idk why none of my comments are showing but it’s me, rhys.reads. literally this whole book and the authors way of promoting it is just bad. like she couldn’t even add all the TW, which were left out for shock value. put ALL of them in. i just can’t believe people are giving it 5 stars

IM SCREAMING SHE DID NOT NAME HER FANTASY COUNTRY DEMENTIA 😭

17:25 the most horrifying part of his story to this girl was that his assailant was a trans woman? Not even just the fact that he was assaulted, but the fact that he was ""with a woman with man parts""???? This author's got some gross fucking priorities

I'm dyslexic and keep reading the title as "The Prawn and the Puppy", I think that would have made a better book

This author really was like _"im worried people will think this character is boring. What scenes of graphic sexual trauma played for shock value can i add in order to make them more interesting?"_

6:31 I’m cursed to always associate words like Ebony, Darkness, Dementia, Ravenway, with a very specific fanfic until the end of time.

Also, gotta love an author thinking they've created some super cool dystopia where SHOCK HORROR, women are judged on their appearances and have to be skinny and beautiful!!!!! HOW TOTALLY VERY DIFFERENT FROM REAL LIFE, GOOD WORK, OSTENSIBLE FICTION AUTHOR.

The fact that I genuinely can't tell if the 'bop bop's at the end of some lines are Rachel's additions or actually in the text... really says something about this book 🤡

Ok so the whole book is based on the 'I can fix him' trope when the book itself need fixing 😭

If I had just a fraction of this author's audacity, I could rule the world.

About the DID point: her literally admitting that she is stereotyping DID is clue NUMBER ONE, she didn’t want to do accurate research and help at all. She wanted to fetishize harmful stereotypes around it. But at least she admitted it? Who tf knows

I work with child sex trafficking victims and have in multiple states (US). You know who most often buys and abuses them? Married cis men. You know who abused me as a kid and teen? Cis men. You know who was the first person to support me and give me a safe place where I feel loved and validated and that my experience could be used to help others? A trans man. Gtfo with that disgusting transphobia. I also have a plethora of mental health things as a result of sexual assault and abuse for being nonbinary, bi and neurodivergent, and whatever else I’m emotionally reacting to but honestly I don’t have the energy to explore that rn.

i have DID, and that synopsis alone made my skin flay itself off. the worst part is that this book is very far from the only piece of media that portrays DID in such a horrifically ableist way. it's far more than just using the word "split personality". showing people with this disorder as dangerous and unhinged ACTUALLY kills systems (people with DID). i'm appalled. i don't even have the strength to talk about the ED discussion and transphobia.

Oh my god not the “core personality” part. There is no “core” or “original” with DID. The whole point is that no full identity formed in the first place. Besides, DID is a trauma disorder. People with it are victims, not dangerous abusers. I’d take Jojo’s bizarre adventure’s DID rep over this

As someone who also has real OCD, I hate representations like this mainly for the fact that it took years for me to get properly diagnosed because there were many things that i do because of my OCD that people didn't know are OCD, including myself. I was called weird and strange for years because of them and now that i know it is a mental illness it makes me so angry

this book is literal trauma/torture porn and it’s disgusting how many people are trying to defend her

It makes me think that all those times those publishers turned her away (apparently) it may have been for a reason…. What dumpster fire is this I couldn’t even listen to the synopsis without going WTF

Am I the only one who remembers that the book was turned down like, a dozen times by publishing groups? Which means she had to self publish... which begs the question, why was the time line so strict? Indie Authors move publish dates all of the time. So why not wait to hear back from everyone?

What in the internalized misogyny?? Women can only be unblemished and skinny? Chefkiss thinks he protected his wife and daughter by killing them instead of helping them see the problems with society?? Also... he stripped his daughters body naked? His daughter... To think I had this on my TBR list as just a mildly dark read. You helped me nope out of there

Also, speaking of mental illnesses, this book makes me forever thankful that my beta readers told me off for accidentally mixing up PTSD symptoms with phobias. (Mind you, I cut that subplot out due to not having enough time between four POVs to tackle it properly but still...) Just goes to show that oftentimes no criticism/not listen to said critiques is the worse option.

