I know that Seanan McGuire once posted something about being asked when Toby (October Daye in her series) would be raped and responded never ... it's become a quick and easy way to set up trauma for anyone female (as though there isn't enough other trauma in this or any other world).

I hate that I have to point that out but since so many writers feel they have to include women being hurt as character building or to increase their peril.

Thank you. I couldn't agree more.

Toddson-yeah she carries that over on all of her books. Obviously.

On Twitter someone asked about sexual assault or something like that in The Expanse (I don't remember the context) and Abraham's writing partner runs the James SA Corey Twitter account and he said they would never show it and there was no need.

I was really disappointed when Patricia Briggs used rape to traumatize Mercy Thompson.

I know that Seanan McGuire once posted something about being asked when Toby (October Daye in her series) would be raped and responded never

Toddson-yeah she carries that over on all of her books. Obviously.

Yeah, I love reading the InCryptid books and knowing I'm never going to get blindsided by sexual assault.

I know that there are several lists and groups that are assigning trigger warnings to books. A while ago a friend fw'ed me a list specific to sexual assaults. I can't find it now, but google brought me this: [link] and [link]

I have told folks recommending things to me that there are Too Many Books (not really); I have to filter somehow, and right now I'm choosing to not read works with casual attitudes about violating bodily autonomy/violent deaths, especially of children or animals. If that means I miss the latest thing or will not try their particular beautiful cake? There is enough other stuff that we can find something else we both will like! In the unlikely event that they get arsey about it, they will find that we are talking rather less about what we like to read.

I have bought e-books that were recommended and given up on them part way through because either they didn't appeal to me or something in them set me off. Other's I'll skim through if I want to get to the ending, even if it's fairly predictable. Mostly, they're on sale, so I don't waste too much money.

Came across this review of an e-book (only got a C review, so I'm not recommending it), but it had this description that struck me as the most gothic scene possible, "This book, which ends on a cliffhanger, features a scene in which the heroine, bare-footed, sneaks into the forbidden East Wing, clad in a white nightie and holding a candelabra, at midnight, so you can tell it’s not f*king around."

There have been a couple of fantasy series that I've noped out of, not because of rapey storylines, but because the writer was so obviously writing from a man's point of view. One referred to his wife as "my wife," who was depicted as, aside from being beautiful and talented, had a good career independent of him. He observed her life, rather than participating in it, and never once named her. She was always "my wife." Which I found creepier and creepier the longer it went on.

The other was just male perspective all the way, with a tendency to not mind fridging secondary and tertiary characters, "weaker" men, women, and creatures.

Both authors were reasonably talented and successful. But at this point in my life, there are just other, better things I could be reading--and so I am.

Not being coy, the second author was Jim Butcher in the early Dresden Files. The second I rehomed the books (there were two) and have forgotten his name.

the second author was Jim Butcher in the early Dresden Files.

I mean, he doesn't really get any better in the later books. [edit: Which is not to say I haven't read them, because I have -- they're totally my popcorn books.]

If people liked Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, this is a heads-up that she has a new novel out, The Enigma Game, in which one of the characters appears to be Julia's brother Jamie. It's a bunch of people (including a mixed-race Jamaican-British girl) who are in and around an airfield in Scotland during WWII. And ... stuff.

I have no idea if the ending is as traumatic as CNV, though. Hopefully it will be less distressing than the book about the concentration camp.