If you’ve followed Elsie for a while, this list may not be a surprise. But if you haven’t, you may be wondering why it’s here. The authors on this list are mostly big-name, sure-sellers I could count on selling. So why won’t you find them at Rebel Romance? I believe that, if we are truly dedicated to making the world a better place, shopping our values is one of the most important ways we can do that. I do my best to make sure my money is going to people who align with the good I want to do and who don’t cause harm. It’s not always possible, but the books I buy and read are one area where I have complete control. When it came time to move from shopping as an individual reader to a bookstore owner, there was no question that would continue. Minimizing the harm done with the money I spend is far more important than the sales I could have made stocking these authors.
If you ever see a book in our inventory by an author you believe should be on this list, please please please reach out to me. I do my best to vet new authors before I bring them in. But with the volume of books involved at this level, I’m almost certainly going to miss something. Potential (and not exhaustive) criteria for being on this list:
– Harm to marginalized communities – through writing stereotypical/tropified representation called out by affected communities, behavior towards members of a marginalized community when called out or in general
– Discriminatory or hateful language, use of slurs towards any marginalized community (the only **potential** exception is if it’s within their writing and the context makes it clear such behavior is unacceptable)
– Generative AI use after being alerted to its harm
If you have any questions about why an author is on this list, start by checking out the What’s the Deal With…? blog series from The Expert Book Smuggler. Alixe has incredibly detailed posts on many of these authors with screenshots, excerpts, and other evidence. If there is no post there for an author and you’d like more information, I suggest searching “[author name] controversy” on Google or TikTok as your first step. That will usually yield results pretty quickly.
Sarah J Maas – used Breonna Taylor’s murder to promote her book; use of racist tropes in writing; almost certainly a zionist
Rebecca Yarros – stole words from Irish Gaelic for the supposedly fictional language in FW and couldn’t even be bothered to learn how to pronounce them; FW included chronic illness rep that, while said to be inspired by her own experience, has been criticized by readers with the condition as being tropified and ignored when the effects of the illness would be inconvenient for the story; has attacked readers who made posts about her without tagging her; evidence suggest she’s also a Zionist
Jessa Hastings – Has admitted to using generative ai several times and went on a tirade about the readers who expressed disappointment about it; repeated use of the Gay Man Accessory trope; accusations of racism in writing; accusations of zionism as Into the Dark references donating to the Jewish National Fund (a zionist organization)
Taylor Jenkins Reid – Uses Black characters and their race as plot devices; racialized characters are often shallow and given little characterization beyond their racial identities
Kate Stewart – called out by Latinx readers for a stereotypical/tropified/harmfully written Latinx character and making jokes about undocumented immigrants in Drive and her response was that it’s ok because her (a white woman) best friend is Latina; blocked readers who expressed they felt the book was harmful to them
Liz Tomforde – She is white. Her book Mile High stars a mixed-race fmc and Black mmc. She received a lot of criticism from Black readers regarding their portrayals. Additionally, the book was marketed as a Black romance with a special Black History Month edition despite Tomforde being white. When called out on all of this, she blocked readers of color who made comments.
Tille Cole – wrote a romance starring a KKK leader who gets a redemption story through falling in love with a Latina woman who’s poorly written with a ton of stereotypes
Christina Lauren –
Love & Other Words – handled the subject of sexual assault very poorly (treated the character as a cheater, not a victim); multiple characters seem to be BIPoC, but their ethnicity is very vague if mentioned at all; use of anti-Asian slurs
Josh & Hazel – many readers believe Josh’s Korean identity is fetishized by Hazel; Josh sets Hazel up with a trans woman as a sort of prank on both of them; ableist slurs are used
Elle Kennedy – multiple books include scenes where male characters fetishize other characters in sapphic relationships that add nothing to and are not called out within the story; so much misogyny throughout her books that is never rebuked but often celebrated; Him has been criticized as being “deeply misogynistic and biphobic” and includes the use of an anti-Asian slur with no pushback
Jodi Picoult – has used multiple school shootings as marketing opportunities to sell her book; has expressed some harmful opinions on indie authors/publishing
Lilian Harris – Islamphobe – called Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim politician, “that thing”
Jolie Vines – uses a lot of generative ai for marketing despite being made aware of the harm it causes