The thing is, you *can* dox someone by sharing technically publicly available information depending on how widely known that information is and, I believe, how unsafe for the person the sharing of the info is. *But* there's a notable difference between sharing a private facebook profile or finsta and sharing a goodreads account. A random person is going to get a whole lot more information from the fb profile than they will from a goodreads. Though, idk if there's a difference legally between sharing the fb and GR
i will say, molly x chang saying that there's no reference to japan in her book and therefore no one who says that there is has actually read the book is simply untrue. it says in the book itself that some of the events are inspired by real life japanese war crimes. i'll assume the best and say that tensions were high and she just forgot that she put that in there rather than assume that she's deliberately lying. also i don't think she can judge people for "misinterpreting" the relationship between the main characters when (1) art is subjective and (2) many went into the book with certain expectations because SHE was marketing it as a romance. if she did not intend for the book to be a genuine romance she should not have been marketing it as one. i also disagree with your statement that sid publicly reviewing tguwg is a "conflict of interest" because their sister is a different author who runs in the same circles. authors leave reviews for other authors that they're friends with all the time, and this isn't even a review from an author, just a sibling of one. many authors also get feedback from friends or family duiring the writing process, some of which is negative. i genuinely don't understand how this would be a conflict of interest? that would imply that they had some incentive to skew their review one way or the other because of their sister, which isn't true. just because they're in the same social circles doesn't mean its unprofessional to leave an honest review, especially since it doesn't seem (to me) that they're especially close. (edit: to be clear bc i forgot, sid publicly reviewing their own sisters book IS 100% unprofessional and conflict of interest, but i don't think reviewing molly's book is) i understand that molly x chang was on edge because of the cait corrain situation and also still actively recieving hate and i can't imagine what she's going through, but PERSONALLY i do think she was a little out of line. i know authors will never stay out of reviewer spaces but for molly's own mental health i hope she takes this as a sign to stay away from reviews / have someone else look over them for her at least for a little while. my opinions on the book: i thought it was okay :-/ i felt the worldbuilding was a weak and maybe it will improve in the sequel but because this first book wasn't as strong as it could be it didn't entice me to continue the series once book two is released. i think molly x chang has talent, but even if i didn't know this was a debut i would be able to guess. it reads very strongly as an author's first novel (to me, anyway). also, as i mentioned, i went into this book expecting a romance because that's what the author told me to expect, so i came out of it with a very negative opinion on how certain things were potrayed.
Thank you for your thoughts! I can totally see your side especially about how I said it was a conflict of interest. That’s definitely more of a personal thing for me where if I was in that position I don’t think I would publicly say i didn’t like a book if someone I knew wrote it. I think i might approach them privately and express my opinions/concerns. But I can definitely recognize that not everyone feels the same way. Either way, I appreciate hearing your thoughts!
I agree with you. My sympathies to Molly for the Cait Corrain situation and the actual racism and threats she's received, but she did explicitly state that Japanese war crimes were an influence and she has to be honest about that. Also you don't get to be mad that people call your book a colonizer romance (up to the individual if that's negative or not) if you've been marketing the book as one. I think it's highly concerning to get mad at reviewers for reviewing books. Nobody is being especially swayed. It's a review site. People go there to read reviews.
Just a quick question. Maybe I'm mistaken but isn't the marketing of a book (such as it being a romance) usually come from the publishers, not authors? Genuine question cause I don't read a lot of fiction. I mostly just read non-fiction but on the few times when I do read fiction, the majority of it is manga, manhwa ect. and in terms of that medium, all it's marketing is decided on and disseminated solely by the publishers, not authors.
@@kittykat896 it's a combination of both, but for many authors (especially debut authors) it skews toward them having to market their book themselves. in fact its somewhat of a known topic of discussion that many authors are left out to dry by their publishers and are forced to bear the burden of marketing on their own. that's part of why authors debuting in the same year tend to form friendships; they band together to promote each other's books because they're less likely to get promotion from their publishers than established authors. in the case of tguwg, there was marketing created by and for the publisher's social media profiles, but a decent amount was posted to molly x chang's own profiles as well. one could argue that it's possible she didn't create the marketing herself, merely posted it, but even if that were true its still her account(s) and she still bears the responsibility for whatever is posted there.
@@wolfwatch9731 thanks for the insight! That's super interesting. Completely different from how it's done in the East in terms of the manga industry and even in the non-fiction publishing world.
I've not read the book, but from what you've described, it still sounds like a romance. Plenty of romance tropes are built on the love interests' disdain and disinterest for the MC and the fact that the main character is unreliable doesn't mean that they are not in a romantic scenario. Also it was marketed as a romance by both the author and the publisher, so at the very least it was intended to be in some ways romantic even if you didn't interpret it as such.
I disagree, people have every right to be upset with a book thinking its going to be "x" based on the marketing, and instead get "y". Just because it "happens" doesn't mean it's okay, and especially since Molly herself was marketing it as "x". Also, I do think it's kind of crazy to expect people who didn't like the 1st book, to pay money and spend thier time on a 2nd book in a series, just to see if it gets better, regardless of the colonizer romance thing, there's just so many other books which exist that I would rather pay money for and spend time on. And I disagree in terms of these authors being influential, or at the very least, they're like z-class celebrities, like if I went on the street and asked people if they recognized these authors, I guarantee you, people would more recognize drag queens from RuPaul's drag race Lmao. Edit: Spelling
I don't know this specific case, but authors and writers aren't generally in charge of marketing or cover art. In traditional publishing, they don't usually involve authors in that part of the process
@@jayfalcon-rw3qc Not everyone does, but it is easier or preferable for newcomers to do marketing on social media themselves. Essentially, the reader is invested more in the author as a person than the actual content of the book. This is more prevalent on tik tok famous ones, but I have heard it's mostly Romance and Fantasy. Also publishing these days expect the author to do the heavy lifting. Be a celebrity, marketing genius, etc. etc.😂 hope this helps
While I do really feel for molly about the cait corrain situation, I still think she overstepped here and made a series of blunders that she is now paying dearly for. 1. Reviews are not spaces for authors. While I think it's understandable that aurhors would want to know what people think about their book , the situation with cait should have taught a LOT of authors how unhealthy it can be for authors to fixate on bad reviews. She should have never tweeted about it for multiple reasons (one of which is the potential for fans of hers to now comb through reviews and potentially heckling reviewers). Calling for "genuine reviews" quite literally put a target on any reviewer who left her a bad review, because it implies that all the bad reviews were just people reviewbombing and lying in their reviews. She had zero evidence for that statement. It was a really really dumb move. 2. I just dont think it's fair to say that it's conflict of interest to review a book just because your sibling is an author in the same friend group. Authors review and blurb their friends books ALL. THE. TIME. I've literally recently seen authors leave THEMSELVES 5 star reviews. 3. To say someone of a following the size of Sidd is famous is a WILD statement. I have a small art account with about as many followers as Sidd and I'm a nobody in the art sphere. and that's with me having multiple mutuals who have very large followings (think between 10-60k, with about a handful having 100-528k followers) Respectfully, no sidt and her sister are mot famous and dont have their fame to back them up. 4. The sisters were also out of line and the misuse of the word doxxing was absolutely not acceotable. However I do want to mention that they still had a valid point to be upset at Molly leaking the private account so people could make a connection to her other socials. Sure she might not be in actual danger lile if she was doxxed, but Molly essentially opened to floodgates for people to find and harrass the reviewers socials. This is the reason youtubers and influencers have gotten into trouble plenty of times. I remember MANY instances of people with large followings unintentionally sending people to harrass people who have left undesirable comments, leading to a slew of abuse and harrassment. That being said, them making this a point does seem to have been made in bad faith since Sidd did a poor job hiding the identity of the other person. 5. While I understand that Mollu could be overly sensitive about stuff in the wake of cait, I dont understand why she didnt just personally reached out to the sisters about the suspected reviews and the potential badmouthing thing. She was told they talked about her but that the friend didnt remember how. why assume it was badmouthing? Why not personally reach out? Bringing in a whole separate person is weird to me. It wasnt really an issue big enough to warrant a mediator in my opinion. Molly took Sidt calling the book a colonizer romance and jist assumed they were shittalking her with no evidence, which lead to the whole issue being way escalated, involving way more people than necessary. 6. To the colonizer romance bit. It is 100% mollys fault that people perceived it that way because of how she marketed the book e.g. enemies to lovers, zutara, romance etc. The thing about Zutara that worked is that Zuko wasnt actively partaking in terrible warcrimes during the series. Zuko was still a honorable person with a good heart deep down who was misguided in his devotion to his country and torn between what was expected of him and what was right, which is what lead to his falling out with his father in the first place. Mollys Male MC is the equivalent to if Azula was a guy, who we actively see committing war crimes and never switched sides. You cannot portray the story as one thing and then be surprised, shocked and appalled when people take your word about your own story at face value. Even if she lied to sell for marketing then that is still her fault and people get to be upset about that. But I also dont think that you have an acurate view of marketing. Marketing is about finding, reaching and selling to your TARGET AUDIENCE. Lying to sell a completely different product than what was promised might me good for making a quick dollar but isnt sustainable if you are trying to continue selling. Bad marketing almost always backfires. This was just bad marketing. The divergent comparison is also not a pretty bad one. Divergent and the hunger games are the same genre still. They are both dystopian YA books with themes of romance, rebelling against opressive governments. They have thematic similarities. Obviously Divergent cant be "just like THG". That would be a plagiarism lawsuit. Tguwg was marketed as romance, which it is not. It was marketed as enemies to lovers, which it is not. It was marketed as being like Zutara, which it is not. The only thing that is actually truthful to the marketing is that it is fantasy. Bad marketing existing is a) a very valid complaint, because genres are there to help target audiences to find the right product, which is kind of the point of marketing and b) not at all an excuse for Mollys bad and misleading marketing. Her going back on her own words about what the book is about give her less credibility, not more. 7. The unreliable narrator excuse doesnt work if you dont do anything to SHOW that the narrator is unreliable well enough. If you do not challenge your unreliable narrator well enough, a reader WILL take the characters words at face value, because why wouldnt they? Better written books will spread seeds throughout the book (e.g. in the form of other POVs conflicting narration; the Narrator having moments of clarity/introspection etc) that make you question the narrators truth without thinking that the character is just badly written and makes no sense. Molly could have also mentioned in the authors note in the beginning that the narration is unreliable to prime readers for that, if the text itself doesnt make it obvious. If you have to retroactively explain that the narrator is unreliable for people to understand that, then you as the author didnt do a good job showing that in your writing. There is a difference between a character being badly and inconsistently written and being an unreliable narrator. 8. It is also 100% mollys fault of how she handled the whole thing about unit 731 and a lot of the criticism she has received in that regard is warranted imo. Had she not herself stated in writing, that the book was inspired by unit 731 a lot of the backlash would have probably been much less. You cant referrence real life horrific war crimes as the basis for the country, of what you yourself presented as the love interest of your book, and not expect for people to take issue with that. Her statement about his this isnt a WW2 novel and how it's not inspired by Japanese people when she herself said the book was inspired by warcrimes committed by Japanese people makes her just look like a straight up liar who is trying to gaslight people about things she said in writing. It's really difficult to write around such a delicate and horrific topic. It needs to be done with a lot of care. It's the same about writing a story about someone falling in love with an abusive person. a lot of people dont approach it with the care needed, especially since in the romantasy space a lot of abusive tendencies arent really acknowledged as such. In a sphere where a lot of abusive men get romanticized and glorified you have to be very intentional about how you write a character actually MEANT to be abusive within the narrative I also think you are giving a LOT of grace to Molly, while seemingly extending none to the sisters in this situation. There are also a lot of whataboutisms going on in regards to the review ethics debate, that make your arguments sound like they are in bad faith tbh
@Sammy-fmhkyI definitely agree. It just seems to odd to me that Kristen is painting the sisters as the instigators and villains of this controversy, when Molly could have prevented this at MULTIPLE turns and ultimately was the one to fire the first shot. She is acknowledging that Molly's trauma maybe affecting her decision making, but is kind of brushing past how the sisters trauma could affect theirs. I can definitely see people reading it as either or and I do think Molly probably intended it to be one, but didn't realize how problematic the implications of it would be and then changed her tune when people pointed that out. her flip-floppy stance on whether it actually is or not, is the part that leads to really polarizing opinions. The colonizer romance accusation probably didn't sit right with her so she revealed the "to kill a monstrous prince" title to try and stop the accusations. Thank you for reading my behemoth of a comment!
@Sammy-fmhky Holy hell, I didn't even know of a bunch of this! (Thank you for writing all of that out! Genuinely I really appreciate it) All of this makes Molly indefinitely worse. I did definitely get the vibe that she was putting the colonized in a really weird place of blame that I didn't vibe with. The shoehorning of the connection to real war crimes is WILD. Like who tf does that?? Good god. what a terrible person. It's so sad to see her trample on her own family's trauma and the pain and hurt Chinese people went through. It's crazy because Avatar showed that it's absolutely possible to write a colonizing Japan inspired nation without low key romanticizing committing war crimes and blaming the nations that were colonized for their victimization.
