Maedhros Maglor Celegorm Caranthir Curufin Amrod Amras Potter, you were named after a bunch of characters from The Silmarillion, which I had not read yet when you were born, but was assured by Hermione I would one day love. I still haven't read it.
I used my day off to read part of a web serial novel (up to ch63 before I gave up, it's over 250+ chapters right now) that popped up on my feed called "Goodbye, Saintess", and boy do I feel better about my own writing now.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy this absolute TRAINWRECK of a story.
It starts with a hunky firefighter ("Sebastien") going out to stop a fire that broke out at a hotel, and while he's there he finds his rich and beautiful self-made CEO wife ("Hera") in a hotel room with a man you soon learn is her childhood love ("Edmund"), along his child (whose name doesn't matter), who is implied to (somehow) be hers and his love child.
We learn that, at home, Hera has only ever been cold and stand-offish, never going to events with Sebastien or making any attempt at all to show him any affection. This is (supposedly) because she was raised in a weird cult, not because she's a narcissist. When she's with Edmund, however, she's loving, caring, laughing, and generally a lovely human being who goes on dates and attends parent teacher nights with Edmund and his kid. When Sebastien asks "what the fuck" about this, she turns cold as ice to him and acts like he's the bad guy in the situation.
Sebastien decides to divorce her, and tells her as such, but before he can make a move to make that happen, he gets called away to help fight a forest fire. Hera loses her shit, and does not like being given the cold shoulder, and tries to get him to come back to her and not divorce her.
Until this point, I was on board. It was interesting reading about a narcissist, and I wanted to see where the story went.
Sexy older woman who creeps on him before giving a "discount" on his rent. Sexy daughter of the sexy older woman who, surprise, is his housemate in the new apartment, who engineers a fake stalker to "gauge his reactions to see if he's a good man or if he's just sexy." Sexy heiress who tries to burn the hotel he's staying in down before he stops her but not before she snags his work ID and tracks him down to his job.
She tries bullshit shenanigans to keep him in her life, and he kind of doesn't put up with them. He's happy to just get out of the marriage. He seems to accept that he may be penniless, but at least he won't be with her anymore. However, almost as SOON as he comes to terms with the fact that he's going to divorce her, a whole SWATHE of sexy women adorned only with red flags start throwing themselves at him.
You know. Totally normal things that normal women do.
Just ... emotional ragebait.
Eventually, you learn that his wife Hera didn't REALLY cheat on the Sebastian, it just LOOKED really bad. That is somehow supposed to make her ok, and not still abusive. Edmund, her childhood love, mostly just wanted her for her money ("So my kid's future is secure!"), and the kid wasn't actually her kid. However, about this same time you learn that, when she went to meet the kid's teachers and stuff, there was a video made of it for whatever reason which she had on her laptop (obvious plot device is obvious, but fine, whatevs), which Sebasitan (her soon to be ex-husband) somehow got hold of (for plot reasons, sure, fine, I'll accept that).
In the video, she gave Edmund credit for all the things Sebastian did, and went on about how much she loved when he did them for her. Except that that wasn't what happened, and everything she said Edmund did, Sebastian did, and she blew it off when he did them. You took care of me in bed? Fuck off, I don't need you. Edmund did it, and I loved him for it. You made me an artisanal purse? Fuck you, I hate it, and I'll never use it. Edmund did it, and I love it.
I continued reading, though, hoping that AT LEAST there might come a point where they divorced and THAT arc would be done.
But no such luck was to be had.
The heiress somehow traps him into a fake-turn-real relationship, which pulls him into stakes with her controlling parents and her controlling arranged fiance, which the guy just GOES ALONG WITH for whatever fucking reason, even though NOW we're told that he's being cool, and not just a doormat. The apartment women we don't hear about again.
Nobody knows how to communicate with anyone else, and we learn that he's not JUST a firefighter, that's he's REALLY a super-smart genius who didn't do anything with his genius because he married Hera. But now that he's kind of but not really divorcing Hera, it's all ok, since, again, he's secretly a super-smart super ripped dude who's EXTREMELY DESIRABLE to (sexy, toxic, wealthy) women. He never knew this until now, except in all the ways that he DID know and didn't want to act on it because he wanted to stay in a horribly abusive marriage.
I poked ahead to the last chapter, and somehow the firefighter dude made a potion of youth that's dangerous but also really does work, so ... I dunno. It's an interesting if somewhat generic premise (a partner leaves their abuser and the fallout of that) that quickly turns into a slogging right-wing harem-esque rage-fantasy.
In the same way the last book of the Left Behind series showed how Christian Nationalists view Jesus, this is a great read if you want to understand how right-wing incel-types probably view women.
I give it 0 stars out of 5, and may God have mercy on the author's soul, since I will give them none. Books should have an ENDING, and this one just KEEP GOING.
I'm so sick of the cosplay part of the su fandom. Like really anyone can cosplay Garnet or Sardonyx. Red and Orange are not real skin colors. They are just fictional rocks.
