Harmful Authors and Books/Authors and Books You Should Consider Not Supporting
If the author is in bold, this author has exhibited harmful behavior. If book(s) are in bold, but the author isn’t, the author has NOT exhibited harmful behavior but those specific books contain harmful rhetoric.
DISCLAIMER: This document is a resource for awareness to be used by those who wish to educate themselves and be conscious of who they are supporting. The format of this document is not meant to equalize the issues of all of these authors or their actions; some are worse than others and some have shown remorse while others haven’t. This is also not a rulebook, just a source of information. Use your own discretion when deciding whether to support these authors and use this document as a jumping off point. There may be authors on here that you still feel comfortable supporting, or authors that are missing from this document that you may not want to support. We have tried to be as objective as possible when building this document and recognize that people grow and change. We will attempt to update this document as often as possible. This document is up to date as of July 16th, 2022.
CONTENT WARNING: This document contains mentions/links to descriptions of the following topics: parental abuse, child abuse, domestic abuse, physical assault, sexual assualt, sexual harrassment, bullying, transphobia, homophobia, pedophillia, incest, racism, cultural appropriation, antisemitism, ableism, fatphobia, fetishization, misogyny, colonialism, acephobia, gaslighting, bi-erasure, Trump, fascism, menstruation and murder. Please proceed with caution.
Books: Call Me By Your Name, Enigma Variations, Out of Egypt: A Memoir, Harvard Square, etc.
Issues:
-Is a pedophile (said he was attracted to 12-year-old girls) x
Books: Purple Hibiscus, Notes on Grief, Americanah, We Should All be Feminists
Issues:
-Transphobia (has stated that JKR’s views are “perfectly reasonable” and has asked to be taken out of acknowledgements of Akwaeke Emezi’s work, as Emezi is a nonbinary author who is outspoken about trans rights) X
Books: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, Flight, Reservation Blues, etc.
Issues:
-Sexual assault/sexual harrassment x
Books: From Blood and Ash (Series)
Issues:
-Racist caricaturizations of Black people in From Blood And Ash x x
-Romanticisation of sexual assault, harrassment and abuse in FBAA x
Books: Thirteen Reasons Why, etc.
Issues:
-Sexual assault allegations x
-Thirteen Reasons Why romanticises suicide x
Books: The Handmaid’s Tale
Issues:
-Transphobic x
Books: The Black Flamingo
Issues:
-Transphobia in The Black Flamingo x x
-However, the author is very outspoken on Twitter in favor of trans rights.
Books: The Silence of the Girls, The Women of Troy
Issues:
-Extreme ableism and fatphobia in The Women of Troy x
Books: The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, My Brother’s Name Is Jessica
Issues:
-TBITSP is antisemitic and tells the story of the Holocaust from the perspective of Nazi sympathizing. X
-Any Jewish person who has called this out has been antisemitically attacked.
-MBNIJ is transphobic x
-Any trans person who has called this out has been transphobically attacked x
Books: Ender’s Game
Issues:
-Orson Scott Card is very racist and homophobic x
Books: Wranglestone
Issues:
-Wranglestone is a metaphor for the transatlantic slave trade but with white people and zombies, and it plays heavily into eugenics rhetoric. X x
Books: Shadowhunters Series
Issues:
-Harassed minors on the internet for criticizing her works. X
-Romanticised incest and abuse in the Shadowhunters books x
Books: The Night and its Moon (series)
Issues:
-The Night and its Moon was marketed as having two main characters, yet the one who is a POC is treated as a side character and is fetishized. Her entire plotline revolves around her trauma (and she is at one point whipped and sent to a whore house). X
-Worth mentioning that Piper CJ used manipulation tactics to sell The Night and Its Moon. She firstly marketed the book as though it is one of the first sapphic fantasy books to exist (which is blatantly untrue), and then publicly documented her coming out to her homophobic family to promote her book.
-The author has bullied and harassed people on the internet for negative (or even neutral) reviews. X
-Made a harmful video “defending” goblins and severely diminishing their use as antisemitic propaganda, and did not apologize to Jewish creators when called out on it. x x
-Made a video stating that bisexual representation of women in a book does not make the book “sapphic”, and calling it so is false advertising, and essentially said that bisexual people are not sapphic. (This video has since been taken down.)
