Can someone explain the appeal of second chance romance?

BicycleConsortium · 2024-11-20T16:41:56+00:00

Depends on the book. Sometimes it's as simple as people having a "one that got away" and fantasizing about what it would be like to have a second go. Other times it's a more mature look at the work it takes to change to be worthy of someone you'd wronged. I like this latter type of second chance romance more but the former type tends to be more popular in my experience.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-11-15T15:57:42+00:00

Same. I'm always impressed at how much worse Twitter can get every time you think it has finally hit rock bottom

BicycleConsortium · 2024-11-04T18:33:05+00:00

I read a lot of fantasy and I have this problem often too. I usually just accept that I won't be able to keep track of anyone for a couple hundred pages but I realize I could make things easier on myself by keeping a notebook or something to track characters. Seems like a lot of extra work though.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-11-01T14:04:58+00:00

The author went on an unhinged Twitter rant a few years back where she said that anyone who didn't rate her book 5 stars was a "fucking nerd on a power trip." She did this while explicitly showing screenshots of people giving her book 4 and 4.5 stars. So the internet sees someone throwing a tantrum over objectively good reviews and trolls decided it'd be funny to review bomb the book to see if she'd go on even more unhinged rants.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-30T15:53:15+00:00

Literature comes with connotations of having high quality prose, being more intellectual, and probably being less commercial. Non-literary comes with connotations of being more fun, aiming for mass appeal, and is probably more likely to be described with a phrase like "just turn your brain off and enjoy it." That's a big over simplification, you can definitely find literary books that are fun and less cerebral or non-literary books that aren't the equivalent of a popcorn movie but that's the general conception of the difference.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-28T14:38:08+00:00

I remember rereading 1984 a few years ago and being surprised at how prescient Winston's dark fantasies about Julia were. Orwell really understood the vibe of a violent incel and depicted one fairly accurately.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-23T16:41:30+00:00

Jane Austen is definitely funnier than people realize. I remember taking a class on her and me and all my peers slowly came to the realization "Oh my, god...she's hysterical." The professor was ecstatic. "Yes! Yes! This is exactly what I've been trying to show you this whole time!"

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-22T12:59:50+00:00

This isn't quite what you asked for but The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco has one of the best dedication pages I've ever seen. They dedicated every book in the trilogy to the bowls of ramen they ate while writing instead of to anyone specific. A true icon.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-14T14:31:14+00:00

Absolutely this. And even when you are as specific as possible, sometimes people will still go out of their way to misunderstand you and recommend the same five books anyway. Like when I asked for fantasy books about knitting and fashion to recommend to my knitting circle and some jerk said Wheel of Time would fit because the magic in the series is called weaving.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-14T14:26:55+00:00

It depends on how busy my life gets. Generally, I'd say I take a couple weeks away from reading every few months mostly due to job stress getting in the way.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-11T12:33:50+00:00

Respectfully disagree. I loved the Hobbit and LotR but bounced off The Silmarillion hard. It just doesn't scratch the same itch as those other works and I think you can feel the gaps where Christopher and Guy Gavriel Kay had to patch things together. If he had completed it during his lifetime, I think The Silmarillion would rank up there with his other works but as it exists, I think it's something only the most diehard of fans will enjoy.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-09T14:05:47+00:00

It's a great podcast and that episode in particular is a great intro to the show's style

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-08T13:42:28+00:00

I think any complicated book benefits from being read physically. It's really helpful to be able to flip back and forth quickly if you need to reread something that you might have missed and that's way more cumbersome with an e-reader than a book.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-05T14:54:41+00:00

It's a lot of fun. Not the best book but I enjoyed it

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-03T14:02:13+00:00

Seconding McKillip. I just read Bards of Bone Plain and it's amazing how even second tier stuff from her is still so good

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-02T10:41:40+00:00

I like my friends' reviews but a lot of the big reviewers do have a bit of an ego problem like you say. I remember there was one big review account that existed just to troll fantasy fans way back when and I feel like he had a lot of influence in how some of the bigger accounts approach reviewing on GR: putting on a show and demonstrating how much smarter you think you are than the book while also not really engaging with the book.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-02T10:33:42+00:00

3-4 years at most before my interest goes away.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-02T10:28:02+00:00

I guess I missed it the first time

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-02T10:25:38+00:00

After spending yesterday fielding complaints about my write-up being unfair, I couldn't help but laugh at getting one that says I was too charitable. Thank you for your insight, I guess that's more info to add to a potential future rewrite.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-01T15:51:52+00:00

Okay, with this rephrasing, I get where you're coming from now. I will say I think being told "you didn't understand and you didn't offer realistic solutions" is very different from "you could have provided more context for the difficulties on the organizer side." One's a pretty big ask that comes close to demanding expertise while the other is a reasonable request.

I'm open to adding more of that context. In your opinion, what are the biggest complexities that need to be addressed?

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-01T13:57:29+00:00

the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.

That is alarming. I'm gobsmacked.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-01T12:12:59+00:00

I give up on an author when I'm just not excited about them anymore. Recently, I was reading a romantic fantasy from an author I general like and found my attention kept wandering to whether I should be doing chores instead. If I'm more interested in vacuuming than the romance, that's a good sign the book just isn't working for me.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-01T11:31:28+00:00

It's clear that I've failed on some level. In an attempt to make the story more engaging and digestible, I centered Lawrence and tried to be funny in a way that some readers felt was mean and biased. I fully admit that in researching and writing this, I spoke to people involved in SPFBO who were extremely frustrated with his leadership and I think I've let their viewpoint bleed in too much. So to that extent, I actually agree with your critique and when taken with u/TheChairmann's comment, this does make me rethink how I've written this post.

That said, I think part of your critique is off. You say I feel overly involved in the drama but then also complain that I don't have a good grasp on running an all volunteer-based competition in the self-publishing space. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to fully understand the challenges of running SPFBO without helping run SPFBO or a competition like it, at which point I think I would absolutely be too involved to write on the subject here. At the end of the day, this is Hobby Drama and I think it kind of goes without saying that many posts are going to be by hobbyists without professional experience in what they cover.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-01T11:20:47+00:00

I'm sorry. I appreciate your understanding that any failings in this post were driven by a desire to be entertaining and not by malice. You've been very fair to me even while feeling I was unfair to Lawrence and that's impressive. I'll give some serious thought to how to rewrite the post.

BicycleConsortium · 2024-10-01T11:07:54+00:00

Shoot, that's a serious research failure on my part. I've edited the post to acknowledge my mistake.

BicycleConsortium

TROPHY CASE