I do still think about church. Especially on Sundays around 10 in the morning. I remember where I would be at that time, 8 years ago: bustling around a rented school, teaching a class full of children Bible stories or bouncing my own cranky baby in the back of a cafetorium because it’s nap time and there’s nowhere for him to sleep. Farther back in time it would have been Sunday School or Small Group or Children’s Church or Big Church but whatever it was, it was definitely not being at home. Literally, God forbid.

But the way I feel about church now feels similar to the way a person feels about a relationship that wasn’t ultimately very good for them but that was a good learning experience. The hurt doesn’t feel active until some weird thing comes up that pours a bucket of cold realization over me - my in-laws invite my kids to Vacation Bible School which makes me remember that at my son’s age (8) I not only understood the concept of eternal conscious torment in Hell, but that if I didn’t ask Jesus into my heart to save me from my sins then I, an 8-year old, would go there if I died riding my bike to the neighborhood pool. My parents decamping for hours at a time during family vacations to attend a random church nearby, making me remember the random churches I was dragged to on previous family vacations before I could do as I pleased1.

I think about church the way you think about someone you’ve lost touch with and wonder if you ever cross their minds2. What do they think when they silently observe my social media or avoid my eye at the gym3?

The real irony here is that I don’t really want these people who I was “doing life with” to reach out. I’m certainly not reaching out to them, because it turns out we didn’t really have much else holding us together. The few who have sought me out want to know if I would think about trying a different church or would I want to get coffee to talk things over or would like to give me a book recommendation by the most liberal Evangelical they are allowed to know about. I don’t really want to explain myself to them and I don’t think they really want to understand where I am or what happened to me. I think that’s that hardest part for me to reconcile: that there is so little curiosity from people I felt so close to about why they never see me anymore.

I don’t think it’s fair to say they don’t care. I think it’s more that the barrier to entry is too high. The people who have stayed in my life who still are dedicated church-goers probably don’t feel able to be as honest with me as they want to be. In the same way that I don’t feel like I can be completely forthright with them. I don’t feel like I can say “I think everything you’re devoting your life to is a lie intended to manipulate you into obedience” and not fully ruin dinner. They probably don’t feel like it would go over very well if they said to me “you were never a real Christian and you and your children are going to Hell.” It’s a real pickle.

But even if they do care and don’t know how to say something or they don’t care and think I’m skipping merrily to hell, I actually wish that it was me who didn’t care the most. I wish that I could meet the times that I get blindsided by a Church Memory with the cool indifference of Don Draper’s “I don’t think about you at all.”

In my heart of hearts, I know I am not as Over It as I wish I was. I am not as laissez-faire about my extended family’s church-going as I want to be. I do have a very hard time when I am forced to be in proximity to Evangelicalism. I find it all annoying and phony. Maybe this will fade with time. Maybe I will look back at this note in another 8 years and be pleased that I wrote down these feelings so I can gauge the distance I’ve travelled since.

Or maybe this is something that one never really gets over. Maybe I’m Frodo with his Morgul Blade Wound. Maybe this is a hurt that time cannot mend.

This gap between my old life and my current life will always exist because I want it to. I can’t say I don’t mind, because I do and I think I always will. There is a mourning that coincides with transformation. Shedding the old to allow new growth does come with pain. I want to learn to bear it and not buckle under it into bitterness. I do want to get to a point where I truly and honestly can say that I don’t care that I don’t go to church anymore. I’m not afraid of standing in my unpopular truth. Remember, I was raised Evangelical.

The crux of Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear is inauthenticity. Unfortunately, the author herself may be the most inauthentic of them all.

I became aware of Burke through her content on TikTok. She was actually my introduction to the “tradwife” subculture. I was interested in what she had to say and followed along. I was aware of her novel in its infancy and its premise of a tradwife influencer being transported into the time period she emulated on social media.

The story is this: A highly successful influencer, Natalie Heller Mills (heavily inspired by Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm), who has built her platform espousing traditional homemaking and raising her six children off-grid on a massive ranch in Idaho wakes up one morning in the setting she has been pretending to live in. Her hobby farm appears to have been transported back in time, with no modern conveniences and a familiar but slightly different family - her husband looks the same if a bit weathered, her six children are gone but four others who could be their siblings have taken their place. This back-in-time-transplant-narrative is interspersed with flashbacks of Natalie’s life that led her to this jarring state of affairs.

As I transitioned from TikTok to Substack myself, I also became aware of Burke’s podcast Diabolical Lies and subscribed. I wouldn’t have called myself a “Dirty Little Liar” as the fandom is styled, but I did pay the subscription fee to be able to listen to episodes behind the paywall. Caro and her co-host, Katie Gatti Tassin, highly value detailed research, often commenting on the length of their podcast outlines and the amount of time it takes them to prepare for each multi-hour discussion. One of the frequent refrains from both when referring to the claims of others is “citation fucking needed.”

In a cloying twist of irony, this requirement does not seem to apply to Burke and her approach to researching the world of Yesteryear. In an interview with The Rumpus discussing her process, Burke states, “I realized very quickly that whether it’s Mormonism or evangelicalism or Jehovah’s Witness, it’s really all the same in terms of how women are treated and what the expectations are for them.” You don’t need to be a former fundie to know that this claim is simply wildly off-base. Evangelicals do not consider Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses to be Christians. The three sects mentioned believe completely different things about Jesus, salvation, and daily faithful living.

Additionally, Burke notes in another interview with Kirkus, “I spoke to a lot of Mormon and evangelical women to get a baseline understanding of the requirements in a fundamentalist Christian community. But I didn’t want Natalie to be a specific religion. It’s meant to be a little vague. Once I started writing, I stopped researching.” Burke accomplishes her goal of non-specificity. So well, in fact, that the religion which is supposedly one of the driving forces of the novel is wholly unrecognizable and ultimately incoherent.

For Burke to misunderstand and therefore misconstrue fundamentalism so blatantly came as a surprise to me. She seems to pride herself on her ability to sift through information and provide clear-eyed analysis on her findings. Additionally, she is intelligent enough to know when she doesn’t know something. So I’m left to wonder: is this sloppy research resulting in the literary equivalent of starting on the wrong button hole, or something else?

Both The Rumpus and the Kirkus features are part of Burke’s book promotion tour. Both refer to the buzz that this book has been generating since long before it was published. From Rumpus, “Yesteryear has generated an enthusiastic pre-publication response, sparking a bidding war between fifteen US publishers and selling at auction around the world. Film rights have already been sold to Amazon MGM Studios, with Anne Hathaway slated to star.” Burke writes in her acknowledgements,

“When this novel was nothing but a first draft, I was given the extremely bizarre and wholly undeserved privilege of workshopping it with some of the greatest living artists and thinkers in the world. My conversations with Anne Hathaway in particular were instrumental in bringing Natalie to life. Thank you to Somewhere Pictures, Entertainment 360, and the Amazon film team for your passion, curiosity, and tireless championing of this novel.”

By her own admission in an early episode of Diabolical Lies, Burke was not able to speak as freely about Barbie as she would have liked due to the media connections related to her book. It’s not a stretch to assume that if this level of curating was going on in 2025, before her book was published, that forces outside of the author were influencing the work to maximize profitability. I can’t help but wonder if this external involvement ultimately defanged Burke’s work. In making a novel intended from its conception to be adapted into a movie, with the star power of Anne Hathaway and the investment of a movie studio, can the source material be honest?

Yesteryear’s premise is a good one. Influencing and social media are indeed lies that require unending performance. I have written about this topic myself. I do not deny that religious fundamentalism is a grift, but I do contend that most of the grifters do not think they are grifting. Tradwife influencers and specifically religious ones have more reasons for performing than it simply being a job. Mormon influencers are famously encouraged by the LDS Church to post and seek out an internet following. It makes the church look good and relatable and interesting to have beautiful, happy, fecund women letting you think you’re their best friend and asking you to “sound off” in the comments. Fundamentalist Catholic bloggers with literal dozens of children were a staple of the 2010s internet. A foundational aspect of Evangelical Christianity is “letting your light shine before men.” The pastor’s wives doing their Sunday morning Get Ready With Me’s as they comb the hair of their Russian nesting doll children and include clips of them kissing their husbands and singing worship songs with their eyes closed are certainly performing but that does not mean they are pretending.

Burke, however, does not seem to be able to parse the difference between “performance” and “pretense.” Nor does she seem to understand fundamentalism. She has previously stated in interviews and on her podcast that she grew up secular Catholic. In multiple interviews, she states that she read Reddit posts from people who have left religion to get the insider knowledge she needed for writing a deeply religious character. This can certainly give a flavor of what living in these communities can be like, but it can also be like describing a dream to someone. Crucially, these online spaces are comprised of people speaking to an established in-group. There is no need for me to explain a Pure Freedom1 weekend to my fellow ex-evangelicals, but an outsider will be picking through the clues to cobble together meaning and even then come context would be lost in translation. Additionally, these are people who don’t believe anymore doing post-mortems on previous iterations of themselves. But just because they don’t believe now doesn’t mean that they didn’t sincerely, whole-heartedly believe while they were in.

Interestingly, Burke has waffled recently in her own discussions of her background. In her April 15 interview with The Rumpus, she notes her own lack of religious background: “I think the main focus for me was trying to understand the perspective and interiority of women who live in fundamentalist Christian communities. I did not grow up in one, I grew up Catholic, but I would say I had a secular childhood.” However, in an interview with the New York Times published May 10, when asked if she had a religious upbringing Burke responds “I was raised Catholic, and not just cultural. I was confirmed. My parents never pushed God on me, but you go to Catholic church and that’s where you learn about sin. That’s where you learn about good and evil.”

This backpedaling seems to be a direct reaction to essays2 published here on Substack in which Yesteryear is criticized, specifically Burke’s lack of understanding of religion and misapplication of its adherents’ motivations. Burke seems to bristle at the idea that what she doesn’t know shows so obviously. I struggle to think of another reason why she would begin to position herself as having more of a religious upbringing than she has previously claimed.

Burke is adamant that she is not reading discourse about Yesteryear, but this smacks of insincerity given her own social media posts. Natalie isn’t portrayed as a hypocrite even if she is, but neither does she seem to be a true believer. But Natalie’s faith or lack thereof is another topic where Burke’s tune has changed over the course of the interviews given. Burke claimed in March that “[Natalie] genuinely feels like she’s going to go to hell if she doesn’t accomplish the things she is meant to accomplish, but she doesn’t want to do them.” I learned this after reading her interview, not her book. In May, “[Natalie’s] relationship to her religion kind of moves in and out. She is not someone who is attached to the doctrine. She doesn’t understand scripture. Her relationship is very transactional.” So which is it? Because it truly cannot be both. As someone who used to believe in eternal conscious torment in a literal place called Hell and now doesn’t, this position does not make any sense.

Natalie believes nothing so her choices and motivation confound reason. We are intended to understand that she has internalized her high-control religious conditioning, yet we never actually see any evidence of it. Even the most unlikeable character has to have something to tether them to narrative that makes the reader able to understand them. Natalie doesn’t believe in any of the things she’s pretending to care about. She doesn’t love her husband, she doesn’t love her children, she doesn’t love ranching, she doesn’t love homeschooling, she doesn’t love anything. So why? Why any of this? Burke waves a hand at answering that question with a quip right before Natalie gets engaged: “is it a choice, if there’s only one option?” If Natalie had been a religious zealot, groomed from birth to be perfect, the plot blossoms. If Natalie, convinced of her own righteousness, believed her own bullshit but exaggerated for effect I think the book could have delivered what it promises: “an acidly funny, satirical take on the rise of tradwife culture, social media influencers, and the pressure on women to perform the perfect life.”3

I’m not sure where the acidly funny, satirical take was. The work is humorless, self-serious, and bland. While it meets the literal definition of satire by ridiculing a social construct, the irony employed is heavy-handed. Natalie begins the book in metaphorical chains and ends the book in literal prison. What are we supposed to learn from this? What is the grand takeaway? “The woman was actually crazy the whole time!” isn’t new. Patriarchy is oppressive? Groundbreaking. Everyone is lying to make themselves seem better than they really are? We could go somewhere with that, but instead this conceit seems to be only applied to the women of Yesteryear.

If womanhood is a performance in which a person continues to mold and modify themselves into society’s expectations of them to achieve the highest possible level of cultural approval, then Burke is performing womanhood extremely well. If I know anything about Caro Claire Burke, it’s that she is great at social media. She’s extremely tapped in. She’s young and a digital native and hyper aware of what works and what doesn’t online. She’s smart and self-assured and beautiful. She built a strong following on TikTok by talking about tradwives and Taylor Swift. She was able to transfer that following into a subscriber based podcast that is self-reportedly profitable. None of that is easy. Her book was optioned by movie studios before it was even published. She clearly has vision and hustle.

In the same way that Natalie understands the world that needs to be crafted for Yesteryear to perform, Burke’s most clear impulse also is to control how Yesteryear performs. Her book tour seems to be a constant stream of promotional content both of her work and her own bona fides. Also like Natalie, Burke has armed herself against criticism of people she deems less worthy than herself to have opinions. Natalie called them the “Angry Women.” Burke calls them Substack users.

Criticism over Burke’s lack of religious understanding?
“Oh, I actually grew up very devout.”

Natalie’s relationship to religion doesn’t make sense?
“She’s not actually that religious.”

A small percentage of people are posting less than glowing reviews on a platform Burke herself utilizes?
“Hacks who aren’t published.”

