades throughout the entire

section. So I read this book right when

co broke out and though it did have its

book talk boom tick tick boom I actually

heard about it from friends. I read this

book sitting in the sunshine being like

ah things are going to go back to normal

after a couple

weeks. Past me was in for a couple

surprises on that one. There's a reason

why a little life is often posted on Tik

Tok with people sobbing over it. It is

the most depressing book I have ever had

the displeasure of reading. And if you

like this book or if you want to argue

against my points, I ask that you please

hear everything that I have to say about

it before commenting. That's all I ask.

As I said, this novel starts off around

four college friends and roommates in

New York City. But two of the characters

very quickly fade into the background as

it becomes clear that this novel is

about one man Jude St. Francis. Tanya

Yanagahara's intention with this novel

was to test the amount of suffering that

one person could endure. It is an

argument for mental health-based

euthanasia and it argues that some

people are too broken to fix. Some

people are beyond the capacity for

happiness. that person being Jude. I am

not going to go into everything that

Jude goes through in this book because I

don't think that it's necessary,

honestly. But as early as 70 pages in,

he has to go to the doctor because he

has harmed himself so much that he's

losing a lot of

blood.

And it only gets worse from there. But

much of Jude's trauma is dripfed to us

in flashbacks. And it really like kicks

off in earnest kind of a couple hundred

pages in to this 700page novel. So at

that point, you've already sunk some

hours into it. And I think the kind of

drip feeding makes it easier, not easy,

not easy, but easier to read because if

you lay out all of the trauma

chronologically that Jude goes through,

it becomes clear that this is just the

epitome of a trauma plot. Jude is essay,

abused and tortured from when he is a

child by several different people at

several different stages of his life.

And he is depressed, suicidal, and self

harms throughout his entire adulthood.

And I don't want to say that the abuse

in this novel is unrealistic because

there are factors like cycles of abuse,

disenfranchisement poverty sexuality.

All of these things can put people at

risk of repeated abuse. However, how and

the extent and amount of trauma is

unnecessary. It's over the top and it is

gratuitous. All of the abuse, the self

harm, everything is described in graphic

graphic detail. And that was from my

memory. I went back and checked and read

some excerpts and confirmed graphic

graphic detail. Even just like reading a

few extracts made me feel sick. And

there is a difference between showing

trauma and traumatic things and actually

exploring it. Showing these things

happening is not the same as telling a

meaningful story. It's not the same as

actually exploring these issues which I

did not think Yanagara did sufficiently

at all to like compare it. If you think

about say the use of SA scenes in film

and TV, I think most of the time they

are completely unnecessary. They are

less about exploring trauma than they

are just about showing it, whether it be

to like shock the viewer or what have

you. I think that's kind of a very

similar situation here with the trauma

that's shown. Something to note about

this novel, which I was shocked to

discover, is that Ha Yanagahara did no

research for this novel. a fact that she

has repeated several times in several

interviews and it's also something that

I'm going to circle back to. So, she

wrote a novel rife with abuse and trauma

and depression and did no research on

essay on child essay on trauma or its

impacts. And not only do I think that

that is bad writing, I also think that

it is irresponsible. Speaking of bad

writing, I don't think that this book is

written well, particularly in regard to

the characters. There is like a real

dichotomy of good and bad characters

where the bad characters of which there

are many are like cartoonishly evil

villains like the depths

of evil just horrible people. And then

the good characters are like wholly

preoccupied with Jude's well-being and

they would drop everything and do

anything for him. And despite all of his

trauma, Jude is the perfect victim. He

is exceptional. He grew up in the foster

system, but he got a full scholarship to

a prestigious university. He has a law

degree and a master's in maths from MIT.

He's a talented musician, uh, an expert

baker, and he is a highly accomplished

lawyer. I'm not saying that this is

beyond the realm of possibility, but

it's certainly unrealistic and I think

it ignores how the majority of people

who grew up in these contexts, who went

through these traumas would actually

live. I think it glosses over issues of

class disparity and systemic

disenfranchisement. The novel takes

place in this kind of like unspecified

time period as well. And I think that

disconnection in the time period

reflects how

Yanagahara like failed to situate Jude's

issues in like a social or cultural

context at all. And like this may have

happened to him, this individual, but

like there are so many power dynamics

and factors at play that are not

examined at all. And speaking of

characters, there is maybe one female

character who's interesting and actually

has an impact on the plot. From

researching Yanagahara, it seems like

this is true of all of her novels. When

asked about writing outside of her own

experience in response to like hashtag

ownvoices, Yanagahara said, "I can write

whatever I want." Which is fair enough.