*Hears split personality* *jazz music stops. Everyone in the system freezes* *dissolves with a scream into a pile of ash*

Thank GOD someone outside of booktok is discussing this! The book gives me the ick. And then the author said the booktokker who beta read, and who also graduated with a psychology degree, told her about the major issues “too late” in the process. When a) that isn’t true based on what the other booktokker said and b) still isn’t an excuse???

This feels like somebody’s Yandere roleplay Wattpad fanfic that got put into a real book instead of an actual book that should be on shelves somewhere

A hallmark of fetish fiction is no solid plot, lots of weird/kinky behavior (which is the whole thing), and a metric ton of cheesy or non existent character development. It's not a mystery why so many people can't stand it. Unless your kink is asylum trappings you won't. If you think this one's bad? Look up Flames of Lethe. Pretty book covers are no guarantee of a good story.

The fact that she knew that it was horribly ableist before writing it and still chose to do it is just...... both astounding and not surprising at all 😭😭

how are we still doing the evil split personalities thing? even if it wasn't horrifically ableist, it's tired and boring now. it's so overdone. as someone with medically recognized DID, frankly it's just boring at this point. if i hear about a book or show or movie that has a character with DID, i just immediately assume it's not good representation.

As someone with DID this book should have never been allowed to be published. The horrible rep for DID goes above and beyond. The core personality is not a thing. They are not personas or personalities but alternative states of identity (alter). I hate having my mental illness that is heavily stigmatized used in a romance book let alone romanticized. This is a horrific book that continues the misconceptions about DID and hurts both the communities that don’t have DID and the community that does.

So I can’t stop laughing. Rachel you are amazing. And I’m getting from ‘The Pawn and the Puppet’ an ‘After’ meets ‘Fifty Shades’ meets ‘378 days’ with a Joker/Harley romance. And that’s awful I couldn’t stop cringing when you described the ear scene. Lord have mercy. Thank you for saving me from illegally pirating this book. I swear I hope it doesn’t become a movie.

I’m pretty sure this book is a fever dream of every horny topic on booktook plus the classic y/n selfinsert “im not like other girls” without second guessing if it is a good idea or not to publish it, like the amount of badly written stereotypes and phobias and triggering content looks like something written on wattpad that was supported by ppl that think that dark content is mostly sexual and “kinky” stuff

When you mentioned the sister being queer because of previous sexual trauma and called it homophobic it struck a chord with me. For years I identified as a lesbian until I realized my aversion to men was driven by ptsd. However, considering everything else the author was written I do think it was written with ill intent. I just wanted to point out that the situation is possible.

Puppets/Marionettes are amazing Horror monster fodder. Super mad they're mentioned in any capacity.

That OCD element is so awful. As someone who suffers with it myself, I am so sorry you had to read that. It sounds immensely triggering.

This author started popping up on my fyp before the release of this book and I just KNEW I had to trust my gut not to let booktok overhype this one. Sounds terrible and extremely harmful to the trans community. Your review was well said and entertaining, thank you for reading so we didn’t have to!

Did the people who rate this book 5 stars know other books exists?

Oof I am so glad that I ran across this title on your channel because if I'd come across it in the wild and picked it up I would have been PISSED. I' was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at fifteen and have been on medication for it for literally half my life (turning thirty this October.) It gets under my skin when people portray mental illness badly. I know it's a really tricky subject to tackle without romanticizing it, which has dangers of its own. It does have to be addressed, but I know that even I'd have trouble doing it justice, even with my lived experience. I'm a huge mental health advocate. I encourage people to go to therapy (let's face it, we could all use some, no matter how well-adjusted we appear.) Medication isn't for everyone, but it works for a lot of us and we shouldn't be shamed out of taking it. I had so many people tell me to trust god for my mental health needs or that suffering from depression was a sign I didn't have enough faith in god/wasn't praying hard enough. I'm sure that's a large part of why I'm an agnostic, possibly even an atheist now. (Though there are other facets, for sure.) I really don't see the point of hiding my diagnosis, and I don't think others should either unless it puts them in danger. Coming out as mentally ill and sharing your struggles can make it easier for the next person down the line to do the same. I understand some people can't though. This book is reckless and perpetuates HORRIBLE stereotypes about mentally ill people. As if it's not bad enough people downplay bipolar to "moodiness" on the mild end or psychosis and/or danger to others on the really awful end. Then there are people who use it interchangeably with things like schizophrenia or DID. Ugh. And the trans stuff, oooooofff. I have a trans side character in a WIP but I know that I have, have, HAVE to have sensitivity readers when I discuss anything revolving around a minority I am not a part of. My main character is a lesbian (I am bi so I don't think it's an enormous leap, but I'll still have people look into it.) I guess all this to say that ignorance is the enemy, and to be this willfully blind and doubling down makes me feel a little ill.

