Video

Hey Jesse just wanted to let you know that this video was scrapped by AI. Proofnews has a tool that will allow you to double check this

Nostalgia will have people in a choke hold. “We should respect each other opinions”, no we should not if a person says something that feeds into a negative stereotype without being challenge in any form of media then nobody should have to respect you.

Have you read "Yours for the taking"? Curious about your thoughts

Sooo a medical cocktail is to blame. That’s new. 🤨

Im interested in anything scifi. So escaping exodus is now on my radar

😊

Its literally the worst book

WOW! You have an impressive breadth of knowledge, and then equally impressive backlist of videos! So Positive! After watching this, I scanned your backlist to see if you mentioned Charles R Saunders - the originator of "Sword and Soul" fantasy. In the 70s and 80s white writer dominated sword and sorcery, Conan knockoff world, Charles R Saunders was a lone voice for African based fantasy. The Imaro books are great. He deserves not to be forgotten, although I don't know if he will be as diverse and progressive as you like your books. I'd love to hear what you think!

Are you ok? Havent seen yall in a while. I miss yall so much ❤❤. Yall content always give me life

Wait people are critiquing Felix Ever After???? Boy if someone did to me what that guy did to Felix there would be no survivors!

I completely agree with everything you said. What was the point of Monique being biracial and Evelyn being Cuban? I'm not having the POC experience with these characters and certainly the addition of these characteristics seems like adding dIvErSiTy for the sake of addding it

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Obviously, that goes without saying. You can criticize the relationship between Evelyn and Celia, the pacing of the book, characters, and everything else, that’s fine. However, it sounds like you were looking for reasons to not like the book and I feel that you misrepresented the author and the story itself. You really have to pick straws to assume that the book and the author are “problematic.” I’m going to try to hit as many points as I can. This video came off as incredibly smug and pretentious in my opinion. 4:17-4:23 You are really minimizing the severity of the events that took place before Evelyn decided to leave Monique’s father, James, in the car. Evelyn trusts very few people and has very small circle of close friends. Harry was Evelyn’s best friend, confidante, former husband, and THE FATHER OF HER CHILD. James was already dead and Harry was still breathing. The reason she let him take the fall for the accident is because she was trying to protect her best friend, hopefully save the father of her daughter, as well as save his image. Also, she took him out of the car and left James alone because it could’ve potentially outed both of them for being a mixed race gay couple during a time where that was not accepted. Evelyn didn’t want that for either of them. She carries a lot of regret for this decision and turned away from Hollywood because of it. She learned about who James was, found out he had a family and, a young daughter too. She waited all this time to tell Monique the truth of what happened to her dad and gave her the option to write about all of this, which could boost her career, or she didn’t have to at all. Watering it down to “leaving a Black, queer, man to die on the side of the road,” is disingenuous. As sad as it is, man was already dead and Evelyn had no connection to him, so of course she would attempt to save Harry. Plot devices can work when done well, and in my opinion, it worked well in the story. Moving on to Monique. I personally don’t think her race needs to be brought up all of the time because it’s not relevant a lot of the time. That’s just my opinion though. The reason, I think, she doesn’t connect too much to her Black side is because she lost her dad so young. She became closer to her mom and that side of her family. I don’t find her character shallow, but remember this story is all about Evelyn Hugo. We are not going to get a whole deep dive on Monique’s background because that is not what the story is about in the end. I am biracial, and I personally connected a lot with Monique. Now me being biracial does not mean that my opinion is the be-all end-all, absolutely not. I am not all biracial people and not all biracial people are me. I do not disregard my Black side just because I am more connected to my Latino roots. That’s a whole thing that would take too long to explain. I just think the way you went about explaining this was insensitive and a bit tone-deaf. I think the points you made in regard to the Black characters being one-dimensional were really weak. We know that Monique’s dad was a photographer and she thought that was her connection to Evelyn. We know that he had a secret double life that Monique’s mom may or may not have known about, and we know that Monique carried a lot of anger towards her father. Monique has a lack of confidence in herself and has a difficult prioritizing her own needs and desires over others’. Monique and James were more than just token Black characters, they had ambition and you cared about them. Taylor Jenkins Reid had several books before Evelyn Hugo that were not as well known or viral. This was the book that really put her on the map and had nothing to do with her being a White woman taking another spot on the charts. Now in a lot of interviews promoting the book, I think the reason she didn’t mention Rita Hayworth being an inspiration in the beginning was because it would’ve spoiled too much of the book. It is very well-known that Elizabeth Taylor had 7 husbands and that’s the connection people made with the title of the book. When you first pick up the book and read the synopsis, a person might instantly think “Elizabeth Taylor” because of the info presented right in front of them. There is no “ethnic erasure.” Is it really “ethnic erasure” when a book about a mixed race, gay actress in Old Hollywood becomes an instant best seller and fan favorite even among people who don’t typically read this genre ? I don’t think so. Overall, I think you left out a lot of important context that is crucial to a lot of the points you made and that you severely misrepresented the author’s character.