I understand the resistance to being

boxed in. I don't think that you only

have to write about your experience as

long as you are respecting the

experiences that are foreign to you. But

then why, if Yanagahara can write about

anything she wants, does she keep

writing about gay men? And much has been

made of Hanya Yanagara's weird

preoccupation with gay male characters

in stories of profound and extended

suffering, ones that often include child

essay. Her first novel, The People in

the Trees, was the story of a Nobel

Prize-winning scientist who was jailed

for essaying children he adopted while

researching on Pacific Islands. to

Paradise. Her latest novel was published

in 2022 and imagines an alternate

reality where samesex marriage was

legalized in 1893 in New York and it

revolves around gay characters in three

different timelines, one of which is

during the AIDS crisis. I am by no means

the first person to notice this pattern

throughout her books. Andrea Long Chu

and Daniel Mendelson both wrote

fantastic critiques of her treatment of

gay men across her work. What baffled me

about Yanagahara was that when asked why

she keeps writing about gay men, she

said, "I don't know. I don't think

there's anything inherent to the gay

male identity that interests me." So, is

there no motivation behind

it? There's no meaning. This is not like

a lens to look at a particular

issue. Okay. Um, sure. She also said,

"I'm not that interested in abuse

really, but what I am interested in as a

writer is the long-term effect it has,

particularly in men." And yet, she did

no research on that long-term

effect. Okay. My ultimate issue with

this novel is the message that Jude is

too broken to fix, that there is no hope

for him, and that he should be allowed

to take his own life. Don't get me

wrong, I think that an exploration of

mental health-based euthanasia could be

really interesting and nuanced, but this

is not an interesting or nuanced

perspective. Yanagahara's lack of

research, results in a book that spreads

incredibly dangerous messages about

mental health, especially about therapy

and medication. She has stated that she

does not believe in or trust talk

therapy and she thinks that if you feel

like there is no hope for you to have a

good life, you should be allowed to take

your own life. And as Constance Grady

points out for Vox, a characteristic of

depression is to convince the depressed

person that they have grasped a deep

truth about the universe that pleasure

has gone from the world and will never

return that nothing will ever change or

get better and that anyone who thinks

otherwise is deluded. The oddity of

Vanagara's stance is that it treats this

common and well understood symptom of

depression which is treatable as though

it were fatal. To make things a little

personal for a second, as someone who

has gone through a significant portion

of childhood trauma, not SA but other

things that I am not going to talk about

now. Um there is this sense when you

grow up with so much sustained trauma

that you might be broken that there is

something fundamentally wrong or

unlovable in you. Um that is not true.

But that took me years of healing, of

therapy, of anti-depressants, of talking

with friends and family to to realize

and to actually believe about myself, to

get to a point where I didn't feel like

I was broken and I didn't feel like I

was destined to carry like the weight of

this trauma for the rest of my life. But

if I read this book when I was younger

and like really in the pits of it, I

know that it only would have enforced

the belief that life was not worth

living and that I was the person who was

not cut out for it.

And why why would you want that to be

the message of your book? I understand

art is meant for different things. It is

meant to push boundaries. It is meant to

explore different emotions and

opinions, but I don't know why you'd

want to spread that message. And I think

it's definitely true that when people

read this book, they may see parts of

themselves in Jude, you know, what he's

been through, how he copes, or, you

know, how he doesn't cope. And again,

that's the power of Irish. Like, I don't

want to take that away from anyone. Jeff

Chu wrote in an article for Vox that

this book gave him the vocabulary to

describe his own assault. I read A

Little Life when I wasn't ready to talk

about trauma or even to hear about it.

But Jude's inability to address his

wounds compelled me to begin to address

mine. His struggle to find his peace

emboldened me to try to find mine. And I

think that is amazing and I'm very happy

for John Chu. But in that same article,

Chu then goes on to call a negative

review empathy deficient. And he accuses

the book's critics of being devoid of

empathy and dismissive of trauma.

I think that you can acknowledge the

personal impact that something had on

you and realize that your experience

with a piece of art is just that. It is

personal. It is individual. Just like my

experience with this book is personal.

It's individual. These are my opinions.

But like someone criticizing the

excessive trauma in this book is not

empathy deficient. And I find that the

kind of fierce supporters of this book

and of Yanagahara often dismiss concerns

of over-the-top gratuitous trauma, the

graphic depictions of it as being

ignorant to the fact that abuse like

this happens in real life, which I find

odd. I think pointing out excessive and

gratuitous trauma shouldn't be viewed as

dismissive of trauma as a whole because

it's not. But everything in this novel

is excessive. Yanagahara said that she

wanted everything turned up. But what

results is an unrealistic plot that over

relies on extended graphic and repeated

depictions of gross abuse and trauma in

order to elicit empathy from the reader.

