As someone who works in the medical field, a PT sleeping with their patient is a HIPPA/ethics violation and can get your license stripped, but no romance author seems to show the actual fallout for that. Also the review bombing just shows that people don’t have good media literacy and it was an accident. It sucks all the way around, but it doesn’t sound/look intentional.
Came to the comments for this because I guess I didn't realise that folks didn't realise a healthcare professional/patient romance is very, very taboo.
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is about providers not selling or sharing your information without your consent. PT sleeping with a patient is an ethical violation not a HIPAA one.
I think if they'd just used the word "power dynamic" instead of forbidden love none of this would have happened but the people complaining really should be able to understand what they meant with forbidden love, anyways
Nothing says bad boy like tan golf pants and a dandelion yellow polo. I feel like with tropes I just need the main vibe. Like I don't need 8-10. If you want to trope market, keep it simple. This is a friends to lovers. That's it. I don't need to know every plot beat.
Yes! Tropes and summary get treated as mutually exclusive, when the solution is both. Do a good summary, if the main trope isn't clear for some reason, or a big draw won't be apparent from the summary (there's only one bed comes to mind), then you get like. Three at most, in the majority of cases. Maybe you can sell people on bad boy golfer in a summary, but pulling things out as basically bullet points makes it look like a total non sequitur.
I know it seems weird, but it HAS been done successfully. I mean, look at characters like Logan Echolls in Veronica Mars. He was definitely a bad boy but was super rich and dressed very preppy. Or some of the characters in The OC.
[original comment] i follow the person that posted the fake page, lol. she is literally just a funny woman that occasionally posts something satirical about the discourse du jour, she wasn't trying to trick people into thinking it was a real page [edit 02/14] for context: she barely has 3k followers, the post was not meant to leave a very specific group of people that would get that it was satirical
This reminds me of the saying that the internet is a context vacuum. And the real issue is more the reactionary behavior of people lashing out about the excerpt and supposedly review bombing rather than doing any kind of check to see what was going on. And suing her feels a little reactionary act too.
I would 100% buy the book if she wrote a whole story around that page 😂 I was cackling at that. It's too bad I don't ever get on twitter, because she sounds fun and hilarious (hopefully this doesn't post twice since I have issues posting comments on here all the time)
“Bad boy golfer” Here’s what that evokes in my mind in order: 1.) Racist remarks 2.) infidelity 3.) being a dick to people working at golf courses Two of which I associate with golf because of vague memories of the news obsessing over Tiger Woods (idk all the details and idc about golf enough to learn). The third is from local news stories about people at golf courses. Not compelling traits for a romantic lead
The excerpt is funny and so obviously fake. I saw it on tumblr and immediately knew it was either fake or the entire book was a satire. No reasonable person would think that's from a serious novel
I'm GUESSING some of the drama from the first one comes from "THIS IS NOT REAL" coming across as "this can't be real (but actually is)" and there's a misunderstanding there? But lawsuits? Naw.
I actually wrote a blog post about the "tropefication of book marketing." The short version is that, due to needing to capture people's interest quickly, arrow charts and boiling books down to their tropes makes it fast and easy to grab potential readers. But now agents and publishers only want books they can boil down to tropes so they can market them on TikTok or whatever. Deeper, richer stories with complex themes that cannot easily be encapsulated need not apply. Meanwhile, I don't understand review bombing a book because of a fake excerpt? Did I miss something there? If someone wrote a parody excerpt of one of my books, I'd laugh so hard and love that they put in the effort. But I wouldn't be happy with review bombs falling just cuz of that? I don't get it.
