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Jamie McGuire, You Cupid Stunt

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Note: This is an incredibly image-heavy post. Rather than filling out the alt-text for screen readers, I started putting, “This is a Facebook post, text to follow” or whatever in the alt-text and then I was like, “Jenny, just put a note at the top of the page explaining that every image is a screencap of Jamie McGuire’s Facebook post and comment threads.” So, ta-da! Every image is of a Jamie McGuire Facebook post or comment thread and all of the comments are presented as-is in the body of this blog post.

Oh, and speaking of “as-is,” please keep in mind that these are emotionally charged Facebook comments flying back and forth and putting [sic] everywhere someone mistyped or made an error would have been akin to one of the labors of Hercules, so I didn’t do that.

Now, these screenshots don’t show everything. These were taken by people and either they gave me permission to use them or they sent them to me. I don’t creep Jamie McGuire’s Facebook page because I value my fleeting time on this plane of existence. So, if it seems choppy or something is missing or doesn’t make sense, it’s because I’m just working with what I’ve got.

Believe me, it’s enough.

CW: Racism, discussion of Ahmaudd Arbery’s death.

On May 7, Jamie McGuire posted this to her author page:

A facebook post from Jamie McGuire which shares a link to Ahmoud Arbury's family's legal fund. Jamie's caption in text below.

“I know I normally keep this page opinion free, and for book stuff only, but I feel like this is important. If you haven’t seen this viral story yet PLEASE look up #runwithmaud and sign the petition. This story is absolutely heartbreaking.”

On her personal page, she shared…this:

Jamie McGuire sharing Candace Owen's video justifying the killing of Ahmoud Arbury. Jamie's text to follow.

“Definitely conversation and discussion worthy. What are your thoughts? **if you don’t watch the video until the END, don’t comment.**

Yup. That’s every MAGA’s Black Friend™, Candace Owens, in her infamous video explaining why Ahmaud Arbery’s lynching was justified. And Jamie just wants to “discuss.”

Let’s take a peek at that discussion:


replies on Jamie's FB. Text in post.

Marisela Elias: “This girl is crazy! Ahmaud was lynched. There is no way around it. He was sought out by these two white supremacists and gunned down in broad daylight! The only reason they are behind bars is because the media and enraged citizens refused to stay quiet and this was only after two months of his murder.”

John Eighner: “Marisela Elias where is your proof they were white supremacists? You are brainwashed. [link to YouTube video, “Video Emerges Showing Ahmaud Arbery Entering Home At NIGHT…]

Jamie McGuire: “Marisela Elias yeah, WHY are we just hearing about this/seeing action when it went down Feb 23?? Fishy.”

Marisela Elias: “Jamie McGuire, it’s surprising to me how people could actually find a way of justifying his murder. I agree it is fishy as to why the officials decided to keep quiet about this horrendous, hateful, and racist act. Shame on you for sharing this person’s view and ignoring the fact that he was killed based on the color of his skin and not because he committed a certain crime.”

The thing about McGuire is that she often pretends to be representing both sides, playing devil’s advocate, merely discussing things that she finds interesting:

 

Kira Berger: “This is so messed up. Saying this isn’t about race it false on so many levels. If Ahmaud was a white man this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. PERIOD. No question about it. They might have not gone out hunting for someone to shoot at random, but let’s be clear here, he was shot because he was BLACK. If I would have done the same thing, I’d be find today, because I’m white. I might have had to explain to the police, but that was it. I wouldn’t have been shot. It’s despicable anyone is defending murderers with this BS.”

Jamie McGuire: “Kira Berger whoa whoa whoa. I was getting ready to like your comment before your last sentence.”

Hennessy Chism: “Jamie isn’t defending anyone she’s just sharing a post. I disagree with the speaker and I wouldn’t have shared it but Jamie is just trying to say that she thinks the logic is interesting. Logic can be interesting without outright agreement.”

