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A review by codexmendoza
I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long
2.0
So actually the heroine of the novel has an amazing personality (like many of Long's heroines) and of the ones I've read this is the only one with a POC lead (the hero is half-Native American) but unfortunately this book is just full of unremitting white people fuckery. There are a lot of reviews praising the good parts of this book and I agree with many of them, I think if aforementioned fuckery hadn't happened I would have rated this like a 4ish. Unfortunately, in a parallel to this election some fuckshit happens in this book and I can't wait for people to tell me I'm overreacting. Details under the spoiler.
So the hero has a former mistress who is nonwhite and the heroine has never met her, but mentally refers to the woman as being "dusky" multiple times. Because apparently being brown means it has to be constantly brought up as her only character trait and also there exists only one adjective to describe her. This woman never shows up, is discarded and also has no characterization. Also she's a courtesan because of course.
Also uhh it turned out that the entire time the brother she's looking for is trying to squash a slave ring literally for fucking personal development. (He actually cites something his True Love says about how he's never done anything meaningful in his life as his reason for embarking on this quest.) And also because his True Love is against slavery (she hands out pamphlets because lmao white allies) but her father is one of the investors and apparently instead of just exposing him and having him fucking ARRESTED BECAUSE THIS MAN ENSLAVED PEOPLE, he's like "I'm just going to sink all the slave ships so she never knows." It makes me so furious that the actual historical pain and suffering of black people is used in this way while there are no black characters except for the aforementioned mistress who really deserves reparations. (Also, I refuse to read the last book about this guy, but according to reviews, none of this stops him for like, fucking his way through the high seas while his True Love awaits him chastely.)
I like Julie Ann Long, I like her characters and generally the most troubling thing about her books is that there's a marked lack of female friendship, but what the fuck.
Spoiler
So the hero is half native and she calls him a savage more than one time. She claims to not know that he's biracial but come on, people don't whip out coded language like "savage" after seeing a milky white dude, no matter how tan he is or buff his thighs. Caveat: she later backpedals (but never really apologizes). But like the whole vibe I got from this is that he became human to her after she decided she was attracted to him. To quote Bim Adewunmi: "We can't fuck ourselves to equality."So the hero has a former mistress who is nonwhite and the heroine has never met her, but mentally refers to the woman as being "dusky" multiple times. Because apparently being brown means it has to be constantly brought up as her only character trait and also there exists only one adjective to describe her. This woman never shows up, is discarded and also has no characterization. Also she's a courtesan because of course.
Also uhh it turned out that the entire time the brother she's looking for is trying to squash a slave ring literally for fucking personal development. (He actually cites something his True Love says about how he's never done anything meaningful in his life as his reason for embarking on this quest.) And also because his True Love is against slavery (she hands out pamphlets because lmao white allies) but her father is one of the investors and apparently instead of just exposing him and having him fucking ARRESTED BECAUSE THIS MAN ENSLAVED PEOPLE, he's like "I'm just going to sink all the slave ships so she never knows." It makes me so furious that the actual historical pain and suffering of black people is used in this way while there are no black characters except for the aforementioned mistress who really deserves reparations. (Also, I refuse to read the last book about this guy, but according to reviews, none of this stops him for like, fucking his way through the high seas while his True Love awaits him chastely.)
I like Julie Ann Long, I like her characters and generally the most troubling thing about her books is that there's a marked lack of female friendship, but what the fuck.