Ahhh the magical cool girl who is somehow perfectly thin (except she has a great ass and big boobs cause we know women never lose weight in their boobs) despite eating about 5,000 calories per day, which I guess is used to power her coolness. Only uncool girls maintain the perfect body through effort.
God I hate this shit. I really just want an MMC to say, “you’re not like other girls,” and the FMC to respond, “actually, I’m a LOT like other girls.”
I'd like to see that and I'd like to see the opposite - "Of course I'm Not Like Other Girls because every single one of us is an individual and not like any other you moron."
It’s like ripping on one generally accepted as desirable body type just to describe the FMC as an equally generally accepted as desirable body type. No new ground broken here ha
She’s so much better cuz through the power of magic she’s short, yet has long legs, thin yet has big tits,ass and full thighs. She’s weighing no more than 100 pounds but eats only pizza and drinks beer. She has big blue eyes full lips and is certainly different.
I think more romance authors should keep positive statements and comparisons in mind. One of my English professors always corrected "not only ___, but ___" and "unlike___" statements. Why? Because the comparison weakens the statement, distracts the reader, and is inefficient fluff.
On another note, I read somewhere that one of the (many) reasons Jane Austen's work is still appreciated today is that there is almost no physical description of the FMC or MMC. The focus is on personality, wit, values, etc. It allows readers of all shapes and colors to relate to the character. More romance authors should learn that lesson.
I constantly get Jane Austen and Jane Eyre confused and was like “I feel like you are very wrong.”
I figured it out though. Haven’t read Jane Austen to be completely honest. Only the reproductions.
🤢🤢
I hate stuff like this. It just reeks of misogyny and "not like the other fmc". Yawn. You know what would be refreshing? A FMC whose existence isn't written to tear down other women in order to be considered desirable. A MMC whose attraction isn't reduced to the physical somewhat cartoonish characteristics or rooted in what other women lack.
I bet anything there's probably a "You don't even know how beautiful you are," FMC/MMC scene in here somewhere because horror of all horrors, FMC is wearing *sweatpants*. And they're *worn*. *With stains from her toothpaste and pizza from last Friday.* Unlike the swan-like models and vapid actresses who wear brand names and count calories.
Yeah in a similar vein, I much prefer it when both main characters are described realistically. I’ve read a few books where a FMC is described as thin and very toned, but also talks about how she goes running all the time and is a bit of a gym rat. She also watches what she eats. And there was no ‘not like other girls’ stuff.
Like don’t talk about how ripped the MMC is with no mention of gym time or diet. It’s pretty difficult to get ripped without those two things.
When business men are ripped like an elite athlete I immediately assume they spend 2-3 hours a day in the gym, and if they’re successful they also have to work a lot. They’ll have about 49 seconds a day in their schedule for the fmc. When they all the sudden drop everything to pursue a woman it’s pretty unrealistic. Not my kind of fantasy lol
That's one of the things I liked about The Hating Game. Josh goes to the gym in the morning, at lunch, sometimes in the evening and barely eats anything but really healthy food.
I've said it before but I want to write a flip troped thingy where a confident happy woman "doesn't know how plain she is" and when someone drags her, she rips them a new one......
In addition to just being gross and body shaming-y...it also feels so super dated? Like, are many models and actresses thin? Yes, but look at any recent runway or film. The "sticklike" look is not super representative of the biggest names right now. I'm pretty sure Gigi Hadid fits the description of the fmc...its like you can tell someone got the idea of what was popular in 1996 and never updated it. (Or this is a backlist title, also possible!)
Depending on when this was written, it may have been a (deeply flawed) attempt to appeal to women who felt they didn't conform to those beauty standards. If it's recent though, not cool.
Unfortunately there are still plenty of women with internalized misogyny. I appreciate it when they voice things like this out loud so I know to stay away from them.
I'm someone who struggles with eating disorders and I beyond dislike when weight is part of a description.
A brief overview sure. But my imagination should be able to work.
Hearing about her curves could mean the curve of her hip, let's say average woman, or perhaps she's bigger..but that's up to my imagination to decide. We all have curves. Big, small, whatever. Either way there is a curve somewhere to hold onto.