And I'll admit, when I first finished

the book, I thought I must have liked it

because I had such a strong emotional

reaction to it. Like so many others, I

was weeping at the end. But then a

little bit of time went by and I

realized like, oh, like I was crying

because that story was sad and

depressing, but that doesn't mean it's

actually good. And I think it's a bad

book. I think it's really damaging and I

don't think that you should read it. I

actually think that reading A Little

Life is an act of self harm in itself.

That's not even a joke. Now, to round

this video off because I have been

talking for an hour and 17 minutes and

my voice is starting to go. Colleen

Hoover.

Uh, Colleen Hoover, the author whose

books outsold the Bible in 2023. I don't

know if that says more about the state

of publishing or the state of

Christianity in the world. I have read

exactly one Colleen Hoover book in my

life, and I hope I never have to read

another. I read this book, Ugly Love. I

spent 12 of my hard-earned euros on this

book. I read this for a pilot episode of

our wire reading podcast that didn't end

up getting released. So, I have to I

have to put my trauma to good use. I

have to pull a Hanya Yagara and exploit

trauma. But this time, it is my own.

Before I read Colleen Hoover, I saw so

much about her online. And I thought

like maybe a part of my dismissal of her

was internalized misogyny. I was like

maybe I'm actually putting down these

books that are, you know, by a woman,

widely read by a woman without giving

them a fair shot. And I thought going

into it, like maybe it would be a good

trashy read. Maybe it'd be a little

guilty pleasure. I don't know. But the

plot was boring, the characters

insufferable, and the writing was

terrible. I've tabbed and like written

all over my copy of this book. This

page, I don't know if you can see, it

says Jesus Christ on it. A lot of it is

my frustration and disdain for this

novel. And a lot of it is just me

underlining problematic aspects of it or

bad writing, of which there are many and

a lot. Ugly book. Ugly book.

Yeah, Ugly Love is a book famous for its

big balls. And if you don't know what

I'm talking about, stay tuned. This book

is about a woman

named My brain is really starting to

shut down. This book is about a woman

named Tate who moves in with her older

brother and then starts a friends with

benefits relationship with her brother's

friend slash across the hall neighbor,

Miles. The perspective flips between

Tate and Miles with Miles perspective

rooted a few years prior to the like

events of the novel and it explores the

trauma that made him swear off love.

Unlike the other books I talked about, I

am just going to straight up spoil this

book. I want to talk through the whole

plot because nothing happens in it until

like the last 50 pages and the plot is

so ridiculous that it is like a main

feature of why I hated this book. So, I

need to talk about it. In Miles's

storyline, in the past, he falls in love

immediately at first sight with a new

girl in his school, Rachel. When they're

both like 16, 17, his dad marries her

mom. So, now he is living with his

stepsister who he's also in love with.

They have sex when their parents are

away and she gets

pregnant. Blah blah blah blah blah. She

gives birth. On the way home from the

hospital, Miles is driving Rachel and

their newborn baby home, and he drives

off a bridge, and the baby

dies. Tate's storyline is actually not

about her at all. It is completely about

her relationship with Miles. We don't

know anything about Tate besides the

fact that she is a nurse. She likes

orange juice. For some reason, this is

like a defining characteristic of her.

And she has a dad and a brother who are

both pilots. And I think she has brown

hair and brown eyes. That's it. That is

all the character development we get.

She has no friends. We never see her in

work. We don't know anything about her

motivations or desires like outside of

Miles. She's literally just like egg and

vixom. And then she doesn't, but they

still end up in a relationship. There

are also no female characters outside of

mothers and love interests. And all of

the characters are one-dimensional. like

Yanagara, maybe not to the same extent,

but I don't just think Hoover's writing

is bad. I think it is harmful. And at no

point in the novel is it a healthy

relationship. And this seems to be a

recurring pattern in Colleen Hoover's

books from what I've researched and I

have watched the It Ends With us film

for podcast research, not for fun. She

never really seems to dive into like the

power dynamics of play, the enabling of

abuse, the real patriarchy and poverty

so often play. And the problem with this

book is how it normalizes the toxicity

and like it frames Miles as a desirable

love interest despite his horrible

behavior and the sex. Okay. I was like

maybe people like this romance book for

the sex. Is it good? Let's read it.

The sex that they have first is

unrealistic and like how mindblowingly

amazing it is, but then there are

several scenes where boundaries of

consent are crossed and the sex is

painful and degrading for Tate and it

ends up leaving her feeling

horrible. There's also a lot of like

violence and anger issues with the male

characters. They show very strong

possessiveness over the women, whether

it's, you know, Tate's brother or Miles.

And like the gender role of like the

woman being caring and nurturing and

needing to just like endure the male's

anger and pain. Like literally at one

point, right after Miles tells Tate

about his dead child. They immediately

have sex and Tate thinks, "I let him use

me to get rid of his pain. I'll do

whatever he wants me to do as long as he

stops hurting like he's hurting. There

is no reflection or critical thinking on

that sentiment. The quality of writing

in this book beyond the subject matter

is horrible. Like I genuinely had

headaches reading this book, which has

not happened to me since I read Modeland

by Tyra Banks, also for a YouTube video.