I don’t think she’s an industry plant or that Anne Hathaway ghost wrote Yesteryear. I think she is benefitting from what can only be an eye-watering media budget. And as Burke herself well knows as she discusses it every two weeks on her podcast, money changes how people act. I think the money is the most likely source of all the incongruities. This book was made for film adaptation. It wasn’t made to actually be a compelling cultural criticism. It needs to be marketable. It needs to toe the line so it’s never Too Much. If it’s too hard on any leading faith, you’ll offend the Christians. Better to leave the religion vague. If it’s too gory, you’ll offend the squeamish. Keep the carnage to a minimum. If the rapes are too violent, you’ll offend everyone. So Burke pulls every punch. Any teeth this book could have had have been filed down in advance to be covered in the uniform, perfect veneers of profitability.

Burke should know better. She hosts a podcast where she frequently talks about how our media and culture are manipulated by the highest bidder. It’s disappointing to see her talk the talk but chicken out of walking the walk. She’s spoken before of her admiration of Sally Rooney’s unabashed, unfailing support of Palestine. Burke is absolutely capable of moral clarity, but she also seems like she hates being criticized (who does?) and is willing to say or do whatever needs to be said or done to get ahead and stay there.

This isn’t a criticism of her as a person, but it is a criticism of her as an artist. The best liars believe their own lies. Burke is a good liar. I wish she was a better writer.

Will a crowd ever be louder than the one that’s cheering for a kid who caught a ball he didn’t expect to catch and turns back to ask “DID YOU SEE THAT”? (We did see it and it ruled.)

Watching kids in various stages of outgrowing their gear that definitely fit at the beginning of the season. Bats that looked too big in February kind of look like toys in May. Pants getting shorter and cleats getting bigger. Rocking Cool Dude Shades appear and the eye black designs have gotten increasingly elaborate.

Could anything be more magical than the sun setting behind a scoreboard displaying a close game with 2 outs left in the inning as a nervous kid with a floppy swing stands at the plate only to blast a grand slam to clinch the win? Running, open-armed, into the dugout to be swarmed by bouncing, euphoric teammates? I contend there is not.

Siblings who don’t care about whatever their brothers are doing making 85 trips to the concession stand with loose bills clutched in filthy hands. Sticky little sisters building fairy gardens and making dirt cakes and climbing trees. Unimpressed big brothers meandering around the park with a cheeseburger in hand and playing wiffle ball on an unused field.

Volunteer dad coaches standing in a circle, spitting sunflower seeds and debriefing every glorious moment as their kids celebrate in a wild bacchanalia fueled by Gatorade, puffy Cheetos, and glee.

Driving home in the dark with a child delirious with happiness singing “Pink Pony Club” at the top of his lungs because “we beat the best team in the league! They were undefeated! … but not anymore!”

There’s so much love in all the little details - gap-toothed player’s portraits pinned to clothes, the team gear, the homemade signs, the baseball hair bows, coolers full of drinks, and pizzas delivered to the field. Kids running out to talk to their parents and all the other parents giving high fives and hyping them up so they skip back into the dugout grinning shy little grins.

We hope and more than hope that they will win but not just win but that they will be good. Good friends, good teammates, good winners, good losers, good boys, good men, good people. That they will honor baseball in their hearts, and try to keep it their whole lives long. Baseball forever. Amen.

So imagine my utter shock when I found myself not only entertained, but delighted by two (2) distinct television programs in the span of mere months! After all, I am a mere mortal. If you prick me, do I not bleed? And if prestige romance series are presented to me on a streaming platform, will I not succumb to the zeitgeist??

Bridgerton

The first half of Bridgerton Season 4 dropped in early February. I have struggled through the previous seasons - I watched all of S1 but only parts of both S2 and S3. However, I have always thought that Benedict was the cutiest of all the patooties, so I was willing to give this season a shot. My terms, however, did require that I skip everything I wasn’t interested in so I skipped all the Queen scenes (she is annoying as hell), a lot of the Maid Wars, anything with Eloise and Hyacinth, and the slow parts of the Francesca & Violet stories. Needless to say, I ripped through the season very quickly.

In addition to never ever being bored, watching this way didn’t really give me enough time to get too caught up in my own head about the goings-on of the show. In fact, I had a great time. Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha are very beautiful and very talented. Over the first four episodes, Benedict and Sophie meet at the Bridgerton’s masquerade as strangers on equal footing, meet again on unequal terms when Benedict comes to Sophie’s aid defending her against a lecherous employer, they hang out together at Benedict’s giant-ass country estate cottage, “My Cottage”, and return to real life in London filled with longing for each other but resigned to the impossibility of truly ever being together.

The final scene of episode 4 (aptly named after the source material) is them giving in to their attraction to each other and consummating their relationship on stairs of the Bridgerton house’s servant quarters. Following a little digital penetration against the wall, Benedict proposes that Sophie become his mistress. However we, the audience, know she will never agree to this because of her own background as the illegitimate daughter of a gentleman and his mistress.

A few things I noticed about this climactic (sorry) scene:

• Benedict and Sophie meet on the landing of the stairs. He is descending and she is ascending but they meet on a level surface.

• Contrast this scene to its literal sibling scene from S3E4 - Colin giving Penelope a pelvic exam in the carriage. Particularly of note is Colin’s apparent aversion to lubrication with his entry, technique, and claw-like repositioning of Penelope’s clothing. Meanwhile, Benedict (me, wildly gesturing at the screen) delightedly ensures a very different experience for Sophie. And he’s grinning the whole time! Granted, the chemistry between the lead actors across the seasons is so markedly different I almost feel bad comparing them. I was never really able to be convinced of Colin’s feelings changing toward Penelope. Conversely, Luke Thompson’s charisma has its own gravitational pull.

• Benedict’s offer for Sophie to become his mistress is not posed as a question. He says “Sophie, be my mistress.” This command, following the previous experience between them and his confession that he can’t live without her. Sophie’s tentative smile melts into confusion and pain. She stiffens and withdraws even before they are interrupted by her friends downstairs. Her final look back to him is immensely expressive - the hurt and disappointment and resignation all plays across her face as he looks down at her, utterly lost as to where he went wrong. Great stuff.

I am being actively gaslit by my own research, so I say this next statement with less confidence. HOWEVER, when I finished E4 and had to take a several weeks-long break before the rest of the show dropped, I was left wanting. Which should theoretically be great since Netflix wants me to stay subscribed to watch the rest! But the way I was left wanting was not just for more show, but for more from the show I had already seen. Bridgerton suffers for its insistence on being an ensemble drama. Stories work best when they are all pulling in the same direction. Not all the storylines need to be exploring the same ideas, but Bridgerton has so many side plots that the main story often feels incidental.

Shockingly, however, Benedict and Sophie apparently have one of the highest on-screen percentages of the entire series. In spite of this, I thought the show’s first half didn’t expand enough on the way this forbidden attraction was growing between the protagonists. I yearned for more yearning. I wish that the bubble of their time at My Cottage had expanded more into their interactions in Bridgerton House. Trading one or two scenes of Queen-scheming or Eloise complaining for more Benedict appearing in rooms he didn’t need to be in would have heightened the tension of Sophie’s appeal for him to stay away from her and his subsequent pursuit of her into the servant’s quarters.

Nevertheless, I ended the first half of the season cautiously optimistic about the rest of the episodes. I really should have been more careful with what I wished for because the Longing Dam broke with the remaining episodes. The end of episode 5 was made specifically to say “shut the hell up forever” to me, personally. Benedict confesses his love to Sophie with big, watery eyes and they have big time, in-the-bed sex. This scene is one of the most intimate sex scenes I can remember watching. The breathing! The hands! The eye contact!

The rest of the episodes completely exceeded my expectations. They were so tender! I even got significantly less annoyed at the sub-plots - John’s death and the ripples of his life impacting the family was beautiful and poignant! This season was strongest when it was allowing the interiority and vulnerability of the characters to be the focus. You know we’re being beat over the head with a visual metaphor if my oblivious ass is noticing it, but the use of mirrors and reflections stood out to me as a mechanism to display the play between the external and internal. Francesca’s loneliness and isolation, Benedict’s frustration and listlessness, Sophie’s fear and anger are all highlighted through their reflections.

While I did still have a few additional issues with the season (Benedict flirting with class consciousness but abruptly pulling up when the magic wand of societal acceptance solves all his problems, Violet’s storyline, everything the Queen touched turning to entertainment dust), I can confidently say this was my favorite one of the crop. It was a little glimmer of hope that romance could be good and earnest and sweet and fun. Will I watch Season 5? Who’s to say? Right now, I kind of think I won’t. I don’t know how much more interest I can muster for these people on their permanent all-inclusive vacation, who are somewhat disillusioned with their lives but remain profoundly willing to play by the rules. I might watch Eloise’s season because I would be interested to see if the writers ever stop hating her, but I’m not holding my breath.

Anyway, have you guys heard of Heated Rivalry?

Heated Rivalry

For someone who loves Romance, I really have no viable excuse for how long it took me to get to Heated Rivalry. The only thing I will say is that I do hate an episodic release and I wanted all the episodes to be out. And then I guess I wanted to make sure that the episodes wouldn’t get snatched away so I sat on them for another few weeks. I’m a bit impressed with myself for completely avoiding literally any information about the show or book so that I was blissfully unaware of what I was in for. That rocked actually. It doesn’t happen often for me because I am a compulsive googler and I will read the synopsis for a n y t h i n g.

More than I need to talk about this show (it is perfect) I need to talk about what this show did to me. I felt electrocuted watching it. I don’t know how you guys did this in weekly episode format. I think it would have actually sent me into some kind of psychosis. Even starting to THINK about writing about it has sent me into a bit of a frenzy. I am overcome!

Based on the number of memes I’ve distracted myself with in stalling writing this post, I am not alone in this sentiment. Reviewing the causes and impacts of a cultural phenomenon in semi-real time is probably outside of the scope of my personal capabilities as Some Guy on the Internet. But there’s clearly a reason that this show has resonated with so many people. I’ve generally avoided the think pieces that surged into my feed (see previous statement about avoiding all spoilers), so forgive me if I’m repeating others. I think it comes down to this: there is such a dearth of authenticity in our society that when we see it, it bowls us over.

Heated Rivalry didn’t care if you thought it was too much. It wasn’t afraid of sexuality or longing or desire or sincerity or characters hurting each other’s feelings or or or. Contrast this with Bridgerton, which I do think is afraid. Or, if not afraid, at least too self-aware to tell a truly good story. Bridgerton is afraid that two people falling in love isn’t enough of a story to keep an audience’s attention, so it adds 6,000 extra plots to add interest. Heated Rivalry said fuck you, there are a maximum of 8 characters and you’re going to like it. Bridgerton doesn’t know what to do with its own setting. White supremacy appears to be solved or at least a non-issue, but all other oppressive systems remain in place? In this world, does Napoleon exist? It refuses to participate in its own historical setting and that makes the stakes discordant and confusing. Heated Rivalry, however, acknowledges homophobia and doesn’t try to solve it. Scott Hunter comes out, knowing the impact that it will have on his life, and it doesn’t magically fix everything. Shane and Ilya do not come out, but make choices that allow them to be together given the constraints of their world. And we still get a happy ending!

I do think it’s interesting that both of these stories rely on a formative, relationship-defining retreat to a cottage to explore what these characters would do if all societal expectations were removed. In Bridgerton, the cottage (My Cottage) visit is at the beginning of the relationship between Benedict and Sophie. It’s where he develops a big fat crush on her and is not able to leave her alone ever again. In Heated Rivalry, THE cottage is the cocoon where Shane and Ilya’s love transforms from a sexy caterpillar into a beautiful gay butterfly who is antenna over thorax in love with another beautiful bisexual Russian butterfly.

Both couples are interrupted by reminders of the outside world and forced to decide how the world they exist in at the cottage will be translated, if at all, into real life when they leave. Ultimately, both find ways to make their relationships work within the bounds allowed by their realities. Benedict and Sophie’s story ends tied up neatly in a bow with Sophie being generally accepted into Society in spite of her illegitimate birth. Shane and Ilya’s ending is markedly less tidy. They’re not publicly out, but they have a hopeful path forward. Their happy ending, riding off into the sunset after dinner with Shane’s parents, felt genuine and true. They chose a path that was authentic to them and are finally moving in a direction together. The forces that have been attracting and repelling them for the last decade have finally coalesced into something unified.

Bridgerton toys with the idea of the unconventional but ultimately plays by the rules. There is an outer limit to the inconvenience it will allow these characters to experience. Benedict and Sophie are reminded many times over that the Bridgerton name won’t save them, but ultimately the power and influence that it wields does, in fact, save them. I wonder if the success and slavering devotion Heated Rivalry has enjoyed will encourage the show runners to be brave in the upcoming, first-ever queer main love story in Season 5. I certainly hope so. The willingness to be unapologetically raw and messy and real with the presentation of Shane and Ilya and their relationship resulted in a no less tender, compelling love story. Rather, the lack of narrative punch-pulling created space where the story could expand. Heated Rivalry demands more of its audience - more attention, more hope, more belief, more scope for the imagination. The results have been staggering. The people long for a beautiful vision of what could be and Heated Rivalry delivers it. Because truly, truly I say unto you - what a glorious, expansive, loving world we could have if only we would be bold enough to make it.

I have mixed feelings about this. I enjoyed my time talking about books online. I worry a little about my abrupt cessation of synthesizing my thoughts on what I’ve read into a shareable format. Cessation is an exaggeration since I have still written a few reviews when the spirit has moved, but I’ve definitely lost my momentum. It’s not writer’s block as much as it’s a lack of inspiration.

