Enemies to Lovers

[ermingarden]

Enemies to Lovers by Aster Glenn Gray
My Rating: ★★★★☆

Note: I received an advance copy of this book to give an honest review.

Why do we write what we write, and love the stories we do? What does it mean for a story to be "good"? Enemies to Lovers explores these questions at the same time as it plays with some of fandom's most enduring and beloved tropes.

Enemies to Lovers pairs steamy sexual tension with an insightful exploration of internet fan culture. Megan and Sarah are both passionate members of the same fandom, and they're about the same age, but their different backgrounds in fandom – Megan started out on LiveJournal, Sarah is a Tumblr native – lead to what might be thought of as a culture clash around community norms. For a short romance work, Enemies to Lovers is impressively nuanced on an emotional level. Megan's feelings about Sarah are complicated, and that doesn't get completely glossed over as soon as they make it into bed together.

I enjoyed every minute of this book, and I'll likely read it again before too long.


Some additional thoughts that didn't make it into the Amazon review:
I am about 96% sure that the fandom Megan and Sarah are involved in, for the fictitious TV show "Paranoid", is a thinly veiled reflection of a particular corner of real-life Marvel fandom: Steve/Bucky shippers. And that means the "woobie Mishka wars," as Megan describes the discourse, probably echoes debates among Stucky shippers about woobifying Bucky. (Personally, I think people should woobify characters as much as they want. Write the stories you enjoy!) I was intrigued by that glimpse into the particular issues and dramas of a fandom in which I'm not involved, and which is very different from the corners of Tolkien and Star Wars fandoms I frequent.

And finally, since debate on the topic is so central to the book, I'm curious: what are folks' thoughts on woobification in your own fandoms?

Comments

[pauraque]

Woobie!Whoever fics are generally not to my taste, but I can't imagine fighting people over it. Other people don't have any obligation to write fics that I personally like. The one aspect that can make it frustrating, for me, is that writers don't always think/realize they're doing it--maybe what I think is woobification, someone else thinks is totally IC--so unlike some other kinds of content, it's not always easy to avoid since it's not clearly labeled. But the worst it can do to me is waste my time, so... not exactly something to get worked up about.

[ermingarden]

This, 100%!