I could agree that Ruying is an unreliable narrator. But what cemented my opinion that TGUWG is a colonizer romance is that one chapter in Antony's POV.
that chapter is the bane of my existence it RUINED my whole argument and I was really trying to give the book the benefit of the doubt but that chapter completely destroyed any chance of redemption 😔
i agree with you about sidd inappropriately used "doxxing" because it's a really serious issue that puts people in physical danger, but molly has way more influence as a traditionally published author posting a revewier's name and face-regardless of whether or not their profile is public-than a muslim reviewer with 3.7k followers. i saw the ire that those reviewers received (and are still receiving) and it was undeserved. they're such a small group and they said they tried talking to her privately, but she was not listening. the twitter attacks molly received were also undeserved, but she conflated those with genuine reviews and that was what really put the nail in the coffin for me regarding this whole debacle. it's disingenuous and was lowkey "these brown girls are hurting my feelings. let's start a witchhunt." conflating misogynistic anti-sino vitriol with "i didn't like this colonizer romance" was nasty on her part. you can't market this book as a "slow burn, enemies-to-lovers, villain romance" and not expect people to feel some type of way, especially because this book is based on the horrific and erased history of unit 731- a thoughtless imposition. you basically gave molly a pass to lie at 49:40 which makes me think you weren't closely following her leading up to her debut. by doing that, authors turn their most anticipated readers and biggest supporters against them-which is exactly what happened (deservedly so). just because it's "not unique to molly", doesn't make it any less shitty. lastly, you wrote your review without mentioning unit 731 and that's another issue i had with this book. as a chinese person myself, this book was a poor portrayal of a painful history that was erased by japan and usa where experimentation, torture, and r-word of mostly chinese people occurred. the way it was written felt like a betrayal of loved ones, countryman, and self given everything that happened in that history. don't get me wrong: i love unreliable narrators and i saw that was what molly was trying to go for, but this project was beyond her scope and abilities. she and her team lied during their marketing phase and i hope future authors learn from her mistakes. this situation can't even be compared to divergent's marketing tactics because that was a hunger games fanfiction (that was battle royale fanfiction) based on zero real world events when tguwg is. i implore people to watch catherineannechiang's review on youtube to get a better idea of why was horrifying to read from a chinese person's pov.
Thank you for sharing! I see what you’re saying and I didn’t articulate these points you mentioned as well as I should’ve. A lot of people mentioned what I said about marketing which - you’re right it’s disingenuous to lie to readers. My perspective was just that it probably wasn’t all Molly’s idea but part of a larger strategy created by the publisher. And I agree 100% it’s not a great strategy and it does more harm than good. As for Unit 731, I mentioned it briefly in the video but now after uploading I’m kind of kicking myself for not going more into depth. I agree, i think this was a very heavy and very much still a deep wound for a lot of people and tackling this event in this kind of book (one that is primarily a romance) left a bad taste. And I acknowledge that I can’t even begin to understand the true pain and trauma this event has caused and now its portrayal in this book. I appreciate your perspective on this and I think I might make an addendum to my original video to address some of these points.
I understand your point about the book but it's currently being marketed as a romance. It's like the third genre listed for the book. So yes this book is a fantasy romance. Don't understand the why of the argument here that is not a romance when it's being sold as such.
Yeah. Not a fair critique. It’s a romance and the author marketed it a such. You can’t fix the critique by pretending it’s not a romance. Disingenuous.
Also, just because books are often marketed as something different than they actually are, that doesn’t mean that’s a good thing. But even then, a book should at the very least be the genre it’s listed at. Non of this “well it’s not actually a romance”. That’s just rude to readers who specifically seek out those labels in order to find… romance books.
Just because a book is marketed as a particular genre does not make it so. The content of the book is what matters. Genres (especially as defined by book sellers) are quite literally marketing tools. And they are OFTEN misleading. This is kind of a hate the game, not the player situation.
Especially so considering Molly herself was marketing it as a romance. I could maybe give the argument some water if it was only the publisher's marketing it as such, but when the author herself is saying it's a romance, it's a romance.
As a writer it pisses me off when authors harass reviewers. Bad reviews can be just as helpful to readers as good reviews. Also why are you fighting with reviewers, write a book? Get better at writing??? Like!?
I didn’t follow this drama and knew nothing before watching your video. I don’t see why she shouldn’t have reviewed the book. Regardless of their relationship, the review wasn’t posted on her main account and was truthful. Whether you think it was flippant, the critique wasn’t wrong and many have read it and felt the same. The fact that Molly was screenshotting them and sending the review and the username around to her friends is weird. That behavior probably encouraged the nosy trouble stirring friend you call a mediator to confront people on her behalf. And before you say she wasn’t confronting people, it’s clear based on the evidence you showed that the friend got the bone from Molly and went to Syd saying, “Molly thinks this…”. Then in your evidence, the “mediator” took that chat and went back to Molly and further stirred her up. Then she took another bone from Molly about Sarah and messaged her. Based on the triangulation, I fully believe Molly was shit talking Sarah to their author group. The supposed mediator told her Sarah mentioned her at a dinner and Molly was hurt and thought it was negative. The “mediator” knew it wasn’t but didn’t tell her. No good intentions behind that. Then that same person pops up in Sarah’s DM speaking on Molly’s behalf and grilling her about her book launch and dinner - that she herself was at - as Molly’s proxy. Meanwhile Molly pretends there’s no animosity on her end and messages Sarah asking after her emotional state… like wtf? It’s childish and offensive. Molly immediately placed people in the middle of the conflict and having those people confront Sarah is a classic high school isolation tactic. Makes Sarah feel alone and makes it obvious multiple people know and are on your side. Idk how old Molly is, but she’s definitely old enough to know better than to gossip behind the scenes and send people to act on her behalf. You know Sarah. Ask Sarah what was said. You don’t need a friend to ask Sarah anything. You already messaged her directly. Just message her again. Also, her sister is a book reviewer. She didn’t like your book. Whoopdidoo. She didn’t review it on her main account where it would have gotten a lot more attention. She did it on an alt that no one cares about, but Molly wouldn’t even have known that if she wasn’t messaging Goodreads usernames to her friends and expending tons of energy on it. I do think there’s something to be said about why Syd even felt like she couldn’t review it on her own account. There is backlash a negative review. More backlash than warranted. It disincentivizes honest reviews. That part of their critique is true. No one should have been made to delete their reviews, but I’m not surprised that they felt like they needed to. The backlash pushes people to make anonymous reviews but even that’s not detached or safe because the author is personally sending that account around for other authors to investigate all to still find out who you are. You end up in the same position of facing a large volume of unwarranted backlash. Based on your evidence, Molly engages in this practice herself and was happily driving a dog hunt over legitimate negative reviews behind the scenes. It’s not weird that a popular reviewer responds to other reviews. I follow multiple popular reviewers on Goodreads and they all respond to reviews or comments to their own reviews. Part of what drives their popularity is their interaction with the community.
You know what, you've completely turned my opinion on this whole thing around. I had made a comment in complete defense of Molly, but I'm going to delete it now. This opinion seems to be the objectively correct one and I'm glad I took the time to read it.
I ended up putting the video on 1.5x speed because it felt kinda bad faith but I wanted to watch until the end to give the benefit of doubt, and oh my god, your comment just says everything I was thinking. Molly saying that people leaving negative reviews hadn't read the reviews because the book wasn't about Japan really cemented it to me because in the book itself, in either the foreword or introduction, Molly says it was inspired by Imperial Japan and Unit 731.
i left a bad review on this book in december! when i got an arc, and when i started reading about the reviewers getting doxxed i got so scared it was me i went ahead and deleted the review , back when i got the ARC the book was being marketed as a romance and the author was comparing it to Zuthara, which is a thing i ship, my main issue with the book was the lackluster construction and worldbuilding ! watching this video was Nice because i jumped out of the drama as soon as i saw it started lmao the book was nOT worth all this discourse IMO
As an author, I can tell you that I agree with you: I do read some reviews on Goodreads. Especially at the beginning, mostly to know two things: how the book is received, and if I am marketing it to the right audiences. Maybe that's specific to me as I am self-published, so I am the author but also in charge of marketing. But as an artist, we want to know if we hit or missed, if we lacked one thing or another. I don't think it would be possible for me to completely avoid criticism, feedback, opinions… That's part of the deal. That's healthy to some degree (and I have to check if people review the book when they have an ARC and all that, so I can't do my job if I just stay in my cavern forever). However, I never respond, interact or blast a bad review on any platforms. I share good reviews for marketing (especially from ARCs, that's the point), but I never try to defend my work, or comment etc. I've even had DNF by ARC reviewers, and I never tried to argue with them. I have a right to love my books, so everyone has the right to their opinion as well.
For your first point, it’s not just you! You are totally right! I’m in indie publishing, but did postgraduate work at a school well known for writing. Writers are allowed (and highly encouraged, many times even paid) to review books. My professors all also reviewed books for the NYT and were published in the New Yorker. They’ve all had many books out and can easily live off what they make just from their traditionally published book sales. They also make money from reviews (and working as professors). They all said it’s great to get into reviewing as a writer. You just have to make sure you don’t review books by close friends (it’s seen as tacky)
@@KindredKaye Oh yeah, presenting as honest when it's family/friends lacks transparency too. I am currently sharing my aunt's creations and I EACH TIME say like "I am not paid, this is not free product BUT I am related to the artist" to be sure that people know what's happening and can trust me with the all info. Otherwise it's just breaking your audience's trust and after that… it's hard to come back. Especially for people in the video that made reviewing their main job? Like how I am trusting you know??
@@Alpha1_Isolde Yes it's crucial! I have used reviews (in early stages too, as soon as beta readers) to help me define my genre and my marketing when I'm unsure. I have one contemporary with a love story, and I made sure to include romance readers to see how they reacted. And one of them even DNFed the book! The book wasn't the problem, she just said 'not enough of the couple, not enough romance' and I didn't follow romance codes… so I knew if I marketed it as romance, this is exactly the reviews I would get! They are a good guidelight for that. And at some point, the book could be problem, of course… but it usually starts with marketing, which can be shifted always!
Right? Writers and artists don't release work into the void, we want to know how the other side of the art - the viewer - sees it. The key is to review politely and to respond to reviews politely.
@@draconicfeline6177 I personnaly don't engage unless the reviewer reaches out to me (which, in the case of ARC is quite often actually), but I sure as heck read them! Like you say, the "void" is not the goal, otherwise I'd just leave it on my computer? Maybe there are writers who just write/publish/repeat but I don't think you'd really grow and get better? Time isn't enough, you need the other pov
I dont understand why Sid is being held to a level of professionalism when that’s her sister’s ‘coworker’ and she’s just a reviewer… reviewing from an account with a pseudonym.
No arguments with most of what you've said, but just fyi that writers reviewing their own books as well as having their family/friends review their books is pretty common and expected. It's not really seen as unethical or controversial amongst authors and pretty much any author with a goodreads account will do it, from bestsellers to unknown indie authors. Arguing with other people's reviews/comments is a whole other matter, of course, but the act of reviewing their own book or their friend/family member's book is pretty much universally done.
Oh i have no doubt about that. I just found it ironic that they were up in arms about Molly having screenshots of her goodreads page meanwhile her sister was arguing with people that posted negative reviews. I’ll admit that you have a point about family/friends leaving reviews and I was more trying to point out the double standard and how they had a lot to say about “boundaries” and “respecting reviewer spaces”. And honestly i’m still pretty new to how goodreads works (it’s also inherently a janky website) but thanks for letting me know! i appreciate it
@@LynnHermione have fun never reading anything from R.F. Kuang then, I guess because she's given all of her own books 5 stars on goodreads. The reviews all start with her pointing out she wrote the book and then including more info that the reader might like to know, like her thoughts and approach to writing it and whatnot. Pretty much every author that is active on GR does some version this. Its a way for them to talk about the book in a place readers can easily find but is isolated from the other reviews on the book so its not directly talking to those people. GR is, at the end of the day, just a social media site where anyone can post thoughts about any book they have or haven't read, not a journalist organization publishing serious reviews. If an author was reviewing their own book for a paper or a journal, that would be very different thing.
I completely disagree with you about the marketing of the book. People expected it to be a romance, and their complaints about it not being a romance are totally valid. People buy books based on the genre they like and want to read. Not everyone likes every literary genre. Just imagine picking up a book expecting something like Stephen King, but instead, you get Jane Austen. I love both writers and their books, but I would be disappointed and would leave a negative review. Saying that the book was promoted as a certain genre it does not belong to because of an unreliable narrator is just wrong. I'm also a strong supporter of the idea that readers should not have to go to Twitter to learn anything about the narrative of the books they are reading, especially if they plan to review them. They aren't going to review tweets.
it really just sounds like the mediator wanted to start drama with a person who was already having rough time. Molly is obviously really defensive... and this "third party" is just living for the drama
I saw this whole drama unfold in real time, and I agree with your points about Molly and Sid, and how their behaviors were just not acceptable. The hypocrisy on Sid's end and her overreaction were unwarranted, and sadly I don't think she's aware of it. As for Molly, I feel bad for all that she's been through, but that doesn't justify her own overreaction and the pain she has caused. I truthfully don't doubt she may have slandered Sarah's reputation with how she must have spoken about her to their mutual author friends. With that said, I do, however, disagree on your take about the marketing and justifying the deception on the author's side about what the book is about. It kind of reminds me of Alex Aster's marketing of Lightlark and her promises on what the book contained only for those elements to be non-existent in the actual story. The problem here is that the authors will create a certain expectation and perception for the readers interested in the book, only for those readers to be sorely disappointed when none of those promises actually happen or are inaccurately presented. It violates the trust between reader and author, and it just seems really low and unethical to intentionally mismarket a product that way. There's a reason why false advertising is illegal, and though Molly's claims about what her book is about aren't close to legal extremities, I do think the criticisms she's receiving on the marketing are completely valid. Like every time Molly makes a claim about her book, are we supposed to doubt that and presume such statements will be false?
I see what you’re saying about the marketing bit and I definitely agree it’s not a great tactic. It’s always best to be honest about what the book is actually about and this was definitely a case where trying to create hype (advertising it as zutara) backfired horribly. I didnt explain myself in the video but I meant more so that this marketing tactic probably wasn’t all HER idea and was probably pushed by an actual marketing team that works for the publisher. A team that might’ve prioritized profits over genuine reader interest. But anyway, loved hearing your thoughts about this!