It's become so trendy that it no longer helps if marketing pushes a book this way! Especially if it's Tropes that came from one Genre ("Bad Boy Touch Her and Die" from Fantasy) slapped onto another ("Golf Romance")
I think you stated that first part perfectly, and I also hate it. I used to read a lot of romance but these days I can't really get myself excited to read anything because it feels like we keep getting the same handful of stories over and over (at least from trad pub). I'm sure there are great books going under the radar but with everything driven by algorithms it's so hard to find anything outside the mainstream 😩
The ridiculous BookTok girlies calling for lawsuits in this case are the same ones saying you can’t rate a book below 3⭐️ All their lives they were told they were smart, special, and kind and now they can’t handle even a whiff of a critical review, or in this case a hilarious roasting😂😂😂 And the answer to ‘touch her and you die’+ ‘bad boy golfer’= Tiger Woods
I was thinking Tiger as well...especially being chased on Thanksgiving Day by his golf-club wielding angry wife...when she found out about his affairs with MANY women. So he qualifies with this trope.
hahah, someone on Instagram had mentioned the "touch her and die" tropes should stay in dark romances or darkish romances where the character is morally grey. Tim that works in accounting and has no wrap record of any kind of being someone to be afraid of, wouldn't even kill a fly, doesn' show anywhere in the book he is not the one to be played with ..does not need to be a touch her and die book. I feel contemporary novels need to switch the touch her and die to touch her and fight or something that sounds better. Touch her and die needs to be left to morally grey characters and not every day regular civilian characters. I get what you mean about advertising tropes, it's the same as authors who have basically the entire trigger list as there content warning. Like I love kinky but I don't need every kink in the bdsm world in a book just 2-4 is fine.
i deal with golfers a lot at my job and they’re definitely jerks. so i suppose i could see maybe that they’d say touch her and die, but they wouldn’t be able to follow through.
I really hope that the forbidden romance ballet PT story goes exactly like that except because as a former ballerina I can tell you that if my dad busted in saying he knew that I was using my theragun like that.....id have to just go ahead and lay down.
idk about having legal standing but I doubt a random twitter user and an indie author have the money to do a lawsuit. I can see the confusion, bc sometimes people use a caption differently on twitter/X, but i feel once you started reading it was deeply unserious and if you thought it was real…you need MEDIA LITERACY. I can’t comment on bad boy golfer bc i would never pick that up. Golf is boring to me in all aspects
With regards to "touch her and die" being present in contemporary romances, I have definitely seen it be a thing but it is more dark romances like mafia romances. The Twisted series by Ana Huang has a couple of books / characters with that energy.
100% agree with the tropes so much. Like I remember when it was just me and other reviewers using the arrows pointing to tropes as a little graphic for a review! Now seeing it being used by actual publishers and them taking it to the extreme where the stories aren’t even good (or if they get the tropes wrong LMAO).
I'm not a romance girlie and have not heard the trope name 'touch her and die' until today. And for a few minutes I was waiting for an explanation, because the only one I could think of was that this lady was supposed to be poisonous. And I was confused as to why, and how this would work in a contemporary setting.
I think it’s a forbidden romance bc it’s a PT’s relationship with his patient, which is considered unethical and is usually at the very least against institutional policy…also fwiw I probably would’ve believed the fake leaked excerpt bc the caption comes across as facetious. The capitalization and 😭 emoji makes it seem sarcastic in a “this is unbelievable (bc it’s so bad)” way, and not a literal “this is not a real excerpt” way. I can definitely see why people would be upset enough at that to suggest a lawsuit (idk if there’s any legal ground to stand on there though). I mean, it literally has a “review copy” watermark on it, which tells me it is intended by the creator for an average person like me who has never seen an ARC to take it seriously. Context matters. It wouldn’t be a problem if it were the same words on a non-watermarked page presented with a caption like “this book, probably” or “somebody get me a book deal, stat!” etc. To me, it’s apparent that the post was meant to trick people into believing it was real, which at the very least flirts with libel
I agree about book marketing!! I'd much rather know the basic plot synopsis at least, than get a list of themes or tropes. Tropes are fine, but it almost makes it sound like they're leaning on the tropes to make up for a mid plot sometimes...