Jamie McGuire: [row of upward pointing finger emojis]

Notice anything odd there? Berger never accused McGuire of trying to justify the lynching but both McGuire and Chism jump in to defend McGuire. Berger could easily have been talking about Candace Owen.

Kira Berger: “Hennessy Chism Maybe so, but if I share something I usually agree with it, and it not, I say so. Unfortunately, her past comments don’t lend themselves to give the benefit of the doubt. But you’re right. I shouldn’t have assumed. [smile emoji].”

Jamie McGuire: “if you follow me at all, you’d know I enjoy sharing alternate/interesting/dissenting views and discussing. I NEVER said I agreed. The facts of the case are interesting, and they’re still rolling out so how could I possibly know enough about anything to have an opinion?”

Jamie McGuire: “Kira, thanks for letting me know you follow to hate (“her past comments”–which is BS btw). That helps me use the block button effectively.”

But you had enough facts to form an opinion to talk about what a tragedy it was and demand justice for Arbery on your professional page. And here’s another tell: McGuire instantly blocks Berger from her page because Berger hasn’t agreed with every single one of McGuire’s political stances in the past and has spotted a pattern that has been apparent to most people since Trump’s campaign started and she hit a Tweet-liking spree.

Interestingly enough, one person McGuire doesn’t seem combative toward is Eighner, who agrees with Owens’s video and doesn’t feel this is a racial incident, though he posts a graphic about interracial violent crime incidents in the same thread:

 

Hennessy Chism: “I totally disagree with this girl. I think she’s really failing to consider the impact of systemic oppression and institutionalized racism on AfAm populations.”

John Eighner: “Hennessy Chism [interracial violent crime incident infographic]”

John Eighner: “Hennessy Chism [same YouTube video Eighner posted before]”


Jamie McGuire: “Hennessey Chism there is some history  (according to this video) that he’d been stealing fron the neighborhood homes prior, but I have not looked into this myself. NOT saying his death was justified in any way, just answering your question.”

Hennessey Chism: “John Eighner Who said I was a lib? No, I want to know what he stole, tell me. Show me proof that he stole something and that the murderers knew that. And tell me why they didn’t call the police instead of shooting? Because he was black.”

John Eighner: “Hennessey Chism wow you did not watch the videos did you because if you had Candice says they called the police”

John Eighner: “Hennessey Chism you have zero evidence that he was killed for being black. White intruders get killed all the time by white people. [link to a story headlined: “No charges against Oklahoma man who killed 3 intruders”]

Jamie McGuire: “John Eighner they did call the police. Several did, that’s true.”

So far, it appears that the only person McGuire is “discussing” things with is the guy running his own personal Breitbart in the comments. When she engages with anyone else, however…

Faith Anne Hudson: “I liked her point of view. I don’t think anyone is saying that his death is justified, just that it wasn’t a hate crime.”

Jurgita La Lionne: “Faith Anne Hudson unjustified death, yet no big deal? So what was it then? He got killed for fun? Out of boredom? Sit this one out, Karen.”

Jamie McGuire: “Jurgita La Lionne why so angry? That’s not what Faith said. Please read and discuss or bow out. Rudeness gets deleted.”

Jurgita La Lionne: “Jamie McGuire ignorance is what makes me angry. You, apparently, are only interested in discussing with those who blow into the same flute you do. Bowing out!”

Faith Anne Hudson: “Jurgita La Lionne no one said it wasn’t a big deal. I don’t think that’s what the video conveys at all. I think she’s just pointing out that something that looks like an unmediated death is being twitsted by the media to look like a hate crime during an election year.”

Jamie McGuire: “How did you know I played the flute?”

She has plenty of time to tone police and make “clever” retorts on a post about Ahmaud Arbery’s lynching death, not so much time to “discuss” with anyone who disagrees with her. With Candace Owens, I mean. Not McGuire. Because McGuire still hasn’t declared what side she’s taking. She’s just here to start an important conversation about racism where no one is allowed to express anger about racism. Emilia Reyes notices this immediately:

 

Tiffany Snow: “She’s right. It happens every time. The media go crazy. I do wish there was more concern and conversation about black on black crime. The number of murders in places like Chicago is horrendous.”

