Sans titre

NOW THIS IS GOOD NEWS !! A valkyrie book is a sequel that ACTUALLY makes sense. I hope we get all three POVs.

I hope the theory that Koschei’s birds are the lost Valkyries is true. I hope we get another Maasverse crossover (the Stygian spider anyone).

I hope we get Gwynriel. I hope Cassian get his fucking shit together (splintered harmony sure sounds like a bond is going to be … well, splintered. Not broken but damaged).

Don’t get me wrong, I intend to read this book but I’m fully prepared to be about as disappointed with it as I was with HOFAS.

Thorns & Roses was the first soo…

But Mist & Fury ? Not giving away much.

Wings & ruin ? Pretty broad too.

Frost & Starlight? The most telling because of the solstice theme.

Silver flames ? At that point, we didn’t much about Nesta’s powers…

And the covers ? I don’t have them on me rn but they weren’t that revelating either…

Now, I realize that a trigger warning list does not excuse the content of a book just because ‘we were warned’.

I’m a romance reader and when I pick up a book marketed any type of romance, even dark, I expect to see that. Books have an impact on society, movies have an impact on the brain. And with enough time passed, my thoughts remain from my read of the book : We do not romanticize rape !

Seeing women saying the book helped them cope is beyond my comprehension. They’re either trying to romanticize what happened to them by giving their abusers an excuse or they’re twisted enough that it brought them solace to read the details of SA happening to another woman. Either way, it’s wrong!

And people need to realize there is a difference between coping and healing. There are horrible coping mechanisms and that book (and others like that) are one of them. A book that romanticizes assault, where the victim ends up with her rapist is already bad enough in a book. It WILL have devastating effects in a film.

Dark romance in general is something that has gonz south.

I’ve seen a book about an FMC who killed her own children because she was jealous of the attention they were getting. Another about a doctor fantasizing about doing sexual things to his unconscious patient.

And the most horrifying of all : a few months ago in my country, a dark romance book sparked outrage because the MMC was a child molester. There were detailed scenes of him SAing a 2-month-old baby. The child of the FMC who was in on it. This odious thing was self-published on Amazon and then taking off the website. The author kept defending her work by using the trigger warning list as though that’s an excuse. Recently, she announced that the book would reappear on Amazon in two part, but this tims marketed as ‘horrific dark romance’.

Still marketed as romance !

Where do we draw the line? When did authors decide to justify and romanticize SA? Why don’t people realize how it’s setting women back? How it’s endangering them?

Because they’re not ‘just books’. They’ve never been ‘just books’. Fiction has been used as activism for centuries. As a way to send messages, ideas…

Books like Haunting Adeline are incredibly dangerous.

And as a member of the ACOTAR fandom, seeing other fans defend this book and this MMC makes me sick.

You cannot put down Rhysand and Cassian (for valid reasons) and then turn a blind eye to Zade Meadows.

Officially less days before the book than since the announcement ans we have…. NOTHING?!?!

Although I don’t ship, it might be fun to read about Azris.

I could ship Elain with a woman or just exploring life all by herself.