Your enactment 😂😂😂 the way you couldnt keep it together 🤣🤣 I love this discussion about trope promo a lot. I think another youtuber once mentioned how back in the day tiktok didnt allow for longer videos, so they used a lot of tags and tropes to talk about books. Possibly it's done like this to be more attention grabbing - like they think people won't read a paragraph synopsis on socials.
Theodora Taylor published a book called, 7 Figure Fiction: How to Use Universal Fantasy to Sell your Books to Anyone. She talks about the 'butter' in books that bring flavor. The little things or aspects readers want. In romance; one bed, Touch her and die, makeover scene, etc. Each genre has their own Universal Fantasy elements. She suggests you add it in your books and use it to market to readers. This is probably why you're seeing so much marketing about it. Hope that helps! ❤
I dated a pro golfer once..the “bad boy golfer” thing is legit. Drugs, parties, sex, the whole 9 yards. It’s a whole thing that no one talks about ever. But yeah the pro golf world is like rock star lifestyle.
The problem is there's plenty of instances where people are using "this is not for real" to mean "they cannot be serious." (and as someone who regularly shit-posted on twitter, they more than likely knew they were doing that. They're building in an out by saying "i meant it literally" when there's a common cultural/colloquial reading of the words.) It was presented as a real excerpt to the average reader (common reading of the text (not literal), posting it as a page marked review copy, the effort put into making it look real, etc) and although it's ridiculous, books have been published like this in the indie space. Many people, including myself, took it at face value because I have seen bad romance books like this. If it affected sales they could absolutely be sued for defamation. That may be hard to prove, so I doubt they would actually go through with it, especially because it's not released. It seems the only way to prove that would be to use cancelled pre-orders as proof. Regardless, it's a messed up thing to do.
Outing myself as an idiot but until this video I 100% thought "touch her and die" literally meant the love interest couldn't touch her or he would drop dead. Lots of we-can't-touch, pining, Pushing Daisies-type stuff. Apparently that was wrong. Whoops? Anyway great video I too am confused by the tropes people seem to throw together.
I really despise the trope marketing but it is the in thing. Touch her and yeet is basically the bad boy who is overprotective of the FMC. So glad I came across your videos. I love how real and funny you are. ❤
Yeah that first book makes me super uncomfy. All I can think about is the huge gymnastics sexual abuse case with the Americans women’s team. It’s at least giving grooming. Maybe they address that in the book, but with an age gap less than 5 years shy of illegal…bombastic side eye for sure.
No tea no shade , I’m saying this from of love. And in my little corner in booktok but I think booktok kind of ruin the whole tropes in books instead of having an actual plot and now authors and publishers feel doing the tropes help with buying books ( I am I’m NOT in marketing so I don’t know how marketing works in publishing)
i think the forbidden romance aspect comes from the occupations of the two characters. im not in the medical field, but i can imagine it being some sort of violation to date a patient of theirs. as for the review bombing, i might?? know why people assumed the fake excerpt was real. the OP's tweet could be misconstrued as "this is so unserious"/"are you kidding me" kind of tone (implying the page is real), as opposed to stating clearly "this is fake page" or something. and i say this bc how i came across this whole situation was actually from screenshots on Tumblr, and someone in the thread said "someone read the sample for this, and, um... balleraggot..." and shared the fake page. so whoever that was, they misinterpreted the OP's tweet thinking it was real, and then spread the misinformation (either believing it to actually be real, or purposely wanting to stir the pot) either way, review bombing is never the solution to anything, and i hope the author's sales/career doesn't get heavily impacted by this mess 😥
i'm so glad i found your channel!! this is the 3rd video of yours (and i haven't even finished yet) that i've watched in a row and i can't stop laughing!! your interpretative reading was pure gold! 😂😂😂😂😂 And seriously? Bad-boy golfer?? 😂😂😂😂😂
I think for the “forbidden romance” aspect is a therapist dating a client. Even a physical therapist I think that is a major breach and will result in being fired. That’s my guess on that
I've been complaining about the "tropification" to my friends for a while. My best comparison is that it's giving pornhub categories. They're making this stuff to fulfill a need, not to create literature. Which is fine, but like, tacky.
