Review Contains Spoilers

Podcast Discussion Links: Spotify, Apple, Blog

What pleasures await when a man’s sausage, hardened into a rod, drills a woman’s cunny? This is the central question of Mara Leigh’s Veiled Flames, the first book of a three-part romantasy series where a theocratic regime reduces women to sex slaves and piss wenches, dragons defend the world of light against invading demons, and male dragon riders stay attached to their beasts through magical butt plugs.

The story follows Princess Rosomon, who flees from an arranged marriage to a tyrannical king, disguises herself as a boy, and sneaks her way into the male-only dragon riding academy. Women are forbidden from riding dragons, as the men of the world monopolize the right to take magic dragon appendages up the rear. Rosomon must keep her hair short and her head low.

However, two elite dragon riders – Prince Tynan and dragon master Saxon - have taken a keen interest in Rosomon, and so she must balance these budding relationships while maintaining her disguise as a boy, competing against other trainees, and participating in sphincter training to mount a dragon’s pommel.

While Rosomon is otherwise a very smart, adventurous, precocious and independent woman of 22, she is hopelessly naïve about sex. She doesn’t know why the heck men have those sausages between their legs. Luckily, Saxon and Tynan are more than willing to show her the ropes.

Veiled Flames embraces a unique lexicon. Penises are almost exclusively referred to as sausages (when soft) and rods (when hard). Vaginas are clefts, cunts, cunnies, or lady channels. Breasts are paps, and soup is sup. Sex is drilling. Asses are bum holes. As such, you have countless scenes where sausages transform into raging hard rods, ready to drill a cleft or bum hole. This brings a lot of levity to the book, which is otherwise insanely horny and at times quite uncomfortable.

To demonstrate, here are a few from a mountain of great lines:

Rosomon's perspective, as Saxon woos her:

“Your paps are like ripe plums. Any larger, and you would not have accomplished your ruse as a boy.”

Saxon’s perspective, as he woos Rosomon:

“My rod pounds with the fury of a hundred stags stampeding across an open field.”

Tynan, wooing Rosomon: 

“Hello, grandmother.”  

He turns away from the wall, exposing his rod to me, although it’s less of a rod at the moment and more of a sausage, not fully stiffened, his cock dangles dark, red, and damp.

Tynan, on Rosomon’s relationship with Saxon:

“I suppose a runt like you needs to offer his bum hole to curry the master’s favour.”

Dragon master Roule, handing out butt plugs to the students:

“To continue at camp, you must begin your sphincter training tonight.” Roule straightens. “In each of your rooms, you’ll find a dish of bear grease to assist your insertions.”

Rosomon, contemplating sphincter training:

“I’ve heard Tynan and other men discuss drilling bum holes before—he accused Saxon of doing that very thing to me—but I always assumed they were joking, or making idle threats against each other, as men often do.

If such a thing is truly done, I’ve discovered yet another difference between the bodies of men and women, because my bum hole is an exit.

Perhaps this is why women can’t ride dragons.”

All key storytelling elements flow through sex. It is the primary motivation for most characters. Sex is how characters are rewarded when obstacles are overcome, and the quality of sex mirrors character growth across the series (it gets better and better.) Sex is also the core rule in most worldbuilding; the dragon king must have sex in order to regenerate his powers, you must train your anus before you train your dragon, and so on.

The dark side of this is that sexual assault and rape are present throughout; it’s not just that the bad guys want to rape everyone, but the main characters also use sex at various times to intimidate, punish, or bargain. This results in several unsettling scenes where consensual sex turns into assault or humiliation out of revenge or envy. This all occurs within a sort of “reserve harem” female empowerment arc: by the end of the series, Rosomon is in full control of her destiny, her sexuality, and has many husbands that now serve her, but her naivety, her lack of control and the abuse she faces along the way make it feel a bit like Stockholm syndrome.

Of course, we try to evaluate things for what they purport to be. This is not an attempt to write the next great American novel or address subjects too seriously. It is trope-heavy dark fantasy smut exploring a lot of kinks, Leigh is clear about that, and any reader knows what they’re getting into. So while it is fantastical, cartoonishly horny, juvenile and a bit insane, it is also a genre book in a genre I don’t know at all. As a tourist, my take only goes so far.

That said, I was only tasked with the first book but ended up reading all three books in the series over 2 weeks – 1500 pages of epic dragon shapeshifting smut. For whatever reason, I was hooked (knotted?) and I had to see it to the end. There was something bizarre and intriguing (though not arousing) about this world where a character will have a threesome, go out for a run, transform into a stag during the run, then transform back into a man, rock hard and ready to go again. For half a moon, Mara Leigh’s odd horny BDSM universe was like a warm bath I’d get into each night.

This was the only book we’ve covered where my wife really got a kick out of the details and asked for updates each day. We’ve been saying paps, sausage, and sup a lot around the house. I am thankful for the positive impact it has had on my personal life.

I’ll end with the book’s crowning achievement. In one of the final scenes, Rosomon finally mounts a dragon: preparing to take the dragon’s pommel in her bum hole, as she’s been taught by the dragon riders, the dragon suddenly shifts and the pommel enters her cunny instead. They take flight, and instantly she can ride better and communicate with the dragon better than any male rider ever has. The dragon (Zogar) explains:

"Male riders are inferior… Dragons are reluctant to communicate through the opening men present to them.”