But I don’t want you to read this as complaining! Because my lack of inspiration is itself a spark. I’ve been thinking about what my muse was and where she has gone. I found that I actually had the most to say about anything when I was responding to other people. Whether it was a Goodreads review I disagreed with or a take I thought was bad or the Discourse du Jour, I have come to realize that my output was most prolific when it was the most reactionary. And you know what? I don’t really like that.

Mel, who is brilliant, has said something along the lines of “you are the average of the ideas you surround yourself with.” The average of the ideas I surrounded myself with was unpleasant and I found the aggregate of my responses was more or less variations on the tune of “everyone needs to stop being a such sanctimonious little bitches about everything.” See below:

I have now linked to two essays I have created in an essay where I’m discussing not feeling like creating anything! Hilarious!

But once I’ve said what I said, I’m finding that without reacting to outside opinions I disagree with I actually don’t have that much to say. What are my own original thoughts? The problem is, those take longer to percolate than raw, impulsive responses to other people who are sometimes smart and other times very stupid. But isn’t that just the thing about thinking? It takes time. It takes… thinking.

I started this post in August 2025. I couldn’t figure out where it was going. So I stopped and waited and inspiration bloomed. Interestingly, when I starting writing this I don’t think I would have felt like “creative” would be an accurate descriptor for me. I feel differently now. I also feel more settled in the understanding that words and writing are not necessarily my strongest medium when it comes to creative output. Reflecting on my feelings back in August, the frustration and the ennui, I can own that some of this was a result of backing myself into an uncomfortable niche.

But I am creative! Even if my creativity looks very different now that it has been consciously uncoupled from a churning algorithm. When I step back and allow myself to ponder, unpressured by performance for strangers in my phone, I find that what I enjoy making the most is visual, physical, and frequently transitory. I have also found that when I pursue my preferred mediums, the output flows so much more naturally. Not to be a corny hack, but streams have natural paths and it just took me a bit to find what mine is. And it would seem that mine consists very frequently of painting trash.

Here are a few of my projects that I’ve done since I thought I was a washed up husk of a creator:

August 2025

I was very big into making focaccia. Look at this beaut. My recipe is from my dear personal friend Hailee Catalano’s cookbook By Heart. I love her so much I don’t even care how she spells her name.

September 2025

Finalized the tile design for my bathroom renovation project. This was fun with the understanding that all renovations reach a point where they are no longer interesting or exciting and become tedious.

But it was worth it because look how it turned out! Just like I dreamed!

October 2025

October is when I’m really at the peak of my garbage painting. Because of the renovation I had cardboard coming out my ass so I decided to make a photobooth for my Halloween party and hand paint all the props! Insane behavior!

November 2025

November was a big month for painting banners. Fundraiser banners! Birthday Banners! School Thanksgiving Picnic Banners!

See also: I embroidered a 5 on a dress for a grown-up young lady. The 5 is incredibly crooked because I never measure anything so it looks like it was made by someone sewing with their eyes closed. But everyone is distracted by her beauty and charm so it doesn’t matter at all!

December 2025

Renovations ended! We shuffled all the rooms around. Boy child got a new bedroom upstairs. His old bedroom became the new office. The old office became the new playroom.

January 2026

Immediately upon cleaning up all the Christmas decorations I launched Operation Heart Garland and have taken it upon myself to stitch a truly unfathomable number of small felt hearts to string up and give to people. I (foolishly, I think) asked on my IG if anyone wanted one because I had extra and now I’m making these bitches for people I haven’t seen or spoken to in years. The power of art! (?)

We also completed our remaining office project and installed paneling. It’s extremely beautiful and very amusing to me at how powerful it would be on Booktok now that I will not go to that place again.

Future Projects

I have decided I want to embrace seasonal crafts. Right now we’re laser-focused on Valentine’s Day. When that’s done, I have an Easter Bunny cross stitch I’m queueing up. After that, I started making a sunshine wreath and stopped but I’ll work on that some more.

As far as a major project, I have been wanting to try my hand at stitching the Bayeux Tapestry for quite sometime so I finally bought a pattern. It is massive. It will take me years. But I think it will be fun to have a long-term project that I can come back to when my seasonal projects end or I just need a change of pace.

Look at me! I’m an artist! Will I ever make a project notebook to keep track of my ideas? No! Because as previously discussed, I am an insane artist. Which is famously everyone’s favorite type.

Me being super weird and not being able to make extremely hilarious jokes such as the following: The Commissioner of Education of Florida is an evil bastard named Anastasios Kamoutsas. We hate him.

He is NOT, however, Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, despite the fact that both men are girl dads who are kind of shockingly amenable to allowing their daughters to learn how to read and write.

Personally, I think it would be really funny to do a little name association joke and pretend that they’re the same guy. However, this joke would require way too much explanation and would remain funny to only me, so I have not been making it. And that is pissing me off. I have settled instead to referring to Anastasios as “Staci” instead of “Stasi” because I think that would piss him off, and I will chase rainbows wherever I find them.

I’m getting a bathroom in my house re-done and it’s going to be very beautiful when it’s done but right now I’m in the heat of renovation battle. And one thing that I failed to realize when I was being inspired by rich liars on the internet was that paned shower glass is FAKE.

Did you know this??? It’s stickers or paint on big sheets of glass! My dumb ass was like “oh that’s smart, so if you need to replace a pane you can!” Nope, idiot, it’s a trick. A mere illusion. Like a plastic owl to keep birds from taking dumps on your porch. Eat shit and die, fakers.

I’m really in the doldrums, creatively. My fields lie fallow, literally and figuratively. I’ve read one book since October. I got mealy bugs on a couple of my indoor plants, which was gross. My outside planters are full of sticks and weeds. I know I’m supposed to have this winter-deadness feeling in like mid-January but it’s hitting hard right now and the holiday frenzy really isn’t fighting it off. I can’t wait for Christmas because then all the shit will be done and I can reallocate my brain space to other things. Hopefully inspiration strikes soon because being becalmed is annoying and dreary and unfulfilling.

Actually I think the real problem is that I haven’t read a shipwreck book in a super long time. So maybe that will cure me. It certainly wouldn’t hurt! Anyway, I’m probably going to show my kids The Muppet Christmas Carol this weekend and if they don’t like it, I’ll have to start a new list.

I’m pretty good at writing work emails. I am less good at writing semi-professional, informative emails to a group of people who also love a child in the same class as my child and who need to stay IN THE LOOP about the goings-on of the classroom and the needs of the teacher. I have to be honest, even though I WOULD NEVER (triple underlined), I’ve never been more tempted to ask ChatGPT to do something for me than when it’s time to write these fucking class emails. I won’t though. Hating something with all your might and then overcoming it is an important part of the human experience and I will not outsource it.

Part of the problem is that for work emails, I can pretend I am a work robot who is not bothered with niceties or giving one single shit if people don’t read my emails. Actually, don’t read them. I don’t care. I also work with Other Weirds who are truly insane in their emails and will send like all caps, bold, colorful text with DEADLINE IN THREE DAYS PLEASE READ in the subject line so there are no rules in my work email world.

But school emails? That’s completely different email world where the customs and culture are foreign to me. People make them cute with emojis and little sub-headings. I had no idea when I filled out the stupid little form asking if I wanted to be a Classroom Support Parent on August 7, 2025 that a mere 2 months later I myself would be drafting such an adorable little email in a Google Doc, sweating my ass off that the Second Grade Class Representative would see it and send me a nastygram if I don’t do a good enough job (this has happened). The volunteer sign-up should have come with an Org Chart describing the politics of the PTSA so you can decide if you have any enemies in their ranks before you get added to a random group chat that sends REMINDER!! texts at 7 fucking o’clock in the morning.

Yet here I am, on my lunch break, furiously typing away in my document with its horizontal lines and it’s fuck ass emojis and twelve thousand !! begging these parents on my knees to read the email in its entirety so I don’t personally have to front a class gift to the teacher. She is a very nice lady but it’s going to be a combo birthday/holiday gift because her birthday is over winter break and once again, if you don’t meet the standards of the PTSA, an entity who is not unlike the smoke monster from LOST, you will, as an adult, get in trouble. Like passive-aggressive “can we try that again” email trouble. This is the worst kind of trouble I can personally imagine, so I am avoiding it.

But this also means I have to crush my soul dead a little bit as I 1) try to remember all the inane shit that needs to go in this email (Pumpkin Day! Friendsgiving! Hit me in the head with a baseball bat!) and 2) deftly walk the line of sounding just insane enough that people will read this absurdly long email but not so insane that they block me. Because the other thing here is that these people are not actually my friends. They’re more than likely not that down with my antics. I’m not bemoaning this! I don’t want to be friends with all these people; that’s way too many people. But I also do not want to make so much of a spectacle of myself that when people hear my child’s (rather distinctive) name, they say “oh god have you read his mom’s emails” in a way that is unkind and vexed instead of delightfully charmed by my whimsy.

I had to write one such email today. And I was hating it so much that I started this essay. This essay, which I will likely not edit at all as a treat. I started pasting the things I wanted to write but then deleted over here instead of in the real email and after a few false starts I found my stride. But here are my leavings along with my notes:

All together now: I can’t believe it’s already November! The years start coming and they really do not stop coming. Cringe.

I guess we are having fun because the time really is flying by. Depressing. Also don’t be sarcastic in emails.

It’s a sprint up to Thanksgiving break so we are jam-packed (pumpkin-patched?) with activities. Leaving it but goodness gracious, Haley.

You will be proud to know that the email is sent and at least one (1) nice lady sent me a “great email” text. Which was very sweet of her and I appreciated it. But writing that goddamn email took me a whole hour so by the Laws of Haley, I get to stay mad about it for at least a whole day.

When a person experiences extended periods of food deprivation they may physically recover and appear fully restored externally. Psychologically, however, the damage can be impossible to overcome.

In one of my favorite shipwreck stories, the sinking of the whaleship Essex1, survivors of the wreck floated in a whaleboat slowly withering away before being rescued. Ninety-three days after the Essex sunk, rescuers were met with a grisly sight: feral men in a dilapidated boat filled with bones. Only 8 of the 20-man crew survived the ordeal. All of the survivors returned to the sea in one way or another in fairly short order. Which seems truly insane to me but I get it that that was their job and their lives and just like I can’t just go get a new engineer license at the drop of a hat I guess they couldn’t just become a librarian or something. But I kind of feel like if I had to eat like 3 of my coworkers to survive I would figure out another career alternative but hey, that’s just me.

Anyway, even though they got strong enough to resume whaling and sailing the high seas, the crew was never the same. How could you be?? The captain of the ship would lock himself away on the anniversary of the sinking and observe a fast. After one of the mates died more than 40 years after the events in the Pacific, his attic was found to be full of food he had hidden away.

Being raised Evangelical is like being stranded on the ocean in a dilapidated boat filled with bones, metaphorically. Evangelicalism is a machine fueled by isolation, deprivation, and to some extent, cannibalism. And like my boy Owen Chase, I find myself compensating for my period of privation. However instead of hording food, I am hording fun.

One of the many no-nos on the infinite list of Evangelical no-nos is Halloween. Halloween, according to Evangelical lore, is too adjacent to pagan celebrations and makes light of witchcraft and the devil (both Evangelical no-no heavy hitters). Therefore, it must be rejected by the devout Christian2. But we can’t just stop with non-observation. A conscience objection but with the ability to let the spirit guide, if you will. Nay, church culture stands ready to eat their own based on how well the rejection of Halloween and its uncountable evils is accomplished. I was always compromised, getting close to sin without actually sinning, by handing out candy to trick or treaters. My spouse’s family was holier, having never trick or treated and hiding in the back of their house with movies and pizza, pretending to not exist. The apex predator, having killed its weaker siblings, would be those who slip bible verses into candy buckets and say “Happy Reformation Day3” in response to any acknowledgement of Halloween.

Alternate church-based activities celebrating the season of Fall might be acceptable as long as it was very clearly a Fall Festival and NOT anything to do with that pagan shit. But the church I grew up in took things one step further - a haunted house alternative called “Judgement House.” Judgement House had a massive budget, requiring hundreds of volunteers and weeks of rehearsals. Every year the theme was different but the overall concept stayed the same: an interactive play where participants follow a group of friends (usually played by high school students) who are involved in a disaster where some of the friends die. I know this is insane but don’t worry, it gets worse.

Prior to their deaths, one of the friends who is a Christian is sharing their faith with the other friend who is NOT a Christian and wants nothing to do with it. Then their bus or car or plane4 crashes and there is a mass casualty event with lots of fake blood and smoke and screaming. Then comes the afterlife! The Christian goes to heaven, which is a one-room thing where they are dressed all in white and go into the light and are smiling and happy and there’s a big voiceover welcoming this child of God into eternal splendor. The non-Christian goes to H-E-L-L. Hell is the most haunted house part of all of this. It was a big room or series of rooms with all the lights off and the heat turned up as high as it would go. There would be people in there weeping and moaning and like writhing around doing little grabs at the audience as they walked through. The non-Christian would get there and be like OH SHIT IF ONLY I HAD GOTTEN SAVED WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE!! And then the audience dumps out into another room where there are chairs and it’s time for a short presentation.

In the presentation, one of the actors who was part of the friend group would tell the audience about how they can save themselves from hell NOW and not have to go through the actual horrors of hell which are SO MUCH WORSE than what they just experienced. And in a true act of showmanship that would bring a tear to P.T. Barnum’s eye, there were plants in the audience who would raise their hands when the actor would ask if anyone was interested in learning more about getting saved. So as to encourage others who may be feeling shy!

