Wendy… I just wanna talk. No no don’t worry about the angel sword, it’s just decoration, I’m such a huge fan of your work. Yeah it’s really sharp do you wanna take a closer look?
@@johannageisel5390 Because supposedly their fallen angels, so they can be redeemed and become Angels again, except that's never and the actual books. Even though demons and dukes of hell are fallen angels, when she reforms Kaiden, he doesn't just become an angel he still for some reason a demon of hell just reformed and purified. But purification of a demon of hell should have made him into an angel of heaven. This book makes no sense.
Y'know I'm mildly sure it's happened in other, more recent YA. I STG it's the kind of thing you'd see in like, a SJM fae book, you know? They're always sniffing each other. I don't think I ever clearly said it in vid, but it's not just that the love interest's demon dad can smell virginity, in book three he specifically sends a goon to break into her house and steal her panties so he can. sniff them. to check if she's a virgin. this is her father in law.
@@Crowcaller I'm gonna be honest, I haven't watched the video yet, just skimming the comments but *my god* your comment here has just sent me and I am 100% going to be watching your video in full. (And leaving a like, of course. In fact, I just did.) I don't mind the idea of "sniffing" in fantasy stories from a nonhuman species, but it should be stuff like "Damn I hate when Bill comes over, he only showers once a week and he *knows* I have a good sense of smell." Hell, I can even get behind being able to tell emotions by scent, like being able to smell fear due to chemical signals. But what the hell does *virginity* smell like? It's literally a concept, can these guys smell feminism? Can they sniff out a socialist from a hundred feet away? Can they stick their nose in your armpit and sniff out your profession? "Yeah, she's definitely a palaeontologist, I'd know the smell of an interest in fossils anywhere."
"I know he started out as a bad boy, but this is too bad for a boy to be" is my new favorite way to describe violent, misogynistic "bad boy" love interests lmao
anna: touches his knee caden: *jaw drops to floor, eyes pop out of sockets accompanied by trumpets, heart beats out of chest, awooga awooga sound effect, pulls chain on train whistle that has appeared next to head as steam blows out, slams fists on table, rattling any plates, bowls or silverware, whistles loudly, fireworks shoot from top of head, pants loudly as tongue hangs out of mouth, wipes comically large bead of sweat from forehead, clears throat, straightens tie, combs hair* Ahem, you look very lovely.
lowkey want an iceberg meme for "horrible things supernatural romantic interest characters have done" and like, Edward stalking Bella is barely in the water's surface, or even above it because of series like these going so *very* far off the deep end.
Yeah as with the last two series there's. A lot. You know the wildly popular SJM ACOTAR has the love interest twist her broken arm to force her into a deal, daterape her, and harass her until suddenly book two he's the perfect feminist perfect best guy ever. And even then he refuses to tell her that her pregnancy might kill her when they're married, removing her ability to choose
@@Crowcaller That's what drives me bonkers about the ACOTAR series as a whole. SJM preaches her morals with no sense of subtlety (Rhysand's whole "it's your ~choice~, Feyre" shtick, the whole Ianthe smashing her hand with a rock and chanting about how she'll never touch someone without their consent again scene, and Feyre's whole healing journey), but things her characters say and do actively subvert the girlbossy feminism she's trying to feed us. It's batshit lmao. (I may or may not be composing a video essay about this lol)
@@abs-urdityplease respond when you complete this, because boy am I dying for someone to dissect this 😂 I loved this book series and I actively had to choose to ignore this in order to enjoy this. Because the faceturn of Rhys and Tamlin was disorienting as fuckkkkkk
Yeah like if he were constantly struggling to contain horniness I'd expect him to be succumbing to it by like.. engaging in massive orgies. Not assaulting single people.
Honestly the very basic premise of "children of lords of hell and representatives of various sins" could be really fun if it was less "christian bad boy romance" and more focused on a group of outcasts finding solace in each other. Idk the idea of a group of kids who have been abused and treated as destined for evil since birth, who have done horrible things (although obviously not to the same degree as child trafficking) and have to learn to cope and grow from that, and who also have cool demon powers could be really fun. I have a really strong "I can fix you" complex with bad stories GHDGE
To be honest there was... this series never was good but it was a bit nice to see them be like, friends. Like all the demon kids sans Anna were basically raised in horrible abusive situations and taught they had to do bad things or else they'd die (the dukes don't exactly love them), and that made like the twins, kaiden, blake all fiercely protective ish friends even tho they're not good people, which is somethign
Yo my best friend is literally writing basically this but with added queer allegory, he’s been working on it for years tho I’ll tell him to hurry it up
I'm confused by it but looking it seems so heavily implied they're the bloods. I don't know shit about gangs but it's bad on so many levels. From the bloods being famously a black gang to the fact she put in a bunch of very offensive Latino gang stereotypes in who end the scene with God exploding one of their faces
I've heard a lot of ridiculous "You changed me 🥺🥺" shit from YA books to the point where I'm unfazed by it. But the listening to an actual quote from the book be "yeah I help my dad rape kidnapped and enslaved teen girls but I didn't assault the most recent one they brought in. No, not because she was only 12 or because sex trafficking is one of the most horrendous crimes known to man; I thought about how it would make you sad 🥺" IM FLOORED. I actually sat all my shit down and rested my head against the wall. That is so beyond batshit insane
I really hope not but. I know I keep saying it but for 'hearing your friends or dads having sex' to be a reoccuring theme in the trilogy, it's PRETTY SPECIFIC huh.
Holy shit I thought the main love interest's crime to be the lustful mind control not international sex trafficking and rape I can't believe someone wrote that and no one told them no stop don't
I’ve been asked before “hey why do you avoid the YA book section in favor of the kids/adult section?” because 9/10 times I would open a YA book to quickly glance what it might be about and get punched with something unhinged. Not to say the kids books I’ve read aren’t brutal and unhinged in their own right, shout out to Warrior Cats and Wings of Fire, gotta love extreme gorey animal violence for kids!
seeing warrior cats and wings of fire mentioned here whilst its actively going on in my brain already feels like someone repeating your thoughts out loud to you and then smiling
I still dont understand how warrior cats is an 8+ and not like, pg 13 minimum. A cat gets straight up gutted on screen, like tail to throat. And thats within the first 6 books, theres like 100 of those damn things (it only gets worse, dont even get me started about the fetus ghosts, cannibalism, graphic on screen cat births, and Tom The Wifebeater)
@@wildtamer4461 honestly, i thought that kids are kinda unhinged enough to read that type of stuff with interest but not mature enough to understand how baffling it is, so... maybe that's why
"Mah name's Anna, and Ah used'ta be a good gurl" absolutely fucking killed me, revived me, murdered me again and danced on my grave. Also man!!!! This channel feels like a 300k subs one like KrimsonRogue or smth, can't believe I the algorithm brought me here early. Keep up the good work!! Can't wait to see what you've got in store!!
Have my train of thought watching commentary: - Giving the main character of a YA series an affinity for addictive substances seems dicey, as an alcoholic. - I support nuns with swords - there's no hornyness like sex-negative purity culture hornyness - I truly was not ready for the balls to the walls darkness of 'the love interest contributes to international sex trafficing involving minors'. My jaw actually dropped, and I usually think of that as a figure of speech. - Every time you say "Demon dad" I snap directly to "I'll be your demon daddy" from the new Florence + The Machine album - I genuinely think a half-angel tripsitter would be a cool character concept, unfortunately I have deep doubts that this is anything like that. - You just keep hitting us with these racial things and I'm like: this sounds like it belongs on Adult Swim in 2005 -Accidental Vouyerism is an entire kink and I just feel like the author is accidentally admitting to being into something - Dam Ana ur Bobbies. Those texts sound like a sweet married couple, it's just cringe as hell to put them in a book. - Love every time you go on a confused frustrated rant about christian moral themes. Yeah, pretty much. Circle of hands for all the ex-christians. - My Veronica HC is she's living her best life in Spain in a cute house with Missy from Perfected. - "Cor blimey Ana luv we sure did c*ck up that trafficking situation" - God is dead and Sweet Evil killed him.
I love that out of the dukes/lords of hell, we have the very broad subjects like the seven deadly sins, but then they get oddly specific. Like, adultery at least I can kind of get, while it would fall under the umbrella of lust it's specifically mentioned in the 10 commandments. But substance abuse just seems so oddly specific compared to the rest, especially since our definition of substance abuse has changed a lot over the past 150 years alone. It also would probably fall under the unbrella of gluttony. Like, if Anna's dad is a fallen angel and a lord of hell, right? He's presumably ancient. So like, has he been getting power this whole time by people doing what's substance abuse by the standards of the 21st century, or was he just the weakest of the dukes for a while there?
So.... they change it up from time to time. It's confusing. It's why Kopano can be extra offensive: his dad at one time was the duke of lust, but now is the duke of wrath. Why they moved this job around is very unclear.
"water hides the smell of virginity" quote of all time. Truly the obsession with sex as like the ultimate sin and power is just so insane in this series. Its not that big a deal lol Incredible video btw 💜
Never in my life has the trans rep felt so strange and accidental yet somehow didn't actually do anything overtly terrible with it unlike apparently every other topic this book mishandled. How?? How did they get that one thing passable?