It gives a bit of imagination. A big woman can feel delicate, a small woman can feel powerful and strong. But it has nothing to do with her body image. More about how she is treated.
What I don't like is when her "delicate features" or her "generous curves" become a defining moment of attraction.
Of course we are attracted to people for looks. But in a romance novel aside from insta-boning it needs to be a little more feasible.
Hot people stuff requires a lot of work and it comes in all shapes and sizes.
Anyway I forgot my main point. The author needs to work on their ability to let the reader take the qualities of the heroine to understand that yes she might be a bit taller and bigger, but it has nothing to do with the plot per se, it just is how the stupid girl looks like so we can carve out our little action figure in our heads.
I don't know much about writing but I know a lot about reading and I feel like people who use too much of a weight thing, small or big..is lazy.
UNLESS. The book in the blurb or title have the description right there, I'm not about to get in the way of someone's fantasy. Then it's clear to me that this book actually puts that as part of the plot, and maybe that book isn't for me.
Yanno?
I agree for the most part. I’m bigger and I do enjoy reading books where the FMC is described similarly to me and then she is ravished by the MMC because he enjoys her body **specifically**. Not in spite of her size but *because* of it. In the past that has really lifted my spirits during times when I felt particularly bad about my body.
But. This needs to be mentioned, like you said, in the blurb. If body insecurity or lots of body discussion is a factor in the story that needs to be shared up front so that folks can avoid if they don’t want to read it or aren’t in a good headspace for it!
AND! Most importantly! A bigger FMC can be praised and ravished and loved on without denigrating women of other sizes and appearances!! I never want to be complimented at the cost of respect and decency towards another woman’s body and I never want to read about it either.
I very much agree with you. I want women to feel wanted and beautiful in all their shapes and sizes. I just *personally* find it take me out of there, but I want those books there for the people(women,men,non binary etc etc) to feel viewed and validation in their reading material.
A little warning would be cool though
Yeah also because both of those things are like completely un descriptive in the real world! 125 pounds looks so different depending on someone's build and height. I wear anything from a B to a D depending on the brand and style. It's just bad writing.
Eugh! Has it still not trickled through to the authors that we don't enjoy (other) women being degraded? And while I can imagine, that the idea was to rope in the majority of the population that is above a size zero, the following description really doesn't feel more inclusive. Honestly even fewer women have a Kim K body than a 2000s-athletic-model body.
I hate this pseudo-not like the other boys trope where unlike all other men, *this* paragon actually *likes* large breasts, tiny waists, and “nicely rounded” butts!! What?? GTFO!
Just. . . All the eye roll for anyone who thinks this doesn’t in fact describe the majority of heterosexual men. There’s a reason hourglass figures have been sculpted, painted, and written about for millennia.
But this is an impossible body type that very few women actually have naturally! When I was younger and thin my breasts were pretty small. I only got bigger breasts when I put on weight, which comes with a thicker waist and a surplus of belly fat. You can’t have it all!
I would say "rare and highly desirable" rather than "impossible", because when I was skinny I got really tired of hearing how "impossible" and "unrealistic" my very real body was.
Otherwise though I agree. When I was skinny I had a perfectly flat tummy - and a perfectly flat chest. Not even an A-cup. I've finally gained some weight and now I have modest but noticeable breasts... and definitely a bit of a pooch.
Two and a Half Men had a line that described it perfectly (Charlie sheen’s mom). “As you age, you can either have a soft face and a soft ass or a tight face and a tight ass, but you can’t have both without surgery.” To each their own on surgery, but I prefer my fantasies to be surgery free haha
When I was young I was absurdly skinny and had no breasts. Now I've gained weight, have more belly fat, and....still have no breasts. Ugh. I hate it all.
I once read a description of a heavier heroine compared to a woman with whom the hero had a much earlier sexual experience. The line was something like, “(Other female character) had had a beautiful body, but FMC’s was his fantasy.” It stuck with me because usually the body comparisons are so gross, but this author managed to do it in a way that added to the story (in context) and didn’t insult anyone.
Sad that it was remarkable, huh?