I am confused by how you pointed out how many of the negative reviews on Goodreads were a result of so much negative marketing and people reviewing the book when they had not read it, but later 39:34 form the opinion that because Sid and her sister knew Molly irl, Sid reading and genuinely reviewing her work was a conflict of interest. I understand that this is your personal opinion and not a statement of a professional standard, however, regardless of how the drama played out or who was more in the wrong, Sid or any other reviewer who knows the author writing a review of TGUWG is both to be expected and perfectly normal. What would be unprofessional is intentionally negatively reviewing the work, avoiding reviewing the work, or encouraging others to do the same. If Sid failed to review TGUWG in the same manner as she had reviewed other books whose authors she’s unacquainted with, it would indeed be unprofessional. If Sid chose to only review this debut authors work and not other new books that were concurrently released from that debut group, that would be unprofessional (altho Sid reviewing her sister’s book is sus lol). Sid’s sister being an author who also knows Molly again does not automatically mean that it was unprofessional of Sid to review TGUWG. It is irrelevant to her situation and in MY opinion, shameful for Molly to have brought another author under scrutiny for her sister’s words and behavior. To me, the situation described wherein Molly was asking any and everyone for anything negative said about her at the other authors debut is very telling of her mindset at the time. I agree with you that it sounds like she was experiencing and lashing out due to hyper sensitivity, or something similar to post traumatic stress, from the genuine review bombing she experienced at the hands of Cait Corrain. I disagree on the point where you group Molly’s review-bombing anxieties with her anxieties about the discourse surrounding whether TGUWG is a colonizer romance or not. These are two separate fights, one in which the author is attempting to justify a plot and characters that many are claiming are simply a result of bad writing, and the other fight is one in which the author is hyper vigilant towards their inner circle for any lack of support or sign of dissent. There are reviewers who HAVE read TGUWG, reviewers who DNF TGUWG, and those who left reviews without ever having touched the book. Molly appears to be incapable of discerning the impact of these reviews from one another. I am baffled that no one is painting Molly’s request for genuine reviewers as unprofessional as that to me is a call for her audience to act dishonestly. She asked for good reviews not honest ones, implying that she does not believe negative reviews to be honest.
I see what you’re saying and I will say that I don’t think i was 100% clear. To your first point, me saying that it’s a conflict of interest is purely my personal opinion. A lot of people felt the same way you did and I can totally see how it’s not a conflict of interest. If it were me in this situation and I read a book from someone I knew, I wouldn’t want to review it publicly but instead go to them directly and voice my opinions/concerns. I guess my thinking process was like: her sister is also an author and also a debut, there’s a possibility that knowledge is affecting her judgement and she was being more harsh about the book than she might be with reviewing her sisters book. But that’s HEAVY speculation and I’m in no way saying that is true in any sense. As for the reviews, I couldn’t find any hard proof besides allegations from Sid and other reviewers that Molly was asking for people to send her screenshots of negative reviews so I can’t say whether or not that actually happened. In my perspective, I think she was worried that some of them were fake - like how I mentioned that she had a review from someone named Jane Corrain (which COULD be a real name but it would be very coincidental) I think she was worried that the same thing was happening after the book was published and that in her mind - people were leaving fake bad reviews based on the internet calling it a colonizer romance. Again, I can’t say for sure what she was thinking and if any of these reviews are fake. I was more so trying to put myself in her shoes and throw out some theories/ideas. All that being said, thank you for sharing your thoughts! I can see how I wasn’t super clear and you make some excellent points!
@@Listen2Kristen_ I absolutely see what you are saying regarding the crossover that led the author’s suspicion of Sid’s negative review antagonizing fake reviews further. realizing now that I harped pretty argumentatively on an opinion which you are absolutely entitled to have! My sincerest apologies for that, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me~
@@oatfreedairy No not at all! I genuinely enjoy hearing what everyone has to say about this situation and I didn’t find it argumentative at all. It’s good to hear from all sides and I appreciate hearing your thoughts! 🫶
I borrowed it from the library and I dnf it around 20%. I was just not into the world building. It wasn't explained well in the beginning. Her author note said Rome is based on Unit 731 so I was like why name it Rome and make them white when Unit 731 is Japan. I understand the author pulling in events based on real life like the opium crisis and Unit 731 but I felt she didn't execute the story well enough for me to keep going. I haven't gotten to the romance and I was bored af. The whole review situation left a bad taste in my mouth so I was like ok let's just judge the book by itself and I felt like she had a good idea/premise. If I ever do finish it, i would wait till the second book.
This is such a red flag to me and the reason why I will never read this book. Yeah, just attribute war crimes and atrocities from an ethnic group to another. It's only okay if they are white though.
Thank you for clarifying the details of all the drama outside the book's narrative!! I think the author really shot herself in the foot by directly comparing the narrative to unit 731 in the author's note in that proceeds the text. Because of that the moral ambiguity and twist are already destroyed for many readers. They have to read a girl falling in love with a colonizer while waiting for the other shoe to drop where he does horrific war crimes comparable to one of the worst crimes against humanity in history. She even says "To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is about... the forgotten history of China's century of humiliation..." which makes the story feel like a very uncomfortable allegory. I also think that pulling off this kind of narrative where you see the character falling in love with an abusive person needs to, to some extent, make the reader understand the character's fascination and fixation, and that's very difficult to do.
Hmm - not sure if you're saying this definitely certainly absolutely happened or if this is just alleged ... 😂 You did a great job here breaking everything down and clearly explaining what happened. I follow a fair number of book reviewers. Many of them wanted to draw attention to TGUWG after the initial review scandal, but none of them ended up being very positive. I'm glad a BIPOC author got attention in response to being mistreated, but no one is obligated to provide a positive review of anyone's work. This author behavior is really disappointing.
Edit: I initially wrote this comment in defense of Molly and making fun of the reviewers, but after reading some opinions in the comments, I've done a 180 and completely changed my mind. Just leaving my comment here for engagement but deleting what I had to say previously. I recommend anyone who's formed an opinion based on this video to scroll down and read some of the longer comments in defense of the reviewers.
I came into this video very interested to hear the full story, i have seen some video reviews of this book and although i will still try and read this book i most likely won't buy it. In terms of this video in particular I found it a little difficult to keep up with what happened based on your narration alone. I also found it strange that you randomly mentioned the muslim author (who as far as i can tell hasn't got much to do with this) and how "theirs a boycott against her publishing company" without expanding further. Whats the boycott regarding. Why are we boycotting. Whats the reason? Shes clearly a smaller author who's already had a negative experience with her booktour and now you're encouraging people to boycot her book without actually discussing why. Moreover, I do agree with the reviewers statement. Reviews are for authors and if reviewes don't like a book they should be able to review it negatively or not without receiving backlash. Molly X Chang should never have made any comments alluding to "fake reviews" when there wasn't the slightest bit of evidence to suggest that's what was happening. She's already received a lot of support for this book from the booktok community to try and balance what happened with Cait Corrain (it's in fact the only reason why I knew about her book before it was released) Many were encouraged by multiple different popular book related content creators on several different platforms (IG, UA-cam and Tiktok) to pre-order the book and support her for this reason alone. I saw a lot of promotions from the author that this would be a romance and that lovers of the Katara and Zuko ship from Avatar woyld love this book. Which is kind of suggesting a taboo or forbidden romance. Plus many of the detailed reviews Ive read have explained with detail examples including extracts from the authors note. Which included a note that some of this book was inspired by real life Japanese war crimes. I don't think its fair to say "everyones wrong" when the opinion given is subjective and based on the content of the book and nothing else. Reviewers can say whatever they want aboht a book. Not everyone is going to enjoy every trope. Lastly I would really appreciate some infornation on the reason your encouraging your audience to boycot a muslim authors book. If your going to give tidbits like that then some semblence of context is required
Thank you for expressing your thoughts. I am more than happy to explain. The boycott is on St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of Macmillan after one of their employees was caught saying z!onist/racist things. The boycott was organized through readers for accountability and is a marketing boycott - meaning that influencers/creators cannot make content/review books published under St. Martin’s Press (and any of their imprints) until they address the actions of their employee. This author’s book was published under St. Martin’s Press and fell under the boycott which is why I didn’t say the name of the book. I should’ve been more specific in my video that I wasn’t encouraging people not to buy/read the book and just that I wasn’t going to say the name of it and for that I do apologize. I included the instagram of the author so that if anyone was interested in looking it up they could but I absolutely should’ve been more explicit. I’ve talked about consumer boycotts and other pro-palestinian content in my other videos and I’ve reposted content from readers for accountability on my social media in the past and I assumed that my audience was already familiar with what I was talking about but that was reckless on my part. I appreciate you taking the time to express your concerns and thoughts on my video.
It’s astounding how people are ready to jump on someone they hear is a bad person to a point where they’re not even trying to teach them a lesson (as if that’s their job in the first place) but to feel righteous indignation and like they’re morally superior.
I don't understand authors harassing reviewers? Like, I do understand that it might suck to get negative feedback but that's just what you have to prepare for when you publish things. Not everyone is going to like your work. Maybe instead of taking the negative comments as a personal attack, author should find the valid criticism and maybe see if they can use that said criticism to grow as an author? No? Not something we do in 2024? K.
i honestly think one of the books bigger downfalls seems to be that it was marketed toward the wrong audience bc everyone who i have seen reviewing it clearly wanted a main character they could root for in an anti colonial story or alternatively wanted a girlboss mc they could root for in an enemies to lovers romance and it sounds like it wasn’t rlly either of those things. i’m not reading it bc i’ve just heard too many things about it there’s no way i can go into it unbiased
You are wrong about doxxing. Doxxing is about connecting a person's wallet name w their rl id if THEY disnt share it. If I make content under my name, and have ANOTHER acc that I did not connect w that name, posting that the second acc is mine IS doxxing. The reviewer WAS doxxed because the author connected the gr acc to a person's real name and face.
Thank you for sharing another angle on this drama. All I've seen are the bad reviews. I like seeing the wider picture. Also, I haven't read it yet, but I'm in love with the foil cover. (Not that I want publishers to make that a new gimmick to charge more, mind you. )
I’m only a little bit confused by the constant usage of BIPOC when that stands for Black Indigenous People of Colour and afaik Molly X Chang is solely Asian
@@Alpha1_Isolde From what I know BIPOC is a term used specifically in American activist circles to refer to Black and Indigenous *Americans* in order to distinguish their experiences from the general umbrella term of POC which amounts to “anyone who is not white”. For instance, if you were discussing systemic oppression of the lower classes in America, it would be worthwhile distinguishing as Black and Indigenous Americans tend to experience poverty and the associated racialised detriments than Asians or Middle Eastern people. Molly X Chang is Manchurian Chinese which is an indigenous ethnic group but… not to America, to Manchuria, yk
I just finished it and agree with almost everything you said! I didn’t realize all the drama and now I feel so bad for Molly - did you read the author’s note and acknowledgements? It’s heartbreaking to see how much she put into it and then this happened… I think it was really the opposite of a colonizer romance showing the complexities of the relationships and the ending with the momentum for rebellion/revenge. I gave it a 3.5, loved some of the writing, got some beautiful quotes but I agree it was so repetitive I was rolling my eyes in some parts lol but the world and magic was really neat and I loved when they went to other places, hope there’s more action and adventure and magic-wielding in the next one! Thanks for all the research and explaining! New sub 😊
Ok, it feels like she does have a reason to be mad. But her over reaction feels like there is other stuff happening or did happen...? Or she really wants to be the victim. Why would she call it doxing, that is so weird! Who would misinterpret that would in such a way?? The way she is representing the situation and using Ramadan... is kinda gross. It really puts me off personally from being able to agree or support her. I am not supporting anyone else, but when you misrepresentat your side so much it makes me feel like there is other stuff happening.
Thank you for this breakdown - loved your disclaimer at the beginning 😂. My one comment - if it needs to be explained (to a person who has read the book) that a narrator is unreliable, then doesn't that mean the book didn’t do a good enough job of making them an unreliable narrator? A reader's experience will, of course, be affected by their reading level, their expectations going into a book (to which marketing does play a big role, as does reading a book after having that very point explained), etc. And since there are quite a number of reviewers coming away with the feeling it was a "colonizer romance" or something to that effect, then the book failed to make the point that the narrator was supposed to be unreliable. No shade to the author or what they were trying to do with their story, just that considering the really divided responses, the intent wasn't well reflected in the final work (though whether that's because of experience with their craft, poor marketing, chapter 43, or some combo thereof, who knows).
So. Dunb readers with dumb opinions exist. They will post their dumb opinions in goodreads. However, that's what happens when you PUBLISH A BOOK. people will read it, and some people will not like it, and will be mena about it. Unless they defame the author or encourage harming them (like that person who falsely accused an author of being racist based on an arc and had her book pulled), reviews are for READERS and complaining about them makes you look pathetic. HOWEVER, some "influencers" are just like "critics", and just love to harass artists because it makes them feel powerful
The use of "doxxed" and... a lot of the other things in that response... is a classic case of weaponizing language. There's some misused and weaponized therapy and victimization language in there, too.
I haven't read the book yet, but I wonder if that chapter from his perspective could resemble Snow's inner dialogue in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, where he is romantically fixated on Lucy. In this case, his feelings might be more about a desire to possess her rather than genuine affection. ❤
that’s a super interesting concept! I think the difference is that we know who Snow will become in the future and his cruelties start subtly before he descends into madness in the forest of district 12. For Antony (the love interest in TGUWG) There’s already a lot of dialogue from him/other characters where he will literally say “she’s mine” so it’s almost the reverse. He starts off incredibly possessive but that one chapter showed the affection behind it (at least in my perspective). Although I wonder if maybe that was what the author was going for and we’ll see an arc similar to Snow in the 2nd book. But I didn’t even think of that! Thanks for your input
I already knew this book was going to be full of plot holes when I heard the fmc has death magic and the person enslaving her and her society is able to control her. I don't care that he's holding her family hostage or whatever, she should've gone in planning to kill him.