It is extremely confusing what the take with Jezebel is if any. It feels vaguely like I should be offended but also she's like one of the few who gets to go to heaven in the head
@@Crowcaller my guess is that the target audience is expected to be sufficiently appalled by a trans character existing, so making Jezebel any more evil was unnecessary.
It's suchhhhhh an issue in ya. In this case too it's literally like. Big plot point is her saying she must be a vorgin to wield a holy sword BC otherwise she won't have a pure soul and will be tainted. It's so bad
@@anniejankovic8056 Oh yes, that also had me cringing so hard in all the examples she compared the scene to... about how the "pure" protagonists always get to remain unassaulted even when trapped in abusive situation as if it was something the VICTIM has any control over and that said protagonist was somehow better for it than her peers, instead of just awfully lucky. It has such awful underlines of ingrained victim blaming and that twisted idea of 'abstinence is the only way' they try to peddle to american teens, even when the girls in the described situations literally have no choice. It's sickening to no end.
@@CrowcallerIt could be anything else. 'Never struck an innocent person'. 'Never had their hair cut' 'Never been consumed meat'. 'Never went a day without polishing and tending their magic blade.'
IM CRYING- THE BOOK TRAILER STARTED AND THE ACCENT- "hes the kind of guy your daddy would warn you about, but no one warned me" GIRL PLEASE- I AM SO GLAD YOU INTRODUCED THIS INTO MY MIND BRAIN THANK YA CROW CALLER-!
Hearing "the main character's virginity gets one of her friends killed" was NOT something I expected to hear 😅😂 But this is bad YA so it doesn't even surprise me *that* much anymore
You know, it's kinda baffling that the author thought she had room for another love interest considering she already had a love triangle between Anna, Caden, and his sex crimes.
The Paddy death scene feels like, ironically a strong argument against that line of thinking I think. Just imagine seeing your only family die slowly and painfully and coming out of it like "It's okay she'll get into heaven" that would be a heavy hitting horror movie scene luv
I find it very unpleasant and weird. I get it's definitely meant to be...a big test of faith thing, like. God won't save her but you must love god even if he's fuckin you over horribly. You'll be rewarded in the end. But maybe it's just my personal philosophy, but I hate that line of thinking and I especially think if you can you should always try harder to save your mom from being slowly murdered by demons
I feel like, as awful as this series is, Sweet Evil is the prefect example of all the worst aspects of Christian YA romance boiled down and distilled into one series. Sweet Evil is to Christian paranormal romance, what the Divergent series is to YA dystopias.
Well, it's some kind of magic. How does the sword know if somebody of pure heart wields it? That said: If the author decides to put that in the story, she should have handled that as the yikes-ey and horrible thing it is. And give Anna a chance to be badass about it. Like: Demon: "I can smell you're a virgin!" Anna: "I give you something to smell!!!" * drives angel sword into his nose *
Re: virginity stuff (I'm going to go into Twilight, fair warning) It's interesting. In the Twilight series, Bella is the one interested in sex - but Edward is hung up on his own Christian values, to the point where he refuses. I'd argue that the main reason they GET married is because Bella wants to have sex (along with fear of abandonment and wanting to be a vampire.) Then all the shit with her getting pregnant with a vampire baby goes down, and it's like...if the series had been 2% more self aware than this would have been am excellent story about why denying teenagers (esp. teen girls) sex and sex ed is a bad thing - leading them to legally tie themselves to people because they want to fuck in a socially (usually Christian conservative) way. It's sort of an inverse of the tropes you're talking about, here! It's interesting, if a little bizarre! Especially since a lot of books were piggy backing off Twilight around this era! (Meyer has the same tendency in her books that Atlas Shrugged has, though - a reasonable reflection of reality that draws completely batshit conclusions from what it sees.)
You're right, it is extremely rare to have the female lead be interested in sex, and that's odd since twilight IS the proginator of the whole para-ro craze. And meyer is mormon too, so it's not like everyone else was simply more religious
Tbh Meyer is a mormon so that whole thing with Bella being the one to want sex but only being allowed to have it once they get married is still very tied to religion, as is a very common thing in mormon circles. It's very common for young mormons to get married RIGHT AWAY cuz they want to have sex and that is the only way it's allowed. So Meyer is either advertising that as the correct way OR simply drawing on what she saw around her, but with no criticism of it.
Honestly, I don’t like Twilight, but I still feel like Bella is a much better protagonist than any of these Twilight Ripoffs. As flawed of a protagonist as Bella is, at least she is internally consistent; she’s a relatively plain girl who mostly just wants to bone Edward, but the book (at least the first one) doesn’t really try to paint her as more grand than she is. She’s just some girl who happens to attract a lot of supernatural attention. And Bella ironically has more agency than a lot of these other protagonists; like, sure, her major characterization is her obsession with Edward, but at least she actively pursued Edward and makes it a goal to be with him, with none of this wishy washy shit on her end. Girl was committed 😂
@@gregjayonnaise8314 yeah! For me it's like...I don't like twilight for a lot of reasons, but Meyer isn't as bad a writer as a lot of these people that Crowcaller's talking about. I used to comment to my friends that Stephanie Meyer was very good at writing intriguing characters if she didn't go in depth with them. Like, a lot of the periphery characters are fascinating - Leah as the only female werewolf who lost her boyfriend to the imprinting shit werewolves do. Alice and Jasper's whole situation, together and separate. Whatever's going on with the groups of vampires the Cullens pull for the second half of the last book. (Like, whatever the Cullens may say about eating vegetarian, I would argue that her writing still shows they give very little shit about human life - they just tell vampires to hunt away from their territory. Washington State must have had a LOT of murders that month, with vampires feeding once a week. That's a fascinating character trait - but she never explores the world she sets up.) If you all really want to go on the Spooky Mormon Hell Dream ride, I'd recommend getting your hands on a copy of The Host. She had a blatant self-insert in it and it's Mormon in the alien way.
Imo the dynamic between Bella and Edward is very fundie -- with Edward acting as Bella's 'keeper' in this sense and providing her guidance on the path to Cullen vampirism/Mormonism.
Is there any group of people on this planet more obsessed with sex than fundamentalist Christians? Also, the amount of deadly pregnancies in YA makes me feel like those people _want_ women to die in childbirth, like what the hell. Anyway, great video as always, so glad that the algorithm boosted the Lightlark video and let so many of us find your channel ❤
Wanna know the really sad part? That's probably the truth, at least for the conservative lot. Evangelical women see dying in childbirth as the "ultimate sacrifice" anyone with a uterus can make and a one way ticket to heaven. It's probably part of the reason why they don't care about shit like abortion in the cases where the uterus having person will fucking die if they don't get one like in the case of ectopic pregnancies. Pretty messed up shit.
tbh... it's an anti-abortion thing. they don't care about the people bearing the children, because babies are easier to control and aren't complicated by many external factors, such as a personality, beliefs, questions, or culture.
'you cranck up my lust, girl' wouldve had the strongest fake zillenial energy even in 2013 when zillenials were still open to corny memes and not growing tired of them yet
For a majority of my teens I had the weirdest, strictest purity and modesty rules for myself and I’ve always looked back wondering where that came from because my parents weren’t the ones saying those kinds of things, my friends weren’t, and I never paid attention to what church said. Lately I’ve come to suspect it was all the YA books and shows I watched 😂
Honestly ive been thinking it would be interesting to have some sort of interview-based comparative study of grown-up former traget audiences of the twilight wave of martyr girl romance ya, and see what people think after growing up now that they reflect on what they thought at the time 😂 it's wild sometimes how something totally blindsides you as a teen while also becoming like a cornerstone of your personality.
1:08:11 A spirit accidentally possessing the corpse of a celebrity and having to go into hiding is actually such a funny and clever idea that I'm positive she plagiarized it
I'm about to say 'that doesn't super exist' but then technically speaking. Angel Radio my book is in fact a YA about elderich horror angels. I think Angelburn does a fairly creepy angel thing too while being more a normal YA para-ro trilogy
I don’t know why, but when you said; “Shows up to a makeshift thanksgiving dinner in the body of a famous rapper” I pictured the Thanksgiving dinner inside the rapper. I need to go to bed..
when you said the main love interest committed literal crimes against humanity i thought “hmmm, how bad can it be?” nothing could’ve prepared me for this
There's nothing better than crocheting something while listening to a book review about a book you distinctly remember reading a while ago and somewhat liking it!
I'm SO curious what like. a teen in 2012 had to say about this series. Because it did really quite well and a lot of people read them. Like. The crimes involved...
I originally watched the human pet book video and i'm back for another 'this book is so bad i have to talk about it for more than an hour' now. Subbed, you got me haha
The strange thing with virginity carries over to adult romance novels too. When I volunteered at a charity shop I would read the ones we had on the shelf to pass time and majority of the books had the women be virgins even late into their twenties for one reason or another, meanwhile their guy love interests would have an array of lovers before them. Understandably adult romance novels are written for adults (obviously) so it's less harmful but it just cements this fantasy of wanting to be "pure and untouched" for your love even for a female fantasy. And nearly every single one of those books had the same scene of the two lovers getting intimate and then the woman shyly admitting she's never done it before and suddenly the man is happier and more eager to continue. Romance genre has a weird obsession with virginity.