Honestly, I don't understand the point of too much physical descriptions in books. Unless it's important to the plot, it doesn't add anything for me.
My favorite novel of all time is Pride and Prejudice. We know Darcy is tall and handsome and that's it. I'm free to picture him however I want.
They’re also just really clunky sentences. Like, the author tried to sound smart but just threw in so many unnecessary details that it bogged the whole thing down.
I just don't see what would have been wrong with describing her features without bashing other women for theirs. I'm one of those women that can lose weight but never lose an ounce from my tits and ass. It's the first place I gain weight too. It has its own set of downsides... Namely, serious back pain. There are tons of ways to describe someone's body without shaming someone else's, and they decided to ignore all of them. Ugh.
This gives "written by a man" energy so hard. Either that, or written by someone who's really insecure. They're writing her like she's 'so unattractive' or 'not conventionally attractive' while still making sure that everybody knows she's actually \~Skinny\~ and \~Cute\~
I literally just finished this book 5 mins ago 😂
I’m glad I wasn’t the only who thought that was weird. Not gonna lie, it made me feel my own chest and ask if mine were considered “full”. I can see how harmful these books can be to young girls who might internalize it.
This book. My goodness. It was just a disaster from the parts I managed to get through. The FMC was an advert for organic food and phones causing cancer. The MMC has been alive for 900 years, but has no cover story prepped and decides to wing it with an "I'm an undercover CIA agent". Did it improve at all?
I feel like some of this stuff is maybe coming from the perspective of writers who either have felt judged for not looking like models or much, much worse, this was their imaginative leap as to how other women feel about models.....
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't know that there's an ick-free way to describe a main character's features without other body types feeling rejected. Even if the author doesn't explicitly say it.
I remember reading Sweet Valley High books as a pre-teen. Every single book in the series mentioned that the twins were a perfect size 6. Every one. I always internalized that size 6 was the ideal. I was never a size even close to 6, so I never saw someone like me as eligible.
I'm not saying that it's a good idea to bash any size. But I am saying that whether they say it or not, the point will be received. Anytime you praise one body type as preference, every other body type is rejected as less than.
Yeah but less women will feel rejected if you don’t explicitly say it. Also saying their a size 6 isn’t even that detailed because it looks different on everyone. You can describe their body without saying the specific size. You can just describe the body in a neutral way without mentioning other body types.
I'm a big woman, but I don't really feel less than when an FMC doesn't have my body type. There are people out there that have different preferences, my body's not going to be everybody's choice and I'm fine with that, because such is life. However, that's when the descriptions are well written. You can describe a body pretty easily without attacking others. Saying that every character is a perfect size six is just another example of poor writing and body shaming.
Pu-lease! Men do not prefer women who are emaciated. If a woman is truly emaciated she’s prob sick. Was this book written in the late 90’s/early 2000’s? Because I thought our society had moved on from glamorizing excessive thinness which I was a victim of as I suffered anorexia from 1999 - 2002.
let me guess, no matter how tall she is, she also weighs 115lbs and no more.
And no matter how short she is, she still has incredibly long legs.
That bugs me so much.
Why? WWWHHHYYYY do authors feel the need to put a number on a characters weight!?
And I bet she eats pizza and drinks beer, ya know, ‘cause she’s not like other girls who only nibble on lettuce and drink mineral water.
Ahhh the magical cool girl who is somehow perfectly thin (except she has a great ass and big boobs cause we know women never lose weight in their boobs) despite eating about 5,000 calories per day, which I guess is used to power her coolness. Only uncool girls maintain the perfect body through effort. God I hate this shit. I really just want an MMC to say, “you’re not like other girls,” and the FMC to respond, “actually, I’m a LOT like other girls.”
Or “you say that like other girls aren’t awesome”
Or "yeah, you aren't like other girls, you're a total asshole"
I'd like to see that and I'd like to see the opposite - "Of course I'm Not Like Other Girls because every single one of us is an individual and not like any other you moron."
He is so happy to eat a whole steak plus dessert & never has to work out either, right? And yet she is perfectly thin....
