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Everyone has an opinion about something. If you don’t believe me… hop over to Facebook or TikTok and you’ll see that firsthand while picking up a little trauma along the way. As someone who loves reading and cinema, I have my fair share of opinions on both. And due to a DELIGHTFUL migraine, I’m keeping things shorter and more playful this week. So today, I’m sharing a few of my “unpopular” book and movie opinions. Disclaimer… no feelings were hurt in the making of this blog post. HOT BOOK TAKES HATE the book 1984. I understand that it’s wildly relevant to the world we live in, but oh my gosh. I hated reading it in high school. I am permanently traumatized by the ancient prostitute the main character goes to visit. And the worst part? I reference this book almost every year in my welcome-back-to-school staff introduction, calling myself “Big Brother.” The irony is not lost on me. Romantasy is overhyped… AND unfairly dismissed. Let me explain. I LOVE romantasy. It’s dominating publishing sales and is one of the fastest-growing fiction categories right now. I’ve read some incredibly immersive series: Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Fourth Wing, Quicksilver… the list goes on. But from the “serious literature” crowd, I often get the sense that romantasy is dismissed as nothing more than fairy smut. And don’t get me wrong… yes. There is a lot of that. Then you have cleaner, beautifully written series like Snow Like Ashes, An Ember in the Ashes, The Kiss of Deception, Once Upon a Broken Heart. Because of the mass flooding of fairy smut into the genre, these genuinely well-written romantasies get overlooked. That doesn’t make them any less great. This is also what I mean by overhyped. When a genre explodes, not everything in it is excellent. Looking back at some of my initial reviews, for example Quicksilver, I didn’t love the writing style, the character arcs, or the development. It felt like the love child of several other popular series. Just because something is trending doesn’t automatically make it strong. Which leads me to my next “unpopular opinion”… Spicy content is overused. Spice has become so common that it almost feels obligatory. And that’s where I struggle. When an author isn’t sure how to move a scene forward or add dimension to a relationship, spice starts to feel like filler instead of substance. I love Feyre and Rhysand, but there were times when I felt certain scenes pulled away from their development instead of strengthening it. A good story shouldn’t need that kind of patchwork. And this one gets me… SHADOW DADDIES ARE COPY-PASTE. I loved Rhysand, the original shadow daddy. Then I found Xaden, whom I also love, but who felt familiar. Then Kingfisher. Everywhere I turn in romantasy, there’s another brooding, morally gray, shadow-wielding male lead who feels like someone cloned Rhysand and tweaked a detail or two. I think this ties into something bigger. Morally gray characters are wildly popular right now. Heroes who are upright, steady, and morally sound don’t get the same cultural love. That feels societal to me. But it’s okay to have a morally upright character. I wish we saw more of them. MOVIE & TV HOT TAKES I’ll start gently. I HATE Pretty Woman. I don’t find it romantic. I think it romanticizes a very toxic relationship. I love Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, but I much prefer them in Runaway Bride. In Pretty Woman, he doesn’t really grow so much as he adjusts just enough to keep her from walking away. That doesn’t feel like transformation to me. I would rather watch its predecessor, My Fair Lady, every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Another overrated movie? Titanic. When I saw it as a kid, I was fascinated, but mostly by the historical event itself. As I got older and learned more about the actual tragedy, I realized the movie feels more sensationalized than necessary. And as a completely separate and unnecessary side note… learning about Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating life did not exactly help the rewatch experience. And I don’t care what you say. “Draw me like one of your French girls” was completely unnecessary. They just needed another wow factor. Side side note. I do love Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s friendship over the decades. That part is elite. I know a number of people who love The Office, specifically the American version. Before I say this, I want to reestablish that I love you. But I hate The Office. I didn’t watch it when it originally aired. As an adult, I tried. I really tried. I just can’t get into it. I love dry humor, but I didn’t find most of the jokes funny. I think I struggle most with the shaky, hand-cam filming style. The documentary-style interviews have been done brilliantly elsewhere. But I think because I didn’t connect with the characters, the format didn’t add anything for me. At the end of the day, these opinions live in two fields that are deeply personal and subjective. Even the ones I feel strongly about aren’t hills I’m willing to die on. But in a world constantly shouting about heavier “unpopular opinions,” I think it’s refreshing to disagree about books and movies instead. Sometimes the lighter debates make for the best conversations. 