Yes yes yes yes! I’ve been wanting to see someone rip apart these book for ages! I literally did a double take. I used to be OBSESSED with these books (I’m out of therapy now) THANK YOU! Edit: I remember the author having a site with a countdown for the last book
"Special prophecy nephilim" /adds this to the genre of books that would cause papal meetings and potential crackdowns against heresy in the medieval period
It is pretty wild how a lot of these very christian para ro books are in fact very blasphamous. I don't think fiction about angels and demons should be considered so, but is in very strict places, and like, some of the decisions made in these series are.... interesting to say the least
And of course Kaidan just had to be British 😂 because it seems to be a requirement in YA romance for some reason for the love interests to be British 🤔
The frequency of my "what the hell" responses to the progressingly unhinged stuff in these books promted my partner to get off a work call to check on me lol Also this has become one of my favourite channels on ye olde UA-cam. Every time I see a new video I'm smiling so big
You said 'book trailer' and I was INSANTLY transported back to circa. 2013 watching the Beautiful Creatures book trailer on repeat while waiting for the fourth book to come out (and oh MY god, was Beautiful Creatures an unhinged YA paranormal romance series. That and the Fallen series get points for the two quickest 0-to-60 plot intensity leaps of 2010s YA paranormal romance)
I wonder if zanaya was meant to be zanya actually. Bc zanya is the word for women who have sex outside of marriage. But i highly doubt the author thought that far into it tbh, i think it was just a case of picking a "middle eastern sounding name"
Also it's funny how christian fiction is willing to put down islam so fast when like. The two religions share so many core rules and "morals" ig. I grew up muslim, no longer am, but it's always been super funny to me when the more ig devout? (Im gonna use that word bc its not always fundamentalists) christians fail to see the things they dislike in islam are very much present in christianity
I absolutely think a very very large portion of christians in america don't know that islam and christianity are very linked. Same with judaism but less so. I think a lot of fundie christians know like, jesus was jewish, but not a single thing about islam. The abrahamic religions share a lot of lore and also quite keenly a fair amount of shared text. I know way less about islam compared to christanity and judaism, but the old testiment is pretty much the same in those two and to my knowledge islam shares a lot of the same old testiment base stuff. But... a weird amount of people don't know that? It's like how a lot lot LOT of especially american christians hear 'allah' and go... that's a different god. that's not the same as christian god. when it's just.... another language.
@@Crowcaller oh lol yeah then it's Zania in the sex outside of marriage meaning most likely. And yeah that's true! arab christians (not all but it's fairly common) use allah to refer to god too because. Yes it's just another word in another language referring to the same thing. And in islam it's p much canon that the abrahamic god is shared by all three religions
THERE IS AN AUDIO/VISUAL ISSUE early on. It's youtube's fault. I'm trying to get it fixed. Sorry!!! I do not know what is going on but it's something to do with processing...... Please comment if it's still an issue when you see this, as it should resolve soon.
Heavily reminded of that one kpop fanfic I read back in 2012. The main characters were the sons of the princes of hell and embodied one of the seven deadly sins each, and they had a whole enemies to allies to lovers arc with the children of the archangels -who symbolised the seven capital virtues. Except that fanfic apparently handled the idea of "prophecised evil" better than a published book by a grown woman.
yknow i gotta admit, there's some stuff that coulda been really cool & interesting to explore. Like Anna influencing kids to say take their meds or making doctors more willing to fudge numbers for families who can't afford life-saving drugs. or the dude (i already forgot his name), when they're roadtripping, needing his own room & having sex toys to help him get off. yknow, showing that using those things aren't inherently evil but normal and healthy to use alas
dude when I heard "so the other leg of the love triangle is black" i was already extremely concerned knowing the nature of these books, but when I heard that his sin was "wrath" i literally gasped involuntarily and had to pause the video... these fuckin books man they gotta STOP
i love how ZANAYAH ( zanya) is just englishfied version of the word ( adulterer) in arabic, great naming wendy! totally a normal thing to name someone!
Fascinating to me how the presumably christian women writing all of these christian YA romance novels seem absolutely bound and determined to reduce christianity and christian theology to a series of loopholes they can just worm their way through on their path to doing whatever the hell (lol) they were going to do anyway. Another great video, Crow!!
Your upload timing could not be any more perfect as I was about to start work so now I have something other than your Lightlark vid to listen to on loop while working 🙂
watching your videos has genuinely made me more proud and confident in my writing skill becuase as bad as my writing may be it will never be as bad as these books that have actually been published
I'm confused about why Anna didn't just become like the safe guyTM at a party like you can hang out with her on the couch and try shrooms or brownies while you trip balls like that way she can bot influence people to do drugs and keep people safe
God the mere idea that Sweet Evil is a book that exists in this world has always been a source of a litany of joke between my sister and I. I'm so excited to see this
Actually, for her father training Anna to recognize her limits, that is actually responsible parenting. Not the hard drugs or pretending to be a servant of evil parts, but teaching a teen to be able to recognize their limits when it comes to alcohol. 1. It demystifies and de-taboos it, so drinking it is no longer an act of rebellion, it's something normal(like it is in most of the world). 2. Getting to know their limits with a responsible adult nearby will reduce the chance of them overdosing, and ensure that prompt action is taken if they do. And 3. They'll be prepared for adulthood, when you can have it whenever, even in contexts where they'll be expected to behave themselves. So knowing at how many drinks they can have before it starts to impair their judgement will help keep them from making costly decisions, like driving drunk. That's why Wisconsin, where I live, has the drinking age be 16 with parental supervision. So that parents can teach their children to have a healthy relationship with alcohol.
I grew up in a family where alcohol was demonized, and several family members have died from alcohol-related health issues. I'm a heavy drinker but take breaks and stay alert about my intake. However, I believe that not having grown up terrified about alcohol might have led me to have a better relationship to it.
I used to love this series as a young teen and I did not remember almost ANY of this messed up stuff 😨 Like bruh the only thing I remembered was the makeout on the washing machine LMAO
I feel like as a teen, you get wrapped into the romance, family drama and the whole "group of teens travel the world to stop evil" aspects, and if you're not aware of their context, the more icky aspects like the racist stereotypes or the whole purity culture would fly over your head... I say that because, as Crow was doing the summary, there were a few moments when I thought "Oh, I would have enjoyed this aspect if I had read this as a teen!", and I would probably have gotten uncomfortable with what Crow pointed out in the video only with an adult reread. Well, the whole sex trafficking element is upsetting at any age, but with how little it impacts the plot, I would probably have forgotten it by the end of the novel. Or, realistically, since English is not my first language, I would have read a translation and there's a 50/50 chance the translator would have had a free license to censor the more unsavory aspects to make the book more age-appropriate (at least in my home country, I've seen really strange creative liberties when it comes to translating YA and children fiction)
It’s sad, because this has amazing potential as a story. This could have been a series about severely abused children finding solace with each other, helping each other out, and instead… this. In another timeline, maybe.
If I was a Duke I’d just have manipulated Anna into killing an innocent person and hope that cancelled out the pure of heart thing. But nah, all about sex 🙄
I came across your content a week ago because I was looking for long-form content to listen to while I was doing a sewing project. Now, I can't wait for each release. I'm gladly boarding this pain train and I thank you for being the conductor 😆
On the Cayden novella: if you're going to retell a story from another character's perspective, it ought to have a transformative effect on the story. For example, Othello is a tragedy. Tell it from Desdemona's perspective, however, and it becomes a psychological horror. Alternatively, you'd want to retell the story using the perspective of a character who witnessed or partook in events at a substantially different angle to the original telling's and/or who witnessed or partook in relevant events not directly observed in the original telling. The movie Rogue One is a good example of this, portraying and elaborating on what was originally a couple vague lines about a team stealing the Death Star's plans.
nooo, as soon as you mentioned that there were band lyrics i officially grimaced as much as my face is capable and even my inner teenage self was embarrassed, good god why, this book series was embarrassing but fine so far but that was the point where my soul got dragged straight to hell
I realized that when I was fixing the script but I didn't recall if it was ever addressed. I don't remember it being addressed and I made no note about it.... so it's either a plot hole or like. The angels blessed her with death via baby
The obsession with sex, and specifically virginity, in female-oriented romance fiction is weird lol. Makes me think of otome games... the male love interests in otome dating sims often bring up the idea of "loving [the main character] properly/the way [she] deserves" and similar innuendos, but then don't do it except at the very end or in bad endings. Alternatively, they berate the MC for "tempting" them when she's acting mostly normal, seeming weirdly repulsed by the whole idea. Or all of the above. She, meanwhile, is often so pure that these things go straight over her head, she reacts by being deeply confused, or she freaks tf out over the whole concept. (Not to mention the use of threats of assault/the forcing of kisses to drive away the MC by villainous LIs.) I'm sex repulsed, so I'm happy with not having sex scenes, but zero sex scenes + sky high sexual tension is a freakin weird combination.
I think authors need to understand that if you want your character to remain likable (which i assume you do if hes a love interest in a ya book) there are some lines that character cannot cross and SEX SLAVE TRADE IS ONE OF THOSE LINES A love interest in a ya book....
it's like!!!!! It's just. You can almost say, okay, he's been raised without morals and doesn't know better. It's still bad but part of his arc is learning morals. But even when he dates Anna and likes her and maybe has morals he takes until the END OF THE SERIES in epilogue to stop the sex ring. He hates his dad and the crime ring but does nothing. And he's our hero? We're supposed to love this man?