One of the ways Evangelicalism maintains control over its members is by chipping away at all fun and enjoyment while simultaneously poisoning their minds against all their own human impulses - pleasure and desire in all forms are to be resisted. What the world says is fun? Nope, leads to death. What the world tells you will make you happy? Once again, DEATH. And I’m not just talking physical death - we’re talking eternal death, separated from The Lord forever in hell experiencing eternal, conscious torment.

Only the church can facilitate access to true happiness: a life dedicated to serving Jesus (which is just a bunch of arrows pointing right back to the church). Fun for fun’s sake, pleasure-seeking to simply experience pleasure, are frivolous at best and downright sinful at worst. And what could be more fun for fun’s sake than Halloween? Treats and costumes and walks in fall air with your family! Going outside and seeing the bats swoop around while you wander the streets talking to friends and neighbors and admiring babies in pumpkin outfits! People forsaking business for a night and being in their community, posted up in driveways with blood-red jello shots and smoke machines and popcorn in little striped bags. Sharing! Enjoying! For no other reason besides fun! What could be better than that??

But that’s what Evangelicalism cannot abide. Community outside of the church is second-class. Even though the devotee should be making friends with their neighbors for the ostensible goal of saving their souls, the Christian is always warned in stern tones to be careful of letting anyone outside of the church in too close. You don’t want anyone influencing you away from the church’s teaching, obviously. Sure, Jesus ate with tax-collectors and sinners, but you are not Jesus. He did so and never sinned. You, however, are a dirty rotten sinner who would only too gleefully join in their debauchery if given half the chance.

Maybe the ostentation of Judgement House seeped into me or maybe I’m just doing a Tarzan-style pendulum swing away from the rigidity of my upbringing but throwing myself wholeheartedly into Halloween feels very right. It feels like reclamation. If Evangelicalism doesn’t want fun to be a sufficient motivator, that’s actually all I want. If little Haley and Mr. Haley weren’t allowed to trick or treat, their kids will not only trick or treat but will also have a massive party every year.

Evangelicalism wants you to hate everything about what makes you human. It wants you to hate your desires, your mistakes, your pleasures, your thoughts, your feelings, your body. It wants you to hate other people for being different than you. It wants you to hate having fun. It wants you to stay away from anything that might look like temptation and anything that might lead to temptation and anything that might look like it might lead to temptation. If you can be alone and miserable and church has the answer to all your problems and also following all the rules makes you a little better than everyone else who is just fumbling around in the dark, then church is where you’ll stay.

But sometimes you don’t stay. Leaving the church has made me more tender, more loving, more joyful. I can’t be sorry that my kids have never been told that having fun is anything they shouldn’t be doing. I don’t hate being a person anymore. I have life, and life more abundantly5. And I throw an amazing Halloween party.

It took a little less than thirty-six years, I think, but I finally like myself. Maybe it’s the fresh-start feeling of having a perfect birthdate and it being The Morning so everything seems double fresh, but I realized that I don’t hate myself any more.

I did, though. I used to. I might again. I don’t want to.

I don’t know if it’s medicine or maturity or a magical intersection of the two, but (dare I say?) I’m happy with who I am.

It can be hard for me to unpick just how pickled my little brain became from being perpetually steeped in “you’re a sinner who is wholly depraved and unworthy of God’s love.” I think perhaps the proof is in the “I finally am content with myself at 36” pudding. But even that darkness feels rosy today because I can look at that and know, bone-deep, how bad it was and that I got out. I don’t have to think like that any longer. And I don’t! Hating myself came naturally and then it was praised, which I also love, so what a feat to have overcome! Good for you, Haley.

Now I’m happy with myself and I’m proud of myself, too.

Over the last year or so, I’ve found myself wondering a bit at the new facets of Haley I am starting to observe. When I ask someone to hang out and they do. When I host a party and people come over. When I talk and people listen. When I am asked for my input and it’s followed. Me? Me!

I read a poem and I wrote a poem. Guess which is which.

I think I wrote a poem

I think I might be cool
I think I might be capable
I think I might be funny
I think I might be brave
I think I might be good enough
I think I might be interesting
I think I might be kind
I think I might be cool
I think I might be real

In the intervening weeks, I’ve added to my collection board and needed more space than the tiny rectangle trapped in an app I hate can provide. As Dan would say, let’s get stuck in.

Welsh Blades Series by Elizabeth Kingston

The Welsh Blades series is a quartet of historical romances set during Edward I’s Welsh Conquest. Like many a classic romance series, the books are interlinked but not necessary to read in order, although I did read them in order because I love doing things in order. I think this added to my enjoyment of the series overall because I had a richer understanding of the characters making appearances in subsequent books.

Each story follows a different member of the wealthy household, Raurdean, a Welsh holding tenuously held by a family navigating the balance of loyalty to their Welsh roots and obedience to the powerful and domineering Edward I of England. As I have learned from Dan Jones, Edward I had a big thing for Arthurian mythology (relatable!) which took form in a real bad case of Manifest Destiny (less relatable). As he stomped all over Albion with his big, long shanks, he smashed rebellion wherever he found it. And for our characters in the Welsh Blades series, danger is always looming whenever his one droopy eye gets trained on them.

The King’s Man and Desire Lines are tied for my favorites, but genuinely this is one of the strongest historical romance series I have read possibly ever? Elizabeth Kingston’s writing is absorbing! Her characters are compelling! Her research is advised by Danièle Cybulskie, who is often featured as a guest on Dan’s podcast! Everything works together to make a beautiful cocktail of things I love!

I put off reading book two, Fair, Bright, and Terrible because it’s about a character who pissed me off in The King’s Man but you know what the book was still good even though I didn’t really enjoy that character in her own book nor in any of the others. I would so much rather read an interesting story about a person making wild moves and big mistakes than insipid characters Never Doing Anything Wrong and fake problems being tidily resolved. I don’t need likeable characters, but I do need to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. Eluned is never going to be my best friend, but I went from thinking she was mean and manipulative before reading her book to thinking she was scared and sad and manipulative after reading her book. Great job, Elizabeth Kingston, that’s hard work and impressive storytelling!

All of the stakes in each of these books were completely enthralling. Kingston threaded the needle so well with the historical setting, balancing teaching the reader enough to understand the plot functions and keeping the story moving without it ever becoming a lecture (actually it might have been a lecture that I just loved. Who’s to say?). Kingston also charmed me with her Author’s Notes at the end of each book, adding in cute little details about what she learned and expanding on a thought discussed in the book. She also thanked Lewis Hamilton in the Author’s Note for One Burning Heart and that works on me.

Written on the Dark by Guy Gavriel Kay

Speaking of Danièle Cybulskie and her guest appearances on Dan’s podcast, her latest is a limited series about the dramatic life of Charles VI of France. Known as Charles the Mad, his unreliable lucidity throughout his reign left his kingdom vulnerable to external and internal power grabs.

One such power grab is the brutal and public murder of Charles’s brother, Louis, on the orders of their cousin, John. However, I hadn’t gotten to this part of the podcast when I started reading Guy Gavriel Kay’s newest release, Written on the Dark. One of my most favorite parts of reading Kay’s work is using my context clues to figure out the historical inspiration for the setting. I quickly equated Kay’s Orane to Paris and when we started getting references to a mad king I felt like a little dog about to get a treat. Because listening to Cybulskie describe Charles’s reign and the scandalous details of Louis’s murder while reading a book about the same events but in a world with two moons was indeed a treat!

However, I do have to admit that this little Haley Easter Egg was probably the height of my enjoyment. Said with all affection, as his number 1 fan, Kay gets a little repetitive with Written on the Dark. His books often feature shades of similar characters imagined into various settings: Charming Wise Guy Who Is Too Clever for His Own Good, Quiet Valiant Older Leader, Highly Capable Younger Woman, Alluring and Enigmatic Older Woman, Conniving and Corrupt Power-Hungry Ladder-Climber. This repetition hasn’t bothered me in previous books; they usually feel like familiar friends. Unfortunately, this time it felt a little predictable. I knew the beats of the story and even Kay’s prose didn’t inspire enough interest in me to really care about the narrative or the characters.

Kay’s writing also fell flat in this iteration. Well, maybe not fell flat as much as spiraled out of control and tripped over itself. The title itself gives a hint of the overwritten, verging on meaningless, turns of phrase sprinkled throughout. What does “written on the dark” mean? The context where it’s used in the story doesn’t add any clarity for why he would write something that wouldn’t be out of place in a melodramatic Tumblr post:

They walked together in the night. The blue moon, rising above the city, was behind them. But every moment of the rest of their lives, long or short, brightly lit or dark-ensnared, lay ahead of them.

---

I also remember that walk very well, oddly. We passed through almost empty streets. Sometimes we retain the quiet moments that come in the midst of chaos, or after it. The city, my city, in the night. Our lives, written on the dark.

Kay often leans heavily on moving in and out of the timeline of the story. He switches tenses and perspectives within paragraphs and when executed well, this adds to the feeling of the grandeur of his storytelling. Themes of time and legacy and the vastness of the human experience are what he explores best. Written on the Dark skimmed where it should have dipped or even dived a little deeper. And Kay had room to do it! Dark maxes out at a perfectly even 300 pages to cover events that span about a year in book-time. Surprisingly, however, for a compact book about a tavern poet/lawyer who is busted by the city guard before he can actually do a crime and therefore coerced into working for them to solve the king’s brother’s murder and subsequently becoming a player in powerful events while discovering his own heart’s desires, it’s actually kind of boring.

My wishes for this book far outstripped what I actually got. Maybe that’s a problem of my own unreasonable expectations. Maybe it’s a problem of not understanding what the hell “written on the dark” should mean1 and being mildly annoyed at the florid language instead of having fun with it. Regardless, this was not my favorite of his. I will likely revisit it in a few years and see if it hits me differently than it did on my first reading. I did this not too long ago with A Brightness Long Ago and completely changed my tune on that book, so it’s worth a shot. I do want to note that Kay did some fun things with the history, which is one of the delights of historical inspired fantasy. Because I’m always going to be Leo pointing at the TV when I start knowing the real events behind the book events. Love you forever, GGK.

The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor

Helen Castor was Dan Jones’s mentor at university (said British-style) and she mentored the hell out of him. He credits her as the reason he became a medievalist and I think that’s adorable. The Eagle and the Hart details the turbulent reign of King Richard II, which Dan also covered in Season 7 of This is History. Apparently 12 story episodes and 13 bonus episodes wasn’t enough Plantagenet in-fighting for me because currently 8.5 hours deep in Helen’s book and I see why she captured Dan’s attention at school.

Now Dan, while fascinated by Richard, is solidly in the camp of Richard being a complete and unrepentant narcissist. And when I listened to his podcast I was ready to agree with him and not really give Richard a second thought. But now that I’m almost halfway through Helen’s book, I have to admit that I am in very real danger of becoming a Richard II stan.

I AM NOT SAYING HE WAS GOOD. But I am saying he was kind of great? Monarchies are stupid and hereditary monarchies are double stupid, but if you’re a KING given the DIVINE RIGHT TO RULE BY GOD and you don’t get a little bitchy with it, what are you doing?? He made everyone start calling him “your majesty” and now that’s what we call royalty all the time. Iconic! Anyone who crosses him or hurts his feelings gets thrown in castle jail or executed and Richard will steal all your hereditary lands and shit. If you could you would! When people aren’t doing what he wants, he says very dramatic stuff like “the king’s sovereign person will not and ought not tolerate [it].” It’s called a boundary! Look it up!

As someone actively living under tyranny, one might thing I would come down a little harder on this guy since we also are a breath away from our Fearless Leader sending out blank papers we all need to sign for him to hold onto in case we get unruly. One would be kind of right. I should probably not be as entertained by ole Rich2 as I am. But the thing is, history is stupid. Because it’s about people and people are stupid. It’s just a fact. We’re stupid and we do stupid things like decide one guy is the boss of all the other guys because god said so and then behead anyone who tries to do anything different. Being a tyrant is stupid. And stupid things are funny.

One of my favorite things about history is how humbling it is. There truly is nothing new under the sun. Power corrupts! No one should have all of it. It turns good people bad and bad people worse. It’s poison. Richard II did this shit in 1385 and people did it before him and people have continued to do it after him. Being a tyrant is actually fairly unoriginal and therefore, lame. The English people living under his reign probably didn’t really know much of a difference from not only their last king nor from any of the other European kings living their truth except for Richard showed up to their Peasant’s Rebellion and told them he would be their best friend forever and then stood there when Wat Tyler got run through and Richard was just like “heh, oops. bye.” Once again, iconic.

I also find history very comforting: things have always been fairly shitty and people got on. Not only did people get on but they made beautiful things. Like more people and also art! Tyrants do not and cannot last. Their time and their power run out because eventually people figure out that tyrants are blowhards high on their own supply and are actually pretty easily toppled. I just hope we figure it out soon in our time because ho boy.

Anyway, Richard II is a cunt and I love him.

The Pretender by Jo Harkin

This link to Dan Jones is slightly tenuous because he really taps out with the Tudors and The Pretender is about the Tudor’s rise to power. But knowledge of the Lancasters and the Yorks is helpful if not important to understanding the goings-on of these crazy guys so Dan’s still lingering in the background, as always.

I have a complicated relationship to historical fiction. Or maybe I don’t have a complicated relationship to historical fiction and I just hate Kristen Hannah? I certainly don’t know. But I do know that I LOVE whatever type of historical fiction that The Pretender is. Which I think is just a really good book.

The story is about a real guy (no one tell the Real People Fiction haters), Lambert Simnel, who was a child who became a Yorkist mascot in the volatile period surrounding the death of King Edward IV, the ascension of Richard III (this is the Princes in the Tower situation), and the subsequent rise of Henry Tudor as Henry VII.

