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militantlyromanticIn the interests of full disclosure, I'm starting with this book because it allows me to talk about some overarching issues I have with media, genre, representation, and "accuracy." Also, this post is longer than the beards of even the most dedicated hipsters. I'm pretty sure these will get shorter as I slowly get all the things that have been building up in my brainspace with nowhere to go for twenty-five years out. Ninety-five percent certain, at least.
The truth is, I'm not clear on what caused me to pick this book up. I feel like I must have seen something that made me go "huh, I'll check it out," but on the surface, this book is not for me. I do not like (1) college fic, (2) road trips, (3) most contemporary romance, (4) enemies(lite)-to-lovers, (5) male fan spaces, (6) representations of fandom in pro-media, and (7) while I don't DISLIKE the whole "there was only one bed" trope, it sits at a solid "meh" on my give-a-fuckometer.
Basically, this book should be a disaster for me. It's not. Albert pulls off a sweet, quiet little story that's not going to make me a fan for life or anything, but if any of the above tropes are your jam? I'd highly recommend it.
The set up is this: you've got Conrad, Kansas-bred kid who's been disowned by his parents after being accidentally outed to them by a guy he's fooling around with. Lacking the funds to continue at his clearly-intended-to-be-Ivy school, he drops out and takes a few jobs to try and get things back under control. Conrad is an extrovert, spontaneous, and a superficially open person. That said, there's almost nobody who knows what's going on with him.
Our other hero is Alden. Alden reads as someone slightly on the spectrum, but within the confines of the book his parents have had him repeatedly tested for all sorts of things and he's never been granted a diagnoses. He's the youngest of three kids, and his two older sisters have gone on to become medical doctors. One of his mothers is a well-known physician who teaches at the University, his other mother is also a professor. Alden has failed to get into med-school twice and is faltering in terms of his life plans. Both mothers are pressuring him to figure out what his next step is. Alden is awkward, by-the-rules, and intensely private.
Alden is also Jewish. This is where I'd like to pause for a tangent. Alden's Jewishness, is, obviously, not a main theme of this story, nor do I feel it should be. BUT, and this is a significant but, Alden is represented as having a connection with the traditional aspects of Judaism. He's not religious. But he makes hamantaschen with his Jewish mom on Purim, and when they stop at restaurants, he won't eat pork.
This probably doesn't seem like a big deal. It is. Jewish representation is a) incredibly rare, far more rare than almost any single cultural minority that actually interacts with the broader population, b) generally bad when it happens, and c) often not even seen as necessary, because Jews are white, right? Let's set aside the fact that, no, there are Ethiopian Jews, and Irani Jews, and Jews from basically every country in the world and the presumption of Jewish whiteness is dismissive of all those people. Let's pretend we are talking purely about Ashkenazi-descent American Jews.
Last week I read an article discussing representation in romance novels. Not surprising, it's a huge topic right now. The article brought up Alyssa Cole's 'Let it Shine' wherein it actually IS a fairly large plot point that the male protagonist is Jewish, culturally, and as a way of shaping his ethics. The article was listing books and then making bullet points of their representation. LGBTQ characters got mentioned, Blacks, Arabs, Indians, Muslims, Chinese, etc. The bullet point for 'Let it Shine' said "Black character."
I put forth this challenge: think about the last time you watched something that had a Jewish character who was not a guest-of-the-week Ultra-Orth or haredi brought in to exoticize that community. (Whole different topic.) How did you know the character was Jewish? Did they (1) have a "Jewish" sounding name? (2) mention how they don't celebrate Christmas whilst busy celebrating Christmas at someone's Christmas party? (3) drop a mention of their "Jewish mom" or "Jewish dad" somewhere along the way? or, my personal fave (4) get coded that way by being slightly dark, unattractive, highly neurotic, sounding like they're from Long Island, and being extremely concerned with money? None of this is Jewish representation. This is, at best, Jewish tokenism.