@@Crowcaller Right!!! Like dont get me wrong, I love darker themes in books and i love when characters arent morally pure and i love love love stories about characters comming from dark backgrounds who had normalized all sortsa shit learning it doesnt have to be that way and fighting and struggling to become better people because they WANT to be better people. But this aint it Concept the demon kids learning morality is Such an interesting concept that really brings into question nature vs nurture and peoples ability to change and learn through their whole lives ESPECIALLY if we are talking about creatures like angels and demons (or fallen angels) who could be understood to be at their core one unchanging either purely good or purely bad thing. But from the way you described it, it really doesnt feel like he goes through any sort of proper development here, no real awakening of his own judgment or learning of his own morality standards, it feels like he just goes 'anna would be sad if i was bad so ill be good (?) instead!' Like he just replaces his fathers set of standards with his lovers which...there a commentary on abuse there but i dont think thats what the author was going for... And as you said!!! Sex slave ring, especially CHILD sex slave ring isnt exactly something that can be a plot G for your book???? Like im all for exploring darker things in fiction but if ur gonna have it u kinda have to dedicate urself to it at least somewhat. It cant just be ushered into a few lines in the epiloge like u half forgot it between all the make outs. N that part where his gf felt bad for HIM for having to participate in that...like yes its traumatizing n horrible to be forced into that but also does she spare no thought to idk the girls he raped???? How bizzare especially if shes supposed to be his moral compass. Its like saying yeah ur right to be scared n self pity fuck those girls you are more important here. Also even if he was scared for calling cops on them...why the fuck didnt Anna do it the second she realized she has magical angel brigade who will come to her if shes in danger??? I didnt read the book im just a ranter...
It kinda reminds of how Leigh Bardugo wanted Kaz to actually be a scary bad guy, but also wanted us to like him, so what did she do? Have him save Inej from the sex slave trade. Like this author doesn’t understand that we can forgive fictional characters for violence and “doing what they have to do” if it doesn’t have them sell CHILDREN INTO SLAVERY. Like literally in the first 3 chapters of Sox of Crows we understand Kaz, who is willing to kill his rivals family members is redeemable and we can root for him. But like this author can’t understand that she should of just made the love interest like a wrath demon or something.
"She's an alcoholic, but one of her powers is that drugs and alcohol wear off very fast on her" Didn't know having a hole in your pocket was considered a superpower.
I’m so excited! Just found your channel yesterday, through the human pets video, then started my way through lightlark while at work. Feels so lucky to arrive and subscribe right before a new video! Love your work, just so enjoyable to listen to while doing boring stuff at work. Really made processing donations super enjoyable!
It's nice to hear! I am getting a lot of people tell me then listen at work.... I don't have a sched and in fact probably need to take a break at some point because I'm neglecting other tasks, but I've been pretty much weekly!
now, I admit I don't have much interest in writing ya romance books, but I feel like if I did I probably would not make the main love interest complicit in, uh... any of that. it feels like the author heard third-hand about the ~bad boy with a heart of gold~ trope, and then never double checked what makes that type of character appealing rather than an amoral monster who only bothers doing the right thing when it materially benefits him. seriously, that entire scene you read about him talking about how he did the right thing/didn't do the reprehensible thing purely because the protagonist would be mad with him absolutely sent a chill up my spine in how it was presented. it kinda reminds me of how I've seen extreme christians deride atheism by suggesting that without direct orders from a higher power, everyone would immediately default to their worst, most antisocial instincts. just the complete refusal of self-actualisation and the lack of concern about that. virtue coming from following someone better than you, rather than becoming better yourself.
RE: YA book trailers being a big thing for some reason: i think all of the late series maximum ride books had trailers and they were AWFUL lol maybe not as bad as this one but man it was Something. also mildly related, i'd love to hear your thoughts on the maximum ride series. its so much all the time and an absolutely batshit insane ya series lol
Did they .... Have trailers..... I was a big max ride fan as a kid, yeah! God. I loved them. But even as a kid I was like, hm. These plot twists don't make sense and nothing is ever resolved or sensible.... Hmmm... These books might be bad actually.....
@@Crowcaller haha yeah there were three as far as i know. they were...pretty terrible lol ua-cam.com/video/kwW3GRvhSfY/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/775FYM9fqPk/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/8K5X4uymA_c/v-deo.html maximum ride has been my special interest since middle school and wow do i regret that. they are really not good but man i really enjoy them lol
This reminded me pleasantly of reading Christopher Pike when I was a teen, books in which teenage girls had sex if they wanted to, didn’t if they didn’t want to, and dealt with issues like abortion, birth control, and breakups, all while fighting horrifying monsters with shotguns. I feel like the 90s blessed me.
I was listening to you talking about how Coupano (?) was written and when you said he was African/black it all made sense, like, ah, yes, it's just racism on the writer's part
Wendy… I just wanna talk. No no don’t worry about the angel sword, it’s just decoration, I’m such a huge fan of your work. Yeah it’s really sharp do you wanna take a closer look?
I was SO waiting for Anna plunging the angel sword into the heart of every duke of hell during the climax. Why is this not happening?
@@johannageisel5390 Because supposedly their fallen angels, so they can be redeemed and become Angels again, except that's never and the actual books. Even though demons and dukes of hell are fallen angels, when she reforms Kaiden, he doesn't just become an angel he still for some reason a demon of hell just reformed and purified. But purification of a demon of hell should have made him into an angel of heaven. This book makes no sense.
The concept of ANY character being able to smell other people’s virginity creeps me the fuck out. That belongs in a horror story.
Y'know I'm mildly sure it's happened in other, more recent YA. I STG it's the kind of thing you'd see in like, a SJM fae book, you know? They're always sniffing each other.
I don't think I ever clearly said it in vid, but it's not just that the love interest's demon dad can smell virginity, in book three he specifically sends a goon to break into her house and steal her panties so he can. sniff them. to check if she's a virgin. this is her father in law.
@@Crowcaller I'm gonna be honest, I haven't watched the video yet, just skimming the comments but *my god* your comment here has just sent me and I am 100% going to be watching your video in full. (And leaving a like, of course. In fact, I just did.)
I don't mind the idea of "sniffing" in fantasy stories from a nonhuman species, but it should be stuff like "Damn I hate when Bill comes over, he only showers once a week and he *knows* I have a good sense of smell." Hell, I can even get behind being able to tell emotions by scent, like being able to smell fear due to chemical signals.
But what the hell does *virginity* smell like? It's literally a concept, can these guys smell feminism? Can they sniff out a socialist from a hundred feet away? Can they stick their nose in your armpit and sniff out your profession? "Yeah, she's definitely a palaeontologist, I'd know the smell of an interest in fossils anywhere."
What would it smell like?
@@chairmanmeow958 Why would you want to know that?
@@Crowcaller What the actual fuckkkk!!! man this book sounds like it is completely steeped in purity culture
"I know he started out as a bad boy, but this is too bad for a boy to be" is my new favorite way to describe violent, misogynistic "bad boy" love interests lmao
💯
I'm just glad "SJWs" became a thing, imagine including sex trafficking in your YA novel and not getting called out for it. The early 10's were WILD
anna: touches his knee
caden: *jaw drops to floor, eyes pop out of sockets accompanied by trumpets, heart beats out of chest, awooga awooga sound effect, pulls chain on train whistle that has appeared next to head as steam blows out, slams fists on table, rattling any plates, bowls or silverware, whistles loudly, fireworks shoot from top of head, pants loudly as tongue hangs out of mouth, wipes comically large bead of sweat from forehead, clears throat, straightens tie, combs hair* Ahem, you look very lovely.
Thafnine constantly yelling "SEX" would've been more subtle than this book series
I got to be like 666 on this comment and that just feels right
@@mioko5679he is that one japanese man biking while yelling about sex
lowkey want an iceberg meme for "horrible things supernatural romantic interest characters have done" and like, Edward stalking Bella is barely in the water's surface, or even above it because of series like these going so *very* far off the deep end.
Yeah as with the last two series there's. A lot. You know the wildly popular SJM ACOTAR has the love interest twist her broken arm to force her into a deal, daterape her, and harass her until suddenly book two he's the perfect feminist perfect best guy ever. And even then he refuses to tell her that her pregnancy might kill her when they're married, removing her ability to choose
@@Crowcaller That's what drives me bonkers about the ACOTAR series as a whole. SJM preaches her morals with no sense of subtlety (Rhysand's whole "it's your ~choice~, Feyre" shtick, the whole Ianthe smashing her hand with a rock and chanting about how she'll never touch someone without their consent again scene, and Feyre's whole healing journey), but things her characters say and do actively subvert the girlbossy feminism she's trying to feed us. It's batshit lmao. (I may or may not be composing a video essay about this lol)
@@abs-urdityplease respond when you complete this, because boy am I dying for someone to dissect this 😂 I loved this book series and I actively had to choose to ignore this in order to enjoy this. Because the faceturn of Rhys and Tamlin was disorienting as fuckkkkkk
Good lord, at least when Edward stalked Bella she was (kinda?) into it. That’s child’s play compared to what this love interest gets up to
Here's one: ua-cam.com/video/iPJeoGDaCXo/v-deo.html
but it's not exclusively the supernatural ones.
as soon as you mentioned that the love interest is literally a rapist... god its only the 30 minute mark i need strength
It's just that kinda book
These authors just need to write horror. They need to stop being wusses and write horror.
