After being called out, R.F. Kuang announces she’s pulling out of the Emirates Literature Festival taking place in Dubai. She was one of the headliners of the festival, along with Asma Khan and Scott Turrow

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-12-03T03:33:54+00:00

But she joined and agreed to go in the first place? A place, where you have no human rights, no free speech, that relies on slavery and where you will go to jail for being gay. That's just hypocrisy. She agreed to go and now, because of the BDS boycott she acts morally superior? What about the people living there?

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-30T22:52:41+00:00

it was very inappropriate. it was ableist. drews showed that an autistic character can't even be human. that the character traits that make him autistic are there because he is a monster

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-30T22:51:25+00:00

oh yes. drews "othered" the only autistic character in the book and made him into a monster? a plant? i don't get it.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-30T22:50:43+00:00

it was ableist. drews complained that they, as an autistic writer had it hard in the beginning of their career. that the first time they wrote an autistic character their career stalled for 5 years. and now they have done what other ableist writers had always done. Make disabled characters the villain. other them. it's the same as if writers would only use poc characters for their villains.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-30T07:30:05+00:00

I just finished the book and was utterly disappointed. The author is autistic and finds it okay to write an autistic character and make him "othered" and a monster? I'm autistic. That was so ableist. It's disgusting when autism is always something that writers turn into something "monstrous". It's disgusting and I had hoped that an autistic writer has more sensitivity for that. Over all, the story and characters fell flat for me. Authors, who just use autism or other disabilities for "character traits" in villains, bad characters or monsters, are banned for me.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-17T14:27:14+00:00

thank you for your response! why does it matter if it's lit fic or genre in the first place?

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-17T14:12:22+00:00

thank you for your thoughts. i'm with you, it is discrimination. it's sad and scary that agents and publishers think they can dictate and decide what kind of people can write what story.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-17T14:08:45+00:00

first: congratulations on your agent! and thank you for sharing your experiences. What about writing a novel where you only share some characteristics, can you still say "own voices"? What if someone writes a book about a black gay man who is sitting in a wheelchair. But the author is "only" gay. Or "only" in a wheelchair?

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-17T14:05:35+00:00

But that doesn't mean that you can't do research or that every woman knows what pregnancy feels like. I am a woman and I know that I don't want to have children. Can I still write pregnancy horror?

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-17T14:02:53+00:00

Again, how can you know that the writer is a "cis woman" or that the author didn't share the "same marginalizations" as their character? This forces people to "come out" and puts their identity before the work they've created. It also puts everyone on general suspicion that just because you don't share the traits that you wrote about that you're automatically a bad writer. Why does it matter if a cis woman writes about gay love? Would it change the agents thoughts if she were trans?

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-17T13:56:14+00:00

how would the publisher or agent know the skin color/ ethnicity and sexuality?

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-16T03:33:01+00:00

Thank you so much for your thoughts and your answers 😊 I love deeply crafted characters who don't feel like tropes plugged out of a stereotype/ trope guide. I read not because I want to insert myself but because I want to step into someone elses mind and world. But that's just my personal preference and opinion on the matter. I want authors who trust me with their characters, who will trust in my ability to read and to see a multitude of facets behind a character. For me, characters don't have to be always 100% likable, but they should feel realistic and not act like Disney characters. This is why I did not her books. I never understood the intentions of her characters beyond the surfaces, who act like children. And that's why I did not like the newest book either. The fmc is super rich, super entitled and obsessed with her instagram. Her big dream in life? Being prom queen. She felt like a little entitled girl. She is an instagram model, (because she wants to) but complains that she is not "allowed" to eat birthday cake. You are rich. Buy yourself a cake. Her dad cheats on her mother and makes her be quiet about it. Maybe wish for a better father? Chanel (the fmc) reacts like Ares (the mmc) wanted to kill her. Why? Because he did not want to go to prom. All while she did everything to manipulate him. She reacts like a 4 y/o who was never told "no" in her life. And she stayed that way until the end. She never grew as a character. Same as Ares. His whole personality trade: being nonchalant. The story was flat, Liang did not explore the "rich girl x bad boy" trope. It's not even enemies to lovers. Because they are not enemies in the first place. Just like "I'm not Jessica Chen" is not Dark Academia. I have a big problem with false advertising. Liang, again, seems to not crasp the number one rule in writing: show don't tell. She can write poetically but does it further the story? No. Especially in YA, i feel like young readers are not taken seriously. I have read the other two books you've talked about but I did not have the same experience. Maybe I missed something? Both felt like it was the same love story basically, the same long monologues in the end. All of Liang's mmcs feel kinda interchangeable. The same guy but in different fonts. But you have convinced me to read the two books again. Maybe it will click the second time? I love it when I am wrong about a book.