One of the few decent representations of a Jewish character in recent memory, has been Ziva David, who, notably, was played by a Hispanic Christian and who continued to mispronounce her own brother's Hebrew name for nine damn seasons. And, notably, this year, yup, the year of somebody else's lord 2020, when Ruby Rose stated that she was leaving Batwoman after a season playing Kate Kane, the producers of the show announced that they would be replacing Kate Kane, but don't worry: the new Batwoman would still be a lesbian. You know what she wouldn't still be? Jewish. A significant element of who Kate is as a character is woven through with her Judaism. Lesbian representation is clearly considered vital. Jewish representation? Nah. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I have a hard time believing Marvel could change out Kamala Khan for a different Arabic woman who was Christian.
So, yeah, this book earned itself major points by simply acknowledging that Jews aren't actually those weird Christians who kinda don't celebrate Christmas. Back to the plot.
Both boys are part of a popular vidcast called Gamer Grandpa headed up by another professor at the school--who also just happens to be gay and married to another professor. Conrad and Alden have an on-air rivalry in this particular game, Odyssey, that's gained them some small amount of fame in this particular sect of the gaming world. Given this, the two of them and the rest of the Gamer crew: the professor, an enby named Payton who mostly comes off as a club kid, and a guy named Jasper with whom Conrad is decently close, are granted promotional passes to Odyssey Con West, which is taking place in Vegas. Conrad can't afford to fly, Alden has a phobia stemming from the fact that his bio dad was killed in a crash. The prof comes up with this plan to drive across the country stopping in gaming shops to do a little promotion along the way, and then go to the con. The con hosts a championship event, which, if won, not only has a fair amount of cash attached to the prize, but the possibility of playing in the professional circuit. Conrad needs this in order to stop drowning. Alden feels he needs the win to prove to himself and his moms that he has worth and can take care of himself. Don't ask, he's a 22-yo dude.
Through a series of unfortunate ("") events, Conrad and Alden end up on this trip with only the other for company. Conrad starts to see that Alden doesn't mean to be pedantic and lecture others, he gets frustrated by his own inability to translate his feelings into words. Alden learns about what's been going on with Conrad and begins understanding that the other boy's teasing isn't intended maliciously--he respects Alden as a player, but he doesn't feel Alden respects him, which puts him on his back foot. It's a slow-burn with tourist stops on the way to the con.
I don't read for sex. Aside from just not being that compelled by sex in the first place, I find most pro-romance sex to be disinteresting. That said, if your weakness is sweet, tender, very awkward-first-time feels, you're going to love it.
Now, let's chat about accuracy and what I think Albert gets right, or rather, what's completely inaccurate but in an appropriate way, and what she gets wrong, that is, what's fairly inaccurate in an off-putting way.
I will start here: my favorite romance sub-genre, hands-down, is historical. (Also a big fan of werewolves, fantasy, and occasionally space, but strangely, you don't get people calling for accuracy in those sub-genres quite as much.) If you, as an author, want your romance book to be historically accurate--and you probably don't, hygiene has been a nightmare for most of history, so at some level, you're picking and choosing when you start down that road--okay, I guess. I find it deeply unnecessary within the genre. In fact, I find it mildly eye-roll worth, since the very point of the genre is wish fulfillment, and trust me, dearest, there wasn't an earl in the entirety of the 19th century who thought about what his wife's hopes and dreams were, let alone whether he had consent to exercise his "marital rights" but okay, sure, you live that dream.
My problem is, as has been pointed out by Felicia Grossman and Elizabeth Kingston in much more well-thought out and researched essays than this rambling train wreck, "historical accuracy" is often a byword for "I don't wanna have to think about non-white, non-straight, non-Christian people." (Ignore the part where those people did actually exist in history. Don't go getting your messy "facts" in people's stupid-ass arguments.)
Now, again, this is a contemporary, so historical accuracy isn't at play here, but what is at play is the accuracy or lack thereof of the settings. For our purposes, there are three major settings in this book: (1) the university, (2) the places on the road trip, and (3) the con.
I want to talk about one and two in comparison with each other in terms of how they're presented here. The university is coded in a number of ways as a type of liberal utopia: the professors have different ethnic backgrounds, several of them are openly queer, there's never a sense of danger represented for any of the characters, the town is a haven. Literally, the school is named Gracehaven. I'm going to give Albert the benefit of the doubt and assume she's never been to New Haven and this is NOT supposed to be Yale, because if it is, she is missing some stuff. I've spent time studying or working at five Research 1 universities, including Harvard, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there isn't an institution of higher learning in the United States that isn't oppressing someone. Now, if she had treated the rest of her U.S. this way, honestly, I would have gone, "romance U.S., I loves it!"
