open heart was definitely a book that caught the fandom’s attention but honestly…. it was a hard time to be a black fan. the amount of casual anti-blackness was INSANE!!! from people attacking harper for her relationship with ethan and attacking aurora for simply just existing. tobias’ existence brought about a lot of hatred for seemingly no reason to when he hadn’t done anything remotely bad. also people wanting kyra to die for bryce’s development and raf to die for… the plot? which was already ass anyway and raf’s death wouldn’t have done anything of substance. the worst part about it all is that pb deliberately encouraged this through their writing, through their choice of plot points and the way they represented their characters. the fact that mc and aurora are forced to have a massive blowout over something minuscule? the decision to add harper to the diagnostics team even though she’s a surgeon? and have her suddenly want to heat up her old relationship with ethan??? when she literally didn’t gaf about that man until then. even the choice with making elijah turn on mc and take ethan’s side? it really made me look at pb sideways and the fans who were fanning the flames of the fire that pb set alight.