With the "lust crimes" related things, it seems Wendy has forgotten assault is about power more than desire
bold of you to assume she knew it in the first place
Yeah like if he were constantly struggling to contain horniness I'd expect him to be succumbing to it by like.. engaging in massive orgies. Not assaulting single people.
Where's that thing that Asmodeus said in Helluva Boss about how you can't force lust when you need it.
Honestly the very basic premise of "children of lords of hell and representatives of various sins" could be really fun if it was less "christian bad boy romance" and more focused on a group of outcasts finding solace in each other. Idk the idea of a group of kids who have been abused and treated as destined for evil since birth, who have done horrible things (although obviously not to the same degree as child trafficking) and have to learn to cope and grow from that, and who also have cool demon powers could be really fun. I have a really strong "I can fix you" complex with bad stories GHDGE
To be honest there was... this series never was good but it was a bit nice to see them be like, friends. Like all the demon kids sans Anna were basically raised in horrible abusive situations and taught they had to do bad things or else they'd die (the dukes don't exactly love them), and that made like the twins, kaiden, blake all fiercely protective ish friends even tho they're not good people, which is somethign
There's like, the bones of a good found family story in there, but Wendy ground the bones into powder and snorted them
You should check out The House in the Cerulean Sea!
@@kyoyameganebereznoff OH HECK YEAH excellent book. My NaNoWriMo this year is very TJ Klune inspired actually!
Yo my best friend is literally writing basically this but with added queer allegory, he’s been working on it for years tho I’ll tell him to hurry it up
The Latino gang being color coordinated is sooo funny, they're a street boy band for her 😂
I'm confused by it but looking it seems so heavily implied they're the bloods. I don't know shit about gangs but it's bad on so many levels. From the bloods being famously a black gang to the fact she put in a bunch of very offensive Latino gang stereotypes in who end the scene with God exploding one of their faces
I've heard a lot of ridiculous "You changed me 🥺🥺" shit from YA books to the point where I'm unfazed by it. But the listening to an actual quote from the book be "yeah I help my dad rape kidnapped and enslaved teen girls but I didn't assault the most recent one they brought in. No, not because she was only 12 or because sex trafficking is one of the most horrendous crimes known to man; I thought about how it would make you sad 🥺" IM FLOORED. I actually sat all my shit down and rested my head against the wall. That is so beyond batshit insane
watching this in the background and randomly hearing sentences like "anna's smelly virignity got her friend killed" >>>>
😔😔😔😔😔😔😔
For me it was "cursed to be unbearably down to clown" (not an exact quote)
It's so so painfully obvious the author has a exhibition kink just from the sheer amount of mentioning them hearing everyone going at it.
I really hope not but. I know I keep saying it but for 'hearing your friends or dads having sex' to be a reoccuring theme in the trilogy, it's PRETTY SPECIFIC huh.
@@Crowcaller it just keeps coming up over and over aaaa
It's never not funny to me how these morally heavy stories end up accidentally pandering to the worst perversions
Holy shit I thought the main love interest's crime to be the lustful mind control not international sex trafficking and rape I can't believe someone wrote that and no one told them no stop don't
Surprise! COMPLIANT IN SEX TRAFFICKING. and yet soooo hot and perfect and they're in true love imao
I’ve been asked before “hey why do you avoid the YA book section in favor of the kids/adult section?” because 9/10 times I would open a YA book to quickly glance what it might be about and get punched with something unhinged. Not to say the kids books I’ve read aren’t brutal and unhinged in their own right, shout out to Warrior Cats and Wings of Fire, gotta love extreme gorey animal violence for kids!
Heck yeah! WoF addresses some pretty serious things with fair competence, too. Better than most YA I've had the displeasure of encountering lol.
seeing warrior cats and wings of fire mentioned here whilst its actively going on in my brain already feels like someone repeating your thoughts out loud to you and then smiling
Try avoiding the books that make a big deal about a love interest in the summary. It's not foolproof but it helps a lot
I still dont understand how warrior cats is an 8+ and not like, pg 13 minimum. A cat gets straight up gutted on screen, like tail to throat. And thats within the first 6 books, theres like 100 of those damn things (it only gets worse, dont even get me started about the fetus ghosts, cannibalism, graphic on screen cat births, and Tom The Wifebeater)
@@wildtamer4461 honestly, i thought that kids are kinda unhinged enough to read that type of stuff with interest but not mature enough to understand how baffling it is, so... maybe that's why
42:43 "Anna, in the 1st chapter, is looking down on two girls wearing low-cut shirts" Well, that is a good angle from which to enjoy such a view.
"Mah name's Anna, and Ah used'ta be a good gurl" absolutely fucking killed me, revived me, murdered me again and danced on my grave.
Also man!!!! This channel feels like a 300k subs one like KrimsonRogue or smth, can't believe I the algorithm brought me here early. Keep up the good work!! Can't wait to see what you've got in store!!
Me too. I had to cut most of the trailer out but watch the full thing. It slats me.
Ah, always nice seeing fellow Krimson knower in these wastelands of ridiculously long book reviews from the writers
No kidding. Forget the book, I want to watch that C-list movie; same cast and production values and everything.
My excitement for over an hour of dragging bad books is palpable
Saaaaaaaame
we are the same 😌
Have my train of thought watching commentary:
- Giving the main character of a YA series an affinity for addictive substances seems dicey, as an alcoholic.
- I support nuns with swords
- there's no hornyness like sex-negative purity culture hornyness
- I truly was not ready for the balls to the walls darkness of 'the love interest contributes to international sex trafficing involving minors'. My jaw actually dropped, and I usually think of that as a figure of speech.
- Every time you say "Demon dad" I snap directly to "I'll be your demon daddy" from the new Florence + The Machine album
- I genuinely think a half-angel tripsitter would be a cool character concept, unfortunately I have deep doubts that this is anything like that.
- You just keep hitting us with these racial things and I'm like: this sounds like it belongs on Adult Swim in 2005
-Accidental Vouyerism is an entire kink and I just feel like the author is accidentally admitting to being into something
- Dam Ana ur Bobbies. Those texts sound like a sweet married couple, it's just cringe as hell to put them in a book.
- Love every time you go on a confused frustrated rant about christian moral themes. Yeah, pretty much. Circle of hands for all the ex-christians.
- My Veronica HC is she's living her best life in Spain in a cute house with Missy from Perfected.
- "Cor blimey Ana luv we sure did c*ck up that trafficking situation"
- God is dead and Sweet Evil killed him.
You get it
I'm honestly here for Veronica and Missy living their best life together. With a cat, of course.
I cannot believe the author made Andrew Tate the love interest of their YA novel.
I love that out of the dukes/lords of hell, we have the very broad subjects like the seven deadly sins, but then they get oddly specific. Like, adultery at least I can kind of get, while it would fall under the umbrella of lust it's specifically mentioned in the 10 commandments. But substance abuse just seems so oddly specific compared to the rest, especially since our definition of substance abuse has changed a lot over the past 150 years alone. It also would probably fall under the unbrella of gluttony. Like, if Anna's dad is a fallen angel and a lord of hell, right? He's presumably ancient. So like, has he been getting power this whole time by people doing what's substance abuse by the standards of the 21st century, or was he just the weakest of the dukes for a while there?
So.... they change it up from time to time. It's confusing. It's why Kopano can be extra offensive: his dad at one time was the duke of lust, but now is the duke of wrath. Why they moved this job around is very unclear.
Not the sirens going off in the background while you’re reading their horny texts 💀
I worried that would wind up in the video and now I'm glad it was during the specific horny text part imao
WE’RE THE HORNY POLICE GO TO HORNY JAIL
"water hides the smell of virginity" quote of all time.
Truly the obsession with sex as like the ultimate sin and power is just so insane in this series. Its not that big a deal lol
Incredible video btw 💜
Her virginity gives everyone hypothermia..... The social messaging is so powerful....
can't smell like a virgin if you're wet :)
Never in my life has the trans rep felt so strange and accidental yet somehow didn't actually do anything overtly terrible with it unlike apparently every other topic this book mishandled. How?? How did they get that one thing passable?
It is extremely confusing what the take with Jezebel is if any. It feels vaguely like I should be offended but also she's like one of the few who gets to go to heaven in the head
this is how i would describe the second A reveal of pretty little liars and i felt the same way from the character in this
@@Crowcaller my guess is that the target audience is expected to be sufficiently appalled by a trans character existing, so making Jezebel any more evil was unnecessary.
Man don't you just love when people equate "virginity" to moral goodness 🙃
It's suchhhhhh an issue in ya. In this case too it's literally like. Big plot point is her saying she must be a vorgin to wield a holy sword BC otherwise she won't have a pure soul and will be tainted. It's so bad
@@Crowcaller and that even if she had been ASSAULTED AGAINST HER WILL she still would have been """""tainted""""" in some way 😬
@@anniejankovic8056 Oh yes, that also had me cringing so hard in all the examples she compared the scene to... about how the "pure" protagonists always get to remain unassaulted even when trapped in abusive situation as if it was something the VICTIM has any control over and that said protagonist was somehow better for it than her peers, instead of just awfully lucky. It has such awful underlines of ingrained victim blaming and that twisted idea of 'abstinence is the only way' they try to peddle to american teens, even when the girls in the described situations literally have no choice. It's sickening to no end.