Thank you for this. I haven't finished yet, but I've had a lot of the same thoughts about the writing itself. It's not horrible, I just feel it could've been better so far just mechanically. The colonizer criticism is over the top to me. There's going to be themes that are uncomfortable in stories. The thing I look for is how the characters grow or learn from those things. There has to be conflict in a story for it to go anywhere.
I do understand ppl giving honest reviews even if it is a low star review. It does suck that one person's action before this has caused a big problem. For me personally if I had a goodreads account and rating books on there I personally likely wouldn't put a rating for the ppl who got one start bombed earlier unless it was 3 stars or more. I also do not blame anyone for putting their honest reviews even when it is a low star rating. It's up to each person. I do understand some suspicion of some reviews given some context of the names and the situation
I recently found about this whole incident, which I previously only had limited knowledge and I dismissed it as the book drama of the month, but hearing the whole incident, it's really appalling what went down, and it's even more appalling that people continue to excuse the behavior of the people who review-bombed the book, without even reading it only because someone told them a very biased account of what it contained, people acting like every single of these 1-star reviews came from people who received an ARC should realize that the math doesn't add up, no publisher sends that many of them. I'm not even trying to defend the book itself, I haven't read it (I'm waiting for it to be released in my language), regardless of the content of a book, doing negative or positive review of something you haven't read it is not a good thing to do, regardless of the intentions or the beef you have with an author. Nowadays people have a very weird concept of how much authors should be involved with the audiences, on one hand, they want them to acknowledge them, they ask questions about headcanons or ships and get pissed when they say something that doesn't align with them, but then they turn around and say that they should never cross into reviews territory? I don't understand the logic behind it, and it's silly to think that authors don't read their own book reviews, you can't have your cake and eat it too. That being said, this could have been handled more quietly rather than on GR or twitter, Molly could have simply ignored the whole thing, and maybe it wouldn't have taken off as much as it did, but people acting like the others weren't fanning the flames are not being very objective, people justifying it because of the muslim-phobia happening act as if Molly is a white author who is more privileged and it's writing fetishizing from a culture she doesn't come from, when that just isn't true, Molly wrote from her cultural background, regardless of how well she did it or not, it's a matter of opinion, not facts. And she was doing marketing, people really need to look what marketing actually is before accusing an author of lying about something, not to mention the book had not been fully published yet, meaning that she likely was under an NDA at the time as well.
I’m two months late but I feel like some people are forgetting how tense the situation as for Muslims at the time. Ppl were being doxxed, a sheik was killed, the genocide was still continuing and from what I remember the author who wrote that book about the Muslim experience was getting a bit of hate. Having your Goodreads account that you use for more private ratings shown by an author was crossing a line tho I do agree that she shouldn’t have argued with ppl under her own sisters account.
I agree with you that it's manipulative to call that doxxing. Yeah molly shouldn't be reading reviews, but it's understandable to feel paranoid after the Corrain thing.
Commenting before watching the video, I thought things just blew up out of proportion for both sides, which made the fights escalate (amongst third parties), and some violent misgynists did eventually attack Molly, while I saw her followers attacking Sid and Sid's sister. There were valid defences and critique in the midst of all the fighting though. This could have been a small socmed beef if it weren't for all the attention it got. Not that interested in the book anymore, since the romance content doesn't interest me. But I hope those involved settle their issues between them. Anyway, Imma watch the video now.
Regarding the colonizer romance critiques I’ve heard of this book, I honestly think that it’s okay to read books that don’t align with what you personally believe and it’s okay to write books with themes and characters and things that are “problematic”. It’s okay for a book to be a colonizer romance. I don’t actually think it’s harmful. I think it’s harmful to expect people to not read and discern. From what I can tell, the bigger issue is the book not being enjoyable or well written enough to hold people’s attention, which is also okay. I might just not read or finish a book that I don’t think is good. I might avoid books that don’t align with what my reading preferences are. But I also don’t think that people should be deterred from writing things because they’re “problematic” I actually think one of the best ways to figure out what your own values are is by reading different books with different themes. I think that people should develop enough intellectual stability and critical thinking to be able to read things that aren’t necessarily exactly your own values and thoughts. If the book isn’t enjoyable, dnf. I do think that authors should and must avoid reviews, but I also do understand freaking the f out if the internet is dragging your debut novel. Doesn’t mean she acted properly or was in the right by any means, but I think it’s understandable. Being the twitter main character is pretty much always bad and brings the worst out in people. I dunno.
RF Kuang the author of the Poppy Wars did an amazing responsible job at writing about problematic themes. Molly didn't. This is a weird take. No one is saying that you cannot write about these topics. The way that Molly handled the subject matter is the issue. The fact that it was marketed a certain way. If you think that how writers represent COLONIZATION can't be hurtful, then you live in a different world than I do. Representation will always be important and something that we should handle responsibly.
@@yaz_theythem I just think that people are allowed to write bad books and it’s important to be able to learn how to not internalize the ways they poorly handle these topics when they do write bad books. I feel like if I (I as an American black woman) internalized every poorly handled important topic about slavery or colonization etc, I would have no grounded sense of self and be unable to figure out how to get through it and would struggle to create authentic art that says what I truly believe. (I’m not trying to make any assumptions about your identity, just providing context for myself). A lot of my consumption of media has an aspect of “this is a weird way to handle this or a bad take. It’s not what I believe and here’s why.” Or “this person clearly wasn’t thoughtful with this” or “I don’t like the choices they made with this and it ruins it for me” usually I’ll journal about it or talk about it with my husband or close friend afterwards. And I regularly don’t finish media that I think was handled badly because that makes it not enjoyable for me. I think it’s a good thing to be able to read a badly written book or see a poorly handled topic, know why it was badly written or poorly handled, and move on without it bleeding into your psyche by compartmentalizing it. I don’t think any author is entitled to people reading their book or liking it, but I understand that the reality is many people react poorly to their artistic baby being dragged by the internet. I’d like to think I would handle it gracefully if I wrote a book and it was dragged by the internet, but I don’t know if I would because I’ve never written a book. I do appreciate your take though. I think it’s good to be open and clear about when these topics are mishandled, but I also think it’s good to at the same time encourage people to not internalize every take that they consume and be able to put it down and not have it affect them and remain grounded in what they know to be true and real. And I also think it’s good to avoid making sweeping judgements about someone’s character when they have a bad take or react poorly because when that happens, it’s easy for people to become too defensive when they don’t get it right because they begin to think that bad people are the ones who mishandle difficult topics or are racist, colonial, etc. when in reality, most of the people in my life who have been the most damagingly racist or colonial around me have been “good people” or friends, authority figures, teachers, etc that have been let into my world or ive been vulnerable with and I need to figure out if its possible to communicate with them or if I need to distance myself. often, I find people are unable to even look inward and recognize when they are being problematic if they aren’t able to separate “bad person” from “problematic handling of topic” which I think a lot of people struggle with. That’s something that has caused a lot of grief in my life and made it difficult to communicate with others when they act in ways that are hypocritical or problematic. Hopefully I conveyed that effectively. Also, I hope my tone comes across correctly. I’m just intending to expand on why I have that particular take, not argue, as I believe your response is valid and reasonable and I don’t have any issues with following up and adding context to what I’ve said. I didn’t read this book because a “colonizer romance” just isn’t ever going to be my cup of tea, but I just think that the reality is people will always write bad books, sometimes they’ll have great marketing or I’ll really want to like the book, and I think that remaining grounded if I accidentally consume them or even enjoy a bad book is a good skill to develop.
@@Rachopin77 I understand, but you’re intelligent and can analyze books well. If social media has taught me anything- I cannot trust the general population to read a book and know right from wrong. I’m simply, as an artist and Black femme, morally against what Molly has done here. But I understand your point of view.
@@yaz_theythem I agree. I feel a lot of personal conflict wishing that media literacy could be higher and that it was more encouraged for people to learn how to take in information and also constructively figure out what they think about it while not internalizing it, but also understanding that simply isn’t the reality and likely never will be. But then again it also feels pessimistic and maybe even a bit self aggrandizing for me to just give up on wanting media literacy to be higher or give up on trusting people to be able think “this isn’t right and it is isn’t good media and just because I’ve consumed it doesn’t mean it’s what I believe now”. I’m only able to analyze media and have healthy skepticism for it because I was taught to do so by my parents and support system.
@@Rachopin77 I think that our privilege allows us to do so. Others without an education, support system etc lack the tools to approach these subjects. As an educator, if you look at literacy rates in the USA specifically- it’s pretty bad. Not only that, but the state of the world and spread of misinformation and lack of education amongst the population. I don’t say this to be pessimistic- I actually study this and have witnessed it first hand. So from my pov I’m being very rational/ realistic when I say that people simply don’t know right from wrong or have been negatively influenced by dominant society. I know that sounds pessimistic, but I simply don’t feel pessimistic about it nor was that my intention. 😩
I AM SO SORRY it was a bad attempt at humor and I definitely won’t use it in the future. I’m so sorry and thank you for bringing this to my attention take care of yourself ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
My issue with an unreliable narrator is that I never see it done right. Dragon ball is the main culprit for me, It seems to flip flop between reliable and unreliable. I also have to add, character in the role of the narrator doesn't automatically make it unreliable or biased, and I feel like this is the stance your comment is coming from. TGUWG can't have that unreliable narration imo. If it does, then we would likely know what happened in the 8 month time skip, and we might actually see her reasoning for suspecting that her friend is working with the prince - despite already working for the prince anyway
Even if the book WERE as bad and distasteful as the worst, more inflammatory reviews made it out to be, I'd still say the response to the book is out of hand, and a reflection of the growing anti-intellectualism in our culture. It's totally understandable to not want to financially support an author with morally repugnant views or worse, real life actions. But the end goal of a culture that is obsessed with optics is inevitably going to care more about those optics than about maintaining freedom of speech or the creation and proper critique of art. This reminds me of all those twitter threads that are like "here's why Colleen Hoover is problematic!" and the FIRST thing on the list is that the content of her books is "intellectually dangerous" and will somehow morally bankrupt the youth. Regardless of the fact that moral handwringing about what young women are reading is Victorian-era misogyny, it reflects upon the person who made that thread that they care MORE about the hypothetical harm caused by the contents of a book, than they care about the fact that Colleen allegedly tried to silence her son's abuse victim. For someone who cares more about optics to the detriment of art, a book having morally questionable plot points is an equivalent wrong to actual, tangible harm. And in this case, a book that could be construed (I won't even say misconstrued, I haven't read the book) as being a "colonizer romance" is equivalent to the author condoning the worst possible interpretation of that story in real life. That's a HUGE leap to make. It refuses to engage with art as a medium, instead lumping the morals of a fictional story with our own morals in the real world, and reduces art to a form of expressing our politics for the benefit of our own public image. You hit the nail on the head by bringing up the marketing aspect. Most authors don't even get to pick their own covers! And that's the face of a book, it's how they sell it! And now people are selling themselves on social media by choosing a side in a political debate about a fictional story! That many of them haven't read! It's way easier to engage with politics through media consumption than yknow...actually going outside and talking to people and interacting with your community. And what's even more embarrassing is people are admitting they need their hand held even through their political media consumption! If the narrator is immoral the book must be too! This whole situation is such a frustrating example of the degradation of art into media consumption. That quote you pulled from the MC really hits the nail on the head. All the driest, most marketable media reflects the most agreeable morals possible (superhero movies come to mind). And ironically, much like the MC seems to be doing, a lot of people put on there morality hat for the benefit of themselves above anyone else. It's not about liberation through art, it's about moral posturing to make yourself look better and feel better.
How can you claim it’s entirely fictional when the author herself says she drew inspiration from Japanese war crimes? Not only did she say it repeatedly, she named the source of her inspo in the book. It’s not moralizing to critique her handling of real worlds events that she chose to base fiction on. “Reducing an art form to expressing our politics.” Newsflash, that the author’s own goal! She wrote the politics in and made sure we knew the connection. Are you sure other people are the anti intellectuals???
I am stealing "hypothetically in a dream I had one time" IMMEDIATELY
Hypothetically, I had a dream that this allegedly happened one time in Minecraft…
😂😂😂
This is one crazy ass dream. You remembered so many details. Im impressed.
The thing is, you *can* dox someone by sharing technically publicly available information depending on how widely known that information is and, I believe, how unsafe for the person the sharing of the info is. *But* there's a notable difference between sharing a private facebook profile or finsta and sharing a goodreads account. A random person is going to get a whole lot more information from the fb profile than they will from a goodreads. Though, idk if there's a difference legally between sharing the fb and GR
They're super whiny, too. We need more diversity in fiction, but a lot less of this victimization and oversharing. It does not help the cause.
i will say, molly x chang saying that there's no reference to japan in her book and therefore no one who says that there is has actually read the book is simply untrue. it says in the book itself that some of the events are inspired by real life japanese war crimes. i'll assume the best and say that tensions were high and she just forgot that she put that in there rather than assume that she's deliberately lying. also i don't think she can judge people for "misinterpreting" the relationship between the main characters when (1) art is subjective and (2) many went into the book with certain expectations because SHE was marketing it as a romance. if she did not intend for the book to be a genuine romance she should not have been marketing it as one.
i also disagree with your statement that sid publicly reviewing tguwg is a "conflict of interest" because their sister is a different author who runs in the same circles. authors leave reviews for other authors that they're friends with all the time, and this isn't even a review from an author, just a sibling of one. many authors also get feedback from friends or family duiring the writing process, some of which is negative. i genuinely don't understand how this would be a conflict of interest? that would imply that they had some incentive to skew their review one way or the other because of their sister, which isn't true. just because they're in the same social circles doesn't mean its unprofessional to leave an honest review, especially since it doesn't seem (to me) that they're especially close. (edit: to be clear bc i forgot, sid publicly reviewing their own sisters book IS 100% unprofessional and conflict of interest, but i don't think reviewing molly's book is)
i understand that molly x chang was on edge because of the cait corrain situation and also still actively recieving hate and i can't imagine what she's going through, but PERSONALLY i do think she was a little out of line. i know authors will never stay out of reviewer spaces but for molly's own mental health i hope she takes this as a sign to stay away from reviews / have someone else look over them for her at least for a little while.
my opinions on the book: i thought it was okay :-/ i felt the worldbuilding was a weak and maybe it will improve in the sequel but because this first book wasn't as strong as it could be it didn't entice me to continue the series once book two is released. i think molly x chang has talent, but even if i didn't know this was a debut i would be able to guess. it reads very strongly as an author's first novel (to me, anyway). also, as i mentioned, i went into this book expecting a romance because that's what the author told me to expect, so i came out of it with a very negative opinion on how certain things were potrayed.