Yorkist loyalists presented Lambert as the true heir of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, hidden at birth from his cruel and scheming uncles. Harkin’s book imagines Lambert’s youth and young adulthood and it ROCKED. This is a gold standard for me for a writing a young person in a compelling and interesting way because Lambert is written as a person! Because young people are people!! And Lambert is a child dragged against his will into the schemes of powerful people who are using him as a pawn. There’s a lot to process! The Pretender is equally parts funny, tender, gritty, brutal, charming, and heartbreaking (heartbrea-KING?).

I want you to read it and I want you to love it but I’m also going to need you to not be a fucking dork about Lambert having sex as a teenager, please.

I will be hanging out with Helen for a while because The Eagle and the Hart is long as hell, but other than that the next few books on my TBR are less likely to be quite as directly linked to Dan Jones. Not to worry though, I always find my way back. <3

Up Next:

• Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood (I have no hopes for this, but I Must Know.)

• The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (2024 Booker Prize Shortlist)

• Universality by Natasha Brown (2025 Booker Prize Longlist)

James Dobson is dead, but the person who told me I needed to spank my kids and then hold them while they cried is still alive.

James Dobson is dead, but the person who taught me being gay is an affront to God’s plan for the family is still alive and still refers to gay people as “being caught in the homosexual lifestyle” or “struggling with same-sex attraction.”

James Dobson is dead, but the person who told my husband that the female amygdala is smaller than the male’s and that’s why women can’t control their emotions as well as men can is still alive.

James Dobson is dead, but the person who taught me that men desire respect and women desire love and the worst thing I could do to a man is disrespect him is still alive.

James Dobson is dead, but the person who told my husband that his role as husband is to rule over his wife and children is still alive.

James Dobson is dead, but the people who taught me women can never be true leaders because that defies the God-ordained order of male headship are still alive.

James Dobson is dead, but I’m still alive and my kids have never been hit. My kids know that anyone can love anyone. My kids know that people are more the same than they are different. My kids know that everyone deserves respect and love. My kids know that our family has no boss because a family is a team.

James Dobson is dead, and I’m doing my best to hasten his second death.

I hope you cried when you heard “Depart from me, I never knew you,” Jim, you loser.

My latest attempts at contemporary romance were no more successful than my previous endeavors but hope springs eternal!

What I Read

Not In Love by Ali Hazelwood

Why I Read It

Sometimes I gaslight myself out of my own opinions. I loved The Love Hypothesis, which I read in a feverish 24 hours. I have never revisited this book because I hated everything I read by Hazelwood subsequent to that one bright moment. Years passed. I was amused by the concept of Problematic Summer Romance and saw that it was a #2. Not in Love is #1 and had no holds at the library. I thought, “why not try again and see if maybe Past Haley was just being a crusty bitch who hates fun?”

Plot Summary

The story opens by introducing our main characters Rue and Eli who are meeting for a hook up that doesn’t happen due to Rue’s estranged brother showing up and ruining the vibe. The couple immediately have intense chemistry and while Rue doesn’t usually want to contact hook ups again, she slips Eli her number. The next day, an all-hands meeting is called at the biotech startup where she works to announce that the startup is being basically taken over by a private equity firm. And who runs the Money Factory? None other than Eli, the Missed Connection! Sparks fly. They CANNOT stop thinking about each other and very much wanting to bone. Eventually they do and we are told this causes problems! I don’t totally remember what the problems are, but basically it’s guilt? I think? Like Rue thinks she’s great friends with the founder of the startup and she feels like sneaking around with Eli (they barely sneak, everyone knows) is a betrayal of her BOSS’S trust? I don’t know, man. Eventually though it all comes out that ACHWUALLY Rue’s Boss stole the Money Factory Founder’s college science research and that’s the technology she used to launch her startup. So she’s the evil one and NOT the private equity firm. Rue and Eli eventually recognize that their emotional connection is as strong as their physical connection and decide they are in love after all.

What I Thought

Initially I was enjoying myself! I sailed along through the first two-thirds and then everything I didn’t like about the book kind of hit me like a truck. Which usually means a book is too long for me. Sometimes books need to be long and sometimes they do not. I knew I was dragging when I was rolling my eyes at yet another sex scene where the main characters keep having the best sex of their lives with each other and then afterwards are like “we can’t keep doing this.” Friends, you already are. I don’t believe you anymore.

Another thing I didn’t believe: that the private equity firm was morally good and a net positive to society at large. I’ll never believe this no matter how many self-conscious “BOO CAPITALISM” comments the founding members make. Money is the source of and solution to basically every plot issue outside of Rue and Eli’s interpersonal relationship. It’s like a magic plot-solving wand that gets waved over the story. And I think that’s boring! It’s boring in historicals, too. The BioTech Boiz felt like a modern version of a bunch of dukes who go out sometimes and help thresh the fields with their tenant farmers and then go to parliament and are all self-righteous about THE NOBLE POOR. And that got on my nerves.

“These dukes are not like the other dukes the heroines have met before, they’re cool dukes. They’ll let you drink in the house and keep a slightly larger portion of the profits that your labor created.”

restorative romance

he's not a duke's duke

This is part III of the Duke Project. I was aiming to finish off dukes in July, but I keep reading more books! This part focuses on books from the 2010s, which is when we start seeing a boom in both the number of romances published and the rate of dukes relative to all historical romance increasing dramatically. Thank you to anyone and everyone who has …

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2 years ago · 11 likes · Emma

I don’t think narrative choices need to be necessarily relatable but I do think the author needs to be able to make the reader believe in those choices within the context of the story. In order for me to believe that the private equity firm isn’t evil, I would have to be able to entertain that possibility in the first place (which I can’t). And secondly, I would have to be able to understand why this was the necessary sequence of choices. I understood that I was supposed to feel like these people tripped and fell and landed on becoming owning class leeches through no fault of their own. It also kind of grossed me out that the text lays everything at the feet of the professor who stole the work. She turns out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing who is Known To Steal and that’s what makes Rue stop trusting her and quit to, I don’t know, be with Eli? This whole plot was a big whiff for me. Not only because it was annoyingly obvious, but also because I can’t really square any of this ideologically.

One of the ways Rue and Eli test their relationship is by sharing closely held secrets with each other. These secrets are things they’re ashamed of or the darkest things they think of themselves or bad memories. It’s a way that they reveal themselves emotionally, choosing a vulnerable truth about themselves and giving it to the other to see what happens. Each time, the recipient isn’t repulsed but takes the new information in stride. I liked the push and pull where the push away results in an equal and opposite pull closer. I thought this was a clever way to show trust building between these two characters.

These revelations between Rue and Eli allow them to connect in ways neither of them expect while still working through the ways they feel they can’t be together. Both dealt with difficult childhoods and both have had challenging relationships with their younger siblings. They grew up in the same area of town and unknowingly skated at the same ice rink, they even both attended the same university several years apart. But one of the things Eli holds back from Rue is the nature of his interest in the startup where she works. The entire point of the private equity firm turning their moneyed Eye of Sauron on the startup is to take their technology back from their professor who stole it from them. This is supposed to be reasonable. And, I mean, I guess?? But the reason they have a private equity firm at all is because one of them has a Super Rich Dad who didn’t support his Biochemical Engineering dreams but did support *~* investing *~*.

Eli eventually tells Rue to ask her boss how she knows the members of the private equity group. Rue’s boss lies and says she’s never met them before. Eli then reveals his side of the story and Rue confronts her boss again who then confesses. This use of miscommunication could have gone so right. It makes sense that Eli would not want to kick the door in on Rue, who he is falling for fast, with this world-changing information. I would have loved to see Rue take this as Eli and her boss both lying to her and walking away from both of them. Rue had every right to be intensely betrayed. Instead she sides with the private equity dudes and gives them the information they need to complete their take over of the startup.

Conclusion

In a historical romance novel, the structure the story is built on is a function of the setting; often it’s to do with the social mores of the time. How the characters of the story interact with those social norms, either positively or negatively, influences the direction of the story. This can allow a story to move in a direction that is both fantastic (in that it’s made up) and grounded in reality (some of that social structure was real even if artistic liberties are taken for the purpose of the story). The author can construct a tale that uses the historical setting to generate the conflict and guide the reader to an understanding of why this conflict matters to the characters.

In a modern setting, a world that is ostensibly supposed to be our own, the scaffolding of the story is trickier. The author doesn’t have the luxury of The Past holding the setting at arm’s length from the reader’s own experience or perspectives on the world they are also currently inhabiting. The issues invented by the author to drive the plot forward exist in a world that is both familiar and invented. But it’s harder for me in a modern setting to divorce the reality the characters are living in from my own. I’m never going to be able to sympathize with a private equity executive no matter how much he winkingly acknowledges that his job is usually pretty evil. I live in a world where that job exists and is destroying lots of things I love. I hate those guys.

The circumstances of this story felt ridiculous and the character’s decisions were increasingly absurd. My initial interest and enjoyment fizzled out as the stakes described seemed increasingly like a story being told by the most spun-up person you know fixated on gossip that’s actually kind of lame but also not being a good enough storyteller to make lame gossip interesting.

P.S.

A component of Rue and Eli’s relationship development is Rue not being interested in penetrative sex. Eli really, really wants to try and eventually Rue concedes and he heals her with his magic dick. This is another thing I hate.

I’m only a little bit sorry to bring everything back to The Countess Conspiracy, but I love this book and it’s very hard for me to not make the comparisons when I see them. In The Countess Conspiracy, Violet also is not interested in penetrative sex, albeit for different reasons than Rue. Violet enjoys it, but needs to avoid getting pregnant for her physical health. Sebastian is unbothered by this. While they do eventually have penetrative sex, the text acknowledges that this is not going to be their primary sexual interaction.

Eli, however, is fixated on it and Rue changing her mind about the way she feels about it is presented as evidence for why Eli and Rue are meant to be together. You should see the face I am making. My lips are so squished together they have disappeared.

What I Read

Never Been Shipped by Alicia Thompson

Why I Read It

I loved With Love, From Cold World. I medium liked Love in the Time of Serial Killers. I DNF’d whatever that baseball one was in spite of it seemingly being created specifically for me. Never Been Shipped is the story of one of the side characters in Cold World who I hadn’t really thought anything about in the time since I closed the book but you know what, why the hell not? I’m always up for a friends falling in love book.

Plot Summary

John and Micah’s friendship evolved from middle school besties to bandmates to nothing when the band fell apart. While the band was active, Micah had a tumultuous relationship with the band’s lead guitarist and the rest of the group assumes that the band broke up because they did. Ten years later, the band is reuniting to play a fandom cruise. John has always carried a quiet torch for Micah, while Micah seems simultaneously aware of this but also unsure of John now that they haven’t spoken in such a long time. The forced proximity of the cruise brings not only the band’s history to a head, but also ignites a physical relationship between Micah and John that quickly reveals the emotions these two have carried for each other over the years.

What I Thought

I liked the book! It ignited very little passion in me. Everything was fine. Initially I thought that my indifference could be attributed to my persistent issue with caring about books about bands (I am not compelled), but I think actually it was just sort of a boring book. Everything that made the side characters charming in With Love, From Cold World seemed to be missing from Never Been Shipped. The concepts of interesting characters were there but that’s kind of as far as we got with them.

Micah’s ex, the lead guitarist, is a cartoon. He’s obnoxious, semi-washed up, and desperate for attention. He’s the character doing The Most at all times to be annoyingly Bad. He’s rude to Micah at every opportunity, making little digs about their past and her current status of reclusive has-been. He misgenders a bandmate. He’s lecherous around fans. And guess what! The band actually broke up because he was blackmailing Micah with releasing her nudes in a revenge porn move. Micah lets everyone think she just wanted to go solo and broke up the band because of her insatiable ego. Over the course of the cruise, his bad behavior grates on everyone in the band culminating in Micah punching him on a beach and the rest of the group kicking him out of the band. He leaves the cruise and flies home and is never heard from again. It was so tidy that I kept thinking the third act would actually be him boomeranging back to really shake things up, but nope! He literally just disappears from the plot and everyone’s life forever, I guess.

Conversely, John is perfect. He’s nice to everyone. He’s only ever loved Micah. He has literally never done anything wrong in his whole entire life. And you know what? (I’m whispering) He’s so fucking boring. His personality is Devoted. There’s nothing else to him. Micah, meanwhile, is interesting. She’s dynamic. She makes mistakes. She’s selfish. She’s reserved to the point of isolation. She’s afraid of her own success. She has bite. John is, unfortunately, nothing. It seems that Thompson substitutes trauma for character building. John’s father was abusive and an alcoholic. John’s escape throughout his childhood was Micah’s house and her friendship. I wish we had delved into this more! I wish John had done like anything at all besides pine. Which says a lot because I fucking LOVE a simp who is pining. It’s Haley catnip. I gobble that shit up.

The third act break up is not so much of a break up as the cruise ends, John tells Micah he loves her, and everyone just goes home. John and Micah exchange updated contact information and continue to talk but with the unreciprocated “I love you” hanging over them. Micah eventually is able to recognize her feelings for John and she writes him a love song that she records and sends to him on a CD she burned (this was very romantic to me, a 35 year-old). John dithers for a bit because it seemingly does bother him that The Fans never shipped him and Micah together ( John you have loved her for your whole life but THE FANS are holding you back???) but when his housemates show him The Internet and how they are indeed shipped, he packs up all his stuff and flies to LA from Orlando to show up at Micah’s door. They live happily ever after. I closed the book and immediately returned it to the library, entertained yet lightly disappointed.

