It’s Not You, It’s Them…

Inexplicably Popular Books, quality smut, and the pleasures of the Bathroom Read.

I have DNF’ed an embarrassing number of books so far this year. So much so that I’d probably have hit my annual reading goal already.

I used to feel guilty about this but, as I discussed in my previous post on the joys of the DNF, life is too short to read crap. It’s also too short to gaslight yourself into reading stuff just because it’s popular and actually thinking it’s good. Sometimes millions of people really can be wrong.

Thus, I present here my list of books whose popularity confuse me, and for which I just didn’t have a constitution strong enough to finish.

• The Orc Sworn Series – I’m a big aficionado of monster romance, do not get me wrong. It’s not like I’m averse to monster sex (though I do try to limit myself to anthropomorphic humanoid with faces….I can’t imagine myself fucking anything with a dog head). It’s for that reason that I know I’m not missing something with this series. I’ve tried three times to read different volumes in this highly popular series and failed three times to finish them. My problems with it are pretty simple – the characters (heroines included) are for the most part unlikeable, there’s way too much focus on the breeding kink aspect, and they are far too long by half. I could excuse the literal buckets of cum in the absence of the aforementioned faults, but having attempted to read three of these books and found nothing distinguishable about any of them, I’m positive that I’m not missing anything here. I don’t like Mariana Zapata-esque levels of slowburn, but I do appreciate a little build-up to the good stuff, if you know what I mean. I’ve always found instalove and fated-mates tropes to be incredibly lazy and it’s basically a big red flag that’s it’s going to be a low effort book filled with lots of filler-fucking and not much else. These are no exception.
• Gothikana – Never was I more disappointed in a KU read than I was with this one. This is a great example of a well-written blurb that sucks you in with promises of goth-tinged dark academia smut and then reveals its true colors (nothing appealing, by the way). Thankfully it didn’t take long. Here you have shallow characters, an unconvincing and poorly constructed premise, virginity kinks (a big ick for me on a personal level), shady power dynamics between the FMC and MMC, and dubious consent. Now, I know all of these things can be appreciated on their own merits, but they’ve never been my bag. Again, these are things I’m certainly willing to overlook if the story behind it is otherwise strong, but it’s not. This book reeks of a great concept with a flimsy framework sitting behind it. It’s like a gorgeous mansion with beautifully kept grounds that turns out to be rotting and bug-infested on the inside.
• Craving in His Blood – This one might actually be more disappointing than Gothikana because its predecessor (“Desire in His Blood”) was basically everything I love about monster romance – a definitely non-human but just human enough MMC, copious and excellent smut, and a relationship that had just enough tension and build-up that the payoff was *chef’s kiss* when you finally got there (and it didn’t take as long as you think). It’s also a great example of a “fated mates” trope that is tolerable because it stands on a very strong and well-developed foundation (a revenge plot). This second volume, however, leans far too heavily on the biological aspect of the trope to the point where I lost interest long before I got to the point where I could see if the MMC actually came to appreciate the FMC for who she was beyond what she smelled like. The trope on its own isn’t strong enough to sustain a full-length novel for me, but it can work when layered with something else.
• Sworn to the Shadow God – Another situation where I loved the first volume of the series (Aspect and Anchor) and the second one fell flat, so flat that I haven’t even bothered to see if I could appreciate the next couple of volumes. I hated this one, again, because I like to earn my smut, not have it handed to me free and clear (that’s what porn is for). I think any book that focuses on non-traditional aspects of a female character’s physicality crosses the border into fetish-land for me and thus causes me to immediately lose interest. The FMC is flat-chested, okay, but does it need to be mentioned once a page? Does she need to talk down about herself? Also, what was an interesting concept (the MMC’s embodying the aspect of their “sin”, in the case of book one, anger, in the case of book two, lies) was annoying to the point of major distraction. Try reading a book where the MMC, who is on the page A LOT, mind you, talks basically in opposites, and this is KNOWN by the FMC yet she constantly believes what he says and uses it as an opportunity to mentally beat the shit out of herself, and tell me you can make it all the way through without throwing your Kindle across the room in frustration. Go ahead, I’m waiting.

All of the above considered, I’m not opposed to mindless drivel, aka “The Bathroom Read”. I appreciate not having to think too much about what I’m reading and just enjoy the ride, but such an attitude from me requires a stronger backbone than “he can’t explain why he wants her so much, just that he does. Okay? Now let’s proceed with the sex.” If that’s all I was after, I’d read short vignettes that are nothing but sex-scenes. They’re out there, I’ve done it, and I’ve enjoyed it. A novel and a novella are different entities for a reason, and I can’t abide a book that is basically something that would work as a novella stretched out to novel length in much the same way those orc-wieners stretch impossibly dainty human vaginas.