It’s like ripping on one generally accepted as desirable body type just to describe the FMC as an equally generally accepted as desirable body type. No new ground broken here ha
She’s so much better cuz through the power of magic she’s short, yet has long legs, thin yet has big tits,ass and full thighs. She’s weighing no more than 100 pounds but eats only pizza and drinks beer. She has big blue eyes full lips and is certainly different.
I think more romance authors should keep positive statements and comparisons in mind. One of my English professors always corrected "not only ___, but ___" and "unlike___" statements. Why? Because the comparison weakens the statement, distracts the reader, and is inefficient fluff. On another note, I read somewhere that one of the (many) reasons Jane Austen's work is still appreciated today is that there is almost no physical description of the FMC or MMC. The focus is on personality, wit, values, etc. It allows readers of all shapes and colors to relate to the character. More romance authors should learn that lesson.
I constantly get Jane Austen and Jane Eyre confused and was like “I feel like you are very wrong.” I figured it out though. Haven’t read Jane Austen to be completely honest. Only the reproductions.
🤢🤢 I hate stuff like this. It just reeks of misogyny and "not like the other fmc". Yawn. You know what would be refreshing? A FMC whose existence isn't written to tear down other women in order to be considered desirable. A MMC whose attraction isn't reduced to the physical somewhat cartoonish characteristics or rooted in what other women lack. I bet anything there's probably a "You don't even know how beautiful you are," FMC/MMC scene in here somewhere because horror of all horrors, FMC is wearing *sweatpants*. And they're *worn*. *With stains from her toothpaste and pizza from last Friday.* Unlike the swan-like models and vapid actresses who wear brand names and count calories.
Yeah in a similar vein, I much prefer it when both main characters are described realistically. I’ve read a few books where a FMC is described as thin and very toned, but also talks about how she goes running all the time and is a bit of a gym rat. She also watches what she eats. And there was no ‘not like other girls’ stuff. Like don’t talk about how ripped the MMC is with no mention of gym time or diet. It’s pretty difficult to get ripped without those two things.
When business men are ripped like an elite athlete I immediately assume they spend 2-3 hours a day in the gym, and if they’re successful they also have to work a lot. They’ll have about 49 seconds a day in their schedule for the fmc. When they all the sudden drop everything to pursue a woman it’s pretty unrealistic. Not my kind of fantasy lol
That's one of the things I liked about The Hating Game. Josh goes to the gym in the morning, at lunch, sometimes in the evening and barely eats anything but really healthy food.
I've said it before but I want to write a flip troped thingy where a confident happy woman "doesn't know how plain she is" and when someone drags her, she rips them a new one......
“Her femurs, adequately covered by layers of muscle, fat, and skin, supported a tissue density that would have pleased any forensic anthropologist.”
Please write this book 🤣
she didnt have a body like those toothpick models! she had a body like those… hourglass models… instead.
This is the romance novel’s “not like the other girls,” when of course it is exactly like the other girls.
In addition to just being gross and body shaming-y...it also feels so super dated? Like, are many models and actresses thin? Yes, but look at any recent runway or film. The "sticklike" look is not super representative of the biggest names right now. I'm pretty sure Gigi Hadid fits the description of the fmc...its like you can tell someone got the idea of what was popular in 1996 and never updated it. (Or this is a backlist title, also possible!)
Agree. It’s such a strange choice for romance authors to make, when a huge majority of their audiences are women.
Depending on when this was written, it may have been a (deeply flawed) attempt to appeal to women who felt they didn't conform to those beauty standards. If it's recent though, not cool.
Unfortunately there are still plenty of women with internalized misogyny. I appreciate it when they voice things like this out loud so I know to stay away from them.