Conclusion

Ironically, Micah’s solo album was titled “So Much Promise” which is exactly how I felt about this book. I wanted more. I wanted a lot more. The setting and the premise could have been so juicy! But instead it was like a beautiful orange that once peeled has a couple of good bites but is mostly dry and sort of mealy.

P.S.

Micah does the thing I HATE and tells John that she always faked it with the other guitar guy who sucked. DID YOU?? DID YOU REALLY?? Dumb.

Are all contemporary romances boring? Do I hate modern love? Am I impossible to please? I dunno, man. The last recently published contemporary romance that I enjoyed was The Friendship Study and not just because I really liked the cover. It was interesting and different! It used the setting to explore loneliness and connection!

Perhaps everything is just boring and nothing is good! Anyway, if you think of a contemporary romance you think I might like, let me have it! I won’t even be mad at you for suggesting one I don’t like because I also can’t pick anything I like, so we’re just in a losing spiral of choosing books I only sort of enjoy! We can’t do worse!!

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What a downer way to end a post. Uh. Sorry. I’m going to go read something in the sunshine to see if that fixes me.

The Essex Serpent. I freaked out about this book, as you may remember. It consumes me still. I am as obsessed with it as Will is with Cora and Cora is with farting around doing as she pleases and Luke is with being the best surgeon in the whole wide world. Writing this made me miss my friends. Maybe I owe them a visit.

2. Best sequel you've read so far

The Mirror and the Light. You had to know that there was no way I was not going to make finishing the Thomas Cromwell series everyone’s problem.

3. New release you haven't read yet but you want to

This one brings me great shame: Written on the Dark. Actually, no, I’m refusing to be ashamed. I’m still GGK’s #1 Fan. I’m just a very busy lady. I’ll read it and I’ll love it. No doubt.

4. Most anticipated new release for the second half of 2025

Listen I’m going to level with you: I have no idea what’s coming out in the second half of 2025. My most anticipated new release is me releasing myself from the burden of paying attention to any bookish goings-on.

5. Biggest disappointment of 2025

Wild Faith.

6. Biggest surprise of 2025

The Blacktongue Thief. Because I’m always surprised when my brother is right about anything and he was correct that I very much enjoyed this book. I listened to the audiobook and it was charming and fun and poignant and I had a great time. But he’s still an idiot for telling me to read an unfinished series like that’s not my pettest of peeves.

7. Favorite new to you author discovered in 2025

Sorry for the double Christopher Buehlman but Christopher Buehlman. I loved The Blacktongue Thief and then I also loved Between Two Fires. And he’s from St. Pete! That’s so fun!

8. Newest fictional crush

King Rauru. Sorry.

9. Newest favorite character

David and Cecilia from The Phoenix Bride. It’s a tie. They were both so delightful. And you know what? Throw Sam in there, too.

10. Book that made you cry

Ok, stay with me here. Never Been Shipped itself did not make me cry. But Alicia Thompson made a playlist to go along with the book and I was listening to it and one of the songs made me think about my little brother, who I love very much. And he has recently moved away from me to go live near our other brother, who I also love very much. So then I was thinking about how much I love my brothers and I started crying. And now I’m thinking about it again and I’m crying a little more. No one tell them I said any of this. (I told them.)

11. Book that made you happy

The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W Turner. I love art history. I wish I had taken more classes in school. And I love Turner! But he was a complicated guy! What a great time learning more about his life! Now I want to go to London and look at his drawings and think about how weird he was! He is my friend and also a little bit my enemy! We love that stuff!

12. Most beautiful book you've bought or received

Uh.

13. What books do you really need to read by the end of the year

Written on the Dark, duh. Henry V by Dan Jones is also staring at me. I’ll do it, guys. Lay off.

• Every dispatch I receive from Book Internet makes me happier I’m no longer participating in it. Because sorry (we’re whispering now) but influencing is a grift right in there with the best of the MLMs where everyone is your very best friend and you can be a best friend too if you join a publishing pyramid scheme1 but in order to stay out in front of the algorithm you have to keep performing. So you can see how the increasingly inane lines of discourse are born! And this is why we SHOULD NOT monetize our hobbies! In the immortal words of B.o.B:

  Somebody take me back to the days
  Before this was a job, before I got paid
  Before it ever mattered what I had in my bank
  Yeah, back when I was tryna get a tip at Subway
  And back when I was rappin' for the hell of it
  But nowadays, we rappin' to stay relevant

• Eating American Nutella is like eating Nutella with your nose plugged.

• I started playing Breath of the Wild altruistically so I could help my kid play it and then I just played the whole game. Now I’m playing Tears of the Kingdom like it’s my second job. If I’ve learned anything during my time in Hyrule it’s that Link is a non-binary icon and everyone is down so bad for him. Everywhere I go, people are falling all over themselves about his SWORD SKILLS WINK WINK. I love it. Every shrine puzzle I solve without having to look up a hint makes me feel like the smartest person who has ever lived. I’m having a great time.

  

• My bean crops have failed. I’m trying not to take it personally but it feels like they died on purpose to spite me because I loved them too much. My flowers, however, are doing very well.

• I use shampoo bars now and I like them a lot. Recommend.

  • Don’t worry, I still use a lot of dry shampoo. So much dry shampoo, in fact, that sometimes I wonder if my hair is actually this gray or if I just have a lot of dry shampoo in it and I’m doing gray hair stolen valor but then I wash it and oh yeah it’s definitely this gray.

• I read two (2) contemporary romances! Not In Love by Ali Hazelwood and Never Been Shipped by Alicia Thompson. I think they deserve a separate post and not a tack on to my Buzzfeed-ass ramblings, so consider this a tease but also a promise to talk about them in the future!

• I am currently reading NOTHING because of the aforementioned Zelda tour of duty I am on. But one day I will return from war! Hopefully my fiancée, Written on the Dark and her twin sister, the other copy of Written on the Dark that I forgot I ordered, will still be in love with me when I return. Probably. They’re very loyal.

• Reminder that it’s not that funny to call people spun up about sex and sexuality “virgins.” It’s way funnier to call people who participate in fantasy sports virgins.

• Living through the crumbling of Empire is wild. I know it’s not a unique experience in the timeline of humanity but also it is because on my little phone there’s mayhem and chaos and sorrows beyond measure. Meanwhile, I have to work on my laptop to design ponds that are supposed to hold storms that are getting worse for new roads so more cars made by Bond villains driven by people who don’t want bike paths in their neighborhoods can get to school board meetings to ban books so the kids will all stop being little queers who identify as cats and don’t write in cursive anymore. But also in my house is a little boy who likes books about a penguin adventurer and tells his dad that he’s saving that book to read with me. And there’s also a little girl who climbs in my bed in the middle of the night and puts me in a headlock while she sleeps with her feet on her dad’s chest. It’s a lot to take in, is what I’m saying. Fight for hope as much as you can, I guess.

My own understanding of my relationship to genre has ever been in flux. I used to consider myself primarily a fantasy fiction reader. A fantasy fiction reader whose favorite author writes history-inspired fantasy. And who also reads a decent amount of historical romance and history narrative non-fiction. In fact, in writing this out what I’m realizing is that in my heart I am actually a history reader whose favorite pieces all have some kind of historical connection. Adorable.

Perhaps my premise that I’ve lost faith in genre isn’t entirely accurate. Maybe I’ve never actually had whole-hearted devotion to the concept to begin with. Everything I’ve truly loved hasn’t nicely fit into a tidy category. Labels do help sometimes! I love clarity! However in this short-form, niche-down, virality-seeking content hamster wheel we find ourselves in online, it seems more and more common for people to be creating increasingly arbitrary and rigid genre rules. My most generous interpretation of this behavior is that it’s silly. My least generous interpretation is that it’s a sinister, fascist impulse. Honestly it’s probably both at the same time because I clearly believe in letting things exist simultaneously.

In researching to support my grievance, I found that 1) I want to read more about genre theory and 2) that I agree with the Romantics, which is unspeakably amusing to me. According to Wikipedia, “in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,[…] the concept of genre was scrutinized heavily. The idea that it was possible to ignore genre constraints and the idea that each literary work was a “genre unto itself” gained popularity. Genre definitions were thought to be “primitive and childish.””1

Hell yeah, guys. You’re right and you should say it. Genre definitions are primitive and childish! Especially the weird way the Posters online are using them! Parsing what is and is not allowable within a genre is a common discourse topic. And for fucking what? “Dystopian Romance isn’t allowed! Dystopian can have romance in it, but it can’t be the main thing!” Thank GOD someone finally split that hair. But may I just ask: SAYS WHO?? Who died and made Threads king? Why are we making rules about what a story can and cannot be? Why are we opting in to being easier to market to?? Because marketability is one of the primary functions of genre categorization. Publishers would be happy to rinse and repeat the exact same thing over and over again and keep taking your money for the service! It’s devastatingly ironic that people posting “become ungovernable” memes are the same ones pulling up to be the genre purity police. Be more elusive! Require more!!

Because in addition to the twin crimes of sounding like a stuck-up nerd and acting like a self-righteous book-banner, being a rigid genre pedant is a boring way to interact with art. I’m not going to equivocate here: the authors that are the gold-standards of genre fiction write some of the most insipid books I have ever read (I’m looking at you, Brandon Sanderson). Reliability and predictability are utilitarian desires; well-suited when it comes to one’s mode of transportation, less appropriate for works of art! Reread a book you love if you need all the beats of a story to be familiar. Revisiting old favorites is a wonderful exercise! Unplumbed depths, and so on. But to require, even personally, all books to be similar in an uncompromising composition? Get behind me, Satan!

So what do you like, Haley, if you hate genre definitions so much? Thanks so much for asking, I will tell you some stand-outs. I picked all books with some medieval elements to them because that’s something I love and it’s fun to do a theme. I also organized it chronologically to show you that I do love organized structure when it’s appropriate. WINK.

• Once Was Willem by M. R. Carey

  • Set in England during The Anarchy, is it horror because there are monsters and angels? Or could it be fantasy because there’s a sorcerer and a witch? What’s the difference between horror and fantasy and fairy tales? Who gives a shit? A sorcerer seeking immortality resurrects a kid but in a be-careful-what-you-wish-for way and then the evil sorcerer takes over a castle and starts ruining lives in the village nearby. Great stuff told with charm. This book gave me a hangover so bad that I started playing Planet Coaster so I wouldn’t have to think about reading.

• Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel

  • What’s the difference between historical fiction with romance and historical romance? What if the book was about the tension between two kingdoms and the rulers who love each other?? What would you call that??? You call it Solomon’s Crown, that’s what. Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus! In bed together! HA! It’s so tender! I ache!

• Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

  • What defines a horror book? Is it some kind of supernatural force? Does it have to be scary? What about existential dread? Set in medieval France, a place ravaged by both the plague and the Hundred Years War, a sell-sword meets a young girl who is touched with a holy gift and determined to go to Avignon to meet the pope there to warn him of impending doom. Demons try to stop them. It’s so rad and I loved it. (I did not think it was scary.)

• The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

  • My favorite book of all time! You probably thought because I mentioned GGK at the top that I wouldn’t do it again but HA! I tricked you again. This essay zigs when you think it’s goin to zag! Is it fantasy? Uh, maybe? There’s a hint of magic? The world is analogous to ours but with two moons? It’s about the clash of religions inspired by the Reconquista but it’s actually about love? I cry every time I read it??

These books are my friends and I love them dearly and I never would have found them if I had made up weird, arbitrary rules about what does and does not comprise fantasy. By opening myself up to wonder and new experiences in the books I chose, I found myself leap-frogging into new and glorious worlds I couldn’t conceive of! And after all, isn’t that the point of reading??

Those years were like trying to walk on ice. A misplaced step will leave you flat on your back. Ask a question in the wrong company and the room goes quiet. At seemingly every turn, I was losing faith in the people I had previously trusted to guide me. What do I even search? How do I find recommendations? What do I do? There were some authors (Rachel Held Evans) I was too afraid to read because I was worried I would change my mind too much. But the changes were seeping in regardless. I remember a conversation with a friend when she uneasily confessed that she didn’t believe the Bible was inerrant anymore. The biggest reaction I had to this revelation was to myself when I thought “I don’t know how much that matters, actually.”

Ironically, it was a book calling for repentance and reconciliation within the American Evangelical Church that solidified my resolution to leave the church. The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby is, at the risk of sounding like I Really Didn’t Want to Have to Make This Video3, a call in from a member of the American Christian church to his fellow believers to reckon with the church’s complicity in upholding and advancing racial inequality in America. It was a scales-falling-off-the-eyes moment4 for me. The institution that held itself as the beacon of moral authority had for its entirety, not been devoted to upholding the supposed Word of God as it is written in the Bible, but rather has used the Bible to twist the interpretations of that text to facilitate its own ends. If they’ve tied themselves in knots and made whole new churches to justify slavery and Black people not being people and brazenly covered up rampant and unending sex abuse all while continuing to hold their heads up high like their shit doesn’t stink, there’s not a chance in hell that they’ll stop because we asked them “pretty please.”

Perhaps my impulse to stick with books written by authors with a background in the church was a good one. In the same way that family lore is best told by the people with connection to it, discussion and analysis of the soul-rot of Evangelicalism is enhanced by the insider understanding that comes from participation in or at least familiarity with this community. This idea was reinforced as I listened to Talia Lavin read her book Wild Faith. Lavin is a journalist who has written about White Supremacy and extremism. Wild Faith is an overview of the Christian Nationalist movement and its slow and steady rise over the course of the 20th century. The premise is not dissimilar from that of Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. But where Du Mez has the benefit of a lifetime of lived experience as well as professional credentials as a religious historian and researcher, Lavin has the benefit of a social media presence.