I think the forbidden romance in the first book might be because he's a PT and it looks like she's his patient so I think that might technically be unethical for them to be together.
I may have to read that golfer romance to see if it's just Happy Gilmore fanfiction. Bad boy golfer? Happy immediately comes to mind. Touch her & die? "That's MY puck! Don't you ever touch MY puck!" energy from the hockey scene in the beginning of the movie. But even Happy got knocked out by Bob Barker, so, no, even in fiction, NO ONE takes the idea of a bad boy golfer seriously. Outside of that spot on comment about assault allegations. All said & done, I have to go rewatch Happy Gilmore now.
I'm a writer and I think trying to sell by tropes is cheap and lazy bc it's just a copy/paste from someone else's story. And it limits creativity. Just IMAGINE if publishers tried to sell The Hunger Games by tropes
I totally agree that romance books (including romantasy) are more about tropes than the story nowadays. I was thinking the same time recently, thank you for voicing it in this video! It's kinda sad that published books have become more and more like fanfiction. Fanfictions are good, but they're not the same! Fanfiction and books are two very different categories of writing works and sometimes they shouldn't overlap.
I’m kind of over trope marketing. Saying “x media meets x media” works better for me most of the time because it’s specific and usually already implies tropes. Tropes don’t really tell me anything about tone
The "sued to hell and back" comment just reminds me of Anne Rice's tirade against fanfiction. This is obviously a different situation, but I wonder how that particular person feels about fanworks being created. That Tessa Bailey one just sounds toxic all around - but I say this as someone who's not typically a contemporary romance reader/has not read a Tessa Bailey, so someone correct me if her books aren't like that. ETA about plot -- yes! Give me plot! I'll figure out the tropes later!
I think the golf book came from one specific TikTok I saw, which was a women who said “Date a golfer! You can get your little golf hat your little golf drink and your cute golf outfit and get 8 hours of uninterrupted reading time!” And in the background a guy walks up and starts asking her what she’s doing as the video cuts and I think Bailey took that and ran a little too far especially with the “bad boy”
tbh when i saw the post i thought "this is not for real" was op commenting on the excerpt and saying like "this is so unserious" but then i read the excerpt and used some critical thinking skills and realized. authors taking things too far per usual, and no one on the internet understands how a lawsuit works. "sue them to hell and back" girl the judge would laugh in your face edit: also, thanks for continuing to share and speak out about palestine, the congo , and sudan.
That fake excerpt is genuinely so funny, if people actually review bombed after reading that, I'm horrified that people didn't like... Look up anything before review bombing???? Didn't think for 2 seconds that the slur Nutcracker is UNREAL?? I'm blown away. And TOUCH HER AND DIE GOLFER????? I'M CRY LAUGHING.
Glovers are like any group of people a US open winer got jailed for 2 years on assault, and another has just been arrested. Touch her and die trope to me is just a jelosey trope.
I adore the graphics that have the tropes/elements of the book. I was wondering why I had been seeing less of these lately but if there is criticism on X it makes sense.
I definitely agree on the describing a book by tropes. Give me a synopsis anyday over a list of tropes. I want an idea of what to expect. As for the first story, real or fake I'm still in disbelief someone actually wrote that even if it was for a review bomb. For the second one, I feel like the author missed out on so many good golf puns they could've gone with instead of tropes. It's definitely not a hole in one for me, it definitely needs more to get me invested, but I might keep an eye on it.