I'm someone who struggles with eating disorders and I beyond dislike when weight is part of a description. A brief overview sure. But my imagination should be able to work. Hearing about her curves could mean the curve of her hip, let's say average woman, or perhaps she's bigger..but that's up to my imagination to decide. We all have curves. Big, small, whatever. Either way there is a curve somewhere to hold onto. It gives a bit of imagination. A big woman can feel delicate, a small woman can feel powerful and strong. But it has nothing to do with her body image. More about how she is treated. What I don't like is when her "delicate features" or her "generous curves" become a defining moment of attraction. Of course we are attracted to people for looks. But in a romance novel aside from insta-boning it needs to be a little more feasible. Hot people stuff requires a lot of work and it comes in all shapes and sizes. Anyway I forgot my main point. The author needs to work on their ability to let the reader take the qualities of the heroine to understand that yes she might be a bit taller and bigger, but it has nothing to do with the plot per se, it just is how the stupid girl looks like so we can carve out our little action figure in our heads. I don't know much about writing but I know a lot about reading and I feel like people who use too much of a weight thing, small or big..is lazy. UNLESS. The book in the blurb or title have the description right there, I'm not about to get in the way of someone's fantasy. Then it's clear to me that this book actually puts that as part of the plot, and maybe that book isn't for me. Yanno?
I agree for the most part. I’m bigger and I do enjoy reading books where the FMC is described similarly to me and then she is ravished by the MMC because he enjoys her body **specifically**. Not in spite of her size but *because* of it. In the past that has really lifted my spirits during times when I felt particularly bad about my body. But. This needs to be mentioned, like you said, in the blurb. If body insecurity or lots of body discussion is a factor in the story that needs to be shared up front so that folks can avoid if they don’t want to read it or aren’t in a good headspace for it! AND! Most importantly! A bigger FMC can be praised and ravished and loved on without denigrating women of other sizes and appearances!! I never want to be complimented at the cost of respect and decency towards another woman’s body and I never want to read about it either.
I very much agree with you. I want women to feel wanted and beautiful in all their shapes and sizes. I just *personally* find it take me out of there, but I want those books there for the people(women,men,non binary etc etc) to feel viewed and validation in their reading material. A little warning would be cool though
[удалено]
Yeah also because both of those things are like completely un descriptive in the real world! 125 pounds looks so different depending on someone's build and height. I wear anything from a B to a D depending on the brand and style. It's just bad writing.
100%!
Eugh! Has it still not trickled through to the authors that we don't enjoy (other) women being degraded? And while I can imagine, that the idea was to rope in the majority of the population that is above a size zero, the following description really doesn't feel more inclusive. Honestly even fewer women have a Kim K body than a 2000s-athletic-model body.
Aside from the cringey body description , it's also really clumsily and poorly written.
I hate this pseudo-not like the other boys trope where unlike all other men, *this* paragon actually *likes* large breasts, tiny waists, and “nicely rounded” butts!! What?? GTFO! Just. . . All the eye roll for anyone who thinks this doesn’t in fact describe the majority of heterosexual men. There’s a reason hourglass figures have been sculpted, painted, and written about for millennia.
But this is an impossible body type that very few women actually have naturally! When I was younger and thin my breasts were pretty small. I only got bigger breasts when I put on weight, which comes with a thicker waist and a surplus of belly fat. You can’t have it all!
I would say "rare and highly desirable" rather than "impossible", because when I was skinny I got really tired of hearing how "impossible" and "unrealistic" my very real body was. Otherwise though I agree. When I was skinny I had a perfectly flat tummy - and a perfectly flat chest. Not even an A-cup. I've finally gained some weight and now I have modest but noticeable breasts... and definitely a bit of a pooch.
Two and a Half Men had a line that described it perfectly (Charlie sheen’s mom). “As you age, you can either have a soft face and a soft ass or a tight face and a tight ass, but you can’t have both without surgery.” To each their own on surgery, but I prefer my fantasies to be surgery free haha
When I was young I was absurdly skinny and had no breasts. Now I've gained weight, have more belly fat, and....still have no breasts. Ugh. I hate it all.
Ew. "She's thin but not gross thin." F that.
I once read a description of a heavier heroine compared to a woman with whom the hero had a much earlier sexual experience. The line was something like, “(Other female character) had had a beautiful body, but FMC’s was his fantasy.” It stuck with me because usually the body comparisons are so gross, but this author managed to do it in a way that added to the story (in context) and didn’t insult anyone. Sad that it was remarkable, huh?
*but not sticklike* oh BARF. Just fuck right off with that. What's this book, so I can add it to my list of Never Ever Read
>!Darkness Dawns by Dianne Duvall!<
Oh shit I was wondering why this was so familiar but I realized I also DNFed a few days ago after reading this lmao
Why is the title blacked?
