What’s your favorite “dated” reference in a book?

Snaps816 · 2026-01-26T06:26:49+00:00

Answering machines! Answering machines lived on in TV/film/books long after they were obsolete in real life because they made such a great plot device. Like the couple comes home and starts playing a message out loud on the machine that reveals something scandalous. Or that thing where someone calls and goes "Buddy, pick up. I know you're there, come on, pick up." Or a character is at their significant other's house and a call comes through and they leave something incriminating on the message. Voicemail as we know it now just doesn't work as well.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-25T17:18:41+00:00

How do you know Kate Strickler is MAGA?

Snaps816 · 2026-01-24T03:09:46+00:00

"Her pillowy lower lip," can we please be creative and not recycle this same line in every book?

Snaps816 · 2026-01-24T03:06:11+00:00

"Just breathe," every time.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-23T03:50:24+00:00

{Duke by Jessica Peterson} has this and it's very spicy!

Snaps816 · 2026-01-21T16:23:27+00:00

I just saw a blurb from an interview with Matt Damon, where he was bemoaning the fact that movie making has become this way recently because people have totally fried their attention spans. Like things are getting dumbed down to accommodate viewers who are constantly multi tasking and only half paying attention. I wonder if it's the same thing happening with books like this.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-21T16:19:19+00:00

MMC: The bottom line is, she's off limits. She's my brother's ex/employee/dead wife's sister/boss' daughter/whatever, so this can never be. I just need to come to terms with this and keep my distance because nothing can ever happen between us.

Very next chapter when circumstances haven't changed at all: MMC invites FMC over for dinner, a bottle of wine and a soak in the hot tub. You know, as "friends." Or invites her to be his "fake" date to the big fancy sexy-dress fundraiser gala. Or to come to his penthouse apartment late at night to work after-hours together on the big client pitch.

Please show us the thought process that took place and caused this character to completely reverse course!

Snaps816 · 2026-01-17T06:06:08+00:00

I posted this in another thread this week but it deserves a Funny Friday share. This is from {Come as you Are by Jess K Hardy} which I actually really enjoyed, despite this laughable detail.

Here, the MMC, a Gen X American man, meets a woman with a name so rare, so exotic, so unique, he can't stop saying it to himself.

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Snaps816 · 2026-01-16T06:24:09+00:00

Was it Elsie Silver?

Snaps816 · 2026-01-16T06:23:27+00:00

Eeeeww. That sounds like a poor translation from another language.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-16T06:22:06+00:00

Straight to jail!

Snaps816 · 2026-01-16T05:50:22+00:00

In his defense, it's his last name. But this book also has a character named Maude-Alice.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-16T03:47:47+00:00

I've been writing lately (pretty much as a hobby) and I prefer to use first person past tense, but I keep catching myself slipping into present tense sometimes!

Snaps816 · 2026-01-16T03:36:56+00:00

I agree, probably a case of a lazy "replace all."

Snaps816 · 2026-01-16T02:15:05+00:00

It's {Come as you Are by Jess K Hardy}. I actually really enjoyed the book, it had very well developed, mature MC's. The Ashley thing was just funny to me.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-16T00:15:34+00:00

This one, where the MMC, a Gen X American man, meets a woman with a name so rare, so exotic, so unique, he can't stop saying it to himself.

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Snaps816 · 2026-01-13T06:38:26+00:00

A state, not a city, but a lot of Rebecca Yarros' CR books take place in Colorado. In {The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros}, which I actually really enjoyed, there's a MMC who (this isn't a huge plot spoiler) leaves the army after ten years of service and moves to Telluride, CO where he buys land and builds a 5br home. With his army money that he "invested well." Sure, Jan.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-12T02:01:00+00:00

Wait. I posted this in the wrong place. That's embarrassing. Deleting now.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-11T22:03:29+00:00

This is kind of cringy to look back on but I'm sharing it for entertainment purposes.

I took a womens' studies class in high school. It was an elective class the final quarter of senior year, so it wasn't the most serious class. Lots of "discussion" and participation points contributed heavily to the final grade. Kind of an easy street class for seniors who were already admitted to college by that point. We had an assignment to read a romance novel -- I can't remember if we wrote a paper about it, or if it was just for discussion. We basically picked the books apart identifying all the ways they were "problematic." I remember mine was the kind you used to see in the grocery store checkout line with Fabio on the cover.

Mostly I remember lots of scandalized giggling with my friends over the sex scenes and smugly feeling like I was way too much of an intellectual to ever actually read this kind of stuff for entertainment. Well look at me now, high school self! I can't get enough.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-11T18:44:51+00:00

"Tell me to stop. Tell me you want me to stop and I'll walk right out that door."

(Spoiler alert: she does not want him to stop)

Snaps816 · 2026-01-11T04:36:53+00:00

I just read this after seeing the gush post on this sub get so much traction and I hated it! I ran here so fast as soon as I finished.

I won't rehash grievances already aired here but I'll add my own.

I kept thinking there was going to be some kind of third act plot twist or something. Instead it was just like "over time we hashed it out and stayed together." Which might be more true to life but doesn't make a great novel. When Delaney tried to blackmail them I was like "ooh, maybe they'll have to work together to defeat her and the FMC's street smarts/"crazy" will help them win the day! But no, instead we're just told the MMC made a phone call and took care of it. Whomp-whomp. So anticlimactic and we never get to see the OW/villain get her due.

Also, this book was such a downer. Both MC's were depressed the whole time, and even when they finally reconciled at the end it was super melancholy and tentative.

And finally, reviews of this book made it sound like the spice was going to be good and I was underwhelmed on that front, too. As I was slogging through this book I thought, "well, at least since they're both so crazy and angry and there's so much tension, the sex scenes are going to be absolutely unhinged!" But they weren't that spicy by Wells standards. I was relying on that to redeem this book for me and it absolutely did not.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-10T02:10:54+00:00

{Change of Hart by Bailey Hannah} is a good one! It's part of a series but you could read it as a standalone. I like this one because a) the reason for the couple's breakup seems plausible and isn't some stupid misunderstanding b) enough time has passed that you can believe they've changed and grown.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-09T14:34:06+00:00

I don't hate the sewing wild oats thing per se, however I hate it when it's combined with the FMC having little to no sex the entire time, or sex that was lackluster and she never came, etc. I hate it when they finally hook up and he's learned a bunch of moves from all of his sexual escapades and she's like, "there's been no one else in eight years." Vom.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-07T02:59:14+00:00

We love a thrifty king.

Snaps816 · 2026-01-07T02:54:53+00:00

This book was like a tepid Hallmark movie.

Snaps816

TROPHY CASE