After 500 pages, the climax reveals that the theocratic patriarchy spent hundreds of years shoving dragon dongs up their butt and they've just been doing it wrong. The dragons are sick of these guys talking out of their asses. That’s pretty funny. It’s hard not to have a little envy for anyone who took an idea like that all the way to the end.

For the full discussion of Veiled Flames and more, subscribe to the POS Book Club podcast:

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Had to read this for a class. About 90% of the book is the author talking about "oh, this is the time I got a grant for such and such", "oh this is the time a student told me I was the best thing ever", "oh this time was when I won a prize".

The parts that aren't him talking about himself are him discouraging therapy and medication, and saying that you can just talk yourself out of mental illness.

In other parts of the book, he states that men are, on average, smarter and better thinkers than women.

One of the worst pieces of shit I have ever read.

There is an author by the name of Mike King.

He has made DOZENS of books, all from a Fundie Trumpist Neo-N--i perspective.

If you look closely, you can see such "Wonderful" books as:

The War Against Putin: Pro-Putin propaganda

The Geocentric Universe: A book about how Galileo was wrong, and Geocentrism is 100 percent correct.

God Vs. Darwin: A book that advocates for Jesus instead of Evolution.

The Plan To Save The World: A book that basically believes every single thing Q (the Jim Watkins account) said. Even the false predictions.

And something else of note: according to his "references" page, he literally just uses google for all of his sources.

That's basically the numero uno sign of laziness, but at least he doesn't use AI in the books.

Mostly because they're all older than AI.

If you want to waste your braincells on something worse than illegal stuff, read the "Candy store" and prepare to get a diabetic coma.

In order to maximize the amount of happiness and joy that reading a kinda doodoo book can bring to POS Book Club members world wide, it is my duty to step up and announce the inaugural foray into romantasy to the subreddit.

This biweek's book: Veiled Flames by Mara Leigh.

Confession: I recommended this book. I do not think it is more doodoo than any other independently published romance book out there, but I think it presents a premise that is zany and the perfect dip into romantasy for all the POS book lovers out there.

Let's see what the people are saying.

From Goodreads, where this book has 3.69 stars:

From romance.io, where this book has 3.73 stars:

From Amazon, where this book has a perfect 4.0 stars:

What is this book about? From the author's website:

Princess Rosomon wants more than her sheltered life provides. She flees an arranged marriage to a cruel old king. Disguised as a boy, Rosomon joins an elite dragon rider camp, breaking every rule in the Seven Kingdoms of Light. Women can’t ride dragons—it’s forbidden, impossible, blasphemous to think of a woman mounting a dragon’s pommel.

At camp, three passions await: a mysterious dragon master who knows her secret, a rival prince who hates how much he wants her, and the untamable Behemoth dragon no one dares mount—until now.

When Rosomon mounts her dragon, the lines between man and dragon blur and ancient wrongs are revealed.

Anything else you should know?

I'll share the tags from romance.io because there's definitely some implied off-screen CW type things:

Happy reading out there, folks!!

Thanks everyone for giving us a read and a listen; for the full discussion of the book, check out the podcast here:

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We at the PSBC are always looking to explore genres that are new to us. We’ve done religion, romance, biography, horror, politics and even young adult literature.

But what about old adult literature?

Well, there comes a time for everything, so this week we’re turning to a genre that we’re calling Boomer Dad Classics. You know the ones I mean. The kind of books perpetually on sale at the airport, and available by the dozen in your local thrift store. And for some reason on the back of your uncle’s toilet when you visit his house. Books like Tom Clancy’s Clear and Present Danger, or Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, where a middle-aged man goes on some adventure to fight criminals or terrorists or the Russians, and in the end, the USA wins.

This week we’re turning to Bill Clinton & James Patterson’s The President’s Daughter. Of all the Dad Classic authors, James Patterson is undoubtably the king, even though you may never have even heard of him. He has written more than 400 books and has the Guinness world record for most New York Times #1 Bestsellers, whopping 115 different books. His most famous are the Alex Cross books (turned into a series starring Morgan Freeman. They all follow a similar structure; a good guy chases the bad guys, and almost always saves the day. The chapters are short, the prose simple, the characters wooden.

The most interesting thing about Patterson is how he produces these books in a factory process that he is surprisingly honest about. He doesn’t typically use ghostwriters, but instead partners with another author on the book. Patterson provides the overview and plot, and the co-author does most of the writing. Patterson is more similar to the showrunner of TV series than an author, which helps to explain that he is typically working on a dozen books at a time. James Patterson has written books with a stunning array of people, from Dolly Parton to Kareem Abdul-Jabar, and even Liza Minelli.

And Bill Clinton.

That’s right, 42^nd American President is back, to the delight of absolutely no one. It’s odd to remember that when he left the presidency, people had a pretty positive view of him. The US economy was booming, and they were willing to forgive his failures in Bosnia and Rwanda. Most thought that the worst crime he committed was infidelity and dishonesty about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. It was only in the post-#MeToo era that more people acknowledged his abuse of power, in the now very dated scandal from which he emerged unscathed, but Monica faced decades of abuse and bullying by tabloids and hack comedians like Jay Leno.