Hi jesse! I would like to see a video on comparing dr.jekyll and mr. hyde and my dear henry. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of my favorites! I read Sister Maiden Monster because of you! Thank you and i loved it! Nice video! Hope you have a good weekend!

🧿

The ending of this book had me absolutely sobbing at the end of it

will you do a video on the problems with a game of thrones book? idk what are the problems with it?

I can't afford patron at the moment honestly too many people I want to be a patron off but I'm really looking forward to reading your books they sound really interesting and something I would love.

Hope y'all are doing okay 🤞 absolutely no pressure to post again just hope y'all're doing well

the problems you notice in this book stem from your whole ideology but you're all too self involved to be honest let alone notice.

I hope y’all are doing alright 💓

Just a thought: your obsession/hyperfixation for plants sounds like it could have been an autistic special interest. Have you also considered you might be autistic? A lot of people with DID are also autistic, and autism is severely under diagnosed (especially in women, LGBTQIA people and people of colour) and often misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. Whenever an autistic person is passionate about something it’s all they can typically think/talk/learn about, which is why I thought of autism when you mentioned your plant obsession. Special interests bring autistic people a lot of joy and comfort & meaning. PS: I don’t have DID but I’m autistic myself, and I wasn’t diagnosed until the age of 26 👍

Jesse hope all is well. Miss ya’ll

I had to realize I need meds I am back on Prozac, Hydroxyzine, and Wellbutrin. I have ADHD, depression, anxiety, ocd, pmdd. I was suicidal from pmdd all the time I got my ovaries removed. I spend most of my time in bed people are so judgmental about meds I have wasted my life and my kids not functioning isolating.

Heyyy cousin

I know this is an old video but I just read this book! It was 3/5 to me, entertaining but I definitely will be getting rid of my physical copy😅 I thought that maybe Michaelides is trying to make a book-universe and Henry is going to be the MC/a big character in his third book (like how the niece is a character in TSP & Theo cameos in Maidens). I liked the symbology/use of the Rites of Eleusis and the parallel between Demeter/Persephone/Hades & Mariana/Niece/Fosco&Husband, but NOTHING was well fleshed-out in the story! Nothing was satisfying bc everything was just like a little one-off, thrown in bit of "oooh wouldn't that be cool" but wasn't made into comprehensive storylines...

Oh my gosh! I love the idea of reading a classic and then a retelling. I’m so late on videos, so I’m not sure if yall got through Huck Finn. My high school was named after Twain, but we never had to read anything by him! 🙌🙌 💐🌸🌼

25:07 consequences will never be the same

I've personally had and heard of good results with AI aided therapy.