Emilia Reyes: “Here we go with the black on black crime. The difference is when it is black on black crime, someone is arrested and convincted! [multiple exclamation points I’ll skip for screen readers] So sit down”

Jamie McGuire: “Emilia Reyes all those exclamation points definitely validate your statement.”

Emilia Reyes: “I don’t need you, an anti vaxxer, racist, telling me shit. When you live what we POC live, then maybe I’ll hear what you have to say. There is no other argument to this. He was murdered for being black.”

Emilia Reyes: “And it’s funny how you comment to me but not to the man on here calling someone a dumb cunt.”

Jamie McGuire: “Emilia Reyes She called me a cunt first. Keep up.”

Jamie McGuire: “Emilia Reyes A POC is saying otherwise in the video. Not me. Good Lord…”

Emilia Reyes: “You agree with it, let’s be real. You didn’t post it to have a conversation. You know exactly what you were doing. You just don’t have any room to talk about it. We don’t want Trump lovers talking about what is racially motivated and what is not.”

Emilia Reyes: “And when you are a racist, you ddeserve to be called a cunt.”

Michelle Sharpe: “Yes, Emilia Reyes exclamations points do validate her points perfectly and her response was perfect! [many exclamation points]”

You may be wondering, hey, wait…who called Jamie a cunt?

Celia Aaron: “Candace Owens is a known right-wing raconteur fame-seeker akin to Diamond and Silk, and you posting this fucked up opinion makes you a huge racist cunt (no, her being black DOES NOT  save you from being a huge racist cunt), just FYI.”

Robert Christopher: “Somebody has a case of the Monday’s…

Whitney Reynolds: “Wow”

But wait…who was the man calling a woman a cunt? I bet you’ll never guess.

John Eighner: “Celia Aaron well you are just a dumb cunt then”

Surely McGuire blocked such rudeness. She wants discussion and conversation, no meanness allowed!

Jamie McGuire: “Celia Aaron I envision you high-fiving yourself after that and looking around at an empty room w a proud smile bc you thought it was super cool.”

Celia Aaron: “Jamie McGuire good comeback. Hey, tell me how that whole ‘I’ll run for Congress!’ thing worked out for ya?”

For those unaware, McGuire recently announced her candidacy for Oklahoma State House of Representatives then just as quickly announced the suspension of her campaign due to “an obscure rule” that is literally on the top of the page you sign to register as a candidate. I won’t link to those forms because they have her home address on them, but they are public, as is the video of the hearing where she argued that the rules should be bent for her.

Jessica Landers: “^And then go post in the drama groups high-fiving the rest of the “I hate JM” club while cheering because “you told her”. [crying laughing emoji]

John Eighner: “Celia Aaron were you able to type all of that without losing your breath?”

Jamie McGuire: “Jessica Landers Every time. [crying laughing emoji]”

John Eighner “Celia Aaron careful you will give yourself a heart attack.”

Jamie McGuire: “It was great, actually! Can’t wait to do it again.”

I’m sure she can’t wait to do it again, considering she’d already accepted donations for her campaign then magnanimously offered to return those donations “if” people wanted their money back.

So, as we see, “rudeness gets blocked” goes out the window when people who agree with Owens’s viewpoint (not McGuire’s, of course, she’s made that very clear by stating several times that this is just discussion) are the ones hurling fatphobic insults and the word “cunt.” But this is Jamie McGuire, who used the term “cum-burping gutter-slut” to describe a woman in one of her books. It’s okay to be rude to women, as long as you’re being rude to women who aren’t the protagonist in the story of this universe, who is clearly Jamie McGuire.

