Should You Let Your Cuckold Clean Up? Discussion Questions?

I can see how someone reading a fast-paced genre novel would find this book to read very slowly. Unlike many novels, Clean is not a plot-driven page-turner. It is a slow, mental-space novel that relies on psychological suspense. The “unclean” label could also be read as “the pacing is off,” but I believe the author has hit the exact pacing to tell this story. It feels like time is stretching and contracting in weird ways as we are stuck in this one moment with this one person, and that is the point of the book. It is going to be a muddy read for people who need constant forward momentum, but for those willing to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the book, it will be very rich.

If you want to really explore the concept academically, then you should really look into the Literary criticism and theory books. 'Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire' by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick explores how male relationships and desires are expressed through literature. Most of this is based on reading between the lines and getting a sense of the physical intimacy of the male characters in a novel. 'The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1' by Michel Foucault is another very academic book that explores how we talk about sex more than ever before in order to control it. These books explain the taboo, the silence, and the discourse surrounding anal intimacy (and any other kind of intimacy) and therefore will give you a lot of insight into how reading any other fictional account of intimacy will be. They won't give you any narrative, but they will give you a deep sense of why it's there in the first place.

The title of Dara Horn’s new essay collection, “People Love Dead Jews,” has become a sort of specter haunting the fringes of bookish discussions on the Internet lately, eliciting a sort of involuntary salute or, just as commonly, sustained aggression. As a sort-of-influencer who generally stakes out neutral ground between various strands of tepid extremity, I happen to take an interest in this sort of material: Horn does a great job laying out the many ways in which Jews are reduced to a series of dead persons whose suffering can be comfortably registered by others; her narrative moves between personal reminiscence and historical analysis with great facility, making for a sort of unpleasant rollercoaster ride that will leave you either deeply validated or profoundly and persisting uncomfortable. These same themes play out in many online discussions of the book. Some people appreciate Horn’s critique of how Holocaust history is presented to non-Jews, while others worry that she does not leave room for adequate remembrance of the dead. What becomes clear, though, is the amount of space there is for exploration of how Jewish life outside of tragedy is typically not examined or understood by the public. A difficult read, perhaps, but this book will stick with you long after you finish it.

I trust the process the library uses to select new books more than I trust the process of returning old ones. A new book is unopened and looks brand new. But a book that has been in circulation for years could be any number of things. Because of this, I am more hesitant to read very popular and worn bestsellers than I am to read a quirky, newly-purchased book that has been checked out only a few times. There is clearly a different level of handling of new versus old books and therefore a different potential for grime.

I have been seeing this book recommended alongside Under the Oak Tree, but they are really two different kinds of stories. Under the Oak Tree is about a person working through trauma and having really intense emotions – loud, explosive ones. The Housekeeper’s Diary is about a quiet, domestic space and the inner struggle going on to maintain that space, a battle in most cases. Rather than relying on magical power or even a more assertive personality type, the heroine in this book wins because she is patient, very detail-oriented and extremely emotionally intelligent. It is a much more subtle kind of fantasy and does not have the same kind of cathartic release of screaming and crying that can be so satisfying in the face of trauma in a story. But if you are looking for that, then this is not the book for you. Instead, this book finds drama in the minute, in the mundane, and can be a really wonderful read after a long stretch of really intense, high-stakes political intrigue or epic fantasy wars.

I always recommend Denise Hunter because she writes clean romance so well and always creates believable emotional wounds and healing in her characters. My favorite of hers is The Wishing Season which is a live-in cook-off for a house. Her characters are very real with lots of past hurts and present fears but in the end they get to heal and find love. Her books often have a spiritual element but it’s usually light. She focuses mostly on grace and how people can get second chances. For another authors who write clean romance I really enjoy reading Susan May Warren, especially her Deep Haven series which is a fictional MN town and has that one town kind of feeling as well as a good community backbone which is typically found in Hallmark movies and series. The characters and stories have a lot of higher stakes especially in a search-and-rescue type of career which makes for good storylines that keep you wanting to read more but still end up hopeful in the end for the romance.

A real quick and dirty way to go about finding the official way to read something would be to hit the official platforms for comics first. For manhwa, I’d recommend checking out Tappytoon, Lezhin, Piccoma, Naver (home of Line Webtoon), and KakaoPage. If you’re after a live action adaptation, try to find it on Viki or Viu, and then search for it on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video using JustWatch to make sure you’re actually looking at the right thing. Digital copies of the comic can usually be found on Kindle and Comixology, and Apple Books, as well as on physical copies through Book Depository and local bookshops. The publisher and authors for most comics will post links to official editions on their social media, and personally I’d recommend buying a single copy of the volume or subscribing to the official app to read – it’s all a lot cleaner than searching around on dubious sites for dodgy versions of the thing, if you ask me.

I’ve actually read all the books mentioned above already. Any other recs? I’d really appreciate it!

I'm a brand new author, and this is my very first book on KDP. Needless to say, trying to learn the royalty system has been a little confusing for me, and I have a few questions right now. The answer, of course, is yes, you can always contact KDP for help with any questions, etc. It was pretty straightforward to get help from KDP. In addition to their help pages, they offer support via email and via chat, which is handy. My questions were about when payments would be made, and how that would change for books sold in different countries. The support staff were friendly and helpful, and it was great to have my questions cleared up. It’s good to know that support is just a message away, especially if you’re a first-time self-publisher like me.

I have another one of these ‘wish fulfillment’ novels that relies on a gimmick to carry it. This guy is assigned by a system to try to get a bunch of women to marry him. The novel follows the guy as he tries to juggle the different women, and the interactions with each of their unique personalities. At the same time, he is struggling to keep track of the different lies he has to tell to each of the women in order to continue his relationship with them, all while trying to complete the system’s various tasks in order to earn more money, skills, or items. Essentially, this novel is a harem-style anime translated into Chinese webnovel format and packaged with all of the typical tropes. You won’t find any complex character studies or even healthy relationships in this novel. In stead, it is a rather usual ‘power up’ style of fantasy in which the protagonist uses a cheat code in order to gain wealth and status. The quality of writing can vary depending on the translation, so it might be a bit of a challenge to find a good version. However, after a while the plot really starts to repeat itself. The only thing that is really different from one ‘target’ to the next is the way in which the system assigns them to the protagonist. In the end, it is a pretty average read that is perfect for someone looking to pass the time with a novel that is similar to this in style, but not exactly good.