Thank you for your thoughts! I can totally see your side especially about how I said it was a conflict of interest. That’s definitely more of a personal thing for me where if I was in that position I don’t think I would publicly say i didn’t like a book if someone I knew wrote it. I think i might approach them privately and express my opinions/concerns. But I can definitely recognize that not everyone feels the same way. Either way, I appreciate hearing your thoughts!
I agree with you. My sympathies to Molly for the Cait Corrain situation and the actual racism and threats she's received, but she did explicitly state that Japanese war crimes were an influence and she has to be honest about that. Also you don't get to be mad that people call your book a colonizer romance (up to the individual if that's negative or not) if you've been marketing the book as one.
I think it's highly concerning to get mad at reviewers for reviewing books. Nobody is being especially swayed. It's a review site. People go there to read reviews.
Just a quick question. Maybe I'm mistaken but isn't the marketing of a book (such as it being a romance) usually come from the publishers, not authors?
Genuine question cause I don't read a lot of fiction. I mostly just read non-fiction but on the few times when I do read fiction, the majority of it is manga, manhwa ect. and in terms of that medium, all it's marketing is decided on and disseminated solely by the publishers, not authors.
@@kittykat896 it's a combination of both, but for many authors (especially debut authors) it skews toward them having to market their book themselves. in fact its somewhat of a known topic of discussion that many authors are left out to dry by their publishers and are forced to bear the burden of marketing on their own. that's part of why authors debuting in the same year tend to form friendships; they band together to promote each other's books because they're less likely to get promotion from their publishers than established authors.
in the case of tguwg, there was marketing created by and for the publisher's social media profiles, but a decent amount was posted to molly x chang's own profiles as well. one could argue that it's possible she didn't create the marketing herself, merely posted it, but even if that were true its still her account(s) and she still bears the responsibility for whatever is posted there.
@@wolfwatch9731 thanks for the insight! That's super interesting. Completely different from how it's done in the East in terms of the manga industry and even in the non-fiction publishing world.
Im living with the fact that the book community is like the beauty community in 2017-2018 yasss
I've not read the book, but from what you've described, it still sounds like a romance. Plenty of romance tropes are built on the love interests' disdain and disinterest for the MC and the fact that the main character is unreliable doesn't mean that they are not in a romantic scenario. Also it was marketed as a romance by both the author and the publisher, so at the very least it was intended to be in some ways romantic even if you didn't interpret it as such.
I disagree, people have every right to be upset with a book thinking its going to be "x" based on the marketing, and instead get "y". Just because it "happens" doesn't mean it's okay, and especially since Molly herself was marketing it as "x". Also, I do think it's kind of crazy to expect people who didn't like the 1st book, to pay money and spend thier time on a 2nd book in a series, just to see if it gets better, regardless of the colonizer romance thing, there's just so many other books which exist that I would rather pay money for and spend time on. And I disagree in terms of these authors being influential, or at the very least, they're like z-class celebrities, like if I went on the street and asked people if they recognized these authors, I guarantee you, people would more recognize drag queens from RuPaul's drag race Lmao. Edit: Spelling
Yup, all of this!
I don't know this specific case, but authors and writers aren't generally in charge of marketing or cover art. In traditional publishing, they don't usually involve authors in that part of the process
@sammy-fmhky that's new to me. Is that how they do it now? I'm an old guy, and you could not pay me to market myself on tiktok
@@jayfalcon-rw3qc Not everyone does, but it is easier or preferable for newcomers to do marketing on social media themselves. Essentially, the reader is invested more in the author as a person than the actual content of the book. This is more prevalent on tik tok famous ones, but I have heard it's mostly Romance and Fantasy. Also publishing these days expect the author to do the heavy lifting. Be a celebrity, marketing genius, etc. etc.😂 hope this helps
@@imaginieiota6298 That sounds like an introvert's nightmare. I couldn't do it
While I do really feel for molly about the cait corrain situation, I still think she overstepped here and made a series of blunders that she is now paying dearly for.
1. Reviews are not spaces for authors. While I think it's understandable that aurhors would want to know what people think about their book , the situation with cait should have taught a LOT of authors how unhealthy it can be for authors to fixate on bad reviews. She should have never tweeted about it for multiple reasons (one of which is the potential for fans of hers to now comb through reviews and potentially heckling reviewers). Calling for "genuine reviews" quite literally put a target on any reviewer who left her a bad review, because it implies that all the bad reviews were just people reviewbombing and lying in their reviews. She had zero evidence for that statement. It was a really really dumb move.
2. I just dont think it's fair to say that it's conflict of interest to review a book just because your sibling is an author in the same friend group. Authors review and blurb their friends books ALL. THE. TIME. I've literally recently seen authors leave THEMSELVES 5 star reviews.
3. To say someone of a following the size of Sidd is famous is a WILD statement. I have a small art account with about as many followers as Sidd and I'm a nobody in the art sphere. and that's with me having multiple mutuals who have very large followings (think between 10-60k, with about a handful having 100-528k followers)
Respectfully, no sidt and her sister are mot famous and dont have their fame to back them up.
4. The sisters were also out of line and the misuse of the word doxxing was absolutely not acceotable. However I do want to mention that they still had a valid point to be upset at Molly leaking the private account so people could make a connection to her other socials. Sure she might not be in actual danger lile if she was doxxed, but Molly essentially opened to floodgates for people to find and harrass the reviewers socials. This is the reason youtubers and influencers have gotten into trouble plenty of times. I remember MANY instances of people with large followings unintentionally sending people to harrass people who have left undesirable comments, leading to a slew of abuse and harrassment. That being said, them making this a point does seem to have been made in bad faith since Sidd did a poor job hiding the identity of the other person.
5. While I understand that Mollu could be overly sensitive about stuff in the wake of cait, I dont understand why she didnt just personally reached out to the sisters about the suspected reviews and the potential badmouthing thing. She was told they talked about her but that the friend didnt remember how. why assume it was badmouthing? Why not personally reach out? Bringing in a whole separate person is weird to me. It wasnt really an issue big enough to warrant a mediator in my opinion. Molly took Sidt calling the book a colonizer romance and jist assumed they were shittalking her with no evidence, which lead to the whole issue being way escalated, involving way more people than necessary.
6. To the colonizer romance bit. It is 100% mollys fault that people perceived it that way because of how she marketed the book e.g. enemies to lovers, zutara, romance etc.
The thing about Zutara that worked is that Zuko wasnt actively partaking in terrible warcrimes during the series. Zuko was still a honorable person with a good heart deep down who was misguided in his devotion to his country and torn between what was expected of him and what was right, which is what lead to his falling out with his father in the first place. Mollys Male MC is the equivalent to if Azula was a guy, who we actively see committing war crimes and never switched sides.
You cannot portray the story as one thing and then be surprised, shocked and appalled when people take your word about your own story at face value.
Even if she lied to sell for marketing then that is still her fault and people get to be upset about that. But I also dont think that you have an acurate view of marketing. Marketing is about finding, reaching and selling to your TARGET AUDIENCE. Lying to sell a completely different product than what was promised might me good for making a quick dollar but isnt sustainable if you are trying to continue selling. Bad marketing almost always backfires. This was just bad marketing. The divergent comparison is also not a pretty bad one. Divergent and the hunger games are the same genre still. They are both dystopian YA books with themes of romance, rebelling against opressive governments. They have thematic similarities. Obviously Divergent cant be "just like THG". That would be a plagiarism lawsuit.
Tguwg was marketed as romance, which it is not. It was marketed as enemies to lovers, which it is not. It was marketed as being like Zutara, which it is not. The only thing that is actually truthful to the marketing is that it is fantasy. Bad marketing existing is a) a very valid complaint, because genres are there to help target audiences to find the right product, which is kind of the point of marketing and b) not at all an excuse for Mollys bad and misleading marketing. Her going back on her own words about what the book is about give her less credibility, not more.
7. The unreliable narrator excuse doesnt work if you dont do anything to SHOW that the narrator is unreliable well enough. If you do not challenge your unreliable narrator well enough, a reader WILL take the characters words at face value, because why wouldnt they? Better written books will spread seeds throughout the book (e.g. in the form of other POVs conflicting narration; the Narrator having moments of clarity/introspection etc) that make you question the narrators truth without thinking that the character is just badly written and makes no sense. Molly could have also mentioned in the authors note in the beginning that the narration is unreliable to prime readers for that, if the text itself doesnt make it obvious. If you have to retroactively explain that the narrator is unreliable for people to understand that, then you as the author didnt do a good job showing that in your writing. There is a difference between a character being badly and inconsistently written and being an unreliable narrator.
8. It is also 100% mollys fault of how she handled the whole thing about unit 731 and a lot of the criticism she has received in that regard is warranted imo. Had she not herself stated in writing, that the book was inspired by unit 731 a lot of the backlash would have probably been much less. You cant referrence real life horrific war crimes as the basis for the country, of what you yourself presented as the love interest of your book, and not expect for people to take issue with that.
Her statement about his this isnt a WW2 novel and how it's not inspired by Japanese people when she herself said the book was inspired by warcrimes committed by Japanese people makes her just look like a straight up liar who is trying to gaslight people about things she said in writing.
It's really difficult to write around such a delicate and horrific topic. It needs to be done with a lot of care.
It's the same about writing a story about someone falling in love with an abusive person. a lot of people dont approach it with the care needed, especially since in the romantasy space a lot of abusive tendencies arent really acknowledged as such. In a sphere where a lot of abusive men get romanticized and glorified you have to be very intentional about how you write a character actually MEANT to be abusive within the narrative
I also think you are giving a LOT of grace to Molly, while seemingly extending none to the sisters in this situation. There are also a lot of whataboutisms going on in regards to the review ethics debate, that make your arguments sound like they are in bad faith tbh
@Sammy-fmhkyI definitely agree. It just seems to odd to me that Kristen is painting the sisters as the instigators and villains of this controversy, when Molly could have prevented this at MULTIPLE turns and ultimately was the one to fire the first shot. She is acknowledging that Molly's trauma maybe affecting her decision making, but is kind of brushing past how the sisters trauma could affect theirs.
I can definitely see people reading it as either or and I do think Molly probably intended it to be one, but didn't realize how problematic the implications of it would be and then changed her tune when people pointed that out. her flip-floppy stance on whether it actually is or not, is the part that leads to really polarizing opinions. The colonizer romance accusation probably didn't sit right with her so she revealed the "to kill a monstrous prince" title to try and stop the accusations.
Thank you for reading my behemoth of a comment!
@Sammy-fmhky Holy hell, I didn't even know of a bunch of this! (Thank you for writing all of that out! Genuinely I really appreciate it)
All of this makes Molly indefinitely worse. I did definitely get the vibe that she was putting the colonized in a really weird place of blame that I didn't vibe with. The shoehorning of the connection to real war crimes is WILD. Like who tf does that??
Good god. what a terrible person.
It's so sad to see her trample on her own family's trauma and the pain and hurt Chinese people went through.
It's crazy because Avatar showed that it's absolutely possible to write a colonizing Japan inspired nation without low key romanticizing committing war crimes and blaming the nations that were colonized for their victimization.
I could agree that Ruying is an unreliable narrator. But what cemented my opinion that TGUWG is a colonizer romance is that one chapter in Antony's POV.
that chapter is the bane of my existence it RUINED my whole argument and I was really trying to give the book the benefit of the doubt but that chapter completely destroyed any chance of redemption 😔
@@Listen2Kristen_ ikr. I would have liked it better if he's just evil all-throughout and was manipulating Ruying the whole time.
i agree with you about sidd inappropriately used "doxxing" because it's a really serious issue that puts people in physical danger, but molly has way more influence as a traditionally published author posting a revewier's name and face-regardless of whether or not their profile is public-than a muslim reviewer with 3.7k followers. i saw the ire that those reviewers received (and are still receiving) and it was undeserved. they're such a small group and they said they tried talking to her privately, but she was not listening. the twitter attacks molly received were also undeserved, but she conflated those with genuine reviews and that was what really put the nail in the coffin for me regarding this whole debacle. it's disingenuous and was lowkey "these brown girls are hurting my feelings. let's start a witchhunt." conflating misogynistic anti-sino vitriol with "i didn't like this colonizer romance" was nasty on her part.
you can't market this book as a "slow burn, enemies-to-lovers, villain romance" and not expect people to feel some type of way, especially because this book is based on the horrific and erased history of unit 731- a thoughtless imposition. you basically gave molly a pass to lie at 49:40 which makes me think you weren't closely following her leading up to her debut. by doing that, authors turn their most anticipated readers and biggest supporters against them-which is exactly what happened (deservedly so). just because it's "not unique to molly", doesn't make it any less shitty.
lastly, you wrote your review without mentioning unit 731 and that's another issue i had with this book. as a chinese person myself, this book was a poor portrayal of a painful history that was erased by japan and usa where experimentation, torture, and r-word of mostly chinese people occurred. the way it was written felt like a betrayal of loved ones, countryman, and self given everything that happened in that history. don't get me wrong: i love unreliable narrators and i saw that was what molly was trying to go for, but this project was beyond her scope and abilities. she and her team lied during their marketing phase and i hope future authors learn from her mistakes. this situation can't even be compared to divergent's marketing tactics because that was a hunger games fanfiction (that was battle royale fanfiction) based on zero real world events when tguwg is.
i implore people to watch catherineannechiang's review on youtube to get a better idea of why was horrifying to read from a chinese person's pov.
