Blast-off baby! This eppy yr grls are moon walking across some big topics in YA romance with THE DARKNESS OUTSIDE US by ELIOT SCHREFER.

Ambrose is fulfilling his lifelong training of space travel, and he is fulfilling it to rescue his beloved sister. And so is soviet-adjacent Kodiak (without the sister part). Will the two be able to put aside their ideological differences, and the creeping feeling the mommy-voiced Operating System is not on their team, to fall in LOVE?!

What are the ethics of consuming YA romance when you have a full-developed frontal lobe? Did the Cold War break our ability to think expansively? Do you HAVE to fall in love with the one other cadet on your space ship?

Houston, we have another romance-reader existential crisis!

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• Available at The Ripped Bodice

This ep yr grls visit the cultural rupture known as 1995 to (finally) discuss LORD OF SCOUNDRELS by Loretta Chase.

Scoundrel, rake, blight of his family name, Lord Dain has a lot of baggage, the least of which is some dumb guy named Bertie. But gorgeous, brilliant Jessica has accepted her lot as a spinster and developed an actual personality, so her dumb brother, Bertie, happens to be her biggest baggage. Little do Dain and Jessica know they are about the become each other's sexy, sexy baggage. Nothin' slaps like the hits, y'all!

What are the limits of "because it is a romance" as justification? How can novels show instead of tell the work of men deconstructing toxic masculinity? Who even is the main Main Character here?

For fans of romance deconstruction and materiality, this one's for YOU!

Whoa!mance is a part of Frolic Media.

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Don ye flower crowns - yr grls are going full ren fest with "The Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon" by Kimberly Lemming.

Cinnamon does the title with Fallon during a very auspicious time - a festivus when The Goddess's protection spells weaken and chosen heroes must pick up the slack. Cinnmaon is grateful she missed that particular calling, but Fallon is insistent she join him on an opposite quest - because The Goddess isn't really a goddess...

Why does the context of fictional violence change the experience of it so drastically? Will fantasy, and its progeny, ever really be cool?

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This week we're leaving the gun, taking the cannoli (per usual) with "TWISTED PRIDE" by CORA REILLY.

Serafina is about to fulfill the promise of her midwest-Mob upbringing by marrying an underboss (like her dad, her uncle, her twin brother...) but she feels weird about it, Thankfully, certifiable Very Bad Person and capo of a rival mafia family, Remo, kidnaps her moments before her vows and takes her hostage in Las Vegas. After blood, sweat, tears, more blood, additional blood, then blood, they fall in love! But can she reconcile who she thought she was with who she is becoming?

What are the limits of purity culture critique? Or the ability of the abject to pull you through a love story? How do you pronounce Giudice?

Pour yourself an Amaro and settle in - not unlike Mario Puzo's "The Godfather", it's long but worth it.(There's a Bernie Mac attack at the end!)

TW: Discussion of sexual assault, blood / gore, violence

Whoa!mance is a part of the Frolic Media Network.

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As we wrap up FanFicuary Morgan and Isabeau we couldn't leave Harry Potter behind. While JKRowling and her world view continue to be a dangerous dumpster fire, we ask where does the author end and the fanfic author begin? We also tackle the Everest of our times: The most fraught subject in all the world--PDA. Where's the pleasure in wrapping yourself in the coat of another adult human while they are wearing it--in public? How public is too public for deep throating your crush?

Grab a butterbeer and your house colors as we meander through the warm fuzzies of the post Hogwarts ennui of 20 somethings trying to fledge. Its the headcanon of a lot people's dreams: Harry 3 Draco.

Whoa!mance is a part of the Frolic Media Network

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We're back and we're ready to get down to the business of weirdest, sexiest, and whoa/no of THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS by ALI HAZELWOOD.

This fic turned barn burner of a romance novel (you can buy it Target!) uses characters from the Star Wars universe to tell the story of a third year PhD candidate catching real feelings in a fake relationship with a tenured faculty in her department.

What is the line between real person fic and character fic? What about fic demands delicious cringe? Are there breasts so small and mouths so big?

In the words of Jar Jar Binks - Dissen ganna be bery messy!

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