the problematic authors book tag | pages & problems

Hello again, dear friends! I hope you all are well, and if you are not, then I hope brighter days head your way soon! Today I’m so excited to be sharing another juicy post with y’all! I was tagged by Alli over at Alli the Book Giraffe to do her new original book tag, the Problematic Authors Book Tag. This tag is all about problematic authors and books and our thoughts and feelings about them. And, well, y’all know me by now—I’ve always got something to say 😂 After having been around as a book blogger for twelve years in the online book space, I’ve seen people’s opinions swing wildly back and forth when it comes to what is considered problematic and how to deal with problematic literature and authors.* Even my opinions on such things have changed and evolved over time. So, what are my current opinions on this topic? Well, keep reading to find out!

*Lemme tell y’all: 2016 book Twitter was a battlefield when it came to this!

I really enjoy the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas, and it breaks my heart that the series and its author are so incredibly problematic! Like, damn, girl, why’d you have to ruin a perfectly good thing you had going there?! To be honest, I plan on eventually reading the final book in this series since I already own the audiobook copy of it, but as a book blogger, reviewer, and “influencer” of sorts, I feel it’d be highly irresponsible of me to promote Maas and her works.

In all honesty, I don’t believe in separating the art from the artist, period. All forms of art are inherently personal and reflective of our own beliefs in that they came from ourselves and our own mind and there is no way for us to step outside of our own being, no matter how much we try.

Oh, boy, here’s where I admit that I grew up in the Harry Potter era. I was never, like, a serious “Potterhead,” but I did really love the books as a kid. Part of the extra sad thing about finding out that J.K. Rowling is transphobic is that is made me reflect on other elements of her Harry Potter series and come to realize that she has some incredibly racist, antisemitic, homophobic, fatphobic, sexist, and ableist representations in those books as well.

As a kid, I really loved the film adaptation of A Little Princess, although I never read the book. I also don’t plan on ever reading the book because it apparently has a lot of racist and colonial perspectives on India and Indian people. I don’t believe that the film had those same sentiments imbued in it, but I also can’t say with 100% certainty since I haven’t watched it in years.

And now it’s time to talk about Sarah J. Maas again. Lissen. I tried to give Ms. Maas a little bit of grace with using Breonna Taylor’s death as a marketing opportunity, because I could kinda see how she might have gotten there. But then I learned that SJM had done an interview where she talked about going on a birthright trip and about how she thought it was so cute that her grandmother made homemade baked goods and hand delivered them to the IDF base she lived near and I swear I have never noped the fuck out of supporting an author so quickly. As someone who is both Black and Arab (particularly Lebanese) I just can’t do it. I adored her books and they got me through some hard times, but you won’t catch me going anywhere near to promoting her books on my blog or my socials. Hard pass from me.

As I mentioned in one of my previous answers, I don’t believe in separating the art from the artist because art is inherently personal and human and thus is shaped by all of the social forces (both conscious and subconscious) that shape us. I also don’t think it makes a difference if the artist is alive when it comes to this question. For example, there is a common narrative in the US that “people in the past just didn’t know that racism/sexism/ableism/homophobia/classism/etc. was wrong because it was a normalized part of their life.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news for folks who think that, but I can tell you as someone who has studied US history, world history, sociology, and anthropology extensively, that “people in the past” did, in fact, very much understand that such attitudes were “wrong” and immoral and unjust, and, just as bigots do today, they simply did a lot of mental gymnastics on the regular to justify their bigotry.

That all said, though, I don’t believe in removing older literature which contains such attitudes from “the canon” or from curriculums. I don’t believe in canon reduction, but rather canon expansion. What I mean by that is that if you include literature with racist anti-BIPOC sentiment then you should also include literature by BIPOC authors and anti-racists from the same era, if you include literature with sexist sentiments then you should also include literature by women (including BIPOC, trans, sapphic, disabled, and poor women), and so on and so forth. I assure you that there is no shortage of literature (both past and present) which are written by diverse authors, so this task shouldn’t be difficult to complete at all, it is simply a matter of whether or not you personally want to take up the responsibility of doing so.

I don’t think so? It really would depend on the person and if I knew what their personal boundaries were when it comes to entertainment media.

I think any rampant bigotry that is portrayed in such a way that makes clear that the author is writing from the perspective of their own personal beliefs is an obvious one. Romanticized sexual assault and rape and romanticized abuse (including emotional abuse) are also big no-go’s for me. One that I don’t see discussed as much and that isn’t as prevalent nowadays is “sick lit” romances written by able bodied authors. As a chronically ill/disabled person myself, that one grinds my gears especially because ableism is still so incredibly rampant and almost always excused in our modern-day society.

This is an opinion that I hold that might surprise some, but my answer to this is “No.” I think that all art is an important reflection of humanity on both an individual and a collective level, and when we erase any part of that art, especially if the artist has passed away, then it’s kind of like trying to erase the memory of ourselves. It’s important to know that certain people, or even many or most people, in a society held (or still hold) a belief that we no longer feel is appropriate, because without that contrasting example, we wouldn’t know what kind of beliefs we do want to hold as individuals and as a collective. Being accountable and making amends for our wrongs begins with first acknowledging the reality of the harm we’ve done, so it’s important to actually remember the wrongdoing. For me, that is the underlying principle behind why any form of censorship is wrong (and, no, I’m not including “cancellation” of a work/artist as censorship—but that’s a whole other can of worms).

24hryabookblog

Krysta & Briana at Pages Unbound

Tasya at The Literary Huntress

Line at First Line Reader

Do you have any problematic books that you can’t help but enjoy? Are there any authors whose works you won’t read because the author or work is problematic? Do you believe in separating the art from the artist?

Learn more the author of this post:

Lila @ Hardcover Haven

Lila is a 30 year old anthropology student and lover of literature who's been book blogging for an eternity. Her hobbies include reading, singing, writing, arts and crafts, and snuggling her two cats, Snoopy and Clementine.