Can we get vulnerable for a bit? Hope so, because we did.

Along with Jodie Slaughter and Andrea of Shelf Love Podcast, we come together - not unlike a certain Derek and Sarah - to reflect of what DREAMING OF YOU by LISA KLEYPAS. has to say about feminine identity, romance readers, and, as ever, ourselves.

Why Derek Craven and why not Joyce?

Why does Romance seek the approval of systems that do not serve it and indeed don’t even get it?

Are we not all always already overidentifying with main characters?

Does DoY have problems or is it all cunning craftwork?

Be sure to listen to the separate Whoa!mance and Shelf Love discussions before diving into the meta-ness and meta-mess of this text.

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This episode we embark on a Duologoy, a duet of sorts with Shelf Love. In an attempt to highlight the manifold approaches one can have to a single text, we are each, discretely, discussing DREAMING OF YOU by Lisa Kleypas. We have not listened to one another's discussions prior to recording/editing our own episodes, so there might be cross-over, but that will be as interesting as the unique points we each explore. Because, as our Vice President so aptly observed, who doesn't love Venn Diagrams?

Shelf Love is kicking things off, and the next round is on us.

Let’s talk about Joyce Ashby from Lisa Kleypas's novel Dreaming of You. We delve into the dichotomous portrayal of Joyce as an irredeemable villainess alongside her foil, the redeemable “hero” Derek Craven. We explore the parallel themes of violence, possessiveness, and animalistic sexuality resulting in problematically differing fates and treatment by the text. Belched from the underworld, Defender of Bisexual Villainesses Dame Jodie Slaughter joins Shelf Love in this special cross-over project with Whoa!mance - watch for the next episode, in which Morgan and Isabeau share their conversation about Dreaming of You.

Shelf Love

• NEW! Substack: https://shelflovepodcast.substack.com/

• Website https://shelflovepodcast.com/

• Twitter @shelflovepod

• Instagram @shelflovepodcast

• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpr5TNh-BTvsp93ECCvpoFQ

• Email: Andrea@shelflovepodcast.com

Guest: Dame Jodie Slaughter, Shelf Love’s Expert on Bisexual Villainesses

• Website https://www.jodieslaughter.com/

• Twitter @JodieSlaughter

• Instagram @jodie_slaughter

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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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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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