And like for some

reason all of Miles's chapters switch to

poetry after like a couple chapters

because he says like, "Oh, his love for

Rachel turns his life into poetry." And

so the chapters are formatted like quote

unquote poetry, but it's not actually

poetic. It's just a lot of line breaks.

It's like, I hope she remembers the

moment she became my everything. When

Rachel's giving birth, it's I get Rachel

whatever she needs. Do you need ice? I

get it for her. Do you want a cold rag?

I get it for her. Do you want me to turn

off the TV? I turn it off. Do you want

another blanket, Rachel? You look cold.

I don't get her a blanket. She's not

cold. Do you want more ice? She doesn't

want more ice. She wants me to shut up.

I shut up. Give me your hand, Miles. I

give it to her. I want it back. She's

hurting it. I let her keep it

anyway. That is what that is how bad all

of this writing is. It's so

bad. And it's not even like so bad it's

good. It's actually just

horrendous. It's exhausting. The book

went viral for this quote where Miles is

driving Rachel and the baby home from

the hospital. And it reads, "Thank you

for this baby," she says from the back

seat. "He's beautiful." I laugh. You're

responsible for the beautiful part,

Rachel. The only thing he got from me

was his balls. She laughs. She laughs

hard. "Oh my god, I know." She says,

"They're so big. We both laugh at our

son's big balls." Within literally two

pages, the sun

dies. Hilarious viral

quote, Dead Sun. So, why do I think

Colleen Hoover's books are so popular? I

think part of it is exactly what puts me

off these books, which is the

simplification of trauma. It seems like

a lot of characters have one big thing

that is wrong with them. And if they're

able to overcome that single

trauma, everything will be fine. And I

maybe that thought will be empowering or

comforting to some readers. In this New

York Times opinion piece, Pamela Paul

writes, "In a country where economic

inequalities can seem insurmountable and

systems of power even more remote, this

may be the best hernock heroins and

readers can hope for. Hoover offers a

fantasy that feels attainable. You too

could achieve self-actualization. You

too could realize an Oprah healing, no

matter how much suffering it takes to

get you there. For readers invested in

characters who are like themselves, if

perhaps more beautiful and with more

exciting sex lives, the emotional payoff

can still feel

hardearned and just possibly the story

could happen to them. I think that's

part of the appeal of Colleen Hoover. I

mean, also her plots are very dramatic.

There's sex in

them. That's kind of all I can think of.

I don't really know what the appeal of

these books is because I find it so hard

to wrap my head around these books. With

all that, that is everything I think is

wrong with what I deem to be the worst

book talk books or the ones I've read. I

hope you enjoyed this. It was fun to put

together. I like talking about bad

books. I like talking about media that I

don't like. Even if it really hurts my

brain to read them, I think it's fun to

talk about and hate on

them. Sorry, maybe I am just a hater.

And what's wrong with that? Also, I

forgot to mention if anyone is curious

about the eyeshadow that I'm wearing, I

always get questions about my eyeshadow.

Here we are. It is this shade. It is the

Kaja Bentobox Trio in orange blossom.

And it is the middle shade. Voila.

Anything else that I have to tell you

guys? Oh, the next video is going to be

a video essay on the kind of

misrepresentation of teen moms in 2000's

media with a focus on the MTV reality

shows 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom and

how they kind of play into the teen

pregnancy moral panic while actually

skipping over key elements of teen

pregnancy. I actually vlogged part of my

research process in a video for my

second channel and I also talk about how

I manage like ADHD while I work for home

and work for myself. And that little

vlog was quite fun. So if you need

something to tide you over, you can

check that out. I think the second

channel is quite fun because not that I

don't show my personality here, but like

it's easier to show your personality

when you're talking about yourself, I

guess. I don't know. Anyways, I feel

slightly delirious as I've been talking

for an hour and a half and it is4 to 11

at

night. So, thank you very much for

watching. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank

you for taking the time out of your day

to spend it with me. Again, things like

likes and comments and subscribes help

me out, but no pressure. You can find me

on Instagram. You can find me on Tik

Tok. You can find me on my second

channel, or you can find me here. Teen

pregnancy videos should be up within two

weeks. In the meantime, let me know what

you think of these books slash other

books by these authors slash other book

talk books or just I don't know, tell me

how your day is

going. I want to know. So, thank you for

watching and I will see you in my next

video. Bye. Special shout out to my

patrons, Kelly T, Paula Boon, Eric

Danielson, Cecilia Diarville, and my

Sharpie Evans tier patrons.

[Music]