As a person in an OSDD system, I was triggered by the DESCRIPTION holy SHIT. This book is a trip. Like an LSD trip. Please get me out 😭 Your review was enjoyable as always, thank you for making this palatable to listen to while I drew.

5:00 tbh saying 'split personality' instead of 'dissociative identity disorder' seems to be the least of its problems with DID representation in this book

Amazing. "But my story is so deep, look at all the sexual assault!"

Right of the bat (have not finished the video) I can say maybe having the main character's sister die in that asylum specifically would have made for a more interesting character motivation. Because so far it seems like the protagonist is "just good", when in a society where wrongs are normalized it should be harder to "wake up" and see those wrongs. And having a sister die would be part of that process of identifying any wrongs, and also have a personal character motivation to want to stop it from continuing, alongside with giving the focus on that specific asylum

so, fun fact, I knew the author and can confirm the book wasn't intentional Christian subterfuge at least lol. also, I definitely dodged a bullet. when she was first looking at self publishing this, I offered to do a round of edits and beta read for her. lucky for me, we stopped talking before she could ask, so now everyone else gets to suffer instead

Its frustrating to me how people don't seem to understand that the implications of having DID are usually very very traumatic and tragic and it should probably be dealt with a lot of nuance and empathy...

From what I've learned as an aspiring author, it's important for people to write what they know and understand. Personally, I wouldn't write about DID because I don't have it and wouldn't be capable of explaining it accurately like someone who is diagnosed with it. Although, if you write about DID or something like that then you NEED to do enough deep research to the point where you can ACCURATELY represent it. My problem with the book was that the author didn't choose to accurately represent people with DID and she ACKNOWLEDGED that. I feel strongly when it comes to accurate representation in terms of health because I have epilepsy and often I see people write epilepsy in a manner where the representation isn't accurate. And it upsets me because epilepsy is something that affects you extremely. So, if you write about it, at least do the research to understand it. I hope the author learns from her mistakes and actually accepts criticism next time because it's clear she didn't have any criticizing feedback for this book.

In conclusion: even if the transphobia wasn’t written in, this books still would have trended bc of how terrible it is. This should have never been written. It sounds like a conservative trying to sneak in religion to dark romance.

oh the dad being framed as mercy killing his wife and daughter fucked me up. that's so like... why girl. why would you write that

bruuuuhh lost it at ' we are in the country of DEMENTIA' hooow is this a thing??

The sequel to this abomination has over a 4 star average on GR and one 5 star reviewer said they feel this series will become a classic one day 💀

Pull out another identity at the last moment and end the book? I see someone's been watching Moon Knight.

I wanna know how scarlet got a job at an asylum when she was a teenager

As a schizophrenic with not enough strength to make it thru the whole video to check if we also get misrepresented, I'm just going to assume we do and there is a serial killer who thinks they are a ferret somewhere in it or sth.