 

Shannon Smith: “Wow I wasn’t going to comment but I cannot believe a woman that is accusing someone of being racist can call another woman a “cunt” in the same sentence. I thought non racists also were feminists? [crying laughing emoji] Jamie McGuire I think you can forget this woman “fixing the crown on another woman’s head and not putting her down” kind of situation. I kinda feel like this post was about seeing that not every damn situation in life is about being black or white or whatever. I have white and Latino. I’d wager to say we all have more than one race in us if we go back far enough. This life is an individual, case by case scenario. Or should be…”

I think we’re all smart enough to see the numerous problems in Smith’s colorblind appeal to our African ancestry while also referring to “non racists” as if that’s a group she’s not a part of, so I’m going to just leave it. Like, sometimes the racists just do enough on their own.

Jamie McGuire: “Shannon Smith: [four clapping hand emojis] tbh these posts always bring out the hypocrites. And I also enjoy blocking lurking trolls so they have to start using their husbands’ accounts to participate in the hate groups. It’s the little things.”

I have a husband. He has a Facebook account. I’m blocked by Jamie McGuire. Do you know what I do? Nothing because I’d never been following her or going to her page in the first place and I’m not about to start now. And all those hate groups and trolls McGuire is so proud of baiting? They’re the ones who send me updates on her. People hate Jamie McGuire so much that they let me know when she has a cold before she even gets a chance to sneeze.

That’s bad. That’s really, really bad.

Right now, in the United States, we’ve seen such a polarizing of the political spectrum that Jamie McGuire could come out tomorrow posing poolside in a Confederate Flag bikini, wearing a MAGA hat, brandishing an AK-47 in an N-word-laden Instagram post praising Hitler and it would be wildly appealing to many of her fervent fans. They would argue in threads one hundred comments long that she is not a racist, everyone else is racist for bringing up race, it’s about her Southern heritage in her state that didn’t exist until after the Civil War and how dare anyone shame her. You’re probably all fat. And gay.

Those people don’t let their anger go. But not in the petty, fun, take-a-walk-and-sit-under-the-shade-tree-with-me way. In the Hitler-had-the-right-idea way. And those people vote. And McGuire apparently plans to run for state congress again.

Of course, not all the people who agree with her can also vote in Oklahoma. But the world is so much smaller now, and her following is large and spread out over multiple continents. All it takes is one Tweet or Facebook post crossing the right pair of eyes and it could get attention from Republicans in higher places. Maybe even the President, himself. And if not, certainly it could make The Washington Post. Fox News would probably see an opportunity to flaunt her as their answer to Stacey Abrams. After all, they’re both romance writers. They’re both women. They’ve both run for office. Why not put Jamie McGuire on as a serious pundit. She could answer all the important questions about race and whether or not it affects anything. And they can trot her out every time a Black person is murdered in a hate crime in this country so she can weigh in on it.

Am I saying that we should never call out racists because it causes racism? Absolutely not. But we have ample evidence that anyone can make money appealing to white supremacists as long as they’re sincere enough. McGuire took the real-life lynching of a living, breathing, loved human being, and turned it into a chance to stir up some attention for herself. To build the “I say it like it is” down-home, good ole’ boy’s girl image. She’s sincere in her racism. She knew exactly what the response would be when she posted the video and began responding to comments the way she did. If she truly did not want to be perceived as a racist, she wouldn’t have posted the video. She could have opted not to say anything at all. But she was trying to energize her base. She’s gearing up for her next run at an office.

We no longer live in an age of, “never gonna be president now.” The racism, the hatred of anyone who isn’t white, Christian, straight, cis, gun-owning, liberty-loving, thin, and rich is a feature. It’s what her fans are shopping for. It’s what they buying from her. Every time we let her get us up in arms with one of her bullshit discussions it just leads to more people defending her, more people encouraging her to tell it like it is, more people offering her their support. There’s no need to prove that Jamie McGuire is an evil person anymore because she gives us that proof time and again. She’ll do that work on her own and parlay the callouts into unwavering support. She’s like a giant, Juvéderm-stuffed Katamari rolling up everything that is wrong with America and dressing it up in Ann Taylor separates. Jamie McGuire is Great Value™ Trump in a cheap red wig.