She can't, though, because Conrad's story requires that his dad be a religious bigot. Okay, these people exist, cool. My problem comes in that she uses Gracehaven as a type of foil for "the flyover states." Does it make sense for Conrad and Alden to be careful about the PDA in super small towns in the midwest? Yup. As it would for them to do in super small towns on either coast. Does it make sense for them to be all worried about it in St. Louis, or at a national park spot in Colorado? Nope. No, it doesn't. It's very clear that the author researched the places they were in, the landmarks, etc. It's also very clear that if she's ever been any of those places, she chose not to speak to a single other human being. Wide swaths of the midwest and mountain states could not care less about two white dudes being into each other. It's not the Big Thing she wants it to be in order to make Conrad uncomfortable all the way through that part of the country. Which is to say: if you're going to call the midwest out on its conservative element, be sure to call the Ivies on theirs, or vice versa. Playing them against each other is uncomfortably classist, smacks of intellectual snobbery, and is just laughably naive.
That's what she gets wrong. Let's end with what she gets right, which is the con. In reality, gaming is still largely a cesspit of entitled white misogynist cishet men. It's getting better, the way most things are, you know, attempting to creep away from the sultry pits of Jabba the Hutt's ass-crack where we've landed society. It's still not even close to "as inclusive" as say, comics, and ask any female or POC or queer comic creator, they will tell you that is a low bar. Albert to some extent recognizes the white male supremacy of gaming culture in the way she specifically describes certain sects of people as standing out at the con--and who makes finals in the championship. She also threads in elements that are more common in female-fan spaces, such as the mentions of fanfic, and certain types of fan-crafting. What she elides, nicely, is the toxicity of these types of insular communities. There is one antagonistic character, but he is presented as the exception which proves the rule. Essentially, Albert crafts a fan culture that lands well beyond where gaming circles are now, and somewhere short of what they truly could be, and the middle ground works really nicely within the frame of the story.
That's how you do inaccuracy, baby.
The truth is, I'm not clear on what caused me to pick this book up. I feel like I must have seen something that made me go "huh, I'll check it out," but on the surface, this book is not for me. I do not like (1) college fic, (2) road trips, (3) most contemporary romance, (4) enemies(lite)-to-lovers, (5) male fan spaces, (6) representations of fandom in pro-media, and (7) while I don't DISLIKE the whole "there was only one bed" trope, it sits at a solid "meh" on my give-a-fuckometer.
Basically, this book should be a disaster for me. It's not. Albert pulls off a sweet, quiet little story that's not going to make me a fan for life or anything, but if any of the above tropes are your jam? I'd highly recommend it.
The set up is this: you've got Conrad, Kansas-bred kid who's been disowned by his parents after being accidentally outed to them by a guy he's fooling around with. Lacking the funds to continue at his clearly-intended-to-be-Ivy school, he drops out and takes a few jobs to try and get things back under control. Conrad is an extrovert, spontaneous, and a superficially open person. That said, there's almost nobody who knows what's going on with him.
Our other hero is Alden. Alden reads as someone slightly on the spectrum, but within the confines of the book his parents have had him repeatedly tested for all sorts of things and he's never been granted a diagnoses. He's the youngest of three kids, and his two older sisters have gone on to become medical doctors. One of his mothers is a well-known physician who teaches at the University, his other mother is also a professor. Alden has failed to get into med-school twice and is faltering in terms of his life plans. Both mothers are pressuring him to figure out what his next step is. Alden is awkward, by-the-rules, and intensely private.
Alden is also Jewish. This is where I'd like to pause for a tangent. Alden's Jewishness, is, obviously, not a main theme of this story, nor do I feel it should be. BUT, and this is a significant but, Alden is represented as having a connection with the traditional aspects of Judaism. He's not religious. But he makes hamantaschen with his Jewish mom on Purim, and when they stop at restaurants, he won't eat pork.
