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So about the disclaimer thing… I once went to check a book review on GoodReads(I’m weird like that—checking the review after I’m done with the book or 70% to being done, but never before). It was a mafia book. Apparently, a reader came to talk about how the guy did a lot of morally questionable things. I almost asked her if she knew what a mafia genre was about at all? If she understands that the things we write in this genre don’t make up to half the things that happen(ed) for real in the organized crime world. At the end of the day, she said she’d never be reading any mafia book again.
I was left wondering why she ever read any at all in the first place. Is there anyone on earth that doesn’t have even if just a little knowledge of mafia and its world???
Other the flip side, I’ve also been a casualty of missing the disclaimer. There’s this author Zoe, who wrote sweet cruelty and all that. I ended up finishing the first book (for the purpose of commitment (book club problems)) but I felt a lot of terrible things were romanticized in a bad way. If a character’s kink is grape or dub con, I’d like it to be explicitly stated in her narration. Not this murky waters where I can’t tell if she’s being graped or living out her fantasy, and it happened in Sweet Cruelty. Another is Sicko by Amo. Another is this lord of Lords or something like that. I don’t even like reverse harem or harem at all, but imagine being graped by three men and end up falling for them later. In all honesty (forget trigger warnings), some works don’t stand on the morally grey line, they’ve trudged through it and landed d*ck first on morally fucked!!