This might be the most exciting bit of news to hit the book world in I don’t even know how long. I mean, typically, I don’t think of the publishing world as very exciting with a lot of breaking news. It’s not like watching Trump trying to be President or anything.

But talk about a twisted bookish controversy that dropped this week!

If you’re not yet aware, wunderkind author AJ Finn – aka Dan Mallory – is, allegedly a total fucking sociopath and pathological liar.

Read the original article by Ian Parker for The New Yorker here and get ready to have your mind blown.

It’s a bit of a lengthy read, but totally worth it to get the full effect of the mindfuck that is Dan Mallory/AJ Finn.

I’ve been joking that I feel personally victimized by this epic bullshit because I so wholeheartedly pushed The Woman in the Window on anyone that I could. I dug that book hard. But I can’t, in good faith, let that be the case any longer. Does anyone care, probably not, but I just have to let it be known. I mean, can you separate the artist from the art? That’s going to be a personal decision here for readers.

But to be honest, the real-life story of Dan Mallory is 100% more interesting than his book, at this point.

If you don’t have time to read the full article, I’m basically going to post a TL;DR of my favourite bits from the exposé here for you.

It should be noted, even though I’m not going to be writing at length about it, that the original article makes a really amazing point of how easy it is for white men to fail up, and how our institutions are constructed to let this happen, even when they are known pieces of shit.

Sorry, alleged pieces of shit.

Truly, it’s worth 30 minutes of your time to read.

Continue reading “Opinion: AJ Finn Is Fucked Up (Allegedly) …and you should be informed before making the decision to support his work, but it’s totally up to you and I’m not here to shame you either way! Yes, this is the title of the post.” →

Listen, this isn’t going to be an easy lighthearted booknerd post, okay? I have some actual real thoughts that I want to put down. It might be long, so if you stick around for the whole thing I’ll be your best friend. And I’m a pretty good friend. I can talk some good shit about your enemies, or find you some enemies if you don’t have any, and then talk shit about them.

I always have wine and weed at my house that I’ll share, I can fill your Instagram DMs with dank memes, and if you want to cancel plans at the last minute instead of going out, that’s okay with me because I was probably thinking of doing the same thing.

So…

There’s a new book prize that is specifically designed to honour thrillers that don’t contain violence against women. Colour me intrigued.

“The inaugural Staunch Book Prize will be awarded to the author of a novel in the thriller genre in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered.”

Part of me is giving this a thumbs up and thinking how is it 2018 and this is a new idea? And another part of me is having some conflicting emotions about it because of comments made surrounding it.

I love crime thrillers and serial killer stories, without shame, and yes, they mostly always contain violence against women. So, is it me? Am I shitty feminist? I try, but maybe my own misogyny runs so deep I didn’t even know it was there?

I feel like I need to be introspective about this. Because, I’ll be honest, I’ve never even considered the fact that most of literature I read is consistently about women being victimized in some way.

Continue reading “Opinion: The Staunch Book Prize & Violence Against Women in Fiction” →