Books: The Binding, The Betrayals
Issues:
-Interacts with a lot of TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) content on twitter x
-Transphobia and antisemitism in The Betrayals. X x
Books: The Maze Runner (Series)
Issues:
-Sexual assault/harassment x
Books: Wicked Saints
Issues:
-Wicked Saints contains antisemitism. This includes blood libel as well as the use of antisemetic descriptions. X
-Bullied BIPOC and Jewish authors. X
-Mocked incest survivors who asked for trigger warnings. X
-Mocked book bloggers and reviewers. X
Books: May the Best Man Win, Silk Fire
Issues:
-Lesbophobia (while these instances themselves aren’t examples of lesbophobia, when they are combined, they point to a pattern of lesbophobic beliefs. When it comes to the line from MTBMW, this is part of a discussion throughout the book about trans people, specifically in this case trans men, being made to feel unsafe and unwelcome in many queer spaces. Trans men often get attacked when discussing this topic and this should be taken into consideration when critiquing this) x
-Silk Fire is misogynistic and uses East Asian culture as an aesthetic. And for anyone who pointed out these issues, they were promptly discredited by the author. x
Books: Manhunt
Issues:
-Biphobia and acephobia X
-Maliciously sent CSA-incest survivor multiple GIFs from of an incestuous couple X
Books: Gone (Series)
Issues:
-Ableist representation in the Gone series x
Books: Every Word You Never Said
Issues:
-Every Word You Never Said is ableist, uses the MC’s disability as a “quirk,” and the only POC character featured is the Black “sassy” stereotype. x
Books: Consensual Hex
Issues:
-The author used the real traumatic experiences of people she knew in college - including specific identifying details - without their consent. X
Books: Never Kiss Your Roommate
Issues:
-Never Kiss Your Roommate contains Black stereotypes and racism. X
Books: The Love Hypothesis, Love on the Brain, The STEMinist Novellas
Issues:
-The issues within The Love Hypothesis around men who are SA survivors stems from Ali Hazelwood making light of a title in US law that stands to protect survivors, this resulted in fans of the book also making light of it, which makes an already unsafe real-world environment even more difficult to navigate and traumatizing for both survivors who are men, and survivors in general. x
Books: The Devouring Gray
Issues:
-Bullied BIPOC and Jewish authors. X
-She has apologized but it has not been well received.
Books: Her Instruments series, The Dreamhealers series, Lisinthir’s Heirs series, Business for the Right-Brained: (A Guide for Artists, Writers, Musicians, Dancers, Crafters, And All the Other Dreamers), Alysha Forrest series, Fathers’ Honor, Jubilee Summer series, Girl on Fire, Spots the Space Marine
Issues: (openly has all these views on her twitter here X)
-Incredibly transphobic X X X X X X X this whole thread X
-advocates for people who support trans children to be labeled as pedophiles/groomers/child abusers X X Retweeted X
-SWERF (supports the webcomic Sinfest, run by a known and proud SWERF)
-Has stated multiple times that “children are your legacy”, end goal. All her queer rep includes adopting children as part of “duty”.
Books: The State of Us, We Are the Ants, At the Edge of the Universe, The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley, Violent Ends, The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried, A Complicated Love Story Set in Space, Before We Disappear, Brave Face, The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza
Issues:
-His books have racist issues and he blocked Black reviewers and authors for calling him on it. X
-Wrote a romance between a POC and a white republican that was INCREDIBLY harmful and racist and ignorant. X X
-An asexuality sensitivity reader for The State of Us was trash-talked publicly by SDH. X
Books: Woven in Moonlight
Issues:
-Anti-indigenous and colonialist rhetoric in Woven in Moonlight x x (5:58 - 22:48)
Books: Attack On Titan (Series)
Issues:
-Attack On Titan is based on antisemitic philosophy and pushes antisemitic rhetoric. x
-Attack on Titan characters are based on fascist generals x x
Books: Off-Campus Series, Briar U Series, After Hours Series, Out of Uniform Series, Killer Instincts Series, etc.