Thank you for sharing! I see what you’re saying and I didn’t articulate these points you mentioned as well as I should’ve. A lot of people mentioned what I said about marketing which - you’re right it’s disingenuous to lie to readers. My perspective was just that it probably wasn’t all Molly’s idea but part of a larger strategy created by the publisher. And I agree 100% it’s not a great strategy and it does more harm than good.
As for Unit 731, I mentioned it briefly in the video but now after uploading I’m kind of kicking myself for not going more into depth. I agree, i think this was a very heavy and very much still a deep wound for a lot of people and tackling this event in this kind of book (one that is primarily a romance) left a bad taste. And I acknowledge that I can’t even begin to understand the true pain and trauma this event has caused and now its portrayal in this book. I appreciate your perspective on this and I think I might make an addendum to my original video to address some of these points.
@@Listen2Kristen_thank you, i appreciate that.
you do not need to say "r-word" this is not tiktok
I understand your point about the book but it's currently being marketed as a romance. It's like the third genre listed for the book. So yes this book is a fantasy romance. Don't understand the why of the argument here that is not a romance when it's being sold as such.
Yeah. Not a fair critique. It’s a romance and the author marketed it a such. You can’t fix the critique by pretending it’s not a romance. Disingenuous.
Also, just because books are often marketed as something different than they actually are, that doesn’t mean that’s a good thing.
But even then, a book should at the very least be the genre it’s listed at. Non of this “well it’s not actually a romance”. That’s just rude to readers who specifically seek out those labels in order to find… romance books.
Just because a book is marketed as a particular genre does not make it so. The content of the book is what matters. Genres (especially as defined by book sellers) are quite literally marketing tools. And they are OFTEN misleading. This is kind of a hate the game, not the player situation.
Especially so considering Molly herself was marketing it as a romance. I could maybe give the argument some water if it was only the publisher's marketing it as such, but when the author herself is saying it's a romance, it's a romance.
As a writer it pisses me off when authors harass reviewers. Bad reviews can be just as helpful to readers as good reviews. Also why are you fighting with reviewers, write a book? Get better at writing??? Like!?
I didn’t follow this drama and knew nothing before watching your video.
I don’t see why she shouldn’t have reviewed the book. Regardless of their relationship, the review wasn’t posted on her main account and was truthful. Whether you think it was flippant, the critique wasn’t wrong and many have read it and felt the same. The fact that Molly was screenshotting them and sending the review and the username around to her friends is weird. That behavior probably encouraged the nosy trouble stirring friend you call a mediator to confront people on her behalf.
And before you say she wasn’t confronting people, it’s clear based on the evidence you showed that the friend got the bone from Molly and went to Syd saying, “Molly thinks this…”. Then in your evidence, the “mediator” took that chat and went back to Molly and further stirred her up. Then she took another bone from Molly about Sarah and messaged her.
Based on the triangulation, I fully believe Molly was shit talking Sarah to their author group. The supposed mediator told her Sarah mentioned her at a dinner and Molly was hurt and thought it was negative. The “mediator” knew it wasn’t but didn’t tell her. No good intentions behind that.
Then that same person pops up in Sarah’s DM speaking on Molly’s behalf and grilling her about her book launch and dinner - that she herself was at - as Molly’s proxy. Meanwhile Molly pretends there’s no animosity on her end and messages Sarah asking after her emotional state… like wtf? It’s childish and offensive. Molly immediately placed people in the middle of the conflict and having those people confront Sarah is a classic high school isolation tactic. Makes Sarah feel alone and makes it obvious multiple people know and are on your side.
Idk how old Molly is, but she’s definitely old enough to know better than to gossip behind the scenes and send people to act on her behalf. You know Sarah. Ask Sarah what was said. You don’t need a friend to ask Sarah anything. You already messaged her directly. Just message her again.
Also, her sister is a book reviewer. She didn’t like your book. Whoopdidoo. She didn’t review it on her main account where it would have gotten a lot more attention. She did it on an alt that no one cares about, but Molly wouldn’t even have known that if she wasn’t messaging Goodreads usernames to her friends and expending tons of energy on it.
I do think there’s something to be said about why Syd even felt like she couldn’t review it on her own account. There is backlash a negative review. More backlash than warranted. It disincentivizes honest reviews. That part of their critique is true. No one should have been made to delete their reviews, but I’m not surprised that they felt like they needed to. The backlash pushes people to make anonymous reviews but even that’s not detached or safe because the author is personally sending that account around for other authors to investigate all to still find out who you are. You end up in the same position of facing a large volume of unwarranted backlash. Based on your evidence, Molly engages in this practice herself and was happily driving a dog hunt over legitimate negative reviews behind the scenes.
It’s not weird that a popular reviewer responds to other reviews. I follow multiple popular reviewers on Goodreads and they all respond to reviews or comments to their own reviews. Part of what drives their popularity is their interaction with the community.
well said.
Exactly! It felt like this video was kinda doing mental backflips to defend this take
You know what, you've completely turned my opinion on this whole thing around. I had made a comment in complete defense of Molly, but I'm going to delete it now. This opinion seems to be the objectively correct one and I'm glad I took the time to read it.
I agree 100%
I ended up putting the video on 1.5x speed because it felt kinda bad faith but I wanted to watch until the end to give the benefit of doubt, and oh my god, your comment just says everything I was thinking.
Molly saying that people leaving negative reviews hadn't read the reviews because the book wasn't about Japan really cemented it to me because in the book itself, in either the foreword or introduction, Molly says it was inspired by Imperial Japan and Unit 731.
i left a bad review on this book in december! when i got an arc, and when i started reading about the reviewers getting doxxed i got so scared it was me i went ahead and deleted the review , back when i got the ARC the book was being marketed as a romance and the author was comparing it to Zuthara, which is a thing i ship, my main issue with the book was the lackluster construction and worldbuilding ! watching this video was Nice because i jumped out of the drama as soon as i saw it started lmao the book was nOT worth all this discourse IMO
As an author, I can tell you that I agree with you: I do read some reviews on Goodreads. Especially at the beginning, mostly to know two things: how the book is received, and if I am marketing it to the right audiences. Maybe that's specific to me as I am self-published, so I am the author but also in charge of marketing.
But as an artist, we want to know if we hit or missed, if we lacked one thing or another. I don't think it would be possible for me to completely avoid criticism, feedback, opinions… That's part of the deal. That's healthy to some degree (and I have to check if people review the book when they have an ARC and all that, so I can't do my job if I just stay in my cavern forever).
However, I never respond, interact or blast a bad review on any platforms. I share good reviews for marketing (especially from ARCs, that's the point), but I never try to defend my work, or comment etc. I've even had DNF by ARC reviewers, and I never tried to argue with them. I have a right to love my books, so everyone has the right to their opinion as well.
For your first point, it’s not just you! You are totally right! I’m in indie publishing, but did postgraduate work at a school well known for writing. Writers are allowed (and highly encouraged, many times even paid) to review books. My professors all also reviewed books for the NYT and were published in the New Yorker. They’ve all had many books out and can easily live off what they make just from their traditionally published book sales. They also make money from reviews (and working as professors). They all said it’s great to get into reviewing as a writer. You just have to make sure you don’t review books by close friends (it’s seen as tacky)
@@KindredKaye Oh yeah, presenting as honest when it's family/friends lacks transparency too. I am currently sharing my aunt's creations and I EACH TIME say like "I am not paid, this is not free product BUT I am related to the artist" to be sure that people know what's happening and can trust me with the all info. Otherwise it's just breaking your audience's trust and after that… it's hard to come back. Especially for people in the video that made reviewing their main job? Like how I am trusting you know??
@@Alpha1_Isolde Yes it's crucial! I have used reviews (in early stages too, as soon as beta readers) to help me define my genre and my marketing when I'm unsure. I have one contemporary with a love story, and I made sure to include romance readers to see how they reacted. And one of them even DNFed the book! The book wasn't the problem, she just said 'not enough of the couple, not enough romance' and I didn't follow romance codes… so I knew if I marketed it as romance, this is exactly the reviews I would get!
They are a good guidelight for that. And at some point, the book could be problem, of course… but it usually starts with marketing, which can be shifted always!
Right? Writers and artists don't release work into the void, we want to know how the other side of the art - the viewer - sees it. The key is to review politely and to respond to reviews politely.
@@draconicfeline6177 I personnaly don't engage unless the reviewer reaches out to me (which, in the case of ARC is quite often actually), but I sure as heck read them! Like you say, the "void" is not the goal, otherwise I'd just leave it on my computer? Maybe there are writers who just write/publish/repeat but I don't think you'd really grow and get better? Time isn't enough, you need the other pov
I dont understand why Sid is being held to a level of professionalism when that’s her sister’s ‘coworker’ and she’s just a reviewer… reviewing from an account with a pseudonym.
No arguments with most of what you've said, but just fyi that writers reviewing their own books as well as having their family/friends review their books is pretty common and expected. It's not really seen as unethical or controversial amongst authors and pretty much any author with a goodreads account will do it, from bestsellers to unknown indie authors. Arguing with other people's reviews/comments is a whole other matter, of course, but the act of reviewing their own book or their friend/family member's book is pretty much universally done.
Oh i have no doubt about that. I just found it ironic that they were up in arms about Molly having screenshots of her goodreads page meanwhile her sister was arguing with people that posted negative reviews. I’ll admit that you have a point about family/friends leaving reviews and I was more trying to point out the double standard and how they had a lot to say about “boundaries” and “respecting reviewer spaces”. And honestly i’m still pretty new to how goodreads works (it’s also inherently a janky website) but thanks for letting me know! i appreciate it
Lol no, if i hear a writer reviews their own book I am never reading anything by them and i will laugh because that's pathetic
@@LynnHermione have fun never reading anything from R.F. Kuang then, I guess because she's given all of her own books 5 stars on goodreads. The reviews all start with her pointing out she wrote the book and then including more info that the reader might like to know, like her thoughts and approach to writing it and whatnot. Pretty much every author that is active on GR does some version this. Its a way for them to talk about the book in a place readers can easily find but is isolated from the other reviews on the book so its not directly talking to those people. GR is, at the end of the day, just a social media site where anyone can post thoughts about any book they have or haven't read, not a journalist organization publishing serious reviews. If an author was reviewing their own book for a paper or a journal, that would be very different thing.
The opening of this video is iconic
I completely disagree with you about the marketing of the book. People expected it to be a romance, and their complaints about it not being a romance are totally valid. People buy books based on the genre they like and want to read. Not everyone likes every literary genre. Just imagine picking up a book expecting something like Stephen King, but instead, you get Jane Austen. I love both writers and their books, but I would be disappointed and would leave a negative review. Saying that the book was promoted as a certain genre it does not belong to because of an unreliable narrator is just wrong. I'm also a strong supporter of the idea that readers should not have to go to Twitter to learn anything about the narrative of the books they are reading, especially if they plan to review them. They aren't going to review tweets.
it really just sounds like the mediator wanted to start drama with a person who was already having rough time. Molly is obviously really defensive... and this "third party" is just living for the drama
I saw this whole drama unfold in real time, and I agree with your points about Molly and Sid, and how their behaviors were just not acceptable. The hypocrisy on Sid's end and her overreaction were unwarranted, and sadly I don't think she's aware of it. As for Molly, I feel bad for all that she's been through, but that doesn't justify her own overreaction and the pain she has caused. I truthfully don't doubt she may have slandered Sarah's reputation with how she must have spoken about her to their mutual author friends.
With that said, I do, however, disagree on your take about the marketing and justifying the deception on the author's side about what the book is about. It kind of reminds me of Alex Aster's marketing of Lightlark and her promises on what the book contained only for those elements to be non-existent in the actual story. The problem here is that the authors will create a certain expectation and perception for the readers interested in the book, only for those readers to be sorely disappointed when none of those promises actually happen or are inaccurately presented. It violates the trust between reader and author, and it just seems really low and unethical to intentionally mismarket a product that way. There's a reason why false advertising is illegal, and though Molly's claims about what her book is about aren't close to legal extremities, I do think the criticisms she's receiving on the marketing are completely valid. Like every time Molly makes a claim about her book, are we supposed to doubt that and presume such statements will be false?
I see what you’re saying about the marketing bit and I definitely agree it’s not a great tactic. It’s always best to be honest about what the book is actually about and this was definitely a case where trying to create hype (advertising it as zutara) backfired horribly. I didnt explain myself in the video but I meant more so that this marketing tactic probably wasn’t all HER idea and was probably pushed by an actual marketing team that works for the publisher. A team that might’ve prioritized profits over genuine reader interest. But anyway, loved hearing your thoughts about this!
I am confused by how you pointed out how many of the negative reviews on Goodreads were a result of so much negative marketing and people reviewing the book when they had not read it, but later 39:34
form the opinion that because Sid and her sister knew Molly irl, Sid reading and genuinely reviewing her work was a conflict of interest. I understand that this is your personal opinion and not a statement of a professional standard, however, regardless of how the drama played out or who was more in the wrong, Sid or any other reviewer who knows the author writing a review of TGUWG is both to be expected and perfectly normal.
What would be unprofessional is intentionally negatively reviewing the work, avoiding reviewing the work, or encouraging others to do the same. If Sid failed to review TGUWG in the same manner as she had reviewed other books whose authors she’s unacquainted with, it would indeed be unprofessional. If Sid chose to only review this debut authors work and not other new books that were concurrently released from that debut group, that would be unprofessional (altho Sid reviewing her sister’s book is sus lol). Sid’s sister being an author who also knows Molly again does not automatically mean that it was unprofessional of Sid to review TGUWG. It is irrelevant to her situation and in MY opinion, shameful for Molly to have brought another author under scrutiny for her sister’s words and behavior.