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I started off the year stating that I wanted to romanticize my life intentionally. Almost immediately, the reality of another new year settled in, and I felt weighed down by it. As I’ve spent the last few blogs brainstorming topics and ideas, I’ve worked hard not to make those weights the center of my posts. While I love having an introspective space where people can hopefully feel seen and relate, I already spend so much time carrying those thoughts that I simply don’t want to live inside them here. At the same time, I don’t want to pretend that life is all rainbows and unicorns either. As I took notes, wrote out half-thoughts, and quietly argued with myself, it occurred to me that I had a fairly fatal flaw in my thinking. Not talking about the troubles in my life isn’t avoidance. It’s setting a boundary with myself. And romanticizing my life isn’t pretending everything is perfect. It’s choosing to focus on the wonder of things. To me, one of the most romantic things in the world is a love letter. I blame Jane Austen for this. Across her novels, she uses letters again and again, often at the most pivotal moments, especially when her male characters can no longer say what needs to be said out loud. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy writes to Elizabeth after she rejects him, not to persuade her, but to take responsibility and explain himself. In Persuasion, Captain Wentworth writes to Anne when he realizes he can no longer remain silent out of fear of rejection. I think the thing I love most about letters is that they carry the weight of love, remorse, reflection, forgiveness, devotion, gratitude, friendship, to name a few, in a gentle and meaningful way. So that’s what I want this blog to be. A small collection of love letters to a few of the things that add a little wonder to my life.  💌 Dear Books, We didn’t begin well. For a long time, you felt like an obligation. Deadlines, assigned chapters, discussions where I worried more about being wrong than about being moved. You were never cruel, but I misunderstood your purpose. Thank you for waiting. When I finally found you again, you didn’t ask for performance. You asked only that I show up. You opened doors to worlds where good still wins, where love is allowed to be dramatic, and where magic feels as ordinary as breathing. You let me leave this world for a while without asking me to justify why I needed to go. You are patient in a way few things are. I can leave and return, and you stay unchanged. Still offering shelter and still holding wonder. You remind me that sometimes the most meaningful conversations happen in silence, with nothing but pages between us. I don’t come to you to be taught. I come to you to remember that the world is larger than the room I’m standing in. With love, Me  💌 Dear Music, You have always known how to reach me. You don’t pull me out of my feelings. You sit beside me in them and quietly change their shape. You make light days feel brighter, like a window rolled down on a back road. You soften heavy ones, filling the space just enough so it doesn’t feel empty. I love your rituals. The way the world fades when I slide my headphones on. The way a single note signals that I can relax. You arrive without asking permission, saying what needs to be felt when words would stumble. There is comfort in knowing you will meet me wherever I am. Loud or quiet. Focused or frayed. You remind me that some truths are better carried on sound than spoken aloud. Thank you for being a steady presence when everything else feels sharp. Always, Me  💌 Dear Writing,
You are the quietest of my loves, and the most faithful. You meet me with ease whenever and wherever I reach for you. On the couch, wrapped in a blanket, a cup of tea cooling nearby, dogs snoring softly at my side. You never rush me, instead letting the cursor blink patiently while I catch up to my own thoughts. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m trying to say when I begin, but you allow me the grace of starting anyway. You hold space for half-formed ideas until they settle into something honest. You remind me that clarity often arrives only after stillness. You are where I go when speaking feels inadequate. When I need to choose my words carefully. When the truth deserves time to take shape. You don’t ask me to be impressive. Only sincere. I don’t write to be remembered. I write because you remind me that I exist beyond the noise. Yours truly, Me This week has been a rollercoaster. Even though I’ve been actively trying to stay positive, intentional, and productive, it’s felt like wave after wave of testing, pain, and resistance. So for this week’s post, I needed to step back. I needed a pause. To take a breath. I wanted something light. Something comforting. Something I could talk about endlessly without it feeling heavy. So today, I’m talking about tropes. Books, movies, love stories. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about how certain tropes feel comforting in very specific ways, and how they often line up with how we understand and receive love. Almost like each trope speaks a different emotional language. That thought came to me while watching a recent book-to-film adaptation I’d been excited about for a long time: People We Meet on Vacation, based on the novel by Emily Henry. The story follows Poppy and Alex, two friends who take a trip together every summer for years. The narrative unfolds through flashbacks as they reunite after drifting apart following an unspoken incident. Spoiler alert: this is a friends to lovers story. Despite living states apart, dating other people, and trying desperately to preserve their friendship when it’s tested by something deeper, they eventually realize they can live without a lot of things, but not without each other. Before diving fully into the tropes, I have to say how much I genuinely enjoyed the movie. I read the book in 2023 and enjoyed it. I debated rereading it before watching the film, but decided not to. Sometimes a movie works best when it highlights what lingers in your memory rather than what you’ve freshly analyzed, and I’m glad I trusted that instinct. The movie felt true to the spirit of the book. Poppy was a little more grating, Alex a little more flawless, but overall it felt like watching a dream of a story I already loved. Because I didn’t reread it right beforehand, I wasn’t distracted by every omission or change. I could just enjoy it. And that enjoyment is what pulled me back into thinking about tropes, and why certain ones feel like emotional rest. Physical Touch → Friends to Lovers Friends to lovers is a trope rooted in comfort before desire. It’s built on closeness that feels safe and unremarkable until it isn’t. Touch exists first as habit, not intention. Sitting close without thinking about it. A hand resting on an arm. Sharing space so often that physical proximity becomes second nature. That’s why People We Meet on Vacation works so well here. Poppy and Alex’s relationship grows through shared trips, long walks, cramped airplane seats, and familiar physical closeness that never feels overtly romantic until it suddenly does. Their connection is shaped by years of being physically present in each other’s lives, and by the time love is acknowledged, it’s already written into muscle memory. For those who experience love most clearly through physical touch, this trope resonates because the body recognizes what the heart takes longer to admit. Words of Affirmation → Enemies to Lovers Ironically, my next favorite trope is enemies to lovers, even though true examples are rarer than people think. Often it’s not real enmity, but misjudgment, pride, or misunderstanding. The blueprint for this trope, in my mind, will always be Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. They begin on entirely the wrong foot, but what makes their story endure is that it takes nearly a year of both characters working on themselves before love becomes possible. Darcy must right the wrongs he’s committed, particularly toward Elizabeth’s family. Elizabeth must confront her own pride and prejudices, recognizing that her judgments were shaped by wounded vanity rather than truth. This trope aligns beautifully with Words of Affirmation because the shift happens through language. Sharp words soften. Assumptions give way to understanding. Praise replaces criticism. Being seen accurately becomes the turning point. Receiving Gifts → Fake Dating Fake dating might be my guilty pleasure trope. On the surface, it sounds absurd. Who actually needs to pretend to date someone? But that improbability is part of the charm. In fake dating stories, relationships often begin as transactions. Agreements. Gestures that mean nothing at first. Over time, though, those gestures become intentional. Thoughtful. Personal. That’s why this trope pairs so well with Receiving Gifts. Not because of materialism, but because meaning grows through symbols. A date to a wedding. A held hand for show. A gift that was supposed to be part of the act and suddenly isn’t. These stories sparkle because they start with obligation and end with choice. Acts of Service → Slow Burn / Mutual Pining On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum is the slow burn or mutual pining trope. This is the one that hurts in the best way. Stories like Persuasion, Jane Eyre, Outlander, The Notebook, The Sound of Music, and Sleepless in Seattle are built on patience. This trope aligns most closely with Acts of Service. Love is shown long before it’s spoken. Characters show up. Protect. Support. Choose the other person’s good even when it costs them something, and often long before they benefit from that choice themselves. The yearning comes from effort without immediate reward, from care given freely and quietly, without any guarantee it will ever be returned. This trope lingers