It's great! I mean, I can go out and murder a few people and it won't ruin my good moral character because hey, at least I'm still a virgin. 😎
@@CrowcallerIt could be anything else.
'Never struck an innocent person'.
'Never had their hair cut'
'Never been consumed meat'.
'Never went a day without polishing and tending their magic blade.'
IM CRYING- THE BOOK TRAILER STARTED AND THE ACCENT- "hes the kind of guy your daddy would warn you about, but no one warned me" GIRL PLEASE-
I AM SO GLAD YOU INTRODUCED THIS INTO MY MIND BRAIN THANK YA CROW CALLER-!
Hearing "the main character's virginity gets one of her friends killed" was NOT something I expected to hear 😅😂
But this is bad YA so it doesn't even surprise me *that* much anymore
Caden’s horny messages to Anna gives strong Adam Levine texting his mistress energy, and WOW is it uncomfortable
hell yeah I was the sixty-ninth like
@@IsaacMayerCreativeWorksdang it I can’t like it now
You know, it's kinda baffling that the author thought she had room for another love interest considering she already had a love triangle between Anna, Caden, and his sex crimes.
The Paddy death scene feels like, ironically a strong argument against that line of thinking I think. Just imagine seeing your only family die slowly and painfully and coming out of it like "It's okay she'll get into heaven" that would be a heavy hitting horror movie scene luv
I find it very unpleasant and weird. I get it's definitely meant to be...a big test of faith thing, like. God won't save her but you must love god even if he's fuckin you over horribly. You'll be rewarded in the end. But maybe it's just my personal philosophy, but I hate that line of thinking and I especially think if you can you should always try harder to save your mom from being slowly murdered by demons
I feel like, as awful as this series is, Sweet Evil is the prefect example of all the worst aspects of Christian YA romance boiled down and distilled into one series. Sweet Evil is to Christian paranormal romance, what the Divergent series is to YA dystopias.
It is top of my list especially in how hypocritical it is
How can someone smell something that only really exists as a concept 😭😭
He in book three did I say this he in book three steals her panties to sniff them at one point. Seriously
@@Crowcaller NONONONO TAKE IT BACK PLEASE 😭
Well, it's some kind of magic.
How does the sword know if somebody of pure heart wields it?
That said: If the author decides to put that in the story, she should have handled that as the yikes-ey and horrible thing it is. And give Anna a chance to be badass about it.
Like:
Demon: "I can smell you're a virgin!"
Anna: "I give you something to smell!!!" * drives angel sword into his nose *
@@Crowcalleris.... Is this implying he can smell it.... On her vaginal discharge....?
Re: virginity stuff (I'm going to go into Twilight, fair warning)
It's interesting. In the Twilight series, Bella is the one interested in sex - but Edward is hung up on his own Christian values, to the point where he refuses. I'd argue that the main reason they GET married is because Bella wants to have sex (along with fear of abandonment and wanting to be a vampire.) Then all the shit with her getting pregnant with a vampire baby goes down, and it's like...if the series had been 2% more self aware than this would have been am excellent story about why denying teenagers (esp. teen girls) sex and sex ed is a bad thing - leading them to legally tie themselves to people because they want to fuck in a socially (usually Christian conservative) way.
It's sort of an inverse of the tropes you're talking about, here! It's interesting, if a little bizarre! Especially since a lot of books were piggy backing off Twilight around this era! (Meyer has the same tendency in her books that Atlas Shrugged has, though - a reasonable reflection of reality that draws completely batshit conclusions from what it sees.)
You're right, it is extremely rare to have the female lead be interested in sex, and that's odd since twilight IS the proginator of the whole para-ro craze. And meyer is mormon too, so it's not like everyone else was simply more religious
Tbh Meyer is a mormon so that whole thing with Bella being the one to want sex but only being allowed to have it once they get married is still very tied to religion, as is a very common thing in mormon circles. It's very common for young mormons to get married RIGHT AWAY cuz they want to have sex and that is the only way it's allowed.
So Meyer is either advertising that as the correct way OR simply drawing on what she saw around her, but with no criticism of it.
Honestly, I don’t like Twilight, but I still feel like Bella is a much better protagonist than any of these Twilight Ripoffs.
As flawed of a protagonist as Bella is, at least she is internally consistent; she’s a relatively plain girl who mostly just wants to bone Edward, but the book (at least the first one) doesn’t really try to paint her as more grand than she is. She’s just some girl who happens to attract a lot of supernatural attention. And Bella ironically has more agency than a lot of these other protagonists; like, sure, her major characterization is her obsession with Edward, but at least she actively pursued Edward and makes it a goal to be with him, with none of this wishy washy shit on her end. Girl was committed 😂
@@gregjayonnaise8314 yeah! For me it's like...I don't like twilight for a lot of reasons, but Meyer isn't as bad a writer as a lot of these people that Crowcaller's talking about. I used to comment to my friends that Stephanie Meyer was very good at writing intriguing characters if she didn't go in depth with them. Like, a lot of the periphery characters are fascinating - Leah as the only female werewolf who lost her boyfriend to the imprinting shit werewolves do. Alice and Jasper's whole situation, together and separate. Whatever's going on with the groups of vampires the Cullens pull for the second half of the last book. (Like, whatever the Cullens may say about eating vegetarian, I would argue that her writing still shows they give very little shit about human life - they just tell vampires to hunt away from their territory. Washington State must have had a LOT of murders that month, with vampires feeding once a week. That's a fascinating character trait - but she never explores the world she sets up.)
If you all really want to go on the Spooky Mormon Hell Dream ride, I'd recommend getting your hands on a copy of The Host. She had a blatant self-insert in it and it's Mormon in the alien way.
Imo the dynamic between Bella and Edward is very fundie -- with Edward acting as Bella's 'keeper' in this sense and providing her guidance on the path to Cullen vampirism/Mormonism.
I laughed so loud at the book trailer, I shocked my cat of the couch.
book trailers are almost all a good laugh and there ought to have been more of them
iit was so aggressively southern i did not see it coming and I just laughed
Is there any group of people on this planet more obsessed with sex than fundamentalist Christians?
Also, the amount of deadly pregnancies in YA makes me feel like those people _want_ women to die in childbirth, like what the hell.
Anyway, great video as always, so glad that the algorithm boosted the Lightlark video and let so many of us find your channel ❤
Wanna know the really sad part? That's probably the truth, at least for the conservative lot. Evangelical women see dying in childbirth as the "ultimate sacrifice" anyone with a uterus can make and a one way ticket to heaven. It's probably part of the reason why they don't care about shit like abortion in the cases where the uterus having person will fucking die if they don't get one like in the case of ectopic pregnancies. Pretty messed up shit.
christians just looove a sacrifice/martyr story
tbh... it's an anti-abortion thing. they don't care about the people bearing the children, because babies are easier to control and aren't complicated by many external factors, such as a personality, beliefs, questions, or culture.
'you cranck up my lust, girl' wouldve had the strongest fake zillenial energy even in 2013 when zillenials were still open to corny memes and not growing tired of them yet
For a majority of my teens I had the weirdest, strictest purity and modesty rules for myself and I’ve always looked back wondering where that came from because my parents weren’t the ones saying those kinds of things, my friends weren’t, and I never paid attention to what church said. Lately I’ve come to suspect it was all the YA books and shows I watched 😂
Honestly ive been thinking it would be interesting to have some sort of interview-based comparative study of grown-up former traget audiences of the twilight wave of martyr girl romance ya, and see what people think after growing up now that they reflect on what they thought at the time 😂 it's wild sometimes how something totally blindsides you as a teen while also becoming like a cornerstone of your personality.
"He's the kind of boy your daddy warns you about but nobody warned me."
Also the cover.
I don't think it's healthy to laugh this hard.
1:08:11 A spirit accidentally possessing the corpse of a celebrity and having to go into hiding is actually such a funny and clever idea that I'm positive she plagiarized it
Man I really want to find some ya novel where they go full eldritch horror with the nephilim.
I'm about to say 'that doesn't super exist' but then technically speaking. Angel Radio my book is in fact a YA about elderich horror angels. I think Angelburn does a fairly creepy angel thing too while being more a normal YA para-ro trilogy
I don’t know why, but when you said; “Shows up to a makeshift thanksgiving dinner in the body of a famous rapper” I pictured the Thanksgiving dinner inside the rapper. I need to go to bed..
Meatloaf again?! (Yes, I used to attend the midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show)
The soothing background music coupled with titles like "crimes against humanity" is great.
when you said the main love interest committed literal crimes against humanity i thought “hmmm, how bad can it be?”
nothing could’ve prepared me for this
There's nothing better than crocheting something while listening to a book review about a book you distinctly remember reading a while ago and somewhat liking it!
I'm SO curious what like. a teen in 2012 had to say about this series. Because it did really quite well and a lot of people read them. Like. The crimes involved...
I also listen to these while I crochet 😁 (crow-chet?)
@@Tesseract_King Crow-chet gang rise up!
I originally watched the human pet book video and i'm back for another 'this book is so bad i have to talk about it for more than an hour' now. Subbed, you got me haha
Unfortunately this is just my life
"I've got a one track mind, you've got a nice behind" has me in literal tears
Came to this channel for the Lightlark tea, stayed when I realized that was just the tip of the YA drama iceberg
It just keeps going....
Omg, that trailer! I watched the whole thing cackling and now my partner is staring at me from across the room with concern.
