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The Disrespect that is Eurocentrism
I was just going to vent a little on Twitter and forget about this, but what I have to say won’t fit into 140 characters. I like to write. But I’m a busy college student, so I don’t often have time to put my ideas to paper. So, I take creative writing classes at school in order to force myself to make time. This week was workshop week. I’d started a story that I wasn’t too satisfied with but decided to keep working on it because I needed to submit something. Everyone gave good suggestions, and I would have left the workshop feeling fulfilled and armed with new ideas. But…
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Becoming an Intentional Reader
Today’s post is in collaboration with the lovely Helen from On Air with Helen, and we’re both talking about how our reading habits have changed because of this thing called life. Check out her blog to find out what she has to say. *** A while ago, someone asked what made me start reading, and it’s been at the back of my mind since then. As far as I know, I’ve always been a reader. There was no aha! moment when I discovered books and embraced the bookworm I was meant to be. And because of this, much of my reading has been “unconscious” or unintentional. What I mean is,…
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Three Things I Wish to See More in (Contemporary Romance) Books
For most of the past semester, I went through a reading slump of sorts. I didn’t necessarily stop reading, but everything I found myself reading was as a result of stress, and they were all fluffy, contemporary romances. You know, the kind of story where Person A meets Person B, sparks fly, conflict happens, and they live happily ever after. During my stress-induced romance binge, I noticed some things that got me thinking. So, here are three things I wish to see more in romance books. Characters with STDs. I went right to the heavy stuff, didn’t I? But don’t you wonder about the characters that go through “ho phases”,…
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On the Topic of YA Not Being True to Its Audience
This isn’t a new topic as far as discussions in the book community go, but I’ve seen a few Twitter threads floating around that seem to be talking about this. So, I decided to add my tuppence. *** I honestly have a problem with the category being called Young Adult, and that’s mostly because technically, young adulthood is from late teenage years to mid twenties (some people say it ends at mid thirties, but I draw the line at 28). That is very broad, but it’s a bit more accurate, because thirteen year olds are not young adults. But in the book world, young adults are age 12-18. So, for…
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Bookish Tropes I Haven’t Seen In A While
There was a time when a lot of New Adult Romance books I read or heard of were filled with clichés. I recently came across a book that brought memories of all the silly tropes that probably started out meaning well, but only managed to annoy me. It also made me realise that I must have honed my skills when it comes to avoiding such books, because it’s been a while since I read one. I know that writing a post about tropes is cliché, but I just couldn’t resist. Besides, these types of posts seem like a rite of passage for book bloggers. Just for kicks, I made a…
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Periods In Fiction
I just read A Girl Like Her by Talia Hibbert, and here’s what’s surprising: the heroine had her period. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. And that’s because I can’t remember the last book I read where the heroine menstruated. Can you? I’ve always wondered why. Why is menstruation rarely referenced in books? There’s the argument that that time of the month is as routine as urinating or brushing your teeth, and since it’s mostly assumed that characters do those things, they need not be mentioned. It’s a somewhat compelling argument, but it’s not nearly enough. Sure, there are people who breeze through that time of the month. Perhaps…
