18: Trope We Hate/Book We Love - Kissing Tolstoy by Penny Reid

We all have our favourites when it comes to tropes and storylines that we love.

We also have ones that we hate with the burning fiery passion of a thousand hells.

And yet somehow we can find authors or books that manage to turn our most hated narrative frameworks into something we like, and maybe even love.

This month, Nikki and Meg are sharing a book they somehow love yet it contains their most hated trope(s).

Starting with Nikki’s pick, Kissing Tolstoy by Penny Reid.

In this episode we chat about:

• the emotional plights of leather-pants wearing heroes & Russian-lit reading heroines

• why Nikki hates teacher/student dynamics with a burning passion but somehow can stomach this one

• Meg’s ideas around the layers of power and privilege NOT discussed in this book (which honestly, could have made it better)

• what flowery language gives us the ICK

Books & Media We Mention:

By Penny Reid:

• Kissing Tolstoy

• Kissing Galileo

• The Knitting in the City Series

• The Winston Brothers series

• Secret Service by Tal Bauer

• The Necessary Evils series by Onley James

• Love is Blind UK

Wheel of Power & Privilege

Other Recommendations For This Trope (or similar vibes, in Nikki’s case):

• Hold Me (Cyclone Book 3) by Courtney Milan

• The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

• The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren

• Disciplinary Action by Onley James

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