Lavin asserts in her opening chapter that zealotry should be taken seriously because its results are manifesting around us in very serious ways:

That’s the thing about zealotry: its excesses often seem ridiculous and can be pointed out as such. But to the people who believe—really believe, to the bone—it is deadly serious. And if you’re not paying attention, if you’re sniggering at the absurdity of the details and thinking that all this is beneath the attention of the logical mind, well, the death in question might just be your own, whether a slow death by cruel policy or the hot, fast death meted out by the militant faithful.5

I agree with this! However, Lavin doesn’t seem to actually put this notion into practice in her own work. Tonally, the text is rife with condescension. Which is a weird position to take when presenting information for analysis. An author does not have to agree with or even like their subject, but open disdain is a confusing position. I may have had a distinctly different impression of the book had I not listened to the author read the audio. Her reading colored my entire experience. Lavin uses goofy accents and voices for her quotes, seemingly inspired by Pinky and the Brain as her choices vacillate between simplistic buffoonery and cartoonish evil.

The audible contempt was hard for me to get past. I also struggled with Lavin’s choices to interject attempts at humor into the work. These didn’t land for me and compounded my impression of derision towards the subject matter.

I may have been more inclined towards generosity had Lavin’s book been more carefully researched. One of the most obvious errors I noted was her assertion that the belief in the inerrancy of Scripture is a “fundamentalist contingent” tenet. It’s not. While it is fundamentalist in that it is a foundational belief, it is not fringe position. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest American Protestant denomination with over 12 million members6, declares in their statement of faith that the Bible has “…truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter.7”

A more trivial aside that nonetheless offended my 90’s Evangelical kid sensibilities, was Lavin’s assertion that the Christian band DC Talk was “the Christian version of Nirvana.” They were not! They were primarily weird Christian rock/hip-hop/rap. Who could forget the ground-breaking lyricism of the 1998 masterpiece, “Into Jesus”??? TobyMac was very famous and this is all super easy to check!

Additionally, Lavin mentions my special interest: hating Ron DeSantis, an evil sack of shit. Lavin, rightly, derides DeSantis and his 2023 bigoted bill-signing rampage during his embarrassing swing at the Republican presidential nomination. I hate all these bills! I’m not supportive! However, Lavin incorrectly describes one of these laws stating that DeSantis signed a bill that “required all public bathrooms to be restricted to use by people of the gender assigned at birth.8” The bill being discussed is FL HB 1521 and it is awful. However the public bathrooms in question are for buildings leased or owned by the State of Florida or other government agency. In a discussion like this, accuracy matters. The legislation is despicable as it stands and no exaggeration is needed to understand its cruelty. Lavin is heavy-handed with her criticism of politicians (usually accompanied with confusing comment about the person’s hair9) and their rampant hyperbole, but feels free to engage in it herself.

This is not a nit I really want to pick, but the choice to be imprecise led me to question where else the author took liberties in her accounts. The cursory searches I performed while preparing this post revealed discrepancies in the denomination sizes stated in Wild Faith (without citation). For example, “the Presbyterian Church in America and the Southern Baptist Convention, which together represent more than 10 million parishioners” (pg. 181) vs. the approximately 400,000 reported by the Presbyterian Church in America and the approximately 12.9 million reported by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Again, this is not an unforgiveable error but it does feel sloppy, especially for an author who repeatedly references her own Internet-savvy. Lavin seems more concerned with crafting grandiose turns-of-phrase than with accurate or nuanced reporting. Even as someone who generally agrees with her premise, some of the points felt like being hit across the head with the oft-referenced 2x4s used to punish errant Evangelical children. This is not to say none of those points landed. In addition to the sections I highlighted because I had beef with the recounting, I highlighted as many or more sections I found insightful. However the impact of these sections was lost in the mix of disjointed narrative, lurid descriptions of child torture, and tactless sarcasm.

In the Afterward, Lavin states:

“From the readers of this book I ask two things: The first is to really and truly acknowledge that the people who say they believe in things—that, for example, the fate of the United States rests on a spiritual war between Jesus and the forces of Hell, which are everywhere manifest, that God is watching and listening and rooting for their side—really and truly believe them. That they really and truly want the United States to become Christ’s kingdom and will do everything in their power to make that vision a reality. And your actions in response should be informed by that truth.”10

The lack of direction to the second ask notwithstanding, this is a statement I agree with. The Christian Right’s beliefs are truly held. My father-in-law sincerely believes that demons entered the United States at the Stonewall Uprising and Christians have to fight against their influence at every level, from the home to the halls of power. It’s not funny, actually! It’s sad and scary and ridiculous and confusing. Lavin goes on,

“This book is full of stories of demons and spirits that may feel slightly glassy and unreal to people who feel they do most things for rational reasons and are inclined to condescend to those who believe firmly that they are driven by the realms of the spirit. I do not ask you to unwind your condescension. I ask you to ask yourself what is hidden from you by your own laughter—not only the danger to your country, to democracy, to the rule of law and institutions and other abstractions that mean a very great deal to a great many people; not even the danger to you yourself if you fall outside the narrow prerogatives of a zeal that is ready to erase you in the name of the wild and ungovernable faith it wields.”11

I don’t know what it means to “unwind your condescension,” but Lavin certainly does not. While she does gleefully poke at the leadership fanning the flames of zealotry (to her credit, she only ever punches up), the combination of mockery and solemnity do not mix well.

Lavin wears her badge of “outside voice” with honor. But the perspective she brings is not new or fresh. There’s nothing novel about an outsider looking in on Evangelical culture and being horrified. Evangelicals thrive on that. Being misunderstood and persecuted is a huge part of the bit. Lavin’s ostensible premise of shining a light on stories previously untold, the stories of the abused women and children of the Christian Right, is certainly a deserving topic. However, the anonymized stories (sources solicited via Twitter and with real names being replaced with the names of beleaguered women of the Bible) read like Reddit posts and seem to have little purpose aside from being salacious. The victims will have no resolution from their stories being shared in the splashy, gossipy tones of a true crime podcast host.

The tale of the violence inherent in the system and the ways that violence has been perpetuated and unleashed on society at large is one worth telling. External analysis of high-control groups can add unique, valuable perspective. Unfortunately in Wild Faith, neither of these goals are accomplished. Perhaps with more precise investigation and construction, they could have been.

“I love your teeth!” Charlotte Le Bon (who has a great birthday, by the way) as Chloe declares to Aimee Lou Wood’s Chelsea in Season 3 of White Lotus. Based on the number of articles and posts and comments, Season 3 of White Lotus1 was about Aimee Lou Wood’s teeth and how she is incredibly brave and bold and rebellious for having human teeth and continuing to exist as a person with chompers.

It should come as no surprise that Aimee Lou Wood doesn’t really like everyone talking about her teeth so much! But now we’re getting breathless declarations of astonishment2 that she does not feel complimented by the obsession with the small bones that come out of her head! Can you believe it??

I do not have interesting teeth, but I do have interesting hair. It has a lot of gray in it. I have never colored it. Not for any glamorous, valiant reason as much as I thought it sounded like too much work to keep up with when I started sprouting silver hairs as a teenager. I like it but I don’t really think about it that much. Until some stranger decides to compliment me in a way that is actually super rude. It’s usually something along the lines of “I love your hair! I love that you’re just going for it! I could never do that!”

I’m not doing anything special. I am not going for anything. I have allowed my hair to look like hair and some of that hair no longer makes pigment. Aimee Lou Wood grew her teeth and left them how they grew in. Yes, SURE, all this talk about her teeth is attempting to function as a commentary on our culture’s obsession with AI-ass beauty standards. I guess you can try to talk about that in a superficial, unchallenging way if you want. But how about this rude, condescending tone?

Because here’s the thing - Aimee Lou Wood is beautiful. By almost any standard! Her features are symmetrical! Her skin is clear! She’s not fat or visibly physically disabled or old or or or or. She still fits in! And even so, she’s being paraded around like LOOK AT THIS FUCKING FREAK WITH HER NATURAL TEETH. How is anyone else supposed to survive? When people slow clap and wipe a tear from their eye that Quasimodo is brave enough to put her face and gray hair on the internet to make TikTok videos about books?? Holy hell, what chance do mere mortals have???

In the British GQ feature of Aimee Lou Wood that the CNN post linked above leeched content from, Wood remarks on the conversation surrounding her teeth as opposed to discussion of her work. I completely understand her feelings. She spent six months in Thailand shooting prestige television and all anyone can talk about is her toofies. I would think about a book and then film a 3 minute video with my phone propped up in the corner of my window for the good light and would get a bunch of people commenting “OMG UR HAIR.” So we’re basically the same. The point is it’s annoying verging on discouraging to put something out there that you enjoyed making and would like to share as art or something like it but the conversation is diverted by gilded insults.

I met someone at a party3 and as we were getting to know each other she told me about how she met her husband. He’s Italian! Milanese, to be exact. When she met him, she was instantly captivated. She described him as “this gorgeous guy with the most incredible accent.” He was apparently equally entranced because they fell in love and got married and now they have a kid! I saw him following this conversation. And, Reader, I was also captivated. Because this guy is the most normal-looking man I’ve ever seen in all my days. His visage would have slid from my remembrance had I not had not known that someone thinks he is gorgeous. It is something I am enduringly charmed by. I love that she thinks he’s gorgeous. I am delighted by that.

In fact, I wish more people were more effusive in their compliments. Publicly! We should all be telling each other how beautiful we find each other all the time! Because we are!! Humans are adorable and glorious and enchanting! Why are we not telling everyone how gorgeous we think the real people we know are? I think that would go farther in encouraging people to not feel like they have to modify their appearances to achieve an unattainable, computer-generated countenance rather than bizarre, half-insulting flattery masquerading as inspirational #goals.

If we regularly praised the things that make us real people, expressed our delight in another’s physical being, then maybe these comments about teeth or hair or whatever wouldn’t feel so pointed. But that’s an aspiration and not reality so I’ll close with some tips on how to compliment a stranger without sounding like an asshole or a serial killer trying to wear their skin.

1. Refrain from commenting on something someone could not easily change. For example, TEETH.

2. If you want to say something and you are trying to be nice, keep it simple: “Your hair is cool.”

3. Make no qualifying follow-up statements. “I wish I could pull that off” is backhanded as hell. Never say that.

4. Run what you’re thinking of saying through your head as if someone else was saying it to you. If it would make you feel like shit, do not say it.

We arrive in bodies we did not choose. We do our best to make living in them as comfortable as possible. It’s not particularly easy. Try not to make it harder or weirder than it has to be.

Favorite Book

I am asking myself these questions and I have stumped myself on the first one. However, I’m the King of this Kingdom and I make the rules so I’ll pick however many favorites I want. Actually, just kidding, I figured it out.

Speaking of kings… Henry VIII is a little bich boi and I’m glad he had a nasty, oozing sore on his leg because he killed my best friend, TomCrom.

I finished The Mirror & the Light on January 1 and damb what a way to start a year. Of the three books in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, I think Bring Up the Bodies was the strongest, but Mantel absolutely aced the landing in The Mirror & the Light. She expertly conveyed the incredulity at Cromwell’s betrayal by absolute SNAKES IN THE GRASS who I will never forgive as long as I have breath in my body. Cromwell’s death scene was a masterpiece. Hilary, you goddess.

Favorite Show

It could only be White Lotus. And that’s not only because that’s the only show I’ve watched. I’ve actually watched TWO shows this quarter, thank you very much.

At time of writing, we’re 2 days out from the Season 3 Finale and I’m on pins and needles. If you’re not caught up and/or don’t want to speculate read no further.

I read this article: ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 7 Recap And Review: I’m Starting To Worry About This Show and while I acknowledge that yes, this is a slow burn, I disagree that that is a problem. I also don’t think Season 1 is better than Season 2, but I digress. White Lotus is not a murder mystery, despite the requisite dead body in the opening scene. It’s a slow-motion train wreck. In fact, I would contend that the brilliance of this show is in the fact that so little is happening and yet it’s incredibly compelling to watch. Parker Posey and Jason Isaac and their perfect accents alone are a wonder.

I think Gaitok dies and I want Timothy to join the monastery. We’ll see!!

Favorite Movie

I watched The Count of Monte Cristo (2024) on a plane. I actually watched it on 2 planes because I watched half on the way to France and then spent a week dying that I stopped in the middle so I watched the other half on the way home from France. It all felt very appropriate and wonderful.

I haven’t watched the 2002 adaptation in many years and I haven’t read the book in even longer, so my remembrance of the details of the plot are murky at best. While I did enjoy the 2002 adaptation, Baby Haley had beef with the liberties taken with the plot. Based on my own vague recollections about my previous opinions, the 2024 adaptation was a closer telling of the novel. I’m still not entirely thrilled with the ending - while I’m glad Edmond and Mercedes didn’t rekindle anything, I liked that Edmond and Haydee started a new life together in the book. Albert is annoying! I said it! I think I want to work in a re-read of the novel to sharpen up my feelings and then I want to re-watch the movie. Because all in all, the movie ruled. Righteous indignation and elaborate revenge plans are what dreams are made of.

Favorite Hobby

Favorite hobby is a tie between my Valentine’s yarn pompom wreath (left) and my precious crops (right). The pompom wreath was adorable and fun to piece together. My crops are steadily growing and I love to check on them and see how everyone’s doing. I’m growing tomatoes and beans for edibles and a multitude of flowers for fun. I’m very proud of my flowers as most of them are growing from seeds I collected out of last season’s garden. And my tomatoes are heritage plants from 2 years ago that I’ve miraculously kept alive. Pruning is very important! I’m an expert gardener, so this is the kind of secret knowledge I am happy to pass along.