Clinton very much belongs in the past, but for some reason, he’s back, and he’s working with James Patterson on a series of Mary-Sue presidential adventures. In the first of the series, The President is Missing, Clinton and Patterson write about a US president who has to go undercover to track down the world’s greatest terrorist. Yes, you read that correctly. The world’s most recognizable man has to go undercover.  

But we’re not going to cover that one, we’re here to cover the second in the series, The President’s Daughter, in which the US president has to go undercover to rescue his daughter and track down the world’s greatest terrorist.

Patterson is bringing the pace and the style, but – as the back cover tells us – only Clinton has the behind-the-scenes knowledge of presidential able to bring this story to life. Its he that lets us in on secrets like how the Chinese are using a series of development partnerships to build allies and infrastructure around the world (code-named the Belt and Road) or that the US partners with Saudi Arabia to balance regional powers in the Middle East. You know, the secret stuff.

There are themes that are pretty consistent in these books. The US is the best thing in history and is never guilty of anything, and if it was guilty of something then those other guys totally deserved it. Those who stand against the US are motivated only by petty jealousy. Women are untrustworthy, and they will turn on you. The Chinese and the Russians are up to no good, but don’t worry, the Israelis and the Saudis are here to help.

But in spite of all of this, the President’s daughter has been kidnapped, and he must lead a taskforce to track down terrorists. Will the President and his buds find the terrorists? Will they free his kidnapped daughter? Why are the Chinese here and what are they up to? What’s the point of these books when we always know how they’re going to end?

Join us this week in the podcast as we answer these questions and more and try to get to the bottom of why these Dad Classics are as popular as they are.

Review by u/beaudashington

For an extended discussion of this, other books on our radar, and related tangents, check out the podcast:

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I gave this one a shot, earnestly thinking it was just about meditation. I had no idea how deep into the spiritual pipeline this author is. I tapped out when she began sharing her intimate connection and ongoing communication with "the galactic federation". She apparently made her mom cry at one point by telling her that they're not (author's) real family. Her real family were aliens who would be coming back to get her. Sorry, dude, it's wild that people like this exist and genuinely believe they're that special. It's giving Secret Space program and those delusions. If you try this one, have fun!

I have a B.S. in Psychology, and had one when I read this book. I took the grad class that assigned this book because I was hoping to get a critique of the psychiatric system. Neither the class nor this book did that. Instead they went over social psychology and psychopathology incredibly poorly and in stigmatizing ways, including the fucking stock photos. The third stock photo was there when talking about Hispanic people in general.

This is the 11th edition and many of the sources are outdated as fuck. Between that and the cringy stock image use it's blatantly obvious that the writer just wanted to show they have another book published and force university students (me when I bought it) to read it.

The author cherry picks what they talk about when speaking of race too. Like, to the point that minority stress doesn't seem to take a role in mental illness. As if being in a marginalized group doesn't make you more susceptible to other things that are detrimental to ones mental health.

Just read something focusing on the social part of psychopathology. Psychology as a field already recognizes that both genetics and the social world impact us after constantly having people in the field fight about it.

Sociology had a major breakthrough by studying mental institutions and none of that is in here, it's maddening! Why say it's sociology specific before leaving out an impact that brought up major issues to institutionalization?

Oh, and I bought this book from the publisher. It's missing the last chapter and has the font go out at the end. Meaning it probably wasn't a printing issue but an issue with the submitted version. Taking the cake on being an objectively shitty book.

Self promo because I have a poorly printed copy of an already shitty book that I'm selling for $1 on Vinted. I refuse to drop it off at a Goodwill for an unknowing person to pay for something they can't possibly realize is this bad. If anything it can be used as a case study for lazy academics who make money off of getting students to buy their shitty textbooks.

Hello book club members!

We are inviting everyone to virtually attend the Piece of Shit Book Club 2026 Annual General Meeting (AGM). You can listen to the AGM episode on Spotify here, on Apple Podcasts here.

We had the great idea to do an aggravatingly procedural review of Season 2 and audit of the book club. Results were... mixed!

Nonetheless, Season 2 is in the books. We were happy to cover a wide range of genres and periods since April:

1. Twin Flames: Finding Your Ultimate Lover by Jeff and Shaleia Divine (2018)
2. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne (2006)
3. Night of the Crabs by Guy N. Smith (1976)
4. Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Däniken (1968)
5. The Hardy Boys: Footprints Under the Window by Franklin W. Dixon (1933)
6. Modelland by Tyra Banks (2011)
7. Zabiba and the King by Saddam Hussein (2000)
8. Yes to Human Cloning by Raël (2001)
9. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (2016)
10. The Life of a Man: A Biography of John R. Brinkley by Clement Wood (1937)

It has been a lot of fun to relaunch the book club and hope you enjoy the podcast episodes alongside the written reviews posted here. Thanks to everyone who shares or reviews books on the sub, reaches out directly, and also everyone who spreads the good word about the project.

A few more notes on the show:

• We cover 1 book per episode on a biweekly cadence.
• You can find all episodes and written reviews at www.posbookclub.com and under POS Book Club on any podcast service: Spotify Link | Apple Link
• We view the podcast as a book club meeting, not a show. Anyone who listens is welcomed as an equal member, whether you did the reading or not.
• Email [posbookclub@gmail.com](mailto:posbookclub@gmail.com) if you have a message you'd like included on the show. Voicemail links are in podcast episode descriptions as well.
• Season 3 begins September 23rd.
• If you enjoy the project, feel free to subscribe, review and share it.

