The Secret Garden (Collins Classics) tải về miễn phí cuốn sách

Megat Zaim magcnedf4a — The following part will remain the same in all my reviews of this series, I think, but I'll try to add some of my thoughts on the individual works in the next few days. I've reorganised my calibre library a few days ago, and stumbled upon this series. I'd long forgotten that I made it until the ninth novel before finally giving up. And the truth is, originally, I even enjoyed several of Ward's stories. Of course, in hindsight I'm asking myself how much I can hate my own gender to be that way, or how ingrained the sense of classism has to be for me to have enjoyed stories that, in any shape and form, were glaringly offensive. In my defense, this series is the one, and most likely also only one, that profitted from being translated into another language. Yes, the German version was better, so I only truly realised why people were criticisng Ward's writing when I re-read parts of the books in English. The Back Dagger Brotherhood series certainly influenced the genre in a massive way, and not all of it was bad. Even though she had two males have sex without lube -and I didn't read the story, so I can't say anything further- she did *dare* to write about a slash pairing in a mainstream paranormal romance novel. She unapologetically wrote the silliest, angiest plot-lines out there, and encouraged by fans reactions continued to do so, despite harsh critics out there. My problem is; and in order to discuss this or at least somewhat understand where I'm coming from, it has to be agreed that fiction does not exist in a vacuum, therefore representation in modern media is important and influencial; that Ward also treats her ladies rather badly. I don't mind stories focussed on cishet male's in their physical prime, but it can't be on the cost of creating full-fledged, interesting heroines. There are many things people have already addressed: The existence of sexism in a "superior" race, the existence of classism in it - that there is a race that feels content to always be inferior to them, to serve the vampires, the implications of the entire worldbuilding, and often rather random solutions to the stories, etc pp. are things that fundamently bother me now. But when I first read them, my shields were down. I just accepted them as they were. And that's what bothers me even more. Because fiction doesn't exist in a vacuum, and even when I close a book, the content stays with me. So, it's absolutely okay to be entertained by this series, or to love the characters. I can also see that several relationships made sense in the contect of the characters' personalities and circumstances. But Ward could have spend more time acknowledging certain conflicts than creaing more, and unneccessary, man-pain/angst. * * * Lover Awakened is clearly a fan-favourite, as the hero is extra tortured and the heroine is extra pure. I get it, and it was okay. The fact that he was abused and held as a sex-slave, his shame and guilt, are things I appreciate: Ward lets her guys be "human", and she acknowledges that men can be raped, abused and mistreated as well. There is just always a little note in her writing that shifts it from equality to something else.