As someone with a dissosiative disorder i hate, hate this book. I hate that we're always some sort of manipulative, Machiavellan and dark villain, when in most cases, we usually end up being the victim. The concept of there being a 'good' and 'bad' personality is so frustrating, because while, yes, there are alters who tend to be more hostile or unplesant than others, in the end they are a way a child coped with a fucked up situation. I hate how people like me, people who have been suffering since usually a young age, are reduced to an 'intriguing plot twist', 'a chaotic villain', an 'unhinged serial killer that occasionally has moments of clarity' or an awfully conceptualised romance partner. We're not someone to be fixed by love, or some sort of dangerous, erotic thrill. Also the sheer INACURACY. Probably not just with DID, but I'm focusing on that. The author (who's name i didn't bother to learn, since she didn't bother to learn anything about DID in a book where it was part of the main plot) could have used this book to battle stigma around the disorder. Instead she reinforced it. People like her are the reason why when i tell people about my condition the questions are usually something like 'so do u have any violent alters?' or somathing like that. Pieces of fiction like this, that show us as dangerous or evil in a way are so incredibly damaging and usually they're barely accurate to real life. The truth is, the people most in danger due to systems are the systems themselves. The concept of a 'core personality' is something so incredibly upseting,. I'm a host that took over when the body was about 13, because the host at the time was having a very, very difficult time even existing. She became dormant soon after that and we haven't had contact with her since. She was the closest to anything nearing a 'core personality' and that's just because she was aone of the oldest and most active alters at the time. Due to this, despite having access to many (but not all) of her memories, I feel like an imposter and DID narratives where the character strives to regain 'the original personality', while the other alters are seen as invaders, alomst demons possesing someone just go to solidify those awful feelings. The author could have used this book to battle the stigma against DID in the medical field and to prompt people to actually do research on the topic. For example, my ex-therapist did not believe me when I told her about the multiple people in my head and used Rapid eye movement therapy, which is often used with traumatised people, but it can have very negative side effects. That, coupled with her strong pressure on my Co-Host, ended up with her actually bullying that alter out of existence and I have no fucking clue on where the fuck they went. Therapy with that lady ended after she let me run out of the office and wander the streets in a daze, almost getting hit by a car.

... I feel like we were totally the pawn and the book was puppeting our hands to keep turning the pages. We were tricked! dang it! And I’m kidding because I hate this. How can crap like this be published ..? Was it self published ? Did she have an agent? Ugh. Bleh. I hate right now. 🤨 And also, regarding mental illness; I’m bipolar so I understand wanting your mental illness treated with care, kindness and a basic level of understanding. I acknowledge your perseverance and I’m really proud of how much you share with us. Thank u for all u do! Truly. You are one of a kind sis. 🥺 🥰

I have only heard the summary so far, but I'm screaming, genuinely, WTF IS HAPPENING! 😭

When I read it I made it to page 120 and I couldn’t handle it. And that was about a week after it came out. I went in blind. It was awful. I went to good reads to try and figure out why people were giving it 5 stars. I only saw one 1 star at the time and I was like wtf. There is a period scene in the book that I just couldn’t see a woman writing. Where the blood was running down her thighs. I just didn’t understand how this book was so popular.

And he'd do it again BOP BOP is now apart of my daily vocabulary

Every time u said Desin.... I literally thought about Desatin the butt creme for babies. 🤭 Love the reviews girl. 🤓

really feels like the author (accurately) understood that for a good chunk of history, being in a mental institution was tantamount to torture, and then examined absolutely zero of the contributing factors to that reality before writing an entire book about it

this literally sounds like a fever dream, how was this book even published LET ALONE the second book is supposed to come out soon????

You know most days I definitely think I could never be an author… then I see something like this and realize my zero draft is better written than this… 😬😬

This whole book is a fever dream to me. I really didn’t remember half of it until you mentioned it. I was confused by a lot of the stuff circulating TikTok about because I had forgotten so much, but now this makes so much sense.

So it's a Joker/Harley Quinn fanfic

Authors who write about mental illness NEED to have beta readers who are educated in neuroscience and psychology. Stigmatizing AND romanticizing mental illness isn't only directly harmful towards people suffering from the illnesses, but also affects funding towards research to help develop treatments for illnesses and studies attempting to understand the underlying neurobiological causes of psychiatric illnesses.

Thank you so much for this! I saw it popping up everywhere so I wanted to know what happened but didn't want to support the author or actually read it!