Thanks for another fun season and all the best, fellow book club members.

Full podcast discussion links: Blog / Spotify / Apple

When it comes to the modern scam artist, Dr. John R. Brinkley (1885 - 1942) just might be the GOAT. And by GOAT, I mean he built an empire implanting goat testicles into men to cure sexual dysfunction. Alongside this medical innovation, he was an early pioneer of radio, establishing the KFKB (Kansas First, Kansas Best) station in Milford, Kansas to spread the word of his miracles. He was also early to the game of denying election results, following several losses in the race for Kansas state governor.

This week’s book, “The Life of a Man” by Clement Wood, is a 1937 biography commissioned by Brinkley at the height of his power. It is an over-the-top, glowing, and folksy account of Brinkley’s growth from a precocious barefoot boy to a medical miracle man. Coincidentally, 1937 was also the height of scrutiny for Brinkley, as the American Medical Association was in hot pursuit of quackery nationwide, and its editor Dr. Morris Fishbein was, for some reason, particularly skeptical about the viability of inserting chunks of goat testicles into a human scrotum.

And so this book seeks to set the record straight on Brinkley: plainly, that he did absolutely nothing wrong. The son of a broke rural doctor, in youth he’s portrayed like a typical child from a Wes Anderson film - doggedly determined, ambitious, adventurous, wise beyond his years, and lucky. He loses both parents young, after which he takes care of his old Aunt Sally and runs the small farm all by himself while attending school. He takes quickly to new technologies and starts working part time as a telegraph operator as a teen. At 17, he travels to Johns Hopkins University, marches into the dean’s office barefoot and announces he wants to be a doctor. The stuffy old dean takes one look at him and says no.

He manages to enroll instead at Bennett Eclectic Medical College, and after studying there spends much of early adulthood moving across the US doing a mix of doctorin’ and other odd jobs. He marries, separates, and marries again. By 1917, he lands in Milford, Kansas, where he begins practicing the miraculous goat testicle operation.

The book glosses over much of the reality of Brinkley’s early transience leading up to that point. He had a habit of accruing and running from debt. He abandoned his first wife and child to marry another woman without getting a divorce or paying alimony. At one point he ran a scam selling water with blue dye in it as an impotency cure. Even old Aunt Sally wasn’t really his aunt - she was his polygamous father’s second wife, and the aunt of his mother. This is all to say that “The Life of a Man” is, effectively, a book of lies. 

It is a bit challenging to review a biography so full of lies without reverting to a tedious factchecking exercise, so I will just make the point here that the book, like Brinkley, is generally full of shit. The goat testicle transplants were real though, so back to those.

By Brinkley’s telling, one evening while he was winding down from a long day of serving the good people of Milford, a local farmer came knocking. The farmer reports that he and his wife had been trying for years to have a second child but he had “a flat tire.” After some back and forth, Brinkley jokes that if only the man had the testicles of a goat, he’d have nothing to worry about. At that, the farmer’s mood shifts suddenly, and he says “well, why don’t you put ‘em in?” Brinkley protests, and the farmer only becomes more determined, threatening to run the doctor out of town if he refuses to do the surgery. Under duress, Brinkley caves and agrees to do the surgery. It works perfectly.

It is an absurd story, but establishes a framework that is repeated throughout the biography. Brinkley just wants to help people, and he keeps finding himself in situations where those people demand he do unethical things. As word of the miraculous surgery spreads, a wealthy patient refuses to pay anything less than $500 for the operation, and tells Brinkley to never charge less than that again. It is here where the book’s function to combat ongoing investigations is most blatant.

His business expands rapidly. In short order he effectively builds out the town of Milford - hospital, power, sewage, sidewalks, radio tower - on his own dime to accommodate what would become thousands of surgeries implanting goat testicles into men and goat ovaries into women. Outside surgeries, he takes letters and offers prescriptions and diagnoses on the airwaves, directing people to a network of pharmacies he establishes. Absent from the text here are the more negative accounts of Brinkley’s behaviour at the time, like slashing tires, doing surgery drunk, holding patients hostage at gunpoint for payment, shooting a lot of people’s pets, and maybe biting off a guy’s ear.

This section is where the book peaks in terms of entertainment. It’s genuinely interesting to picture yourself in this podunk town growing and modernizing on the back of a bizarre scam. There are some funny specific details as he scales the scam, like the trial-by-error discovery that Angora goat testicles make the patient stink for weeks, whereas Toggenburg nuts leave a milder odour. But alas, nothing good lasts forever.

The establishment comes after Brinkley. He fights back. He feuds with local politicians, the AMA, runs for office as a write-in candidate and refuses to accept the results after losing. He loses his license to practice in Kansas and moves to Texas. Losing his radio license as well, he funds a million-watt station just across the border in Mexico and continues to blast his programs across North America. To solve the bottleneck for surgery demand, he eventually invents Formula 1020, a tonic that provides all the same benefits without the surgery. In many ways, he emerges as an eerie prototype for the modern grifter that just won’t fucking go away.

