Yanno, I do this for you just to show the absurdity of the situation in the romance book publishing/reviewing sphere.. I am late to this tea party because, because...I DO NOT CARE ANYMORE! No matter how I sound, I really do not care. I carve out my own path and do not lose sleep about this nonsense. I do this to reveal the boobytrapped obstacle course that a faction of authors in that closed world must slog through. If you ever watched Dan Ackroyd on SNL as a pompous reviewer years back called Leonard Pinth-Garnell, you'll get my drift. The sleep-reading that passes for romance book reviewing at present is just a never ending installment of Bad Book Reviewer. The venerated (and I laugh when I say that word) Kirkus Reviews has a contributor who posts regularly on diverse (that damned D-word again! Yes I named my blog using it but it has come to mean "catchall" at present) books. She hosts a feature called READ A ROMANCE where she has devoted a month to highlighting D-books. I shall not name the person because when you click the link you'll see it. Anyhoo, the kicker is the woman does NOT read the D-books she is supposedly boosting, helping out. ON A BOOK REVIEW SITE! She cannot even take the time to read what she is supposed to be reading to report on it intelligently and fairly. Let that sink in. The most I can give her is that she's honest. But she then got defensive and said more or less (gotta read between those lines, people!) that authors of color and writers of LGBTQIA, who are LGBTQIA, who write romance should be nice. Should be happy for the morsels tossed their way.Yeah. Like respectability politics get tons done nowadays. Well, if what this woman, with a quite visible platform, said didn't hit the aforementioned authors in the face like Laugh-In's Ruth Bussy's handbag, I do not know what else would. That was a blatant "well, I'll ride this diversity train to get views on my column but I really don't wanna sit down." In actuality, hon, you need to take a seat. In more precise terms the column was a polite "eff you" to all authors of color and all writers of LBGTQIA who are LGBTQIA if I say so myself. But she sneakily did it by being all passive-aggressive, with a shot of willful ignorance (if there is such a phenomenon) directed at a single author who'd responded in the comment section of a previous post.
The WTFery astounds!
Seems the woman just can't get around to reading those DIVERSE books she's posting about. REALLY? Too busy because you're reading that fluffy, comfy, routine 2,000th Regency-era set romance that my deceased grandma could rise from her grave and tell you about without disturbing the earth around her? Look. Read what you want. With help like yours who needs...You get where I'm coming from. So do authors of D-books a favor. Taisez-vous! Yanno, lady,what you did was a slap in the face to the folk who you contacted, or who contacted you, to be in your "event." Not to mention a waste of people's time. So disrespectful. Then to add insult to injury, what should have been a discussion of the nature of D-books, became all about her experience with reading them. Or NOT reading them. An experience that appeared trying due to all the whining, hand wringing and "if only you'd do this" and basically "be nice" pontificating she exhibited throughout her post. As a so called ally, she failed miserably and forfeits her cookies. And helped NO ONE. NO ONE!
So, here's the link. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/more-diversity-response-courtney-milan/
Make sure you read the comments to fully digest the beautiful logic that is author Courtney Milan.
Ok, I'm outta here before agita sets in.
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