Man, Dark Academia as a literary subgenre is something that I have struggled with.
On paper, it ticks all the boxes. A heavy focus on academic life, learning for the sake of learning, a love of history, linguistics and myth, the cutthroat nature of elitism, the hollow feeling of disillusionment. Just everything that should make me absolutely love it. Seriously, compiling all of those things together into a book should make that my favorite book.
AND YET.....every dark academia book I've read as been absolute garbage. Books so bad they made me forget why I love reading.
Donna Tartt, Alex Michaelides....it's on sight with these fuckers. I get genuinely angry thinking about these books. I was not even able to write actual reviews of them because I got so fucking angry whenever I tried.
Other DA books I've read have been mostly just meh. So forgettable that I couldn't even give a synopsis of them.
It's a subgenre that I want to love, but all of my attempts have failed so miserably.
I'm currently reading The Cloisters and Babel right now and if these are bad too, I'm just giving up.
I've heard a lot of praise for Babel so I'm hoping it's going to be a light in the darkness for me. But I also heard people praise The Secret History to the moon and back and that book's so horrible in every way that I literally want to burn it.
Please let there actually be good Dark Academia books out there. I can't take anymore disappointment
I swear to God I'm getting fucking ads on my keyboard
Using predictive text and it keeps suggesting titles for shit I've never heard of
Trying to text Zan and type the letter g and fucking swiftkey is immediately like "Ghosts of Tsushima" and I have no fucking clue what that is
I look it up cause I'm curious now and it's a goddamn game. It's some fucking video game that I don't know anything about, have never talked about before, have never typed out before, but the fucking keyboard is telling me about it
And then it happened with other shit
Movies, shows, other games that predictive text has no reason to assume I'll be talking about
I am aware that we live in an advertising saturated hellworld but I really don't need it rubbed in my face like this
Ok but Roma is such a pretty name. Roma. Roma Roma Roma. I could say it all day
a character can be as perceptive and insightful and intellectually curious as you can possibly imagine the fucking second they show signs of being a little rowdy or boisterous or just generally being cheerful and physically fit they instantly get slapped with the “dumbass” stamp because the faceless masses of general fandom trends still haven’t progressed beyond the immovable jock vs nerd dichotomy i guess
I'm sorry that I've not been streaming the last few days.
Work has been insane and awful and I am so exhausted when I get home that I want to die and cry.
I'll be back soon
Streaming now!
Ohhhhhhhhh i have some RAGE against Normal People by Sally Rooney. Can I understand, intellectually, that there are legitimate reasons to like this book? Yes. Do I emotionally agree with any of them? ABSOLUTELY NOT. First off this book was impossible to read easily because of the lack of punctuation, what was up with that!! Beyond that the relationship between the two main characters was just bad and really imbalanced, and also I was not interested at all. Also the weak ass Marxist commentary??? Girl didn't even commit 🤣 And to top it all off, I read this for a bookclub for a college that I did all the precollege stuff for, and they DIDN'T EVEN LET ME IN!!!!!! Anyways fuck this book so much, enjoy my rant :)
I accept and appreciate your offering.
It's bullshit that they didn't let you in. Book clubs are supposed to bring people together, but some of them get so snobby.
Once there Were Wolves is NOT! ABOUT! WOLVES! OR THE ENVIRONMENT!
It’s extremely graphic and very sad! My fault for not reading the trigger warnings but still! The YouTubers and influencers lied to me and said it was a wholesome love story about rewilding scottland with wolves
‘TIS NOT! ‘TWAS BAD FOR MY MENTAL HEALTH I HAD TO STOP READING!
ALSO THE “LOVE STORY” is like oops i got her pregnant after a one night stand I guess I love you now?! So quick and not deep at all?
What??!! I've seen some people say that the title/synopsis was misleading, but they would never give specifics. I had no idea it was this bad.
I fucking hate when publishers try to trick people into reading a book! I don't get it. Like yeah, you'll get some sales you might not have otherwise. But those sales are probably from the wrong people. If they wouldn't buy the book if the synopsis/marketing were honest, what would make you think that they would actually enjoy the book once they figured out the truth??
I'm sorry this book affected your health, and I'm glad you were able to recognize it and stop reading before it got worse.
Thank you for letting me know. I was considering getting this, but now I won't.
You ever read some angst and then just....sit there staring blankly at your screen trying to think of anything but what you just read because the emotional scars are too deep and if you don't become distracted soon a floodgate of emotions will open that you are in no way prepared to deal with?
In conclusion: tag your fucking angst people, wtf?!
Messy bi who dresses like a four-year-old despite being in my 30s
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