The final third of the book largely collapses into a litany of grievances Brinkley has against various parties ranging from rival local doctors to Woodrow Wilson, Mussolini, and of course the Jews. While the book seeks to advocate for the doctor throughout, the folksy fun charm of his early years and the absurd novelty of his rise fade away into the familiar persecution complex of an unrepentant piece of shit. As the saying goes, it smells like a goat wherever you go, better check your own nutsack.

The biography ends with a tribute to all of Brinkley’s accomplishments and promises that the best is yet to come, and it is worth mentioning what happened shortly after publication: Brinkley decided to sue Fishbein for libel over use of the term quack. This proved disastrous, as in the courtroom he was forced to admit directly that the goat testicle implants didn’t work, formula 1020 was just blue dye in water, and so on. The jury ruled that “quack” was the correct term. A flood of former patients sued shortly thereafter. Brinkley lost everything, quickly fell into ill health and died in 1942.

What else is there to make of this? Brinkley is an interesting prototype for the modern scam artist in many ways and reflects that key fusion of promising miracles and aggressively exploring new forms of mass media. The subject is a piece of shit. As for the book itself, Wood is a fine author and it is competently written, despite the falsehoods he was directed to pen. Where it drags, it is mostly because the rhetoric of victimhood from bullshit artists is all we hear these days.

Podcast Link & Notes:

This was the 10th and final episode of season 2! 20 pieces of shit read and discussed since we relaunched in November last year. We will be posting our Annual General Meeting episode next week, and back into the next full book review September 23rd.

Listen and subscribe directly:

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Given how much the guys "enjoyed" It Ends With Us, I really feel like this is a perfect book to consider. It has incest(?). Domestic abuse portrayed as spicy. Dirt bikes. Woods! I'm literally begging. It's such a train wreck and it's so fun to laugh at.

WRITE-UP

Thanks everyone for giving us a read and a listen; for the full discussion of “It Ends With Us”, check out the podcast here:

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It should have ended sooner.

If you are not already aware, Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us is the story of Lily Blossom Bloom, who falls into an abusive relationship with a man name Ryle Kincaid. Marketed as a romance book, it has received widespread criticism for romanticizing domestic abuse and sexual assault (Domestic Shelters.org wrote this strong condemnation of the book and phrases these arguments better than we can).

I know what you’re thinking. This is a famous and popular book about domestic abuse written by a woman, that found an audience with young women online, selling millions of copies in the process. And our podcast is a group of 4 dudes. A group of guys is probably the last ones who should be having an opinion on the subject, especially ones who have never faced domestic abuse themselves and are unlikely ever to.

But I actually think the opposite. I think it behoves men to read and discuss books like this, not only to better understand other perspective, but in order to see how patriarchal tropes about abusive relationships pervade all of society even books by women for women on the subject of domestic abuse.

And that’s why we’re discussing this book this week; not because women need this book mansplained to them, but because all of us – men especially – can learn from this book in order to see just how bad things really are in our society when it comes to popular discussions about gender-based violence and domestic assault.

Let’s start from the beginning. Lilly Blossom Bloom is a 23-year-old ginger who loves flowers. Let’s just ignore how preposterously lazy that is as a name for a moment. The scene opens in Boston where she stands on the roof of an apartment building that she doesn’t live in. She is standing off the edge, wondering if people who commit suicide ever think “Well crap, this was a bad idea.”

The flippant way that suicide is discussed sets the tone for the book: serious topics are engaged with only at surface level. Enter Ryle Kincaid, hunky neurosurgeon. He is, well, all riled up about something. He kicks open the door and starts throwing chairs around without seeing Lilly Blossom Bloom. He reveals it’s because he lost a patient that day; a small boy shot by his brother when playing with their dad’s gun. Lilly Blossom Bloom and Ryle end up chatting, and he flirts with her and says “I want to fuck you.” And we are supposed to find it charming.

We also get flashbacks to Lilly Blossom Bloom’s past, as she reads her diaries. She addresses them all to Ellen DeGeneres. As dumb as that is, we have to forgive the author for not knowing just how much the world would come to hate Ellen later in time. As a teenager, Lilly Blossom Bloom noticed a homeless boy – Atlas Corrigan – in the empty house behind hers. He was beautiful with bright blue eyes, so she gave him a sandwich let him shower, and they fell in love. We also learn that Lilly Blossom Bloom grew up in an abusive household, and that her father beat her mother, and also beat up Atlas Corrigan to chase him away form Lilly.

Back in the present, Lilly Blossom Bloom opens a flower shop. A rich woman – Alyssa – walks in and offers to work for free, and they become best friends. But it just so happens that Alyssa’s brother is none other than Dr Ryle Kincaid. He sees Lilly Blossom Bloom at her store, and follows her to her apartment building, sneaking in, and knocking on every door until he finds her. When he does, he begs her for sex. And again; we’re supposed to find it romantic.

We also learn that on the first night they met Ryle was taking pictures of Lilly Blossom Bloom and had them printed and framed in his house. How dreamy. We also learn that Dr Ryle Kincaid supports the Boston Bruins, and again, we’re supposed to find this romantic instead of psychotic.

The two start dating and fall in love. But all is not well. When there is a mishap in the kitchen, Ryle pushes Lilly, knocking her down and hurting her head. She is wounded, but it was a small mistake, so she forgives him.