differently. Not because it’s dramatic or sweeping, but because it understands timing. It allows love to exist quietly, often unseen, carried forward through patience and care rather than certainty. It’s a reminder that some forms of love don’t announce themselves at all. They simply endure. Quality Time → Forced Proximity Forced proximity is basically Quality Time with the volume turned up. Two characters are stuck together, whether it’s a trip, a shared space, a job assignment, a snowed-in situation, or some inconvenient twist of fate that removes their usual exits. What makes it work is that time becomes unavoidable. They can’t dip out when things get awkward. They can’t keep their distance when they feel vulnerable. They have to exist in the same hours, the same rooms, the same moments. Somewhere in that closeness, they start learning each other. Not the polished version. Not the first-impression version. The real one. Forced proximity creates intimacy through shared experience. Conversations that stretch. Silences that soften. Routines that form. It’s the trope that says love doesn’t always need a grand gesture. Sometimes it just needs enough time together for the walls to finally come down. I don’t think it’s an accident that many of us are drawn to certain tropes in certain seasons. Sometimes we need fireworks. Sometimes we need patience. Sometimes we need proof that love can be quiet, practical, and still deeply meaningful.  The internet is a riveting place, full of all sorts of people. Earlier this week, I was doom-scrolling TikTok when I came across a woman whose video stopped me mid-swipe. In the thumbnail, she looked visibly upset. I braced myself for another weird, vapid TikTok rant. What followed, however, was something much more frustrating. Let me give you some backstory. Evidently, an Australian man joined BookTok and quickly gained a following. Not long after, he was offered a two-book deal with Atria Books. Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, the first issue people latched onto was the fact that he hadn’t completed a manuscript… not even one. He was signed purely based on the concept of his story, and, as some have pointed out, possibly boosted by his fame as a former rugby player and contestant on The Bachelor Australia. The second, and arguably bigger, point of contention for many was the fact that he is a white man.  The video I initially watched focused heavily on his race and gender. So let’s talk about those in the context of the writing world. Currently, 60–65% of traditionally published authors are women, 30–35% are men, and fewer than 5% identify otherwise. That suggests women hold a significant share of the industry.
Now, let’s look at race and nationality. While it’s true that 75–80% of traditionally published authors are white, that figure carries different weight when you consider that Australia doesn’t even rank among the top seven countries dominating the global publishing market. The lowest-ranking among those, Germany, accounts for just about 7% of published authors. So the fact that this white, Australian man, who has spoken openly about his lifelong love of reading, is being torn apart across the internet strikes me as somewhat hypocritical. Why do I feel the need to write about this? Because under a separate video, one that meticulously dismantled this guy’s credibility, I saw two comments that genuinely made me sick. One said that it didn’t matter whether he could write, because he’d probably just hire a woman of color as a ghostwriter. Another replied, “Nah, he’ll just use AI… it’s easier that way.” As a semi-avid reader (thank you, work, for constantly stealing my attention), I find it appalling that we’re so quick to dismiss a potentially good story based solely on the author’s nationality, race, or gender. If the roles were reversed, we’d hear loud accusations of racism, bigotry, and ignorance. I, for one, plan to withhold judgment until I’ve read what he writes… or at the very least, until I know what the story is about. To me... a story is a story. |
Heya, Billhilly Fam!I’m Stefani, a librarian, IT coordinator, teacher, daughter, aunt, and sister with a heart for faith, lifelong learning, and personal growth. I believe in community, in finding joy tucked into the day-to-day, and in using both the lessons and the missteps to keep moving forward. Categories
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"WORRYING DOES NOT TAKE AWAY TOMORROW'S TROUBLES,
IT TAKES AWAY TODAY'S PEACE"
IT TAKES AWAY TODAY'S PEACE"
ABOUT MEMy name is Stefani. I am a princess, a dragon rider, a warrior, a magician, a time traveler, a crime solver and so much more. But for "technical" purposes you can call me a Librarian. I teach Elementary Library and Technology as well as High School Coding and Robotics. In my spare time I love books, archery, fishing, crafts and a lot of little things that make life wonderful.
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