I seriously remember losing my mind the first time I ever watched it. I think I was at work, and I went absolutely wild. I still think of it often.
The strange thing with virginity carries over to adult romance novels too. When I volunteered at a charity shop I would read the ones we had on the shelf to pass time and majority of the books had the women be virgins even late into their twenties for one reason or another, meanwhile their guy love interests would have an array of lovers before them.
Understandably adult romance novels are written for adults (obviously) so it's less harmful but it just cements this fantasy of wanting to be "pure and untouched" for your love even for a female fantasy. And nearly every single one of those books had the same scene of the two lovers getting intimate and then the woman shyly admitting she's never done it before and suddenly the man is happier and more eager to continue.
Romance genre has a weird obsession with virginity.
Yes yes yes yes! I’ve been wanting to see someone rip apart these book for ages! I literally did a double take. I used to be OBSESSED with these books (I’m out of therapy now) THANK YOU!
Edit: I remember the author having a site with a countdown for the last book
Oh man.... A survivor! A war hero!!
"Special prophecy nephilim" /adds this to the genre of books that would cause papal meetings and potential crackdowns against heresy in the medieval period
It is pretty wild how a lot of these very christian para ro books are in fact very blasphamous. I don't think fiction about angels and demons should be considered so, but is in very strict places, and like, some of the decisions made in these series are.... interesting to say the least
"Smelly virginity" and "virginity sniff test" are some of the phrases I couldn't have dreamed up in a million years.
I haven't even watched this yet, but I know I'll enjoy. Just found Crow Caller a week ago and am in the process on watching all video essays. Love ya
it is an absolute doozy
@@Crowcaller uh oh
And of course Kaidan just had to be British 😂 because it seems to be a requirement in YA romance for some reason for the love interests to be British 🤔
Just like a true Wattpad novel!
The Harry Styles Wattpad effect
@@SurgicalBrooding i was imagining hardin from after as kaiden lmaoo
The frequency of my "what the hell" responses to the progressingly unhinged stuff in these books promted my partner to get off a work call to check on me lol
Also this has become one of my favourite channels on ye olde UA-cam. Every time I see a new video I'm smiling so big
Lol I just imagine Anna "working" and tempting teens with alcohol by like being their mom friend designated driver
You said 'book trailer' and I was INSANTLY transported back to circa. 2013 watching the Beautiful Creatures book trailer on repeat while waiting for the fourth book to come out (and oh MY god, was Beautiful Creatures an unhinged YA paranormal romance series. That and the Fallen series get points for the two quickest 0-to-60 plot intensity leaps of 2010s YA paranormal romance)
I wonder if zanaya was meant to be zanya actually. Bc zanya is the word for women who have sex outside of marriage. But i highly doubt the author thought that far into it tbh, i think it was just a case of picking a "middle eastern sounding name"
Also it's funny how christian fiction is willing to put down islam so fast when like. The two religions share so many core rules and "morals" ig. I grew up muslim, no longer am, but it's always been super funny to me when the more ig devout? (Im gonna use that word bc its not always fundamentalists) christians fail to see the things they dislike in islam are very much present in christianity
I wasn't sure how to pronounce it, it's spelled Zania and she's from syria, so looking it up I figure I got it right, but it's hard to say.
I absolutely think a very very large portion of christians in america don't know that islam and christianity are very linked. Same with judaism but less so. I think a lot of fundie christians know like, jesus was jewish, but not a single thing about islam. The abrahamic religions share a lot of lore and also quite keenly a fair amount of shared text. I know way less about islam compared to christanity and judaism, but the old testiment is pretty much the same in those two and to my knowledge islam shares a lot of the same old testiment base stuff. But... a weird amount of people don't know that?
It's like how a lot lot LOT of especially american christians hear 'allah' and go... that's a different god. that's not the same as christian god. when it's just.... another language.
@@Crowcaller oh lol yeah then it's Zania in the sex outside of marriage meaning most likely. And yeah that's true! arab christians (not all but it's fairly common) use allah to refer to god too because. Yes it's just another word in another language referring to the same thing. And in islam it's p much canon that the abrahamic god is shared by all three religions
the book calling substance abuse a sin is so fucked up. struggling with addiction isn’t a moral failure!
☝️ indeed - and not all who struggle are toxic or harmful to loved ones.
It always blows my mind the stuff some authors think is romance.
I don't know man! The 2012 para ro trend was wild. Publishing just didn't seem to care about having love interests who weren't, like, creepy criminals
THERE IS AN AUDIO/VISUAL ISSUE early on. It's youtube's fault. I'm trying to get it fixed. Sorry!!! I do not know what is going on but it's something to do with processing......
Please comment if it's still an issue when you see this, as it should resolve soon.
Heavily reminded of that one kpop fanfic I read back in 2012. The main characters were the sons of the princes of hell and embodied one of the seven deadly sins each, and they had a whole enemies to allies to lovers arc with the children of the archangels -who symbolised the seven capital virtues. Except that fanfic apparently handled the idea of "prophecised evil" better than a published book by a grown woman.
I need to know the name of that fanfic. Also, what band(s) was it about? :D
Really love the nice, classy music for the title cards with horrible stuff written on them. The contrast is *chef kiss*
did Wendy really just pull "hey only other non white person in the room. want to hook up?" with Kapano and Zania
really ma'am
No spares only compulsory heterosexuality in a Christian god honouring way
yknow i gotta admit, there's some stuff that coulda been really cool & interesting to explore. Like Anna influencing kids to say take their meds or making doctors more willing to fudge numbers for families who can't afford life-saving drugs.
or the dude (i already forgot his name), when they're roadtripping, needing his own room & having sex toys to help him get off. yknow, showing that using those things aren't inherently evil but normal and healthy to use
alas
dude when I heard "so the other leg of the love triangle is black" i was already extremely concerned knowing the nature of these books, but when I heard that his sin was "wrath" i literally gasped involuntarily and had to pause the video... these fuckin books man they gotta STOP
i love how ZANAYAH ( zanya) is just englishfied version of the word ( adulterer) in arabic, great naming wendy! totally a normal thing to name someone!
Her name is specifically Zania (I had to look up pronunciation and not 100% I got the right one) but also I wouldn't put it past ol' Wendy
The white void helps with the immersion... no distracting backround. Only suffering.
:))
Fascinating to me how the presumably christian women writing all of these christian YA romance novels seem absolutely bound and determined to reduce christianity and christian theology to a series of loopholes they can just worm their way through on their path to doing whatever the hell (lol) they were going to do anyway. Another great video, Crow!!
Imagining Kaiden talking with the guy from After's weird ass British accent now.
"FOOKING TREVOR!!!"
Your upload timing could not be any more perfect as I was about to start work so now I have something other than your Lightlark vid to listen to on loop while working 🙂
on loop?? oh man, you good? you need help? you good???
@@Crowcaller I refuse to let Lightlark be the book where I can't understand the plot at all, and I've read Empress Theresa.
watching your videos has genuinely made me more proud and confident in my writing skill becuase as bad as my writing may be it will never be as bad as these books that have actually been published
Let's be real: I feel the same way lol
I'm confused about why Anna didn't just become like the safe guyTM at a party like you can hang out with her on the couch and try shrooms or brownies while you trip balls like that way she can bot influence people to do drugs and keep people safe
God the mere idea that Sweet Evil is a book that exists in this world has always been a source of a litany of joke between my sister and I.
I'm so excited to see this
Oh man do I have a vid for you and your sister
Actually, for her father training Anna to recognize her limits, that is actually responsible parenting. Not the hard drugs or pretending to be a servant of evil parts, but teaching a teen to be able to recognize their limits when it comes to alcohol.
1. It demystifies and de-taboos it, so drinking it is no longer an act of rebellion, it's something normal(like it is in most of the world).
2. Getting to know their limits with a responsible adult nearby will reduce the chance of them overdosing, and ensure that prompt action is taken if they do.
And 3. They'll be prepared for adulthood, when you can have it whenever, even in contexts where they'll be expected to behave themselves. So knowing at how many drinks they can have before it starts to impair their judgement will help keep them from making costly decisions, like driving drunk.
That's why Wisconsin, where I live, has the drinking age be 16 with parental supervision. So that parents can teach their children to have a healthy relationship with alcohol.
I grew up in a family where alcohol was demonized, and several family members have died from alcohol-related health issues. I'm a heavy drinker but take breaks and stay alert about my intake. However, I believe that not having grown up terrified about alcohol might have led me to have a better relationship to it.
main character looks through the bible but only the quotes with cool angels demons and swords. wow she’s just like me fr.
I used to love this series as a young teen and I did not remember almost ANY of this messed up stuff 😨 Like bruh the only thing I remembered was the makeout on the washing machine LMAO
I think teens are just dumb in general because this series sold and did very well despite ..... Everything
I feel like as a teen, you get wrapped into the romance, family drama and the whole "group of teens travel the world to stop evil" aspects, and if you're not aware of their context, the more icky aspects like the racist stereotypes or the whole purity culture would fly over your head... I say that because, as Crow was doing the summary, there were a few moments when I thought "Oh, I would have enjoyed this aspect if I had read this as a teen!", and I would probably have gotten uncomfortable with what Crow pointed out in the video only with an adult reread. Well, the whole sex trafficking element is upsetting at any age, but with how little it impacts the plot, I would probably have forgotten it by the end of the novel. Or, realistically, since English is not my first language, I would have read a translation and there's a 50/50 chance the translator would have had a free license to censor the more unsavory aspects to make the book more age-appropriate (at least in my home country, I've seen really strange creative liberties when it comes to translating YA and children fiction)
"yeah I'm pro life! *kills off innocent young woman for no significant reason*" that completely summarizes the conservative point of view.