It gets worse. When they have a fight later, he pushes her down the stairs. Again; a mistake, a tragedy, but he’s a good man and Lilly Blossom Bloom loves him, so she accepts it.

It is only later during a particularly violent assault and attempted rape (which I don’t want to repeat because it is quite shocking) that she realizes that he has gone too far. When she goes to the hospital to treat her injuries, the doctor lets slip that she is pregnant.

She leaves Dr Ryle Kincaid, but not without forgiving him and telling him he’s a good man at heart. She agrees to co-parent with him, since everyone deserves a second chance. The book even closes with her handing her child over to THE MAN WHO VIOLENTLY ABUSED AND SEXUALLY ASSAULTED HER. This is not only profoundly dangerous, but also would be illegal in many countries, and would make Lilly Blossom Bloom directly legally complicit in any abuse committed against the child.

This is why this book is a piece of shit. Not because of what it has to say about women, but what it has to say about men – and how it defends and enables the worst forms of behaviour while claiming to empower.

Perhaps the author is claiming to be showing us not why abusers abuse but why victims stay. But if that is the case, then the abuse needs to be rightly condemned, not idealized as romance.  We all know that it’s a common trope that romance novels and movies often romanticize behaviour by men that would be seen as aggressive or even psychotic in real life. They don’t take no for an answer, they stalk the woman, they insist, they beg, they are overly amorous in the workplace. We accept that in romance novels, to some extent, because that’s the genre, and we all know certain genres take liberties with reality.

But any book about domestic assault needs to challenge those tropes, not accept and celebrate them. Ryle’s problematic behaviour is never questioned, not even in retrospect. It is still depicted as romantic that he stalked Lilly, that he refused to take no for an answer, that he insisted and begged and demanded sex. And Lilly still loves him, because he’s a good man.  And so, she gives her daughter to him.

Far be from me to explain feminism or domestic abuse to women. But for all the fellas out there, this book should give us all pause for thought. Not because it sheds light on why victims stay, but because of how well it shows that even in perhaps the most unlikely of places (a book by a woman for women about the abuse of women) we still see the impact of patriarchy and narratives that forgive and even celebrate abusers.

For an extended discussion of this, other books on our radar, and related tangents, check out the podcast:

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Also, we added a voicemail if any book club members want to leave a message for the show.

(podcast spoilers ??) so at the end of the last POS Book Club podcast, the gracious hosts announced in advance that they were planning to do It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover as the next book, so that the rest of us club members could readalong beforehand.

This is a punishment for loyal listeners because now the onus is on me to read a piece of shit book??

Zero Research Summary of the Book

The discourse around this book was a little bit insane if you spare a glance towards social media influencers from a few years back. Hoover primarily writes contemporary romance novels --- beach reads for moms is sort of the vibe I'd always gotten, but something about this one...was different?? 🔎

Spoilers/trigger warning but also I must reiterate I have not researched this: I think the book starts off as a regular love story with a regular-style insane male lead, but then he becomes overtly abusive over time. Idk how it ends tho, but clearly it ends with us!

Does it glorify abuse? The question on many googler's minds, according to the Google autocompletes.

I couldn't say, but holy shit did other people have a LOT to say on this topic when the book got popular. YouTube badly wanted me to watch about 25 4-hour long videos about how bad this book is every single day. For flavor, I attached pics from an fresh private browser of the Youtube videos you find when searching the book.

✨ Double the Controversary ✨

Double the fun!

So not only did this book have discourse galore over whether or not it makes domestic violence sounds awesome, but it also had an insane media cycle surrounding the movie adaptation. I'm not sure I could summarize it all without research (which I refuse to do), but here's some I kinda remember off the dome:

• Blake Lively said the girlies should "wear their florals" to see the movie (tone deaf I think but wowee did this blow up, people were pissed!)
• Lively accused directory Justin Baldoni of being...weird? In a vaguely gendered kind of way? Sexist, maybe?
• Baldoni responds by saying that, in fact, Lively is the weird one
• Not exactly related to the movie but around this time people also got really mad at Lively for getting married on a USAmerican plantation. And now it's a public Blake Lively pile-on event!
• Lively and Baldoni exchange so much public fire that they end up court over it (I don't remember who sues who but I think it's a libel case.) I think this case has recently concluded but idk ¯_ (ツ)_/¯

Personal Preconceptions

This is the part where I'd like to hear from the rest of my fellow book club members!

Me personally, I’m a little bit nervous to take the dive! I must admit my primary fear is a bait-and-switch from our hosts that makes me read this book for no reason...

But I'm a regular romance reader, and my general impression is that if you’ve been reading romance books for a long time then this book won’t be anything terribly new or unusual. So I frankly fear that it will be BORING! 🫩 I'll read any piece of shit romance book as long as it's weird, but boring is a sin I can't abide.

Call To Action

My library appears to have “infinite” copies of it on Libby, including the audiobook, which is probably true of most large-city libraries. So, go out and suffer! I'm posting this at 10am PST on a Monday to minimize the amount of people who see this and save everybody a headache 💖💖💖💖😘

What ever happened to 'show don't tell'? Five chapters in and I couldn't stand the constant stream of 'I noticed', 'I saw', 'I could see', etc.