To me, the situation described wherein Molly was asking any and everyone for anything negative said about her at the other authors debut is very telling of her mindset at the time. I agree with you that it sounds like she was experiencing and lashing out due to hyper sensitivity, or something similar to post traumatic stress, from the genuine review bombing she experienced at the hands of Cait Corrain. I disagree on the point where you group Molly’s review-bombing anxieties with her anxieties about the discourse surrounding whether TGUWG is a colonizer romance or not. These are two separate fights, one in which the author is attempting to justify a plot and characters that many are claiming are simply a result of bad writing, and the other fight is one in which the author is hyper vigilant towards their inner circle for any lack of support or sign of dissent. There are reviewers who HAVE read TGUWG, reviewers who DNF TGUWG, and those who left reviews without ever having touched the book. Molly appears to be incapable of discerning the impact of these reviews from one another.
I am baffled that no one is painting Molly’s request for genuine reviewers as unprofessional as that to me is a call for her audience to act dishonestly. She asked for good reviews not honest ones, implying that she does not believe negative reviews to be honest.
I see what you’re saying and I will say that I don’t think i was 100% clear. To your first point, me saying that it’s a conflict of interest is purely my personal opinion. A lot of people felt the same way you did and I can totally see how it’s not a conflict of interest. If it were me in this situation and I read a book from someone I knew, I wouldn’t want to review it publicly but instead go to them directly and voice my opinions/concerns. I guess my thinking process was like: her sister is also an author and also a debut, there’s a possibility that knowledge is affecting her judgement and she was being more harsh about the book than she might be with reviewing her sisters book. But that’s HEAVY speculation and I’m in no way saying that is true in any sense.
As for the reviews, I couldn’t find any hard proof besides allegations from Sid and other reviewers that Molly was asking for people to send her screenshots of negative reviews so I can’t say whether or not that actually happened. In my perspective, I think she was worried that some of them were fake - like how I mentioned that she had a review from someone named Jane Corrain (which COULD be a real name but it would be very coincidental) I think she was worried that the same thing was happening after the book was published and that in her mind - people were leaving fake bad reviews based on the internet calling it a colonizer romance. Again, I can’t say for sure what she was thinking and if any of these reviews are fake. I was more so trying to put myself in her shoes and throw out some theories/ideas.
All that being said, thank you for sharing your thoughts! I can see how I wasn’t super clear and you make some excellent points!
@@Listen2Kristen_ I absolutely see what you are saying regarding the crossover that led the author’s suspicion of Sid’s negative review antagonizing fake reviews further. realizing now that I harped pretty argumentatively on an opinion which you are absolutely entitled to have! My sincerest apologies for that, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me~
@@oatfreedairy No not at all! I genuinely enjoy hearing what everyone has to say about this situation and I didn’t find it argumentative at all. It’s good to hear from all sides and I appreciate hearing your thoughts! 🫶
I borrowed it from the library and I dnf it around 20%. I was just not into the world building. It wasn't explained well in the beginning. Her author note said Rome is based on Unit 731 so I was like why name it Rome and make them white when Unit 731 is Japan. I understand the author pulling in events based on real life like the opium crisis and Unit 731 but I felt she didn't execute the story well enough for me to keep going. I haven't gotten to the romance and I was bored af. The whole review situation left a bad taste in my mouth so I was like ok let's just judge the book by itself and I felt like she had a good idea/premise. If I ever do finish it, i would wait till the second book.
This is such a red flag to me and the reason why I will never read this book. Yeah, just attribute war crimes and atrocities from an ethnic group to another. It's only okay if they are white though.
Thank you for clarifying the details of all the drama outside the book's narrative!! I think the author really shot herself in the foot by directly comparing the narrative to unit 731 in the author's note in that proceeds the text. Because of that the moral ambiguity and twist are already destroyed for many readers. They have to read a girl falling in love with a colonizer while waiting for the other shoe to drop where he does horrific war crimes comparable to one of the worst crimes against humanity in history. She even says "To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is about... the forgotten history of China's century of humiliation..." which makes the story feel like a very uncomfortable allegory. I also think that pulling off this kind of narrative where you see the character falling in love with an abusive person needs to, to some extent, make the reader understand the character's fascination and fixation, and that's very difficult to do.
Agree with your thoughts on doxxing! Especially after the jacksfilms/sniperwolf ACTUAL doxxing not that long ago…
yeah, its a very very serious subject and it has an actual definition
Hmm - not sure if you're saying this definitely certainly absolutely happened or if this is just alleged ... 😂
You did a great job here breaking everything down and clearly explaining what happened. I follow a fair number of book reviewers. Many of them wanted to draw attention to TGUWG after the initial review scandal, but none of them ended up being very positive. I'm glad a BIPOC author got attention in response to being mistreated, but no one is obligated to provide a positive review of anyone's work. This author behavior is really disappointing.
Therapist: The romance with Anthony is not real. The romance with Anthony can't hurt you.
Chapter 43: ...
Edit: I initially wrote this comment in defense of Molly and making fun of the reviewers, but after reading some opinions in the comments, I've done a 180 and completely changed my mind. Just leaving my comment here for engagement but deleting what I had to say previously. I recommend anyone who's formed an opinion based on this video to scroll down and read some of the longer comments in defense of the reviewers.
I feel so wild for catching this video so early?? I don’t usually comment before watching, but I’m excited to hear your thoughts!
I came into this video very interested to hear the full story, i have seen some video reviews of this book and although i will still try and read this book i most likely won't buy it. In terms of this video in particular I found it a little difficult to keep up with what happened based on your narration alone. I also found it strange that you randomly mentioned the muslim author (who as far as i can tell hasn't got much to do with this) and how "theirs a boycott against her publishing company" without expanding further. Whats the boycott regarding. Why are we boycotting. Whats the reason? Shes clearly a smaller author who's already had a negative experience with her booktour and now you're encouraging people to boycot her book without actually discussing why.
Moreover, I do agree with the reviewers statement. Reviews are for authors and if reviewes don't like a book they should be able to review it negatively or not without receiving backlash. Molly X Chang should never have made any comments alluding to "fake reviews" when there wasn't the slightest bit of evidence to suggest that's what was happening. She's already received a lot of support for this book from the booktok community to try and balance what happened with Cait Corrain (it's in fact the only reason why I knew about her book before it was released) Many were encouraged by multiple different popular book related content creators on several different platforms (IG, UA-cam and Tiktok) to pre-order the book and support her for this reason alone. I saw a lot of promotions from the author that this would be a romance and that lovers of the Katara and Zuko ship from Avatar woyld love this book. Which is kind of suggesting a taboo or forbidden romance. Plus many of the detailed reviews Ive read have explained with detail examples including extracts from the authors note. Which included a note that some of this book was inspired by real life Japanese war crimes.
I don't think its fair to say "everyones wrong" when the opinion given is subjective and based on the content of the book and nothing else. Reviewers can say whatever they want aboht a book. Not everyone is going to enjoy every trope.
Lastly I would really appreciate some infornation on the reason your encouraging your audience to boycot a muslim authors book. If your going to give tidbits like that then some semblence of context is required
Thank you for expressing your thoughts. I am more than happy to explain. The boycott is on St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of Macmillan after one of their employees was caught saying z!onist/racist things. The boycott was organized through readers for accountability and is a marketing boycott - meaning that influencers/creators cannot make content/review books published under St. Martin’s Press (and any of their imprints) until they address the actions of their employee. This author’s book was published under St. Martin’s Press and fell under the boycott which is why I didn’t say the name of the book. I should’ve been more specific in my video that I wasn’t encouraging people not to buy/read the book and just that I wasn’t going to say the name of it and for that I do apologize. I included the instagram of the author so that if anyone was interested in looking it up they could but I absolutely should’ve been more explicit. I’ve talked about consumer boycotts and other pro-palestinian content in my other videos and I’ve reposted content from readers for accountability on my social media in the past and I assumed that my audience was already familiar with what I was talking about but that was reckless on my part. I appreciate you taking the time to express your concerns and thoughts on my video.
It’s astounding how people are ready to jump on someone they hear is a bad person to a point where they’re not even trying to teach them a lesson (as if that’s their job in the first place) but to feel righteous indignation and like they’re morally superior.
“We can’t be Gale right now” 😂😂😂😂😂
I don't understand authors harassing reviewers? Like, I do understand that it might suck to get negative feedback but that's just what you have to prepare for when you publish things. Not everyone is going to like your work.
Maybe instead of taking the negative comments as a personal attack, author should find the valid criticism and maybe see if they can use that said criticism to grow as an author? No? Not something we do in 2024? K.
I'll say this: unlike you, if I am moved by a book, I have been known to read other reviews and even comment them. We not doxin out here tho
i honestly think one of the books bigger downfalls seems to be that it was marketed toward the wrong audience bc everyone who i have seen reviewing it clearly wanted a main character they could root for in an anti colonial story or alternatively wanted a girlboss mc they could root for in an enemies to lovers romance and it sounds like it wasn’t rlly either of those things. i’m not reading it bc i’ve just heard too many things about it there’s no way i can go into it unbiased
You are wrong about doxxing. Doxxing is about connecting a person's wallet name w their rl id if THEY disnt share it. If I make content under my name, and have ANOTHER acc that I did not connect w that name, posting that the second acc is mine IS doxxing. The reviewer WAS doxxed because the author connected the gr acc to a person's real name and face.
very balanced and professional summary - thanks a lot!
It all sound like highschool drama! They were so petty!!
Thank you for sharing another angle on this drama. All I've seen are the bad reviews. I like seeing the wider picture. Also, I haven't read it yet, but I'm in love with the foil cover. (Not that I want publishers to make that a new gimmick to charge more, mind you. )
That vancouver event was insane… I saw the pictures … how in the world could this happen?!
53:31 “He’s not serving Maxon levels of rizz” is a brilliant line I cackled well done Kristen 😂
“Genuine reviews” but she only wants positive ones.
I’m only a little bit confused by the constant usage of BIPOC when that stands for Black Indigenous People of Colour and afaik Molly X Chang is solely Asian
@@Alpha1_Isolde From what I know BIPOC is a term used specifically in American activist circles to refer to Black and Indigenous *Americans* in order to distinguish their experiences from the general umbrella term of POC which amounts to “anyone who is not white”. For instance, if you were discussing systemic oppression of the lower classes in America, it would be worthwhile distinguishing as Black and Indigenous Americans tend to experience poverty and the associated racialised detriments than Asians or Middle Eastern people. Molly X Chang is Manchurian Chinese which is an indigenous ethnic group but… not to America, to Manchuria, yk
I just finished it and agree with almost everything you said! I didn’t realize all the drama and now I feel so bad for Molly - did you read the author’s note and acknowledgements? It’s heartbreaking to see how much she put into it and then this happened… I think it was really the opposite of a colonizer romance showing the complexities of the relationships and the ending with the momentum for rebellion/revenge.
I gave it a 3.5, loved some of the writing, got some beautiful quotes but I agree it was so repetitive I was rolling my eyes in some parts lol but the world and magic was really neat and I loved when they went to other places, hope there’s more action and adventure and magic-wielding in the next one!
Thanks for all the research and explaining! New sub 😊
Ok, it feels like she does have a reason to be mad. But her over reaction feels like there is other stuff happening or did happen...? Or she really wants to be the victim. Why would she call it doxing, that is so weird! Who would misinterpret that would in such a way?? The way she is representing the situation and using Ramadan... is kinda gross. It really puts me off personally from being able to agree or support her. I am not supporting anyone else, but when you misrepresentat your side so much it makes me feel like there is other stuff happening.
Also the fact that this only has 901 veiws is crazy
Thank you for this breakdown - loved your disclaimer at the beginning 😂.
My one comment - if it needs to be explained (to a person who has read the book) that a narrator is unreliable, then doesn't that mean the book didn’t do a good enough job of making them an unreliable narrator? A reader's experience will, of course, be affected by their reading level, their expectations going into a book (to which marketing does play a big role, as does reading a book after having that very point explained), etc. And since there are quite a number of reviewers coming away with the feeling it was a "colonizer romance" or something to that effect, then the book failed to make the point that the narrator was supposed to be unreliable. No shade to the author or what they were trying to do with their story, just that considering the really divided responses, the intent wasn't well reflected in the final work (though whether that's because of experience with their craft, poor marketing, chapter 43, or some combo thereof, who knows).
So. Dunb readers with dumb opinions exist. They will post their dumb opinions in goodreads. However, that's what happens when you PUBLISH A BOOK. people will read it, and some people will not like it, and will be mena about it. Unless they defame the author or encourage harming them (like that person who falsely accused an author of being racist based on an arc and had her book pulled), reviews are for READERS and complaining about them makes you look pathetic.
HOWEVER, some "influencers" are just like "critics", and just love to harass artists because it makes them feel powerful
Feels like high school all over again.... no thanks!
The use of "doxxed" and... a lot of the other things in that response... is a classic case of weaponizing language. There's some misused and weaponized therapy and victimization language in there, too.
@Sammy-fmhky Probably. She's clearly very manipulative.
I haven't read the book yet, but I wonder if that chapter from his perspective could resemble Snow's inner dialogue in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, where he is romantically fixated on Lucy. In this case, his feelings might be more about a desire to possess her rather than genuine affection. ❤
that’s a super interesting concept! I think the difference is that we know who Snow will become in the future and his cruelties start subtly before he descends into madness in the forest of district 12. For Antony (the love interest in TGUWG) There’s already a lot of dialogue from him/other characters where he will literally say “she’s mine” so it’s almost the reverse. He starts off incredibly possessive but that one chapter showed the affection behind it (at least in my perspective). Although I wonder if maybe that was what the author was going for and we’ll see an arc similar to Snow in the 2nd book. But I didn’t even think of that! Thanks for your input
@@Listen2Kristen_ ahh that’s really interesting definitely going to have to find some time to read it for myself 💖
Well done. Thank you for the alternate viewpoint.