It’s sad, because this has amazing potential as a story. This could have been a series about severely abused children finding solace with each other, helping each other out, and instead… this. In another timeline, maybe.
If I was a Duke I’d just have manipulated Anna into killing an innocent person and hope that cancelled out the pure of heart thing. But nah, all about sex 🙄
Hell, the Bible has so many convoluted rules, it shouldn't be too hard to get her to break one
I came across your content a week ago because I was looking for long-form content to listen to while I was doing a sewing project. Now, I can't wait for each release. I'm gladly boarding this pain train and I thank you for being the conductor 😆
Im so happy I finally found a channel that provides for my liking of weird YA books and hour long vids🤗🤗
Happy to help champ
On the Cayden novella: if you're going to retell a story from another character's perspective, it ought to have a transformative effect on the story.
For example, Othello is a tragedy. Tell it from Desdemona's perspective, however, and it becomes a psychological horror.
Alternatively, you'd want to retell the story using the perspective of a character who witnessed or partook in events at a substantially different angle to the original telling's and/or who witnessed or partook in relevant events not directly observed in the original telling.
The movie Rogue One is a good example of this, portraying and elaborating on what was originally a couple vague lines about a team stealing the Death Star's plans.
nooo, as soon as you mentioned that there were band lyrics i officially grimaced as much as my face is capable and even my inner teenage self was embarrassed, good god why, this book series was embarrassing but fine so far but that was the point where my soul got dragged straight to hell
This whole series sounds like 'Oh Wendy no...'
Wendy STOP is a big part of my reaction
@@Crowcaller How is her friend getting pregnant if they got sterilised as kids... I'm so confused... 'Wendy!'
I realized that when I was fixing the script but I didn't recall if it was ever addressed. I don't remember it being addressed and I made no note about it.... so it's either a plot hole or like. The angels blessed her with death via baby
@@Crowcaller As a Wendy this video and comment section is making me feel awful guilty about books I'd never even heard of before watching this.
The obsession with sex, and specifically virginity, in female-oriented romance fiction is weird lol. Makes me think of otome games... the male love interests in otome dating sims often bring up the idea of "loving [the main character] properly/the way [she] deserves" and similar innuendos, but then don't do it except at the very end or in bad endings. Alternatively, they berate the MC for "tempting" them when she's acting mostly normal, seeming weirdly repulsed by the whole idea. Or all of the above. She, meanwhile, is often so pure that these things go straight over her head, she reacts by being deeply confused, or she freaks tf out over the whole concept. (Not to mention the use of threats of assault/the forcing of kisses to drive away the MC by villainous LIs.) I'm sex repulsed, so I'm happy with not having sex scenes, but zero sex scenes + sky high sexual tension is a freakin weird combination.
YESSSSS
I saw the release and immediately informed all my friends.
I’m so hype to hear about bad books from you
Bad book breakdowns are my new favorite type of video 🙏🏻 you do such a fantastic job!
I think authors need to understand that if you want your character to remain likable (which i assume you do if hes a love interest in a ya book) there are some lines that character cannot cross and SEX SLAVE TRADE IS ONE OF THOSE LINES
A love interest in a ya book....
it's like!!!!! It's just. You can almost say, okay, he's been raised without morals and doesn't know better. It's still bad but part of his arc is learning morals. But even when he dates Anna and likes her and maybe has morals he takes until the END OF THE SERIES in epilogue to stop the sex ring. He hates his dad and the crime ring but does nothing. And he's our hero? We're supposed to love this man?
@@Crowcaller Right!!! Like dont get me wrong, I love darker themes in books and i love when characters arent morally pure and i love love love stories about characters comming from dark backgrounds who had normalized all sortsa shit learning it doesnt have to be that way and fighting and struggling to become better people because they WANT to be better people.
But this aint it
Concept the demon kids learning morality is Such an interesting concept that really brings into question nature vs nurture and peoples ability to change and learn through their whole lives ESPECIALLY if we are talking about creatures like angels and demons (or fallen angels) who could be understood to be at their core one unchanging either purely good or purely bad thing. But from the way you described it, it really doesnt feel like he goes through any sort of proper development here, no real awakening of his own judgment or learning of his own morality standards, it feels like he just goes 'anna would be sad if i was bad so ill be good (?) instead!' Like he just replaces his fathers set of standards with his lovers which...there a commentary on abuse there but i dont think thats what the author was going for...
And as you said!!! Sex slave ring, especially CHILD sex slave ring isnt exactly something that can be a plot G for your book???? Like im all for exploring darker things in fiction but if ur gonna have it u kinda have to dedicate urself to it at least somewhat. It cant just be ushered into a few lines in the epiloge like u half forgot it between all the make outs. N that part where his gf felt bad for HIM for having to participate in that...like yes its traumatizing n horrible to be forced into that but also does she spare no thought to idk the girls he raped???? How bizzare especially if shes supposed to be his moral compass. Its like saying yeah ur right to be scared n self pity fuck those girls you are more important here.
Also even if he was scared for calling cops on them...why the fuck didnt Anna do it the second she realized she has magical angel brigade who will come to her if shes in danger???
I didnt read the book im just a ranter...
It kinda reminds of how Leigh Bardugo wanted Kaz to actually be a scary bad guy, but also wanted us to like him, so what did she do? Have him save Inej from the sex slave trade. Like this author doesn’t understand that we can forgive fictional characters for violence and “doing what they have to do” if it doesn’t have them sell CHILDREN INTO SLAVERY. Like literally in the first 3 chapters of Sox of Crows we understand Kaz, who is willing to kill his rivals family members is redeemable and we can root for him. But like this author can’t understand that she should of just made the love interest like a wrath demon or something.
"She's an alcoholic, but one of her powers is that drugs and alcohol wear off very fast on her"
Didn't know having a hole in your pocket was considered a superpower.
I’m so excited! Just found your channel yesterday, through the human pets video, then started my way through lightlark while at work. Feels so lucky to arrive and subscribe right before a new video! Love your work, just so enjoyable to listen to while doing boring stuff at work. Really made processing donations super enjoyable!
It's nice to hear! I am getting a lot of people tell me then listen at work....
I don't have a sched and in fact probably need to take a break at some point because I'm neglecting other tasks, but I've been pretty much weekly!
now, I admit I don't have much interest in writing ya romance books, but I feel like if I did I probably would not make the main love interest complicit in, uh... any of that. it feels like the author heard third-hand about the ~bad boy with a heart of gold~ trope, and then never double checked what makes that type of character appealing rather than an amoral monster who only bothers doing the right thing when it materially benefits him.
seriously, that entire scene you read about him talking about how he did the right thing/didn't do the reprehensible thing purely because the protagonist would be mad with him absolutely sent a chill up my spine in how it was presented. it kinda reminds me of how I've seen extreme christians deride atheism by suggesting that without direct orders from a higher power, everyone would immediately default to their worst, most antisocial instincts. just the complete refusal of self-actualisation and the lack of concern about that. virtue coming from following someone better than you, rather than becoming better yourself.
so what im getting is that caiden texts like how the people that made 2000s anti cyber bullying PSAs think teenagers text
This demon seems like he's straight out of a fantasy text-based erotica game 😶
RE: YA book trailers being a big thing for some reason: i think all of the late series maximum ride books had trailers and they were AWFUL lol maybe not as bad as this one but man it was Something. also mildly related, i'd love to hear your thoughts on the maximum ride series. its so much all the time and an absolutely batshit insane ya series lol
Did they .... Have trailers.....
I was a big max ride fan as a kid, yeah! God. I loved them. But even as a kid I was like, hm. These plot twists don't make sense and nothing is ever resolved or sensible.... Hmmm... These books might be bad actually.....
@@Crowcaller haha yeah there were three as far as i know. they were...pretty terrible lol
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maximum ride has been my special interest since middle school and wow do i regret that. they are really not good but man i really enjoy them lol
@@Crowcaller that was pretty much exactly how I felt about them too
@@Crowcaller I love remembering books from my childhood bc tbh you don't remember anything about them, just the vibes. Plot? Fuck you, I want wings
What a joy getting the notification for this video was 😭can't wait to devour it!
Hope your wisdom teeth recovery goes smoothly!!
It's going great, thank you! Healing super fast
"smelly virginity" is quite possibly the funniest combination of words ive ever heard in my life
Your transition music and my ringtone are really similar so everytime you go to a new section of the video I keep thinking someone's calling me
I'm so sorry. I may change my transition music one day, it's technically only a filler until I find something better
This reminded me pleasantly of reading Christopher Pike when I was a teen, books in which teenage girls had sex if they wanted to, didn’t if they didn’t want to, and dealt with issues like abortion, birth control, and breakups, all while fighting horrifying monsters with shotguns. I feel like the 90s blessed me.
I was listening to you talking about how Coupano (?) was written and when you said he was African/black it all made sense, like, ah, yes, it's just racism on the writer's part
Yeah, sweet evil is full of blatant racism, which was. Pretty common in ya of this era