Tag: literary criticism
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Why Do We Keep Using Minority Languages to Spice Up Fantasy Books?
By now, if you’re a fantasy-lover who’s on TikTok, you’ve probably seen this stitch. In the above link, a Scottish BookTocker named Muireann (username: ceartguleabhar) tears Fourth Wing author Rebecca Yarros a new one for her pronunciation of the Gaelic names used throughout her book. If you haven’t heard of Fourth Wing, it is a…
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The “Spicification” of YA Novels
If you’ve been on Goodreads lately (or any other book-reviewing website), you may have seen a lot of reviews mentioning a book’s “spice level.” Most commonly seen in YA or romance novel reviews, the “spice level” is the amount of sexy or erotic scenes in the book. Essentially, the spice level lets you know if…
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My Personal Reading Soft Spots
After I wrote my second reading pet peeves post, I realized I should probably add some positive content about things that I really like to see when I’m reading a book. Sometimes when you’re reading, there are certain aspects or inclusions that will just make you enjoy a book a little bit more than if…
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My Biggest Reading Pet Peeves: Part 2
It’s time for some more complaining. I think anyone who reads extensively gathers a lot of pet peeves along the way. When you read a lot, you see that a lot of authors will commit the same faux paus or use the same tropes, and the more you read the more recognizable these patterns become.…
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Writing Tip #2: Purple Prose
Purple prose is a term that’s developed over the last decade or so to describe writing that is so overly ornate, dramatic, over-the-top, etc. that it draws attention to itself, thus pulling the reader out of the story. This style of writing has become more popular over the years (although there are several classic writers…
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The Stephanie Meyer/E. L. James Debacle
I’ve thought about this a LOT. Every time I hear about either Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey (which, quite frankly, is just too often) I think about how the latter began as a fanfiction of the former and E. L. James did little to make this less obvious before publishing her books. The fact…
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The Alchemist and “Wine-mom Spirituality”
I am sure we have all heard that The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is one of those life-changing novels I told you all to be wary of in another post (specifically my review of Greenlights, which you can find here: link). Last year, I set out to read it to see if my life would…
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New Moon: A Defense of Bella Swan’s Depression
Yeah, this isn’t a post I thought I’d ever write either. I’ve been saving it for a week when I’m too busy to sit down and write something better. It turns out this is that week, so here you go. It’s also fitting in that when this goes up I’ll be driving through Utah, home…