I already knew this book was going to be full of plot holes when I heard the fmc has death magic and the person enslaving her and her society is able to control her. I don't care that he's holding her family hostage or whatever, she should've gone in planning to kill him.
this is a little unrelated but i love where you did your notes for the video
Thank you for this. I haven't finished yet, but I've had a lot of the same thoughts about the writing itself. It's not horrible, I just feel it could've been better so far just mechanically. The colonizer criticism is over the top to me. There's going to be themes that are uncomfortable in stories. The thing I look for is how the characters grow or learn from those things. There has to be conflict in a story for it to go anywhere.
I do understand ppl giving honest reviews even if it is a low star review. It does suck that one person's action before this has caused a big problem. For me personally if I had a goodreads account and rating books on there I personally likely wouldn't put a rating for the ppl who got one start bombed earlier unless it was 3 stars or more. I also do not blame anyone for putting their honest reviews even when it is a low star rating. It's up to each person. I do understand some suspicion of some reviews given some context of the names and the situation
Probably the best disclaimer I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching 😂
1k subscriber! Im looking forward to future videos. :)
I recently found about this whole incident, which I previously only had limited knowledge and I dismissed it as the book drama of the month, but hearing the whole incident, it's really appalling what went down, and it's even more appalling that people continue to excuse the behavior of the people who review-bombed the book, without even reading it only because someone told them a very biased account of what it contained, people acting like every single of these 1-star reviews came from people who received an ARC should realize that the math doesn't add up, no publisher sends that many of them. I'm not even trying to defend the book itself, I haven't read it (I'm waiting for it to be released in my language), regardless of the content of a book, doing negative or positive review of something you haven't read it is not a good thing to do, regardless of the intentions or the beef you have with an author.
Nowadays people have a very weird concept of how much authors should be involved with the audiences, on one hand, they want them to acknowledge them, they ask questions about headcanons or ships and get pissed when they say something that doesn't align with them, but then they turn around and say that they should never cross into reviews territory? I don't understand the logic behind it, and it's silly to think that authors don't read their own book reviews, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
That being said, this could have been handled more quietly rather than on GR or twitter, Molly could have simply ignored the whole thing, and maybe it wouldn't have taken off as much as it did, but people acting like the others weren't fanning the flames are not being very objective, people justifying it because of the muslim-phobia happening act as if Molly is a white author who is more privileged and it's writing fetishizing from a culture she doesn't come from, when that just isn't true, Molly wrote from her cultural background, regardless of how well she did it or not, it's a matter of opinion, not facts. And she was doing marketing, people really need to look what marketing actually is before accusing an author of lying about something, not to mention the book had not been fully published yet, meaning that she likely was under an NDA at the time as well.
I’m two months late but I feel like some people are forgetting how tense the situation as for Muslims at the time. Ppl were being doxxed, a sheik was killed, the genocide was still continuing and from what I remember the author who wrote that book about the Muslim experience was getting a bit of hate. Having your Goodreads account that you use for more private ratings shown by an author was crossing a line tho I do agree that she shouldn’t have argued with ppl under her own sisters account.
I agree with you that it's manipulative to call that doxxing. Yeah molly shouldn't be reading reviews, but it's understandable to feel paranoid after the Corrain thing.
I only can say that Molly X. Chang is not having a great time after the Cait Corrain controversy and then this.
Commenting before watching the video, I thought things just blew up out of proportion for both sides, which made the fights escalate (amongst third parties), and some violent misgynists did eventually attack Molly, while I saw her followers attacking Sid and Sid's sister. There were valid defences and critique in the midst of all the fighting though. This could have been a small socmed beef if it weren't for all the attention it got. Not that interested in the book anymore, since the romance content doesn't interest me. But I hope those involved settle their issues between them. Anyway, Imma watch the video now.
So many names for my tiny brain to keep up with lol!
Regarding the colonizer romance critiques I’ve heard of this book, I honestly think that it’s okay to read books that don’t align with what you personally believe and it’s okay to write books with themes and characters and things that are “problematic”. It’s okay for a book to be a colonizer romance. I don’t actually think it’s harmful. I think it’s harmful to expect people to not read and discern. From what I can tell, the bigger issue is the book not being enjoyable or well written enough to hold people’s attention, which is also okay. I might just not read or finish a book that I don’t think is good. I might avoid books that don’t align with what my reading preferences are. But I also don’t think that people should be deterred from writing things because they’re “problematic” I actually think one of the best ways to figure out what your own values are is by reading different books with different themes. I think that people should develop enough intellectual stability and critical thinking to be able to read things that aren’t necessarily exactly your own values and thoughts. If the book isn’t enjoyable, dnf. I do think that authors should and must avoid reviews, but I also do understand freaking the f out if the internet is dragging your debut novel. Doesn’t mean she acted properly or was in the right by any means, but I think it’s understandable. Being the twitter main character is pretty much always bad and brings the worst out in people. I dunno.
RF Kuang the author of the Poppy Wars did an amazing responsible job at writing about problematic themes. Molly didn't. This is a weird take. No one is saying that you cannot write about these topics. The way that Molly handled the subject matter is the issue. The fact that it was marketed a certain way. If you think that how writers represent COLONIZATION can't be hurtful, then you live in a different world than I do. Representation will always be important and something that we should handle responsibly.
@@yaz_theythem I just think that people are allowed to write bad books and it’s important to be able to learn how to not internalize the ways they poorly handle these topics when they do write bad books. I feel like if I (I as an American black woman) internalized every poorly handled important topic about slavery or colonization etc, I would have no grounded sense of self and be unable to figure out how to get through it and would struggle to create authentic art that says what I truly believe. (I’m not trying to make any assumptions about your identity, just providing context for myself). A lot of my consumption of media has an aspect of “this is a weird way to handle this or a bad take. It’s not what I believe and here’s why.” Or “this person clearly wasn’t thoughtful with this” or “I don’t like the choices they made with this and it ruins it for me” usually I’ll journal about it or talk about it with my husband or close friend afterwards. And I regularly don’t finish media that I think was handled badly because that makes it not enjoyable for me. I think it’s a good thing to be able to read a badly written book or see a poorly handled topic, know why it was badly written or poorly handled, and move on without it bleeding into your psyche by compartmentalizing it. I don’t think any author is entitled to people reading their book or liking it, but I understand that the reality is many people react poorly to their artistic baby being dragged by the internet. I’d like to think I would handle it gracefully if I wrote a book and it was dragged by the internet, but I don’t know if I would because I’ve never written a book. I do appreciate your take though. I think it’s good to be open and clear about when these topics are mishandled, but I also think it’s good to at the same time encourage people to not internalize every take that they consume and be able to put it down and not have it affect them and remain grounded in what they know to be true and real. And I also think it’s good to avoid making sweeping judgements about someone’s character when they have a bad take or react poorly because when that happens, it’s easy for people to become too defensive when they don’t get it right because they begin to think that bad people are the ones who mishandle difficult topics or are racist, colonial, etc. when in reality, most of the people in my life who have been the most damagingly racist or colonial around me have been “good people” or friends, authority figures, teachers, etc that have been let into my world or ive been vulnerable with and I need to figure out if its possible to communicate with them or if I need to distance myself. often, I find people are unable to even look inward and recognize when they are being problematic if they aren’t able to separate “bad person” from “problematic handling of topic” which I think a lot of people struggle with. That’s something that has caused a lot of grief in my life and made it difficult to communicate with others when they act in ways that are hypocritical or problematic. Hopefully I conveyed that effectively. Also, I hope my tone comes across correctly. I’m just intending to expand on why I have that particular take, not argue, as I believe your response is valid and reasonable and I don’t have any issues with following up and adding context to what I’ve said. I didn’t read this book because a “colonizer romance” just isn’t ever going to be my cup of tea, but I just think that the reality is people will always write bad books, sometimes they’ll have great marketing or I’ll really want to like the book, and I think that remaining grounded if I accidentally consume them or even enjoy a bad book is a good skill to develop.
@@Rachopin77 I understand, but you’re intelligent and can analyze books well. If social media has taught me anything- I cannot trust the general population to read a book and know right from wrong. I’m simply, as an artist and Black femme, morally against what Molly has done here. But I understand your point of view.
@@yaz_theythem I agree. I feel a lot of personal conflict wishing that media literacy could be higher and that it was more encouraged for people to learn how to take in information and also constructively figure out what they think about it while not internalizing it, but also understanding that simply isn’t the reality and likely never will be. But then again it also feels pessimistic and maybe even a bit self aggrandizing for me to just give up on wanting media literacy to be higher or give up on trusting people to be able think “this isn’t right and it is isn’t good media and just because I’ve consumed it doesn’t mean it’s what I believe now”. I’m only able to analyze media and have healthy skepticism for it because I was taught to do so by my parents and support system.
@@Rachopin77 I think that our privilege allows us to do so. Others without an education, support system etc lack the tools to approach these subjects. As an educator, if you look at literacy rates in the USA specifically- it’s pretty bad. Not only that, but the state of the world and spread of misinformation and lack of education amongst the population. I don’t say this to be pessimistic- I actually study this and have witnessed it first hand. So from my pov I’m being very rational/ realistic when I say that people simply don’t know right from wrong or have been negatively influenced by dominant society. I know that sounds pessimistic, but I simply don’t feel pessimistic about it nor was that my intention. 😩
Phew ... that was exhausting!!!
Could you please stop repeating that „it’s all not real, you’re on the truman show” etc? (It’s really triggering when you’re dealing with psychosis 😅)
I AM SO SORRY it was a bad attempt at humor and I definitely won’t use it in the future. I’m so sorry and thank you for bringing this to my attention take care of yourself ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
a very interesting video. I think you have great potential
Hypothetically allegedly in Minecraft 👀👀😩
What was Xiran (Iron Widow)’s role in this? Because she was a mutual friend to both
Thank you for this.
The gun analogy around 56 minutes 💀.
Spoiler
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Not that actually being a scene in the book 💀😂💀
I'm the 666th like 😈 nice video tho, I like your humor and vibe hehe, subscribed!
First cait corrain and now this?!
Aren’t Cait’s pronouns they/them?
Doing the lords work 😤
Why is she saying hypothetically so much, am i missing out on some inside joke
Because I can *hypothetically* get sued for defamation if I make any statements that claim to be true/are unproven 😃😃 I can’t afford to be sued
I atually like books with an unreliable narrator. Makes you think more and uses clues to understand the real story.
My issue with an unreliable narrator is that I never see it done right. Dragon ball is the main culprit for me, It seems to flip flop between reliable and unreliable. I also have to add, character in the role of the narrator doesn't automatically make it unreliable or biased, and I feel like this is the stance your comment is coming from.
TGUWG can't have that unreliable narration imo. If it does, then we would likely know what happened in the 8 month time skip, and we might actually see her reasoning for suspecting that her friend is working with the prince - despite already working for the prince anyway
Even if the book WERE as bad and distasteful as the worst, more inflammatory reviews made it out to be, I'd still say the response to the book is out of hand, and a reflection of the growing anti-intellectualism in our culture. It's totally understandable to not want to financially support an author with morally repugnant views or worse, real life actions. But the end goal of a culture that is obsessed with optics is inevitably going to care more about those optics than about maintaining freedom of speech or the creation and proper critique of art. This reminds me of all those twitter threads that are like "here's why Colleen Hoover is problematic!" and the FIRST thing on the list is that the content of her books is "intellectually dangerous" and will somehow morally bankrupt the youth. Regardless of the fact that moral handwringing about what young women are reading is Victorian-era misogyny, it reflects upon the person who made that thread that they care MORE about the hypothetical harm caused by the contents of a book, than they care about the fact that Colleen allegedly tried to silence her son's abuse victim. For someone who cares more about optics to the detriment of art, a book having morally questionable plot points is an equivalent wrong to actual, tangible harm. And in this case, a book that could be construed (I won't even say misconstrued, I haven't read the book) as being a "colonizer romance" is equivalent to the author condoning the worst possible interpretation of that story in real life. That's a HUGE leap to make. It refuses to engage with art as a medium, instead lumping the morals of a fictional story with our own morals in the real world, and reduces art to a form of expressing our politics for the benefit of our own public image. You hit the nail on the head by bringing up the marketing aspect. Most authors don't even get to pick their own covers! And that's the face of a book, it's how they sell it! And now people are selling themselves on social media by choosing a side in a political debate about a fictional story! That many of them haven't read! It's way easier to engage with politics through media consumption than yknow...actually going outside and talking to people and interacting with your community. And what's even more embarrassing is people are admitting they need their hand held even through their political media consumption! If the narrator is immoral the book must be too! This whole situation is such a frustrating example of the degradation of art into media consumption. That quote you pulled from the MC really hits the nail on the head. All the driest, most marketable media reflects the most agreeable morals possible (superhero movies come to mind). And ironically, much like the MC seems to be doing, a lot of people put on there morality hat for the benefit of themselves above anyone else. It's not about liberation through art, it's about moral posturing to make yourself look better and feel better.
How can you claim it’s entirely fictional when the author herself says she drew inspiration from Japanese war crimes? Not only did she say it repeatedly, she named the source of her inspo in the book. It’s not moralizing to critique her handling of real worlds events that she chose to base fiction on. “Reducing an art form to expressing our politics.” Newsflash, that the author’s own goal! She wrote the politics in and made sure we knew the connection. Are you sure other people are the anti intellectuals???
@@pithygrapefruit Preach! ❤
@@pithygrapefruit THANK YOU!
@@Alpha1_Isolde she literally write about “opiate,” or opium and makes direct references. Are you sure you want to continue defending this?
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