Hey guys, Margie here. So WOW this book, The Nymph King.
Rachel and I both had some friends test listen to this episode and a previous practice one we had done to prepare for our first episode release. The people who had listened to both episodes agreed that while the book I had used for my first practice episode was bad The Nymph King was FAR WORSE.
Here’s the thing, the fact that this book exists at all is terrifying, the fact that women enjoy reading it is WORSE. I mean my god what box isn’t it checking when it comes to problematic themes? Sexual assault? Check. Stockholm syndrome? Check. Men with violent/aggressive tendencies? Check. Drugging? Check.
Also, on a more personal level, I’m from and live in Cincinnati. I love Skyline Chili and Graeter’s and love our city’s growing beer culture and our FC Cincinnati pride. However, was anything about Cincinnati referenced in this book? No. Honestly, I doubt our dear friend Gena Showalter has even been to Cincinnati. It’s just like, if you’re going to include that detail in the book at least make it look like you know what you were talking about.
Also, the writing was just so…disjointed. Like, there were these little plot points where I think the author was trying to include a bit of personality in the characters but it just sort of felt out of place with everything else. An example of this is Shaye at one point asks Valerian for an orange and Valerian doesn’t have any in the ocean but later has a group of soldiers go out and find some oranges. You know, something Shaye could have gotten at her local Kroger’s here in Cincinnati. It just felt very…forced.
I am a bit angry at Rachel and I for not putting in at least ONE reference to The Shape of Water in this episode. The Shape of Water blows this book out of the water (heh, heh) in terms of I don’t know EVERYTHING. But still such a missed opportunity. Valerian and the fish man are both six-packed ripped muscle men after all.
Having been forced to look at the cover page again below, I shouldn’t be too surprised by just how much of an underwater garbage fire of a book this is, but I guess I had tried to push the memories out of my mind.
I promise my next book is better, or at least I enjoyed it more. Give me a tortured hero any day of the week over this trash man whore.
Thanks for listening, and watch out for Rachel’s episode in a couple weeks!
Leave a Reply