Issues:
-Fetishization of mlm, lesbophobic x
Books: It, Misery, The Stand, Pet Sematary, etc.
Issues:
-Racism in IT
-Explicit sex scenes between minors in IT
-Ableism in IT
-Fatphobia in IT
-Doesn’t believe in actively working to diversify media x
-Demonizes menstruation x
-Often uses the Magical Black Person trope x
-Ableism in The Stand x
Books: The House in The Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door, Wolfsong, The Extraordinaries (series)
Issues:
-Used the 60’s scoop and residential schools in Canada as inspiration for THITCS, therefore profiting off of Indigenous trauma. x
-THITCS contains anti-Black stereotypes. x
-One of the Black characters is a mammy stereotype and is a housekeeper. She also is Indigenous and goes on to say that she is glad that her land was colonized.
-The second of the Black characters turns into an animal for large portions of the book and is mostly silent.
-THITCS is told from a white saviorist narrative and pushes factually incorrect and dangerous colonial propaganda (specifically: that oppression stems from fear and misunderstanding as opposed to being an intentional tool of power. This furthers white supremacy.) x x
Books: Nevernight, Empire Of The Vampire, Lifelike, The Aurora Cycle (With Amie Kaufman), The Illuminae Files (With Amie Kaufman), Stormdancer
Issues:
-Antisemitism in Nevernight: contains blood libel, and the villain is named Adonai (the Hebrew word for God in Judaism) x
-He has stated that the name will be changed in future printings x.
-Anti-Maori racism in Nevernight x (most #OwnVoices sources on this have been removed)
-Anti-Albinism in Nevernight x
-Explicit sex scenes between minors in books x
-Cultural appropriation in Stormdancer x x x
-Racism in an interview about Stormdancer x
Books: Steel Crow Saga, Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge, etc.
Issues:
-Sexual assault/sexual harassment x x x x x x x x x
Books:
Issues:
-Ableism in books x
-Said she wouldn’t write a trans protagonist because it would be too niche and doesn’t fit with her worldbuilding, yet has a novella centering a trans villain whose experience of being trans is what drives their villainy. X
-Includes transphobic language in her works x
-Has been known to use Indigenous stereotypes and Orientalism in her works. X
Books: Youngblood, A Wicked Magic
Issues:
-Youngblood seems to have a white saviorist narrative, the tokenizing of BIPOC characters, ableist language and repeated references to HP. The story also contained bigoted language as a tactic to make the white main character seem great. X x
-Falls into antisemitic vampirical tropes: about a big evil group trying to control the world with blood and money. (Mentioned in the comments of the Instagram post above.)
Books: Red Sister, Prince Of Thorns
Issues:
-Sexist in his books and in real life. Sets his followers after people who critique his work.
-Has called V.E. Schwab a b*tch and c*nt for critiquing his work. X
Books: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, Loki, A Madness Blooms
Issues:
-White saviorism in The Gentleman’s Guide. x
-Bi-erasure of her own character's sexuality x
-Signing and defacing books by other authors x
-Transphobia in A Madness Blooms x x x
-Terrible genderfluid and pansexual rep in Loki x x
Books: Made Series, Alyria Series, etc.