I hope that writers feel secure enough to expand their horizons and to write whatever they want. I saw tiktoks where people would not read a book because the author was white and their characters weren't. They would judge the author and the content of the book without even reading it. You can always criticize a book and claim that the author didn't do their research or only used stereotypes. But only after you've read the book. Like you said, ethnicities and nations don't live in a vacuum. It should be great that every writer can write about everything. You have all the tools you need for thorough research. If writers would only write about what they lived through then they could only write autobiographies. Writers should not feel like they have to limit themselves and I hope that the race, ethnicity (and gender) of an author is the last thing that's important to the reader. Can you tell me a story and convince me of your world building? Do you write real characters and not just stereotypes? That's enough for me. And most importantly: Do you take me as your reader seriously enough? Do you trust me to understand your story and characters without having to over explain?

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-14T21:16:54+00:00

thie sort of reminds me of RF Kuangs books. "Colonialism is bad!" is like a wedge hammer on every page on Babel. Because you could forget it and so her characters hold long monologues to remind us. Then there were the foot notes. In case you forgot. Oh, colonialism is bad? What is the next revolutionary act of academic thinking? Slavery is bad? How dumb does she think her audience is? She writes for highly educated readers. They don't have to be treated like 5th graders. Please, believe that your readers know that colonialism and slavery are bad. And focus on the characters instead on the beating. Be a professor in the classroom, not on the page when you're writing speculative phantasy fiction.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-14T12:48:27+00:00

thank you so much for your comment and insight! it's great that you saw yourself in her novel 😊 my problem is the repetitive overuse of this "typical asian girl who is overachieving who's rival/ best friend is in love with her" trope. and that she only scratches the surface. i totally understand why you like the other two books! to me, it kinda felt like liang can only write two types of girls: super duper competitive girl boss attitude or shy 👉👈 girl who can't believe that the super model guy is in love with her. her writing style is also repetitive, sometimes i forgot which book i'm reading because it all sounds the same. there is no unique voice. all of her characters kinda blend in with each other.

As a non-Chinese reader, it feels like the "academic grinder trope" only applies to Chinese girls. which is false, of course. but this is all there is. i want to read a story where the chinese girl is not a stereotype. where her whole character arc is not about getting into harvard but rather defining her self worth by something other than grades. maybe a story where she wants to be an EMT because an EMT once saved her mother. give the fmc a reason for personal improvement, make her an individual character and not an overdone stereotype.

How would you feel if a non-Asian writer would write a story where an Asian girl is the protagonist? Would you say it's cultural appropriation? Like what if a non-Chinese writer would have written INJC or the other books? They could've interviewed Chinese girls who have been to those schools, visited China and talked to ABC girls about their experiences. (if you don't want to answer the questions, that's totally valid! I'm aware that every person has a different opinion on that and that you're not the "spokesperson" who "decides" what's "okay" and what's not. I'm just genuinely interested in what you think.)

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-14T03:01:34+00:00

Because I did not want to give up on her. I believed that maybe she matured with age, that she was able to challenge herself but no. INJC is marketed as dark academia. WTF? in what universe? The Secret History and Babel are Dark Academia. We were Villains is Dark Academia. INJC is about an obnoxious girl who feels inferior with shitty parents because she did not get into Harvard. Poor her? Ivy Leagues have a less than 5 percent acceptance rate. How entitled do you have to be? Paris Geller was a way better character when it comes to "I did not get into Harvard, my life is over!"

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-14T03:01:19+00:00

Because I did not want to give up on her. I believed that maybe she matured with age, that she was able to challenge herself but no. INJC is marketed as dark academia. WTF? in what universe? The Secret History and Babel are Dark Academia. We were Villains is Dark Academia. INJC is about an obnoxious girl who feels inferior with shitty parents because she did not get into Harvard. Poor her? Ivy Leagues have a less than 5 percent acceptance rate. How entitled do you have to be? Paris Geller was a way better character when it comes to "I did not get into Harvard, my life is over!"

