The problem with shock value is that it only has value if its actually shocking.

Obviously whether or not a person finds something shocking, or just thinks its a worn out trope, is something that is going to depend on the individual and what they have read/watched, particularly recently. If you keep reading the same type of books where you can predict the general idea of what's going to happen easily, then you're not really going to be shocked by it after a certain point, and the books will becomes a lot less interesting.

Usually it's because the author has a fetish for it other times it's so they can live out a hero fantasy or they'll get more attention for featuring controversial topics.

I tend to prefer classic novellas, but it is a brilliant book. If you read on an e-reader, you can tap for definitions to words, which is helpful.

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Cosette's forgetting Valjean bothered me too.. It just seemed so far-fetched

Try Caroline Graham's The Ghost in the Machine, an antidote with a nice fat shaming rant at the end.

Women need to suffer to gain the reader's respect /s

Also, shock value matters a lot in readability. If someone didn't beat the crap out of the heroine, you would want to know how she handles the fallout right? Does she get revenge? Does she commits murder? Does the abuser get their comeuppance?

that is not really limited to only contemporary works.

Maybe highly popular contemporary novels are no longer your thing.

Becky Chambers (Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) wrote a sci fi series she self published and from what I recall of my read through is that it has female centred storylines, an appreciation of diversity, no damsel in distress tropes and it avoids the DV angle. Her characters aren't "damaged" but they are human/humane and have their own histories.

I'm not a huge fan of the sci fi in that book, but I'm not unhappy with it. I think it's more an opening to a bigger story.

Either way, try it out. Her fans may show you a gateway to other similar stories.

She definitely seems like one of the more positive story authors I've come across and that in itself is valuable.

This is the literary criticism I come to r/books for

Yeah it didn’t have clearly defined morality, just groups fighting for resources or conquest. Gravity waves were for propulsion iirc and how they discovered FTL, like that demo the woman did in the bathtub with the soap and water. The coolest part imo was how they played with the dimensions and sizing of subatomic particles if you remember that, or the spying mechanism using quantum-entangled light speed particles. How the “dark forest” theory was fleshed out made scary amount of sense. Very fresh as far as the sci in scifi goes, much different from the usual tired “are robots really alive??” tropes and such.

I’ve read it twice, and I agree, it’s very complex. While it’s not my favorite of Dostoyevsky‘s, it’s his magnum opus. I took Russian literature courses in college, and being part Russian, I understand the patronymics well. I’d suggest following along with the Sparknotes

Publishing: my current view is stratified text ['AI' and 'content' can mean many things so I prefer not to use the terms due to very different understandings] can be published and sold by a software company or an influencer or any individual under a different and new cataloguing system other than ISBNs and ISSNs, such as an expanded Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Copyright laws require urgent review to account for digitization and stratified text.

Rationale: It was once the fashion (and it has become fashionable again) to publish semi-fiction mashups that consist of excerpts of already published works compiled with critique and fiction narration. To be clear, these mashups are not anthologies or collected works but it a literal mashup of different published works with text added. Some will say what does it matter whether it was created through a typewriter, a Word processor, an AI or other tool, as long as the final product is enjoyed by the intended audience? The difference is that organic human folklore and cultural change and part of human evolution and humans connecting to other humans. Stratified text is human-authorized but should not be claimed to represent human culture.

It's been a few years since I've read them, but I don't remember any good guy/bad guy dichotomy. Just multiple layers of survival. Also something about using gravitational waves as catapults? I need to reread

It is a work of genius, but it’s one that’s completely inaccessible to most people. A lot of its words and phrases are puns that span several languages, or allusions to the Bible and other literature. That means to get the best possible understanding without the help of cliff notes, you need to understand multiple languages and have an ocean of knowledge of other literature to draw on.

Yuppp we are both at the same page count, this is my second attempt, i tried in january and similarly to you was getting quite confused, hopefully there is some kind of tipping point soon.

On the topic of book bans... After the recent book ban in Florida's schools, I put together 32 classic public-domain books that all got banned at some point in the past. They range from Huckleberry Finn to Uncle Tom's Cabin, from Voltaire to Hemingway, all of them controversial in some way. The resulting file is about 8,600 pages long and should keep any reader happy and entertained for a loooong time. :)

If you want a free copy (PDF or EPUB), DM me and I'll send you the link. I'm doing this for free, without any hidden agenda, solely to spread forbidden books all over the world. If you know any teachers in Florida who'd like to share the banned books with their students, that's even better. ;)

It takes no ability or creativity to get someone (something) else to do your work.

It has no business in writing stories.

Hi! Your post is more appropriate for a writing sub. Check out /r/writing, please check their rules before posting. Good luck!

just take what you can from it if you're enjoying it, there isn't a test at the end. with russian lit I usually keep a list of characters and their various names or I refer to spark notes character list. helps me a lot.

My mother taught me the word "milquetoast" when I was a child, because that's how she felt about Marius. When I read it myself I realized how perfectly accurate her description is.

My advice, don't get caught up in the title until you are farther into writing. There's a good chance it will change anyway

The Ecstasy Of Molly: Oh Captor My Captain!

The Captured Heart