Biggest Surprise

I took a Brother Recommendation and, as much as this pains me to admit, he was right. The book was good.

The Blacktongue Thief was truly delightful fantasy and exactly the kind I like - the magic is none of your business and we’re very busy adventuring with a rag-tag band of companions. Buehlman doesn’t care if you get attached because the story is going where it’s going and people drop in and out of the narrative in sometimes shocking, sometimes obvious ways. I laughed, I gasped, I welled up. It was a great time.

Corey is still a piece of shit though because this book is the first in an unfinished series.

Biggest Disappointment

Oh man, my biggest disappointment bar none is the Apple TV+ adaptation of The Essex Serpent (2022).

The novel The Essex Serpent was in contention for my favorite book above but since I have another chance to talk about it I decided to hold off until now. Sarah Perry is the exact kind of weird I like. I wrote about it already. I adore her. See below:

Reading The Essex Serpent was such a transcendent experience and I wasn’t ready to let it go and I have a ginormous crush on Tom Hiddleston so I laid aside my usual contempt for all things visual media and decided to be A Sport about the show.

I shouldn’t have done that. At first, I thought we were going to be ok. The first few episodes capture the eeriness of the novel in a way that impressed me and gave me hope. And the performances were great! Tom Hiddleston, you lanky, tortured king! But the show lost me when I’m supposed to believe that Cora Seaborne, as played by ethereal beauty Claire Danes, is possibly a brilliant scientist but is also possibly an idiot? Book Cora is not stupid. Book Cora just doesn’t give a shit. Show Cora Doesn’t Know She’s Beautiful. Show Cora is a perpetual victim of everyone being in love with her.

In the book, Cora and Will have chemistry that burns your fingers touching the page. My spouse, who understands social situations, said Show Cora and Will had chemistry. I think he was wrong, my inability to read nonverbal queues aside. I was getting siblings from them. And while we are supposed to feel like these two are Kindred Spirits, the show was giving nothing that made boning in broad daylight on the ground seem like an inevitability.

Honestly though, what bothered me the most was none of those things. The show includes Stella Ransome’s Lady of Shalott attempt and Will’s rescue. Will and Cora have the tiniest baby conversation about how Will loves Cora and Stella and they go their separate ways, as they also do in the book. HOWEVER, Stella succumbs to her consumption and dies in Will’s arms. He is distraught. Six months later, a length of time the show apparently deems respectable, Will ambles over to Cora’s Feminism Paleontology Camp where they grin at each other and then walk down the road holding hands.

To which I responded, “well that was bullshit.” Because, Reader, it was bullshit. The book is about tension and the expanding capacities of love and how love exists wider and deeper and broader and bigger if we let it. YES, Will loves Cora and he also loves Stella. YES, Martha loves Cora and she also loves the Stabbed Guy. YES, Luke loves Cora and surgery and when he can’t have either he throws the best, most dramatic fit of all and they didn’t even include ANY OF IT. Spencer is a loyal, rich sweetheart who loves Martha and Luke and THERE’S SO MUCH LOVE IN SO MANY DIRECTIONS AND THE SHOW WHIFFED SO HARD.

They tried too hard to make the characters likeable and understandable and they twisted themselves into the stupidest knot over it and fully missed the point of the book. And this is why I don’t watch TV. Just read the book.

Something I Was Wrong About

That my kids would go crazy for fondue. They didn’t. They’re insane.

Something Very Fun and Cool

The Reformed Rakes asked me back on their podcast! To talk about one of my favorite books! The Countess Conspiracy is an all time great for me and I could have talked for easily twice as long as we did.

Other

I have to say - since I’ve stopped book influencing or whatever I was doing and prioritized just reading whatever I want, I’m having so much more fun with what I’m reading. The pressure’s off! I can read whatever I want and talk about it if I so choose! I do maybe a little bit miss the exercise of synthesizing my thoughts on what I read but I could also do that here with a little more effort. However, I have discovered The The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild so that’s kind of taking up a lot of my time. These shrine puzzles aren’t going to solve themselves.

Bride to the King by Chels

sex, romance, and adolescence by Sanjana

I was raised evangelical, which means Purity Culture was a significant influence over my teen years. If you’re lucky enough to be unfamiliar with Purity Culture, the basic idea is that God desires sexual purity in his people. Which means that sexual desires outside the bounds of heterosexual marriage (one man, one woman, for life) are sinful and to be resisted. Within the bounds of heterosexual marriage, the rules loosen up as long as the same one man and one woman are the only sexual participants and no one does anything too weird1.

Adolescents, notoriously one of the horniest populations, are encouraged not to date. But if they do date, then they shouldn’t kiss. And if they do kiss, it shouldn’t lead to touching each other over OR under clothes. And speaking of touching, DO NOT TOUCH YOURSELF. And above all, even though you should not be horny with the opposite sex, you REALLY, REALLY should not be horny with the same sex.

The root of all this, as with most of the bizarre shit the evangelicals get up to, is grifters positioning themselves as the mouthpiece of God, ready with divine revelation to make your life better and more pleasing to the Lord. All you have to do is buy their books and their seminars and their merch and attend their conferences and do everything they say!

An often-repeated phrase is the admonition “guard your heart and mind.” Guarding the heart and mind means closing oneself off to any influences that may cause one to stumble. Which is church-speak for anything that could cause a person to do something unsanctioned by the church.

It should come as no surprise that Public Enemy No. 1 re: guarding your heart and mind is porn. Porn is a Top Tier Sin. Shaming and guilting porn viewers is a favorite past time. All manner of bad behavior is pinned on porn “addictions.2” But there’s another force at work, putting ideas in people’s heads (especially women’s heads) and making them unhappy with their lot - romance media.

Watching romantic movies and reading romantic novels and being generally interested in romance, according to evangelical cultural norms, sets women up for disappointment. Romance media teaches women to expect more than a real, human, flawed man could possibly provide. (These are the same reasons porn is forbidden.) Being swept off one’s feet by a lover who is attentive and caring is just not realistic so why even fill that pretty little head such that nonsense?

These are the arguments of losers who do not understand romance nor have ever picked up a romance novel nor have ever listened to anyone besides themselves as they make out with their own reflection in the mirror.

But the Purity Culture Grifters need pleasure-seeking to be the issue, rather than the systems Purity Culture itself upholds. Pleasure in general is taboo in the Evangelical Church, although the establishment actively resists that sentiment being widely broadcast. Evangelical Thought-Leader and Evil Emperor Zurg, John Piper, coined the term “Christian Hedonism” which is the idea that the Christian brings God the most glory when they are the most satisfied in Him and therefore the pursuit of satisfaction in God should be the Christian’s highest aim.

To that end, pleasures that do not bring glory to God should not only not be pursued, but should be actively avoided. These unsanctioned pleasures can literally be anything and a popular exercise is holding fellow church members “accountable” by asking how a desired activity or action would be God-honoring. While enjoying a story about people falling in love and possibly engaging in mutually pleasurable sex within or without the bonds of marriage is an activity that is not often considered God-honoring because of the content, Evangelical Grifters have created a workaround for people who like love stories but want to be able to tell their Bible Study friends what they’re reading without blushing. Enter the Christian Romance!

Christian Romance is a preachy sub-category within genre romance. The characters behave in morally righteous ways throughout the narrative and when they don’t, they pray and ask God for forgiveness and vow to turn from their wicked ways. The kisses, if there are kisses, are chaste. The sex scenes are implied or closed door and only after marriage. Although there was this one I read about a girl who gave it all up to some dashing cowboy who left her after he got what he wanted and she spent the whole book feeling guilty and full of shame that she wouldn’t be pure for her husband and then guess what the main guy who was her true love forgave her and helped her find the Lord. So that’s an acceptable story line too. As long as any moral failing is adequately repented of and the requisite pound of flesh extracted, it’s fine to have a character do something maybe a little bad. The text is littered with Bible verses and central conflict is usually about how one of the love interests isn’t close enough with God. More important than the characters deepening their on-page relationship, is for the reader to feel inspired to deepen their off-page relationship to God.

But if Christian fiction is inspirational, it’s still not completely acceptable. I was not allowed to read Redeeming Love when it came out because it was frivolous. Never mind that the book is a retelling of the story of the prophet Hosea, who the Lord instructs to marry a sex worker to live out the allegory of God pursuing his faithless people. Why not just read the Bible instead and think about how God loves you in spite of your barfbag sinful ways!? Romance, even Christian Romance, is at best a waste of time and at worst an opening for the world to infiltrate the mind of an innocent and lead unto temptation.

I was in early college when the first Twilight movie came out and my college church group did not escape the fever that gripped the nation - nay, the WORLD. In spite of the tsk-ing disapproval from church leaders, we couldn’t get enough. We were feral. A friend of mine would read while she drove (and she drove a manual). One mentor read it and described it as eating a bunch of sugary candy - exciting but not ultimately beneficial. Another who read it had a far more negative view: her concern was that reading the story (authored by a practicing, conservative Mormon) of Bella and her teenaged old man vampire boyfriend who is in love with her smelly blood would teach us young girls that it is ok to lie in bed with boys. Quelle horreur!!

To the Evangelical, whose foundational belief is that the Bible is the literal, inspired, inerrant Word of God and “useful for teaching, correcting, and training in righteousness3,” the idea that a text can exist purely for entertainment with no other end besides enjoyment is unthinkable. Their world, their thoughts, and all their actions are centered on using the Bible as an instructional guide for life. And when a group of people refuse to see the allegory and metaphor in one text, taking it literally at all times, why would that attitude not extend to other forms of media?

If everything exists to teach some kind of moral lesson, it’s not hard to see how romance media becomes didactic as well. However, this is a fundamental misunderstanding4 of the purpose of fiction. Fiction does not exist to teach. Fiction explores, questions, wonders, and expands. All art is not intended as a parable. Certainly, the reader can glean meaning from the work but the beauty is that not all readers take the same thing away. To require a piece of fiction to perfectly align with a rigid set of morals in order for it to be considered legitimate sterilizes the art. The sanitized stories that fit these strict parameters are insipid and toothless. If the content is bland enough to be palatable to everyone, what does that leave you with? A pre-masticated story with tidy characters that have neither edges nor dimension.

Interestingly enough, it is not only the Evangelical Moms who wring their hands over the State of Romance Content, worrying what these books are teaching impressionable folk and inventing increasingly ridiculous hypotheticals about ways a book can cause harm. Even self-proclaimed Romance Lovers are not immune from pearl clutching about appropriate portrayals of sex in literature. Eerily similar to the Evangelical Mom, the Canva Infographic Scholar is deeply concerned with which characters are having sex and if that sex is acceptable to be depicted in print. Is the text glorifying the Right Kind of sex? Are Bad Characters adequately punished? Does the work have sufficient representation of the appropriate groups? Is the author morally righteous enough to be allowed to tell a tale? Is the story “safe”?

Shuffle the buzzwords but the sentiments are the same. The worry that virgin college students might nonchalantly lay in bed together and the worry that a bodice ripper will teach women that they should stay with an abuser are two sides of the same coin. And frankly, it’s a stupid coin. Does The Lord of the Rings teach readers to go on year-long walks with friends to throw jewelry into volcanoes? Does The Count of Monte Cristo instruct one to switch places with one’s dead mentor to escape wrongful imprisonment, become unimaginably wealthy, and methodically seek vengeance against those who conspired to bring about one’s ruin? Does reading The Bridge to Terabithia result in a marked increase in rope-swing related drownings???

Why Romance is consistently analyzed as an instructional genre over other genres is an essay for another time and probably a more learned author than I. But what I am learned about is resisting the inner Evangelical Mom who lives within us all. She is an impulse we must learn to control. Because righteous indignation does feel good, even if it makes you sound like a huge dork. ACAB applies to the Horniness Police, too. Sex and love and relationships are complicated and cobbled together in imperfect ways. Authors should write them as such. Romance authors seem to be more afraid of being guilty of imperfect representation than they are of writing a stupid, boring book. My kingdom for a short hero who is actually mean to people and doesn’t magically learn to be nice when the person he wants to fuck shows him how to open his eyes to life! What if a heroine cheated and got pregnant and then kept the baby and raised the child with her significant other and the whole book was about them repairing their relationship and everyone was happy? Write it, you cowards!

I think there may be something to the discomfort that the Evangelical Mom feels when faced with content they find objectionable. Something in the text brings up a Bad Feeling that has nowhere to go and an impotent Bad Feeling will push against its enclosure until it finds a way out. And the pent up, smoldering Bad Feeling leaves a burnt path in its wake as that potential energy must be channelized in a direction. The direction is usually the text and the vague evil that would cause a person to make up a pretend story where everything isn’t ideal. Because it’s far easier to wage war against words on a page than against the systems that hold us in place. Criticizing a teen novel for introducing teens to sexuality requires much less effort than advocating for comprehensive sex education and access to contraceptives and resources for reproductive heath. Dubious consent in books is not why people stay with their abusers. There are countless reasons people stay and none of them are simple to overcome. Romance novels don’t make women hate their husbands and get divorced. Terrible husbands who hold to oppressive power structures and are bad at sex are able to do that all by themselves.

But if we can just not look at it, if we can ignore the things that gave us the Bad Feelings in the first place, then we won’t have to think about them. If we can find a source for Why Things Are Bad and the source is a certain type of book, then the problem is solved! Laying systemic issues that perpetuate unhappiness at the feet of seeking pleasure in romance absolves responsibility to address the structure itself. Evangelicalism doesn’t want women to know they can orgasm or tell a man “no” or be independent. Evangelicalism would prefer that a person not think at all than to think incorrectly. Don’t fall into that trap.