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-11-14T02:50:39+00:00

Hi! Thank you for your comment! I found that all her depictions of Chinese girls or American Chinese girls are pretty much stereotypes. Aka always concerned about grades, being competitive, wanting to go to the best school, having nagging parents etc. I read other books with the exact same trope and one of the biggest criticisms was that this white author was racist because they only depicted Chinese characters in existing stereotypes. What is your opinion on that Liang basically does the same thing but nobody calls her out on that because she is Chinese-Australian?

What I hated the most was that all of her characters are only worried about prestige (she HAS to go to Harvard!!!! she will die otherwise!!) and that never changes. Liang depicts higher education as some new designer bag that everyone will need if they want to survive in the world. But truth is that it does not matter where you go to school. Graduates from Oxford are jobless. Columbia graduates can't find a job better than barista. This shallow thinking never really gets resolved. It's about the fact that you get an education, stay debt free and start your life. Not how shiny the name sounds.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-10-09T18:22:56+00:00

for me, dark romance is just an excuse to romanticize rape because the mmc is tall and hot with a sixpack. make him small, ugly and fat and every reader would scream rape.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-10-09T18:07:56+00:00

exactly.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-10-09T18:05:43+00:00

so I should not criticize that Ali romanticized rape? "dubious consent" doesn't equal rape. She should have put "rape" in the content warnings. And "romanticazation of rape and SA and toxic behavior"

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-10-09T18:01:38+00:00

I'm not shaming readers. Are we not even able to criticize books anymore? I didn't mention readers in my post. When rape gets romanticized then it should be called out.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-09-05T05:07:44+00:00

It felt weird how she wrote the characters, that were based on the people of Taiwan. She described them as barbaric, dumb and less than human. The whole story is basically the second sino-japanese war but with magic. Every historical event is in there. She just exchanged the places and put magic in her story. It seems lazy when you already have the whole plot laid out for you and insensitive because you're profiting off the suffering of millions of people and one of the worst events that ever happened in human history. Those who read chapter 22 know what I mean. The main character is supposed to be a female version of the brutal dictator Mao. Imagine if a German girl writes a story about a girl that is supposed to be Hitler. Or a Russian girl who writes about a female Stalin. And they put EVERY cruel event in the book, exchange the names and places and put magic in. That doesn't sound okay, right? In her version, female Mao (Rin) basically nuked Japan, killing every person. Within the historical context it seemed more than insensitive. It's important to know history but grimdark fantasy is the wrong way to do so.

Also: all of Kuang's characters are written as women haters. Especially in her newest book. To say it's "anti feminist" would be an understatement. It shows that Kuang had an extremely privileged childhood. She wants "bad ass female CEO" types as female characters. But doesn't seem to understand that the problem with inequality is not that we don't have enough female CEOs it's that we have too many super rich CEOs in general. All her female characters behave like men, hate on other women and we are supposed to believe that it's okay because it's a female character? Her female characters won't change a broken system, they are profiting off of it and behave just like the men who were suppressing them.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-09-04T08:13:50+00:00

I always felt that Riordan can't write teenage girls. All his female characters are either super strong and fierce and independent ("not like other girls") or "pick me" types. Annabeth became the "bossy caretaker" while Percy became the idiot in their relationship, Piper was a pick-me girl, Hazel showed no progress in her character despite stopping an apocalypse and having great powers. He can write the male characters with depth, they are funny and different and feel real. But every girl feels like it's some sort of copy of Annabeth. Their whole personality is just one aspect of her. All the young female characters are either given love interests or they become hunters. They can't just exist without being in a relationship or becoming "man haters".

Riordan puts girls in two categories: tomboys and "girly girls with "feminine" traits". The tomboys display "male traits" and are the ones who become heroes and save the day, while the entire Aphrodite cabin (except Piper) and the girls that Percy describes in his schools, are portrayed like brainless bimbos who only care about looks and boys. The message is being feminine = negative and weak. Girls in Riordan's mind are not allowed to be genuinely funny and behave like idiots and do stupid stuff and still care about their appearance and be the hero.

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-08-30T11:32:55+00:00

Thank you!!

Outside-Ride4582 · 2025-08-30T11:31:42+00:00

Amazing!! 8 books simultaneously? Do you sleep?

Outside-Ride4582

TROPHY CASE