Musing – PLOT ARC

by Shalini, posted in Musings

I am extremely disturbed!!

I read a book which I thought to be a young adult fastasy with elves and unicorns and magic, and beasts in the forest where 2 siblings were to go on a quest.

Before the journey, the brother fell, hit his head and lost his memories including the meaning of relationships and their significance.

For a few pages in the middle of the book, the story took an incestuous turn with the brother forcing himself on his sister, the plot arc was justified by reason of loss of memory.

This book should have had a TRIGGER Warning. I am not the right audience for such a fantasy. The brother lost memory and found sister attractive theme is not for me. Too icky. Now I can’t concentrate as my mind was too disturbed.

Are such books the norm? Would you read such a book? What do you do when such a plot arc hits you?

I have a blinding headache post reading this book!!

70 thoughts on “Musing – PLOT ARC”

  1. Regardless of the reasoning behind including such scenes in a story, I can guarantee you I’d stop reading…and never read anything by that author again. They’ve lost my trust and I’d never feel comfortable again opening one of their books.

    This happened to me four years ago with an author I ADORED, and I’ve never looked back.

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  3. Oh no definitely not! It’s too disturbing to think it that way. I didn’t read game of thrones because of this reason. I might be wrong, but as long as I can remember it has something like this in the beginning. If there is such arc it should be mentioned in trigger warning as I would not like to be surprised with this weird brother-sister relationship.

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    1. Yeah… I thought it was middle grade story with unicorn and quest and adventure. And then this scene of brother trying to rape his sister because he didn’t know the meaning of the word sister. Gawd…

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    1. It was Silver fire by Freya Pickard.. It was unicorn quest this siblings go on and suddenly wham the brothers finds sister’s body attractive and tries to rape her since he didn’t know what sister meant… But he remembered what sex was.. Imagine that

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      2. Kim, it didn’t need the scene at all. There were so many other things happening in the book. This weird sex scene was not inherent to the plot and I realized the author stopped the book abruptly… All these are just marketing tactics… What a waste of reader’s money

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  8. Wrong on so many levels. I don’t want to read about rape regardless of the target. The incestuous aspect just triples the “I don’t want to read this book” response. Hope you can mentally leave this behind.

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  9. Unfortunately, many publishers seem to mislabel a book. I have found that happens quite a bit especially in the historical fiction genre. When a book bothers you so much, it’s time to drop it and say something to the publishers I think.
    Onto a lovely story for you, Shalini! 🌸

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  11. Sadly, “the brother trying to force himself on his sister” have kind of become a recurrent motif. But if the plot tries to justify it by trying to convince me that the brother lost his memory, then sorry, but I am calling it off 😑. We already have enough of disturbing tropes, I don’t need to read another one!

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    1. I hope so too. DJ.. I checked the ending of the book. It ended abruptly and then there is book 2 to be followed. I realized it was some kind of marketing..

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    1. It was search for unicorns.. So I thought middle grade… Happily trying to understand the story when the brother started noticing the sister’s body followed by attempt to rape. He had lost his memory so didn’t understand relationship but understood rape and sex…. I was shocked. It triggered… Got a massive headache. I am okay now.. Took me 6 hours to get rid of it

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  16. Eww, that is disturbing. I’m sorry you had to discover that about the book after you were already reading it. The author should have told you beforehand.

    I recently read a romance that had no warning about what was inside. Here I am, reading along, and all of sudden I found out the heroine is a minor and the hero is in his thirties and he’s basically raping this young woman. I understand that in some countries that is acceptable, but here in America it is illegal for adult men to engage in sexual relations with children under the age of eighteen. It kind of churned my stomach, so I couldn’t finish reading after that. I think it should have had a warning so readers were aware of the taboo inside. I don’t get why people put things like that in books. Are they just trying to shock readers? All it does is turn me off and make me not want to read anymore of that author’s books.

    I hope your next book is much better! 🙂 🙂

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    1. Leslie, in every country it is illegal. It is astonishing how some try to palm it off as romance. Call it what it is so that readers are not affected. I have gone through some bad things as a child so this scene triggered it all. I had a massive headache for 8 hours till my mind settled down. This was an author request. Shouldnt she have told me what her book is all about. If you see the reviews, they Call her prose poetry. I call it bullshit

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  17. Wow…that seems just totally wrong…UGH. To answer your question: No I would not read such a book. I would probably throw it right out the window: and I live twelve floors up. So that book will take quite a fall. Sorry to hear that this was such a bad book 😢

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      2. I am better now. Luckily doing nothing helped. And of course writing this post was cathartic.
        Since there is a baby in your comment
        WHO IS YOUR IDEAL WOMAN? *hint:me, even if it is not*
        My blog, my rules

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      3. I’m glad to hear you are better. When I read the review I just had to check, as I know how much things like this can effect you 😘 So had to make sure you were okay 😊
        Lol….who says it isn’t you…..🤔🤔😘😊😊

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  19. 😮😲 This is definitely a story not meant for the masses. I’d probably put that down and this post would end up being my review. That should definitely come with a warning!!!

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  20. That’s absolutely disgusting! Not only is it not appropriate for the target group (well, any age really) and it should at least have had a trigger warning, but I personally would stop reading straight away and never touch the book (or anything else by the same author) ever again. There is simply no excuse whatsoever for incorporating that kind of scene in a plot.

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      1. It would already have been horrible for him to do that to any girl (wouldn’t want to read about that either), but him being his sister is even more disgusting…

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  23. I agree… I was so disturbed by it.. The author’s email told me it was important to the whole plot. I put her mail in spam. I can’t read such plot lines

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  24. Ugh. I would have stopped reading this for sure. That’s so frustrating when there aren’t trigger warnings. 🤬 So sorry this happened to you, my love ❤❤

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  25. Pingback: Links I’ve Enjoyed This Week – 04/08/19 – Secret Library Book Blog

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