This probably doesn't seem like a big deal. It is. Jewish representation is a) incredibly rare, far more rare than almost any single cultural minority that actually interacts with the broader population, b) generally bad when it happens, and c) often not even seen as necessary, because Jews are white, right? Let's set aside the fact that, no, there are Ethiopian Jews, and Irani Jews, and Jews from basically every country in the world and the presumption of Jewish whiteness is dismissive of all those people. Let's pretend we are talking purely about Ashkenazi-descent American Jews.
Last week I read an article discussing representation in romance novels. Not surprising, it's a huge topic right now. The article brought up Alyssa Cole's 'Let it Shine' wherein it actually IS a fairly large plot point that the male protagonist is Jewish, culturally, and as a way of shaping his ethics. The article was listing books and then making bullet points of their representation. LGBTQ characters got mentioned, Blacks, Arabs, Indians, Muslims, Chinese, etc. The bullet point for 'Let it Shine' said "Black character."
I put forth this challenge: think about the last time you watched something that had a Jewish character who was not a guest-of-the-week Ultra-Orth or haredi brought in to exoticize that community. (Whole different topic.) How did you know the character was Jewish? Did they (1) have a "Jewish" sounding name? (2) mention how they don't celebrate Christmas whilst busy celebrating Christmas at someone's Christmas party? (3) drop a mention of their "Jewish mom" or "Jewish dad" somewhere along the way? or, my personal fave (4) get coded that way by being slightly dark, unattractive, highly neurotic, sounding like they're from Long Island, and being extremely concerned with money? None of this is Jewish representation. This is, at best, Jewish tokenism.
One of the few decent representations of a Jewish character in recent memory, has been Ziva David, who, notably, was played by a Hispanic Christian and who continued to mispronounce her own brother's Hebrew name for nine damn seasons. And, notably, this year, yup, the year of somebody else's lord 2020, when Ruby Rose stated that she was leaving Batwoman after a season playing Kate Kane, the producers of the show announced that they would be replacing Kate Kane, but don't worry: the new Batwoman would still be a lesbian. You know what she wouldn't still be? Jewish. A significant element of who Kate is as a character is woven through with her Judaism. Lesbian representation is clearly considered vital. Jewish representation? Nah. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I have a hard time believing Marvel could change out Kamala Khan for a different Arabic woman who was Christian.
So, yeah, this book earned itself major points by simply acknowledging that Jews aren't actually those weird Christians who kinda don't celebrate Christmas. Back to the plot.
Both boys are part of a popular vidcast called Gamer Grandpa headed up by another professor at the school--who also just happens to be gay and married to another professor. Conrad and Alden have an on-air rivalry in this particular game, Odyssey, that's gained them some small amount of fame in this particular sect of the gaming world. Given this, the two of them and the rest of the Gamer crew: the professor, an enby named Payton who mostly comes off as a club kid, and a guy named Jasper with whom Conrad is decently close, are granted promotional passes to Odyssey Con West, which is taking place in Vegas. Conrad can't afford to fly, Alden has a phobia stemming from the fact that his bio dad was killed in a crash. The prof comes up with this plan to drive across the country stopping in gaming shops to do a little promotion along the way, and then go to the con. The con hosts a championship event, which, if won, not only has a fair amount of cash attached to the prize, but the possibility of playing in the professional circuit. Conrad needs this in order to stop drowning. Alden feels he needs the win to prove to himself and his moms that he has worth and can take care of himself. Don't ask, he's a 22-yo dude.
Through a series of unfortunate ("") events, Conrad and Alden end up on this trip with only the other for company. Conrad starts to see that Alden doesn't mean to be pedantic and lecture others, he gets frustrated by his own inability to translate his feelings into words. Alden learns about what's been going on with Conrad and begins understanding that the other boy's teasing isn't intended maliciously--he respects Alden as a player, but he doesn't feel Alden respects him, which puts him on his back foot. It's a slow-burn with tourist stops on the way to the con.
I don't read for sex. Aside from just not being that compelled by sex in the first place, I find most pro-romance sex to be disinteresting. That said, if your weakness is sweet, tender, very awkward-first-time feels, you're going to love it.
