Nepotism is about power. Who holds power and how it is used. Denying power dynamics in any industry is disastrous. Wealth brings a lot of power. In a place like the US, it's the difference between having a good attorney and getting a light sentence or being stuck in jail for months without being charged. I mean look at SFG. He's on $250million bail chilling at his parents' mansion. Most parents in the world don't have that kind of power.

So in acting which can be a very secretive, back channel deal kind of industry, power means access to people and opportunities that other people are shut out from. There are no repercussions if Jess Smith from Wolverton didn't get the part. But there may be very real repercussions if Major Movie Star's child doesn't get the part. People in the industry who don't have that kind of power aren't dumb. They know how precarious things can be. It's only the people who have only ever known access and power who think that it does not make their road smooth.

And you're definitely reading published works, not ARCs? I know I've read several ARCs that still needed major editing(one even went through revision) and that's part of the thing with ARCs. You end up being a bit of a test case. I mean if it's not good in your opinion, then you just may not like it. And that's okay. But also okay to not review especially if you felt like the book didn't meet the expectations you created for it. I know there have been books I just skipped a review for because it wasn't for me and leaving a poor review would not bring about any meaningful change.

Thank you for attempting to show care for your group and honor the fact that people ought to be able to chose what they are exposed to. It feels terrible to invest time and effort into a book and then realize you can't finish it due to content. No one gets a gold star for being some uneffected hard nut of a person.

Probably your best bet is to look at a wide variety of reviews and see what themes pop up. But even then it depends on the perspective of the reviewer.

There's a show that's been getting lots of buzz and based on reviews I was excited to watch. What no one mentioned was that the entire first episode was on child abuse images 😱 I noped right out. Why did no one think to mention it?

So thrilled for the author/illustrator Gene Luen Yang. What a dream to see this cast come together for this project. He also wrote the fabulous Dragon Hoops as well as several Marvel comics.

My mom was completely against ebooks until we got her a tablet she could read them off of and realized reading doesn't have to be painful. She has arthritis in her hands and holding the physical book literally hurt her. With ebooks she can read as much as she wants, usually a book a day. My dad can increase the size of the font and read better too. Ebooks make reading so much more accessible!

Highest: How to Be a Bad Muslim by Mohamed Hassan (4.72), a Kiwi poet and writer. First encountered his work through a spoken-word video he did on growing up an immigrant and learning how to mispronounce his own name. It's gorgeous.

Lowest: Hungry Women in Paris by Josefina Lopez (2.73). This came out at the end of the "depressed woman goes on a journey, has a lot of sex and eats food and learns about herself" trend and the author herself admits that an editor basically took a bunch of mishmash and made it somewhat into a book. It's a mess.

I think what Rings of Power shows is that you really can't just throw money at something. You have to have the right writers on board and the time for the VFX team to do their job properly.

Take Arcane for example. I, in no way shape or form, like League of Legends video game. At all.
However, that team did such a phenomenal job creating an engaging, nuanced story with stunning animation that it's now one of my favorite things. I've watched the whole thing through several times. Everyone I recommend it to comes back raving about it.

Good writers take the shakiest of IP and make it something worth being excited about.