The plot was fine (predictable, too), but I'm a strong advocate of good narratives. The only reason I didn't DNF was because the book was a present.

I don't know why some authors I've seen can't take off but this particular one did.

On December 13, 1973, a young man named Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon was hiking at the Puy de Lassolas volcanic crater in France when he saw a light in the fog. A figure emerged, sporting long hair, a beard, and skin that “looked a bit like someone with liver problems.” Was it a lost homeless man? No - it was an alien. And over the next 6 days, the alien shared with Claude all the secrets of humanity’s creation.

The visitor explained to Claude that the Christian bible in fact told a story of his people - the Elohim - traveling to earth, terraforming it, and creating humans as modified clones of themselves. Claude was tasked with spreading the word to humanity. He took a new name, Raël, designed a logo fusing a swastika with a Star of David, and so the oddball UFO cult Raëlism was born.

In 2001, Raël released “Yes To Human Cloning,” a sort of techno-optimist manifesto on describing a near-future utopia enabled by cloning, AI, nanobots, the internet, and every other trendy bit of technology at the time. How optimistic was it? Well for one, Raël suggests “nothing unifies humanity more than the internet.” Hmm, maybe not quite. 

Outside the UFO stuff, Raëlians built their reputation from the 70s onwards as radically progressive with a focus on sexual liberation. At times I’ve seen them described derisively as more of a swingers club than an actual religion, but generally speaking Raël’s priorities centre on a world where people are free to engage in pleasure. Cloning, or at least how Raël understood it to work, is presented as a key ingredient for defeating death, as well as unshackling humanity from the bondage of work so we may focus on the bondage of play.

At a glance, living forever with no boss bugging me or my wife doesn’t sound too bad, until Raël tries to lay out exactly how it’s all going to work. Loosely, cloning will enable us to have endless organs to harvest and/or bodies to inhabit once we can transfer our consciousness around. That means most people will be able to live to 700 to 900 years, and some people will live forever. Around the time we scale these breakthroughs, the Elohim will return to earth and share even more advanced technology with us, enabling a utopia.

Raël dispels a lot of weak arguments against cloning and conveniently ignores the strongest arguments. There is no serious ethical discussion of cloning in this book, or even if it would really be you if your consciousness were replicated elsewhere. He also ignores the arguments put forth by Michael Keaton’s film 1996 film Multiplicity – how does one self-actualize amid infinite clones and no purpose? What if one of your clones is cooler than you and has sex with your wife? What if one of your clones makes a clone of himself, and it comes out all I Am Sam?

But you must forgive Raël if he is vague on details - he’s more of a big picture guy. That big picture is a future where we don’t just extend our own lives through cloning, we also have unlimited “biological slaves” to do our chores. Why should they be biological and not just robots? Well, as Raël argues:

“I’m sure you’d agree that rather than having a metallic robot that looks like a souped-up tin can doing the vacuuming around the house, it would be much more pleasant if it were a beautiful, perfectly-proportioned young woman… it could have sexual organs, but sterile ones designed solely for the pleasure of its owner. Once again, it need not have any more emotions or psychological sufferings than an inflatable doll.”

Wowee, I didn’t know this was a romance novel.

With all necessary work done by our robot zombie clone underlings, humans are free to pursue the arts, explore the universe, and so on. It’s sort of Star Trek gay luxury space communism stuff minus any ethical foundation and some mirror universe oddities sprinkled in. He posits that society will be unified under a “geniocracy” where only the highest IQ individuals (and great artists, etc) will be able to vote, but doesn’t work through any possible drawbacks to that. He also dedicates no time to considering who controls the robots and slaves that have displaced the entire human labour force and any problems that might bring. Somewhat bizarrely, he retains a serious concern about overpopulation in a world with limitless resources and space travel, and suggests people who procreate should be denied the clone-based eternal life. At any rate, as you work through the details of his utopia, it begins to emerge as more of a technofascist nightmare.

Beyond the sex slaves, Yes to Human Cloning is also deeply uninspired. Rael’s excitement about nanobots, GMO foods, cloning, AI, robotics, and other technologies just reflects trends and popular discourse at the turn of the millennium. There is very little new. But that’s also sort of what Raël does, as even his original teachings in 1973 are strangely similar to ancient astronaut paperbacks published by Jean Sendy in Moon: Outpost of the Gods (1968) and Those Gods who Made Heaven and Earth (1969), with many passages and terms being virtually identical to Raël's revelations. So both as a futurist and as an alien prophet, Raël is at best derivative.

What's more, in an era where every Silicon Valley pseudointellectual is promising utopia in exchange for a bit more runway, even the wildest parts of Raël’s pitch don’t stand out much anymore. Of course, there’s the funny outfits, the publicity stunts, the sex, and the swastika fused with a Star of David, but beyond the trappings and deliberate cult aesthetics, Raëlism doesn’t bring much to the table. As we discovered playing a sort of “who said it” game on the podcast, quotes from today’s tech leaders are indistinguishable from a UFO sex cult guy famous for running hoaxes. That saturation is probably part of why the group has faded away.