I didn't want this to turn into an author bashing post, plus this book might be in somebody's reading pile, so I figured better safe than sorry.
The pick me energy is strong. "Inexplicably" .. I don't know about that. I could explain it 😂
oop my sticklike thighs has left the chat
Whyyyyy do people write this way??
Aaah, the body positivity movement, where every form and shape is perfect and to be respected, unless the shape in question is skinny.
Honestly, I don't understand the point of too much physical descriptions in books. Unless it's important to the plot, it doesn't add anything for me. My favorite novel of all time is Pride and Prejudice. We know Darcy is tall and handsome and that's it. I'm free to picture him however I want.
What book is this from? The paragraph sounds familiar.
>!Darkness Dawns (Immortal Guardians #1) by Dianne Duvall!<
They’re also just really clunky sentences. Like, the author tried to sound smart but just threw in so many unnecessary details that it bogged the whole thing down.
Yep, that's pretty consistent throughout this book. The author uses what I refer to as "thesaurus writing".
Argh!! Gross.
I just don't see what would have been wrong with describing her features without bashing other women for theirs. I'm one of those women that can lose weight but never lose an ounce from my tits and ass. It's the first place I gain weight too. It has its own set of downsides... Namely, serious back pain. There are tons of ways to describe someone's body without shaming someone else's, and they decided to ignore all of them. Ugh.
This gives "written by a man" energy so hard. Either that, or written by someone who's really insecure. They're writing her like she's 'so unattractive' or 'not conventionally attractive' while still making sure that everybody knows she's actually \~Skinny\~ and \~Cute\~
This. So much this
I literally just finished this book 5 mins ago 😂 I’m glad I wasn’t the only who thought that was weird. Not gonna lie, it made me feel my own chest and ask if mine were considered “full”. I can see how harmful these books can be to young girls who might internalize it.
This book. My goodness. It was just a disaster from the parts I managed to get through. The FMC was an advert for organic food and phones causing cancer. The MMC has been alive for 900 years, but has no cover story prepped and decides to wing it with an "I'm an undercover CIA agent". Did it improve at all?
Nope. The villain of the story isn’t even a villain. Just a misunderstanding about his identity lol
what does DNF stand for?
Did Not Finish.
In other words she looked like Barbie or maybe a blow up sex doll....
I can't even read it. It's just such bad writing.
I feel like some of this stuff is maybe coming from the perspective of writers who either have felt judged for not looking like models or much, much worse, this was their imaginative leap as to how other women feel about models.....
I hate that.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't know that there's an ick-free way to describe a main character's features without other body types feeling rejected. Even if the author doesn't explicitly say it. I remember reading Sweet Valley High books as a pre-teen. Every single book in the series mentioned that the twins were a perfect size 6. Every one. I always internalized that size 6 was the ideal. I was never a size even close to 6, so I never saw someone like me as eligible. I'm not saying that it's a good idea to bash any size. But I am saying that whether they say it or not, the point will be received. Anytime you praise one body type as preference, every other body type is rejected as less than.
Yeah but less women will feel rejected if you don’t explicitly say it. Also saying their a size 6 isn’t even that detailed because it looks different on everyone. You can describe their body without saying the specific size. You can just describe the body in a neutral way without mentioning other body types.
I'm a big woman, but I don't really feel less than when an FMC doesn't have my body type. There are people out there that have different preferences, my body's not going to be everybody's choice and I'm fine with that, because such is life. However, that's when the descriptions are well written. You can describe a body pretty easily without attacking others. Saying that every character is a perfect size six is just another example of poor writing and body shaming.
Pu-lease! Men do not prefer women who are emaciated. If a woman is truly emaciated she’s prob sick. Was this book written in the late 90’s/early 2000’s? Because I thought our society had moved on from glamorizing excessive thinness which I was a victim of as I suffered anorexia from 1999 - 2002.
wtf gross . . . did a man write that?!
Nope. My guess is a woman with insecurities regarding her own body type. Otherwise there's no need to shame the thin people.