Issues:
-Has exhibited a string of racist and Trump supporting behavior. X x
-Named her only Black character “Shaniqua” x and writes racist dialogue x
Books: ACOTAR Series, Throne of Glass Series, Crescent City Series, Catwoman Soulstealer
Issues:
-Problems of racism, misogyny, copaganda and more in Crescent City x
-Problems of racism, homophobia, romanticisation of abuse and more in ACOTAR x
-Acephobia in ACOWAR x
-Killed off her only Black character in TOG to further the white MC’s story x
-Ableism in TOG x
-Used the death of Breonna Taylor to promote her books. X
-ACOTAR is a reverse colonial narrative and inappropriately misuses the history and mythology of Welsh and Irish x
Books:
Issues:
-Attacked reviewers x
-Romanticised abuse x
-Racist x
-Fatphobic x
Books: The Matzah Ball
Issues:
-The Matzah Ball equates being Jewish and liking Christmas to having to come out as LGBTQ+ x
-In The Matzah Ball, a character jokes about the murder of Palestinians x
Books: Twilight, The Host
Issues:
-Didn’t want to cast Black people in the Twilight movies x
-Twilight is misogynistic x
-Racist portrayals of the Quileute Tribe in Twilight x x x
Books: The Lunar Chronicles, Renegades, Heartless, Instant Karma
Issues:
-Homogenisation of Asia and misrepresentation of Asian people in The Lunar Chronicles x x
-Ableism in Winter - the main character causes her to be constantly questioned and called “crazy” by side characters throughout the book. x
-Appropriates the use of “karma” - and inaccurately - in Instant Karma x
Books: Me Before You Series
Issues:
-Me Before You is ableist x x x x
Books: Where The Crawdads Sing
Issues:
-Owens, her stepson, and her (former?) husband are wanted for questioning in Zambia due to the “alleged” murder committed by her husband and stepson. She based her book off their experience in Zambia. x
Books: Boy, Snow, Bird
Issue:
-Transphobia in Boy, Snow, Bird x x
Books: I’m literally not going to list them all.
Issues:
-Claimed that white men are victims of racism. x
Books: The Grimrose Girls
Issues:
-The Grimrose Girls is filled with stereotypes and harmful rhetoric, including but not limited to: the Asian character’s entire plot line is boiled down to that she struggles with parental pressure to be the smartest and most perfect daughter, both lesbian characters being “mean lesbian” stereotypes, the half-Native half-Black character’s entire plot line is that she has an absent Black father who abandoned her, a character with OCD has her opinions constantly doubted or questioned due to her OCD, the character that is meant to be Belle has a trans girl as a love interest (insinuating that the trans girl is the Beast), the trans girl’s fairytale retelling is The Ugly Duckling (emphasizing that she was once an ugly duckling transformed into her true beautiful self). X x
Books: Wilder Girls, Burn Our Bodies Down
Issues:
-Bullied BIPOC and Jewish authors. X
-She has made a statement saying she has distanced herself from those involved and apologizing.
-Mixed reception on this.
Books: Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles, The Camorra Chronicles
Issues:
-Released the synopsis for a book that was riddled with ableism. She canceled the publishing for the book but blamed the disabled community for being too sensitive. X X
Books: The Light of the Midnight Stars, The Sisters of the Winter Wood
Issues:
-Has generally been assumed to be a Zionist. We have no official sources on this.
-Made a tweet saying that she wants “a YA Palestinian/Israeli West Side Story.” x
-This tweet seems to have been taken down but is still visible via the link above.
-Made a tweet saying she wants “a sexy romance set in the Israeli army.” x
-If the link above doesn’t work, try this link. x
Books: Fangirl, Carry On Series, Eleanor & Park, Attachments, Landline
Issues:
-Eleanor & Park contains racist, fetishizing, and tokenizing portrayals of an Asian character. At one point, the MC compares being a redhead to the Asian character’s experience with racism. X
-Fangirl is centered around a straight girl fetishizing fictional men and writing fanfiction about them. Carry On is that fanfiction.
Books: Harry Potter (Series),
Issues:
-Blatantly transphobic and uses her platform and money to work against trans rights.
-Racism in Harry Potter.
-Antisemitism in Harry Potter.
-Ableism in Harry Potter
-Fatphobia in Harry Potter
Books: If I was Your Girl
Issues:
-Abuse allegations from her ex wife x
Books: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Issues:
-Transphobia in Ari and Dante (a trans woman is killed by another character and she is repeatedly misgendered). When trans people brought it up to the author, he laughed at them. X
-The author deadnamed the director of the Ari and Dante movie and blocked trans people on Twitter for calling him in on it. He continued to misgender the director in an apology tweet. X
-Ari and Dante and its sequel utilize a lot of gender=genitalia language. X
-Sent a personal email to a teenage reviewer, misgendering them and “correcting” them on the way they read his book. (TW: discussion of SA) x
Books: And They Lived…
Issues:
-Fatphobia in And They Lived… x
-Tokenizing of Jewish characters in And They Lived… x
-Overall, And They Lived… deals with some very heavy and triggering themes very poorly and conflates body dysmorphia with eating disorders with violent fatphobia. This is incredibly harmful rhetoric, especially for its YA audience.