🫂 I know that feel

I don’t know this Donna Tart chick but again I’m not into romance, and apparently she writes Neo Romance What ever that is. I’ll check out her book to how racist it is. I don’t know enough about Tart but I read she spends a lot of time in doors. In Mississippi, so that might explain some things if you spend a lot of times in doors Mississippi you might turn into a racist i’m sorry to hear this book upset you. I am black and white. So thank you for your video

This is a great video a lot of the authors I never heard of and after what you told me, I’m at particularly interested in material. Because I am completely against romance, so I think it’s a lie and a detriment to our society. Not a fantasy fan, but ironically, I really like Tolken his racism doesn’t stand out to me like someone like HP Lovecraft who I also like. I don’t know the statements about James Patterson. But I do know he’s not a great author. I enjoy the Alex Cross series as comfort food as you say the last few books don’t have any credibility.

as i saw someone say on goodreads, i think this book is generally pretty superficial in most of its aspects (aside from the character of evelyn herself), you rightfully pointed out race, though what i noticed was the lack of depth of the main relationship! it just felt super unrealistic to me that evelyn and celia remained always infatuated with each other and codependent and it was portrayed as the most amazing relationship. the only things i got from the depiction of the relationship was a) evelyn and celia say corny things about how much they are in love with each other and they couldn’t live without each other and their love is greater than life itself etc etc and b) celia being jelous lmao

God love you honey. I have been through a lot. I empathize. But Im guessing that doesn't really help you any. Just know, it won't always be this way.

Hello Jesse. I'm a new author and I'd love to get a review from you on my book; Quantum Interface. Based in 2057, Quantum Interface is an Afrofuturism tale infused with eroticism and adventure.

I’m trying to world build for a world spanning epic fantasy series and the protagonist is from Southern Africa. His mother is an African Assassin and his father is a banished European prince. It’s on the back burner while I work on some shorter stories to build up the world, its history and my own writing chops. Also I’ve never read fantasy taking place in an African inspired world.

You should read Gone With The Wind

I saw the title and went oh dear. I feel doubly concerned by this book's bigotry because I'm bi AND Asian.

I find the difference of opinions that humans can have while eating the same sandwich, drinking the same beverage or even watching the same movie, as one of the most beautiful things about life. With that being said, I loved this book, like really loved it. And I’m actually shocked that I got none of these vibes reading the same novel especially with everyone around me deeming me as the pro black friend or relative most of the time. LGBT reads aren’t even my thing when it comes to lit picks, however this was great writing for me. I genuinely felt like Evelyn did what she did to protect her friends legacy because they did so much to hide who they were and protect what they built for so long, not because she seen a black man on the passenger side and thought it would be better to frame him for it all. She thought her friend was going to live and removed him from the scene completely, knowing his lover was already gone, even if the lover was white or yellow, I don’t think the move for Harry should have been different because she truly loved her friend and knew how he felt about being outed let alone did she want the father of their child in jail. I didn’t see any of this, but to each his or her own.

I’m sending you love❤❤❤

30:50 yo the cuts every second are crazy 😂

I don't know how to phrase this well, but editing racist passages out of books to me it seems like trying to sweep the author's racism under the rug and pretend like it never existed (mostly to sell their books too) instead of addressing it and having an important discussion on why is it harmful. It reminds me of the disclaimer Warner Bros puts in some of their old racist cartoons. I don't know what the solution is to this debacle, but it's an important conversation when it comes to media

Thank you for the recommendation. well done

Hi Jesse Noticed you haven't posted in a while and I really hope you're well and taking care of yourselves

I have always had the same thoughts on Tolkien

🎃

I'm sorry You were surprised that a feminist wrote a feminist book and only bothered to create 1 male character worth anything but even that character had no character? I'm shocked! And how exactly did you not think about the idea of boys dressing as girls? That seems to be the substory of every story for the past 10 years. You must be reading so many books that you stopped paying attention to real life culture. You absolutely lost me when you seemed to have credited white men with the creation of the patriarchy, (like...how!). It never ceases to amaze me When i stop to think about how very little feminist women value men. If you are a man with power you must be evil and white. If you are a poor man, you have no power at all, you must be black, you must be ineffective in every action or thought, but god knows you are still evil. But Women are perfect! OF COURSE!