I’m done with Jamie McGuire. I’m not going to be sitting here twenty years down the line watching her wax head melt on live TV during the presidential debates. I’m not going to have arguments with Conservative family members about why I can be a feminist and still not support her plan to put mothers who vaccinate their children into labor camps. This is not a road I’m going to help pave any longer. I am not going to participate in this woman’s desperate upward claw to become the next Ann Coulter or Katie Hopkins or Tomi Lahren. As far as I’m concerned, Jamie McGuire no longer exists and no longer gets fed any attention by me. Because a Jamie McGuire that cannot feed is a Jamie McGuire who cannot succeed. Jealous Haters Book Club is switching over to Crave by Tracy Wolff, which has been touted as the “feminist Twilight.” We’ll see how that shakes out. I liked Twilight, I’ve never read this author, we’ll see where this goes.

And please, please don’t forget about Ahmaud Arbery in this chaotic time, when there are new horrors springing up in the news every day. He and his family deserve justice, as do all victims and families of victims of hate crimes. Please consider donating or sharing the link to the official fund for Ahmaud Arbery’s family.

 

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51 Comments

  1. Jaden Wilkes
    Jaden Wilkes

    It reminds me of that Simpsons episode, one of the Treehouse of Horrors, where the mascots in Springfield came to life. Suddenly there’s a gigantic Lard Lad rolling his donut down main Street causing destruction and decoration. Anyhow, as it turns out, the only way to defeat them was to ignore them. They got their power from consumer attention, being advertisements, and once everybody turned away…the gigantic mascots went back to normal.

    So, I get your point. I feel that way about trump and I feel that way about JM. Now that she desires political attention, the danger is real. Her craving to be a Serena Waterford is palpable and worrisome.

    I guess book world herpes can be ignored until it goes away, maybe that’s the only cure.

    May 12, 2020
    |Reply
    • Jaden Wilkes
      Jaden Wilkes

      Destruction and…something other than decoration. I can’t remember what I was going for there but I’m certain it was clever and made sense.

      May 12, 2020
      |Reply
      • The Bear
        The Bear

        Desolation?

        May 13, 2020
        |Reply
      • Anansie
        Anansie

        Despair?

        May 13, 2020
        |Reply
    • P. Gotch – Writer
      P. Gotch – Writer

      *sings* Just don’t look! Just don’t look!

      May 14, 2020
      |Reply
      • Norah
        Norah

        *offer not valid in Tennessee

        May 14, 2020
        |Reply
  2. Camille
    Camille

    Thank you for this.

    May 12, 2020
    |Reply
  3. ShifterCat
    ShifterCat

    Entertaining as your commentary on bad books is, I did notice that with both Beautiful Disaster and Apolonia, there was a lot of “nothing is actually happening in this chapter” or else “this chapter is just another variation of stuff that happened before”, and there’s only so much you can do with that.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  4. Nicole
    Nicole

    I could not love this post more. Thank you! JM is irrelevant as f***.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  5. Anansie
    Anansie

    People like her are why I have a pavlovian terror of the word “discussion”. It always ends with them acting like racists are perfectly valid in their calm calls for murder while the angry poc are being super unreasonable in their constant demands to exist.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  6. Siobhannabon
    Siobhannabon

    I have noticed, and commented to certain friends, that it does seem like the drama llamas are out in force during the lockdown. Like, there isn’t enough going on for them to create shit about so they latch on to anything and make a big deal out of something purely for the drama. They don’t even have to have the opinion they’re espousing, it’s all about the reaction. This is a high profile version of that. Chances are, Maguire didn’t give a shit about either opinion because it didn’t revolve around her, and her reactions are more about who supports her drama and who knows it’s bad taste.

    Your decision is the best one to have. Besides, you’ve covered enough of her debut novel to turn off many women.