Books: Bonds Of Brass, Hullmetal Girls, The Abyss Surrounds Us
Issues:
- Problematic portrayals of POC in Bonds of Brass
-She has made an apology statement for this x
Books: The Raven Cycle Series
Issues:
-Has known to speak against and attack fans for headcanoning/fancasting/drawing her characters as POC (especially when Black).
-Has racist portrayal of a Korean character in TRC. X
-Mocked Halsey and Halsey fans on Twitter after someone said that a song reminded them of characters from her books. X
Books: The Grave of Empires Series, Bring Down Heaven Series, Aeons’ Gate Series, Brave Chef Brianna
Issues:
-Has made sexual comments to multiple authors, has physically and sexually harrassed people, and being a general jerk. X
Books: The Pawn And The Puppet
Issues:
-Inaccurate and incomplete TWs list was given for TPATP
- Transphobia and ableism in TPATP x
- Harmful OCD rep in TPATP x
- Didn’t listen to the beta readers who called attention to this x
- The author cited the world building as reasoning for in-text transphobia x
- The author also released a two-part statement on Instagram addressing reader concerns x x
Books: What Big Teeth, We All Fall Down
Issues:
-We All Fall Down features a protagonist inflicting violence upon marginalized characters in a way that goes unconfronted. Specifically a Black man is thrown under the bus and falsely accused so that he can take the fall. x
-This also seems to be a pattern, as a similar poor treatment of marginalized characters occurs in What Big Teeth. x
Books: As I Descended, Lies We Tell Ourselves, Our Own Private Universe, What We Left Behind, Pulp, The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre, Music From Another World
Issues:
-Lies We Tell Ourselves features a relationship between a Black person and a racist. This book also speaks on anti-Black experiences and issues (though the author is white), while also using the n-word several times in this book. X x
-Talley has acknowledged these criticisms and has apologized. It seems to have mixed responses. X
-However, it seems that Talley has not actually learned from these criticisms as she has claimed, by continuing to have characters use racial slurs in her book Pulp.
-What We Left Behind has incredibly inaccurate and harmful genderqueer representation. X x
Books: The Color Purple
Issues:
Books: Two Winters, Take Her Down
-Take Her Down contains lots of issues, including but not limited to: Harry Potter references, biphobia and lesbophobia (the antagonist is a biphobic lesbian but is secretly bisexual, and the MC tries to out her as bisexual), TERF rhetoric (specifically that there aren’t any lesbians anymore), the outing of characters, etc. x x
Books: 27 Hours
Issues:
Books: Date Me Bryson Keller
Issues:
- DMBK is heavily inspired by a manga called Seven Days to the point where people have debated if it’s plagiarism x
- The author has confirmed Seven Days as inspiration for DMBK and said he wanted to tell a similar story to it but with a Western lens x x x
Books: A Little Life
Issues:
-Compared therapy to brainwashing and pushes the belief that psychology is evil.
-Believes that therapists should “give a suicidal patient permission, as it were, to die.” x
-Advocates against the use of trigger warnings, while pushing readers to be uncomfortable. x
-Refused to do research into CSA and SA or consult any survivors or organizations that work with survivors as well as homogenizing the experiences of all survivors
-Downplayed the trauma of women when explaining why she only writes about traumatized men (explained that women expect trauma while men don’t).
-Does no research in writing about marginalized groups that she is not a part of, yet does in depth research on the careers her characters exist in.
-Pushes eugenics rhetoric, such as that there is a level of trauma an individual can experience that makes them “ too damaged to ever truly be repaired, and that there’s a single inevitable ending,” implying that trauma and disability to a certain level inevitably leads to one taking their own life. X
