Stop Romanticizing Rape in Books
and write what you know
I know what they mean when they say, ‘write what you know.’ Recently I had the pleasure of reviewing an ARC. I love reading advanced copies because it makes me feel like Christopher Columbus, who discovered nothing but still thought he did. While I love ARCs, this one I couldn’t love.
When it comes to indies, I let minor things go because I know they may not have gone through the stages of scrutiny that a traditional book does. I also know that with indies, when they are good, they are amazing. Everything was going reasonably well with this book — except for minor story hiccups that I expect in indies — then I hung my head in disappointment.
It was doing so well
During the third act, I read about rape, and it wasn’t just one rape; there were two. To add to the conflict or up the stakes (I don’t know what the author was trying to do here), the raped characters were also minors.
For the first few lines, I gave the author the benefit of the doubt. I thought, perhaps, the author would give this situation the reverence it deserves, and I just need to keep reading. But when I saw the percentage of pages read on my kindle device, that hope disappeared.
