#2. he is also native american ://// while wavy is a beautiful platinum white haired tiny little pixie fairy white girl

[jessaerys]

so, All The Ugly and Wonderful things (hereon atuawt) is, from my limited knowledge as i like to go into books knowing as little as possible, some kind of forbidden romance type novel with a huge age gap (protagonist (wavy) is around eight when she meets the future love interest (kellen), who is already an adult of indeterminate age but is mentioned to look too young to have a daughter, so lets say 21-22) - initially heard of it when looking for books similar to tampa or my dark vanessa and thought it might at the very least be morally ambiguous, but then came across this author q&a on goodreads which is basically an "it's not ~weird~ if it's True Love" justification

As for my book, I firmly maintain that Kellen is not a pedophile (nor an ephebophile), but he has the misfortune of falling for the right girl at the wrong time.

WHICH. lol. ironically this is what made me take the plunge out of curiosity, given how divisive the reviews are on goodreads, neither side reading particularly nuanced to me (basically omg true love! vs. PROBLEMATIC!). that said something that never fails to bother me in these type of romance narratives is when there's no acknowledgment that is IS weird. like regardless of how you spin it, it IS weird for a grown man to start coming around to seek out the company of a little girl, even IF it doesn't seem like the feelings are inappropriate (yet, i'm about 20% in). mostly he takes the role of casual caretaker as wavy's parents are drug addicts/dealers. BUT i think there still needs to be some sort of acknowledgement in the narrative, you know, at least a lampshading moment of "of course it would look bad if", "i was worried people would think that", you know. like in a large age gap romantic fantasy that is supposed to be read as gentle, caring, nurturing love, i would imagine that (at least to me) the adult party being a non-threatening figure that is initially deeply aware of their role as the boundary enforcer is, counterintuitively, what would lower my defenses as a reader when things inevitably progress from there. the fantasy is of a subversion of power dynamics; the reluctant adult that needs to be coaxed into misbehaving later. i spared you! you were a child! anyway this post is long for what is essentially a shallow observation but the conclusion is literally nobody is doing it like daemon targeryan, #1 feminism ally