I, personally, would be highly amused if someone wrote a fake excerpt (and they were clear about it being fake) for one of my books. Does no one have a sense of humor anymore? In what universe is writing a fake excerpt enough to sue someone over? That is a wild take and one that, as a writer, I would have shut down as soon as that started if I were in that situation. The review bombing is also ridiculous and it should stop. Also, I think that the forbidden romance is not only their ages but also the fact that he's her physical therapist. I have a Master's in psychology and the APA Code of Ethics tells all mental health care workers that essentially even if you see a patient in the grocery store, you cannot say hi to them first. So sleeping with a patient would be real out of pocket. lol The entire premise of that golf romance has me dead. Who asked for that book? Who was that for? 😂
The thing for me is that it’s NOT obvious that the excerpt is fake…The caption “This IS NOT for real 😭” comes across as facetious, imo. The way they use capitalization and the 😭 emoji makes me interpret the caption to be along the lines of “this is wild” and not literally “this is fake”. Especially bc the page has a watermark on it that says “Review Copy”. Even with an ambiguous caption, the watermark makes it apparent that they meant for some people to believe that it was real. It may have been funny to read, but I do think it at the very least flirts with libel
@@savannah4439 I disagree entirely that this is something worth a lawsuit. In fact, as far as I can see, the only reason one would threaten a lawsuit over this would be to intimidate the original poster of the fake excerpt. If anything, the problem with the review bombing is on the people who went and implied they read the book when they clearly did not and they gave the author one star reviews based on ONE page they disliked...even if the excerpt had been real, that's bullshit. If you haven't read the book and it isn't a situation where the author did something truly heinous without consequences, perhaps people should stop review bombing authors over any small thing they dislike about a book or the author. That isn't on the person who wrote the excerpt. It's on the ridiculous people who engage in that behavior. The author of the book has not said anything about a lawsuit...it appears to be random people overreacting on social media so none of this is aimed at the author. I am sure the author is lovely and I genuinely hate that this whole situation is probably very stressful for them. But if people online would stop blowing all of this out of proportion, it will be forgotten about by the time the book actually comes out. And given the fact that we all know review bombing happens, I would like to hope that the ridiculous fake one star reviews will be ignored as all one star reviews without further comment or explanation on Goodreads should be at this point because we all know that that is the number one way people retaliate against authors for anything they dislike. It is not as though that excerpt had something racist or homophobic or hateful in it. I think it's very clear it has to be parody but even if it had been real.... what in that excerpt was so bad it was worth review bombing, you know? It's just ridiculous.
okay when they said bad boy golfer my mind immediately flashed back to The 20/20 episode right after Tiger Woods got exposed for cheating on his wife with all those Denny's waitresses were they interviewed a bunch of the wives and one woman said "I used to be married to the bad boy of golf but we're divorced now because the lifestyle was too hard for me," also my first thought was that East Club in people to death too😂😂
Depends on what an attorney says, sometimes a boiler plate statement isn't enough to insulate someone from copyright or trademark infringement. As for the forbidden love, I don't think the author understands it's not so much as forbidden as it is completely unethical. Doing the horizontal tango or having a relationship with your patient is considered unethical and a breach of contract. Regardless if the patient sues or not the healthcare system is with its right to terminate the doctor, while the governing medical board is within its right to revoke their license to practice medicine. The doctor would also be dropped from their malpractice insurance.
I DESPERATELY NEED the 'bad boy golfer' book to be a comedy. I would PAY for the privilege to read a sarcastic telling of an ill fated romance with a mysterious bad boy golfer. PLEASE.
I think the book (fangirl down) is out ? I havent read it yet but tbh i am curious about it. Because as a black girl who grew up going to prep school that had a high ranking golf team, and who also was a member of local country club almost my entire life and played golf from time to time (my dad loved golf) i can confirm bad boy golfers absolutely do exist. Like they are good and focused when they are on the green but when they arent playing golf.....lots goes on. And because being serious about golf takes a certain income level , the lifestyle is just different. Plus alot of golf men were frat boys in college.
I now want that fake excerpt to be turned into a novella/short story with you reading the audiobook. BUT, no edits. I want the laughs, the snorts, the commentary, I want it all. THAT would be a fun read. And If a drunk read through were to happen, I wouldn't be mad... with priced tickets, of course (gotta get that dollar).
![BOOK COMMUNITEA: YET TO BE TITLED [CC]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
