#like 'this book deliberately from the villains pov meant to show you he is unreliable should be from his victims pov'

[doloresdisparue]

i so often see people say "lolita should have been written from dollys perspective" and while i understand the sentiment (apart from the fact that its a stupid argument because a book from dollys perspective would be a completely different book and not fulfil any of the narrative functions "lolita" does) what annoys me here is... THOSE BOOKS EXIST. but theyre not going to become cultural juggernauts overnight, not even the good ones. you have to actually seek them out and read them.

i started looking for lolita adjacent books a year ago and i could name you 5 lolita "spin-offs" off the top of my head, NOT counting 'los diary' because that one sucks or 'my dark vanessa' bc at least that one is fairly well-known (roger fishbite, molly, journal de L, LO, darling river) . i could immediately name you another five non-lolita csa books from the victim/survivor pov that i personally read and liked (mysterious skin, lullabies for little criminals, a good chunk of the george miles cycle, flying in place, gemma) as well as another five that i didn't love but that had redeeming features (living dead girl, a little life, such a pretty girl, tricks, the day before)

this isn't even counting books that interrogate the gender stereotypes in perpetrator narratives (any man, tampa) or books taking the pov of children trying to cope with abuse they cant conceptualise even if they arent directly experiencing sa (room) or the nonfiction book about the horner case (the real lolita), the fictionalisation thereof (rust & stardust) or memoirs heavily featuring lolita (being lolita, excavation).

this is just stuff i found in the last year (as someone who usually avoids drama, ya, romance and crime novels) and i have probably 50 more on my tbr. these books are not hard to find, definitely not in the age of goodreads, but we do actually have to look for them and talk about them if we want to highlight these types of narratives in the cultural discourse instead of attacking another book that happened to get famous for not being something completely different.