Now, let's chat about accuracy and what I think Albert gets right, or rather, what's completely inaccurate but in an appropriate way, and what she gets wrong, that is, what's fairly inaccurate in an off-putting way.
I will start here: my favorite romance sub-genre, hands-down, is historical. (Also a big fan of werewolves, fantasy, and occasionally space, but strangely, you don't get people calling for accuracy in those sub-genres quite as much.) If you, as an author, want your romance book to be historically accurate--and you probably don't, hygiene has been a nightmare for most of history, so at some level, you're picking and choosing when you start down that road--okay, I guess. I find it deeply unnecessary within the genre. In fact, I find it mildly eye-roll worth, since the very point of the genre is wish fulfillment, and trust me, dearest, there wasn't an earl in the entirety of the 19th century who thought about what his wife's hopes and dreams were, let alone whether he had consent to exercise his "marital rights" but okay, sure, you live that dream.
My problem is, as has been pointed out by Felicia Grossman and Elizabeth Kingston in much more well-thought out and researched essays than this rambling train wreck, "historical accuracy" is often a byword for "I don't wanna have to think about non-white, non-straight, non-Christian people." (Ignore the part where those people did actually exist in history. Don't go getting your messy "facts" in people's stupid-ass arguments.)
Now, again, this is a contemporary, so historical accuracy isn't at play here, but what is at play is the accuracy or lack thereof of the settings. For our purposes, there are three major settings in this book: (1) the university, (2) the places on the road trip, and (3) the con.
I want to talk about one and two in comparison with each other in terms of how they're presented here. The university is coded in a number of ways as a type of liberal utopia: the professors have different ethnic backgrounds, several of them are openly queer, there's never a sense of danger represented for any of the characters, the town is a haven. Literally, the school is named Gracehaven. I'm going to give Albert the benefit of the doubt and assume she's never been to New Haven and this is NOT supposed to be Yale, because if it is, she is missing some stuff. I've spent time studying or working at five Research 1 universities, including Harvard, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there isn't an institution of higher learning in the United States that isn't oppressing someone. Now, if she had treated the rest of her U.S. this way, honestly, I would have gone, "romance U.S., I loves it!"
She can't, though, because Conrad's story requires that his dad be a religious bigot. Okay, these people exist, cool. My problem comes in that she uses Gracehaven as a type of foil for "the flyover states." Does it make sense for Conrad and Alden to be careful about the PDA in super small towns in the midwest? Yup. As it would for them to do in super small towns on either coast. Does it make sense for them to be all worried about it in St. Louis, or at a national park spot in Colorado? Nope. No, it doesn't. It's very clear that the author researched the places they were in, the landmarks, etc. It's also very clear that if she's ever been any of those places, she chose not to speak to a single other human being. Wide swaths of the midwest and mountain states could not care less about two white dudes being into each other. It's not the Big Thing she wants it to be in order to make Conrad uncomfortable all the way through that part of the country. Which is to say: if you're going to call the midwest out on its conservative element, be sure to call the Ivies on theirs, or vice versa. Playing them against each other is uncomfortably classist, smacks of intellectual snobbery, and is just laughably naive.
That's what she gets wrong. Let's end with what she gets right, which is the con. In reality, gaming is still largely a cesspit of entitled white misogynist cishet men. It's getting better, the way most things are, you know, attempting to creep away from the sultry pits of Jabba the Hutt's ass-crack where we've landed society. It's still not even close to "as inclusive" as say, comics, and ask any female or POC or queer comic creator, they will tell you that is a low bar. Albert to some extent recognizes the white male supremacy of gaming culture in the way she specifically describes certain sects of people as standing out at the con--and who makes finals in the championship. She also threads in elements that are more common in female-fan spaces, such as the mentions of fanfic, and certain types of fan-crafting. What she elides, nicely, is the toxicity of these types of insular communities. There is one antagonistic character, but he is presented as the exception which proves the rule. Essentially, Albert crafts a fan culture that lands well beyond where gaming circles are now, and somewhere short of what they truly could be, and the middle ground works really nicely within the frame of the story.
That's how you do inaccuracy, baby.