"CORE PERSONALITY" NOOOOOOOOOO

Big ol cw 17:26 Okay, I know the author has since apologized, but I really cannot get over the fact that the thing that has Skylenna bugging out right now is NOT that this man is a survivor of inc*st**s csa but he might have interacted sexually with a trans woman?? Priorities, Miss Thing, priorities!!

i had a suspicion this book was going to be cringe. the author and the tiktoks she kept making about it was giving me the complete ick. and i know now more and more than ever that booktok will hype up even the shittiest of books. i have trust issues now truly. i will never pick anything up from this author. i will never support someone who publishes a book like this without even a thought of, like, “hm… maybe i shouldn’t include this”. and dude, it’s 2022 and she thought all the shit in this was okay?!? makes me angry.

The only place called Dementia I like is in the Shivering Isles in the Elder Scrolls franchise, which is the realm of a madgod.

You can portray symbolically something, but that's not what she did, she literally (mis)portrayed DID. I bet she listened to that person's pov and their advice, and then discarded all of them to write her book. Also, of course, the 'backstory' of Dasian or whatever doesn't make sense and that's not how someone develops DID.

Oh, ableism and savior complex. My favorite. Seriously, what was the author thinking?!

I honestly feel inwardly horrified at myself that the thought “So, this is very poorly written Joker+Harley AU fan fiction?” After hearing what this book was about. How dare I?

It's sounded like a trigger warning pot where the title itself is the trigger warning (not that nutritional labels should ever be neglected). I'm blessed to have heard you talk about the book before I had actually purchased it.

I judged this one by the cover. I have no regrets.

listening to this while working on an assignment and... DEMENTIA?? what 😀

Heart as a Beating drum would make more sense than a maraca, the hell?!

I hate that my brain thought of this, but I can't comprehend this book any other way. This author, Brandi, literally just made the Asylum into a zoo for her self-insert to walk about, jeer and point at people who have real world mental illnesses and disabilities, and them to still keep her character ignorant all throughout the book. It just feels like a disgustingly twisted analogy of how people who are ableist in real life view people with mental illnesses and disabilities as "not normal" and turning them into a sexualized spectacle. I'm guessing she was hoping to get away with this because "its just fiction" even though it's been proven that fiction has real world consequences. She stuffed her fictional asylum full of stereotypes of an already stigmatized group. And instead of having a genuine conversation about these harmful stigmas, she decided to add more fuel to the fire, instead. Again, I hate that my brain made the comparison of the asylum in the book to a zoo, but I cannot think of any other intention Brandi, the author was trying to go for.

So does the author know that smothering isn't peaceful at all? It's actually painful and slow wtf? Edit 1: plus using women's bodies to parade around as a symbol is disgusting

I am 10,000% sure i have seen a drug commercial featuring white people dancing and tandem biking for something called Skylena

Jesus christ this sounds like an edgy high schoolers first ever creative writing assignment before they learn any fundamentals about story telling. What a fucking mess.

I tried finding if the countries/names were references. Here's the best I got: Kyleena-birth control vexamen, vexaminis: (latin) neuter noun shaking, jolting; shock; disturbance, upheaval; The Daily Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God's presence and discern his direction for us. The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God's hand at work in our whole experience. Aldactone is a water pill that prevents your body from absorbing too much salt and keeps your potassium levels from getting too low. Aldactone is used to treat heart failure, high blood pressure (hypertension), or hypokalemia (low potassium levels in the blood), but also fluid retention in people with congestive heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver, or a kidney disorder called nephrotic syndrome. Eh, it's all a bit of a stretch honestly.

Jesus, I knew it was bad but I didnt realize it was THAT bad, how did this get published???