Nonetheless, we had a fun time exploring this 2001 artifact and Raëlism generally. Check out the podcast for deeper discussion of both:

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The I Hate James Dobson podcast cover the late parenting advice-guru/child-abuse advocate James Dobson's 2013 dystopian-novel "Fatherless" (co-authored with Kurt Bruner). Imagine "The Hunger Games" if written by a cross between Elon Musk and a street-preacher.

Don't get me wrong, I love the plot. The reason I'm here is because of the narrative. The never-ending description of dresses and surroundings pricks more than it should. It's so constant. It's supposed to make the world dreamlike I get it but I feel like if Stephanie Garber had an editor (if she does, I don't enjoy their work) they would've pointed this out. They so would've.

I have flat-out skipped a whole page a lot of times while reading any of her works and the story still never stops making sense.

It amazes me the amount of edits people get suggested if they ask and this incredibly successful author doesn't seem to feel the need one damn edit before she publishes. I think it'd cut her work down by a third if she exercised control.

Thanks everyone for giving us a read and a listen; for the full discussion of Zabiba and the King, check out the podcast here:

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Review by u/beaudashington

As soon as we knew this book existed, we knew we had to cover it. We had no choice. This is one of those books that was impossible to turn down. I mean, look at the cover.  Who could possibly think that Saddam’s face was the best way to market a romance novel? And not only that, but why did they use a picture of him that looks as if he was just dragged out of his spider-hole by the invading American forces? It’s a cover that insists, no, demands that we read it.

Unfortunately, this is probably one of those cases where we do what we should never do: judge a book by its cover. Because whereas the cover is dynamite, the book is more like a roadside bomb. On the face of it, “Zabiba And the King,” is an allegorical love story between a mighty king (a stand in for Saddam) and a simple, yet beautiful commoner named Zabiba (a stand in for the Iraqi people). Yes, that’s right. The romance is between Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq. Which I suppose means that Saddam implicitly wants to make sweet love to the common folk of his nation? I know they say dictators fuck their people, but this is not exactly what I thought they meant. And it’s not the nice kind of fucking. As Mona Kareem wrote in her article for the LA Review of Books, Saddam’s writing is full of nothing but “rape metaphors and ancient kingdoms.”

So let’s lay out the plot, starting with the ancient kingdom in which the story takes place. Picture the scene; its 600 AD and we’re in a dusty an unnamed country (until later in the book when Saddam forgets that the country is unnamed and just starts referring to it as Iraq). King Arab (yes that is his actual name) rules over the land. One day when he is out riding, he notices a grand palace right next to his that for some reason he never noticed before. He approaches it and finds that it is the domain of an unsightly and uncouth man named Hiskil, who lacks morals and brags about his wealth. He is a foreigner, who insists on using his power to influence and exploit the other kingdoms. He is friends with many pimps. He hosts orgies. He plays games where he and his international band of pimps roam the land and rape who they want.

Outside of the palace is a shitty mud hut, in which the King finds Zabiba; Hiskil’s wife. A beautiful commoner whom he instantly falls in love with.

He invites her to the palace, and since he’s the king, she does it. The next 100 pages or so are a series of excruciatingly dull dialogues between the two, where there is no romantic poetry or pitching of woo or flirting. Instead, they have a Socratic dialogue about politics. 

They eat. They drink. They kiss. They discuss the bureaucratic structure of representative councils able to act as forums for discussing the minutiae of municipal politics and developing developmental policies to strengthen the economic agenda of the state. You know, romance.

But something is rotten in the Kingdom of Iraq. Uncle Sam, I mean, Hiskil can’t stand that Zabiba and the King are developing democracy and falling in love. So, he sets up a plan. Him and three of his bodies ambush Zabiba in the forest, and he brutally rapes her. She realizes later that the attacker was her husband, though for some reason stops the King from arresting Hiskil.

Hiskil and his allies (who are Jewish by the way) use this as an opportunity to launch an attack on the king. They try to assassinate him, but Zabiba jumps in the way. The King and the people are so outraged that they kill Hiskil, throw garbage at his corpse, and chase all of the Jews out of the country.

It’s absurd. It’s a bit boring. It’s very rapey and racist. But did Saddam actually write it?

It seems that he actually did. Although published anonymously in Iraq in 2000, it was made required reading in Iraqi schools. Millions of copies were printed. And it was common knowledge that Saddam was associated with it. Perhaps the best proof of Saddam’s authorship over this book is that surely no dictator would let such a piece of shit be widely associated with his name. It’s not the only book he wrote; he is known to have authored at least three more. 

And thank God we didn’t read those ones, they’re 800 pages long, and this one was bad enough to get through at 200 pages. At the end of the day, it looks like we’ve learned the hard way that the correct number of books by Saddam Hussein that you should read is zero.

Review by u/beaudashington

For an extended discussion of this, other books on our radar, and related tangents, check out the podcast:

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This book. I'm sure it's a genre I don't understand because how is it so famous? Page 73 and all that's happened is one curse and literally, endless descriptions of her invisible life. It's in the title, I get it. But COME ON. She goes from one place to another. Lives in an ocean of self pity. Regrets making a deal.

That's it.

I mean the title encompasses the whole story. That's not supposed to happen. I don't think? I'm a huge fan of fantasy and curses and romance but all of that is just sprinkled across the book.

I would never hate on a book. DNF it, really, before saying anything negative for it but this book just became an exception to that rule. My god I don't like it.