This is such a mess and I have no idea what the whole point was. Dark romance isn’t actually this. I was lucky to only get on the reaction side of this in booktok but how do people think this is good? Also aren’t pawn and puppet synonyms in a sense? Who’s who? And I’m just getting knock off harley Quinn and joker vibes

I have never met anyone with DiD nor have I ever been diagnosed but I am someone who is very tired of Hollywood’s weird obsession with portraying mental illness the way that they have been. I can think of a minuscule handful of movies that have not shown a person who suffers from DiD as not being a cold blooded villain. And even those characters are portrayed with other stereotypes. Characters such as Sybil from the movie Sybil (also book) or Eve from the Three Faces of Eve. Both were not portrayed as villains but rather sympathetic characters (I must reiterate they are still problematic in other ways but I cannot remember exact details).

I am SHOCKED that this book has 3.9 stars on GoodReads out of over 4,000 reviews. I mean what?!

Came from tiktok... Was pleased to see it was 40+ minutes... Settled in for a good ride 😎

Alkadon sounds like an antacid and vexamen sounds like E.D. medication 😅

I'm so sorry you had to read this. I will not be reading it. It sounds like a dumpster fire of insensitive, unnecessary bullshit. I have no idea what this author must have been thinking, if she was thinking at all.

Not fully done with this summary/review, but I can kinda see how it's Christian subterfuge. Societal expectations for women to wear makeup and dress a certain way can either get them assaulted or drive them mad, or both? Don't change what the Lord gave you. Also all men suck except this one man who wants to protect and provide for his woman, who is also the only good God-fearing person in this society

The fact that the author literally calls the land with the famous asylum “Dementia” shows a lack of self awareness that is patently unequipped to tackle any of the subjects included (and not included) in her trigger warning list.

Why is she asking these patients their backstories does this institution not keep files on their patients

I'm currently working on my next book. I really want to pay you to look at it when I'm done. You seem like you would be honest about what is and isn't good about the story.

Wow I super don’t want to read that 😂. I started seeing the author on my FYP when she was gaining her following by doing a court of thorns and roses skits. SKYLENNA (.. spot on by the way with the birth control thing by the way). My assumption from her early teaser TikTok’s was the MC was a Psychiatrist, who was assigned patient 13, they spend the book working through their collective issues, with the end goal her gaining his freedom. The unnecessary characters with their dumpster fire of that graphic content, and the world ( I use that term loosely) was never mentioned. Had it been, I would have never pre ordered. I have already removed the book, but I really appreciate you for your review. I loved that at least 😂

HOW does this book have a 3.82 average star rating on goodreads?

All the massive, glaring problems aside... what is with the shitfire NAMES in this? 🤣

I chuckled about Skylena's name sounding like a birthcontrol, it so does! XD Seriously bad stuff here, the bit about the ocd patient I would need a warning about too. I would distrubed by that if I found it while reading. I think this book is about trying disgust rather than discuss. Sometimes I think people who promote their books through popular social media like Tik Tok are trying to be edgy and shocking. Now trying to shock or disgust isn't all a young person thing to do, but I feel like younger people are more likely to do it. I wonder if some of these authors were older and not promoting through Tik Tok if they might not publish this sort of material? I mean write it ,if the idea won't leave you alone, but not every story needs to be published, and really I think it would have been better if this were never published. On a lighter note. How are we going to not just take a paranoid character's rants about the government and completely gloss over it because there's no worldbuilding for it, so it's just a string of meaningless words. Oof that was terrible, and hurtful to people who with mental illness and for trans people. Hayley ^_^

Wait, so this if set in a fictional world, in a fictional coutnry, under a fictional government that works completely differently than the real one, but somehow they have the same mental asylums?

"ik this isnt accurate to DID but instead of having commentary about how the societal view of DID is wrong, i decided to create a character BASED on that societal view!" i dont have DID (i possibly have a different dissociative disorder but not DID) but even i know this is a dumb excuse.

On the plus side these kinds of stories make me feel better about my fanfictions which have nothing to do with characters that have mental disorders cause I know I can't really write that well so I stay in my lane.

Sounds like she's just annoying people into telling her everything. Which I guess is one way to do it.

The synopsis alone is a major red flag

Why is her main character named after an off brand birth control!?!

This book is so outdated, like it’s gross for no reason and it’s whole premise “Ooooo mentally ill people are evil, except for this one hot guy that I can fix.” I refuse to accept booktok likes this… ew