    I also liked Twilight, so your new book club book sounds interesting, and much more fun for you x

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  7. Vivacia K. Ahwen
    Vivacia K. Ahwen

    The “Plandemic” video is now banned from Facebook. Has anyone reported Jamie McGuire for posting THIS video? Pretty sure it breaks their community standards regarding racism.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  8. Kst
    Kst

    Excellent post as always, Jenny!

    Also, for anyone else bothered by the interracial crime graph, I went to the BJS report, and those bars don’t tell the whole story (of course). Here’s a link to the report: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv18.pdf. The table the data are pulled from is on p. 13. What’s missing from the graph are the intraracial crime data, which show that folks are far more likely to be victimized from those within the same racial group. The reason the number of “black on white” crime victims is so high is because white folks are 61% of the population. “White on white” violent crimes account for ~62% of the total amount of reported violent crimes, while “black on white” crimes is ~15% of the total. I’d have to do a chi square to see if we’d expect more or fewer interracial crimes than what were reported.

    Also there’s a delicious footnote on that table: “Offender race/ethnicity is based
    on victims’ perceptions of offenders.” So, basically, who knows whether these data are even 100% valid. I mean, no white person has ever misperceived the race of someone who’s not white, so it’s probably fine.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
    • Ariel
      Ariel

      Thank you for this, it’s valuable information.

      May 19, 2020
      |Reply
    • taylor
      taylor

      lies, damn lies, and statistics, for sure.

      April 4, 2021
      |Reply
  9. Tami
    Tami

    Who?

    Seriously, I never heard of this person until now. No, I don’t live under a rock—but from the description of what she writes, I wouldn’t be interested in her books. Not into that boring bullshit. I prefer the JHBC versions. They are the balm to my rage over the mass consumption of trash storytelling. Naturally, it always seems like the most popular novels are penned by the worst human beings in existence.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  10. Anon
    Anon

    A few things:

    One of the people who called 911 literally just called to report a “black man is running in my neighborhood.” That was the entire complaint. So, uh, yeah. Methinks there might just be some racial bias going on there, but what do I know?

    The only other video I’m aware of is the Ring doorbell that caught him checking out some new construction in the area (another 911 call about that). He walked up, peaked around and went back to jogging. Some discussion on FB has been from white runners who said they’ve done that many times without a problem. It’s just run-of-the-mill curiosity. Maybe he was thinking of buying something in the area.

    McMichael the elder was familiar with Arbery from his time working for the sheriff’s office. HE KNEW WHO HE WAS. My guess is he had a personal vendetta against him and saw an opportunity. Also, the most recent robbery in that neighborhood had been someone taking a firearm out of McMichael’s UNLOCKED truck I think on Jan. 1, so almost two months prior. They lied about criminal activity in the area to justify murdering a man for jogging while black.

    Obviously, McGuire and an awful lot of her fans haven’t bothered to actually get familiar with any of the details of the case.

    As for the coverup, I can speak a little on that. I lived in the county just south of Glynn (Camden) for a couple years. For 100 years, the sheriff of Camden County had been someone from the same family. Literally passed down father-to-son for a CENTURY, and it was an elected position. He actually got voted out when I lived there, but people who had lived there longer and were more connected told me that the sheriff’s nephew’s wife had died in a “hunting accident” years before. She supposedly fell out of a deer stand. Only everyone believed the nephew murdered her and the sheriff covered it up. Supposedly, he’d gone to the scene and cleaned things up before allowing anyone else to see it and there was evidence of a lot of tampering.

    The Good Old Boy network is alive and well in that part of the country, and the McMichaels are tied into it big-time in Glynn County. That’s why it took so long and so much publicity to arrest them. And that’s why so many people in law enforcement have had to recuse themselves due to conflict of interest. Those men are guilty as fuck and I hope they get the maximum possible to send a message that we are NOT going to continue allowing this in this country.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  11. Bookjunk
    Bookjunk

    On goodreads I once wandered, unsuspecting, into a discussion about whether biological males who felt female (and vice versa) were mentally ill. This “discussion” was sporting the exact same faux-reasonable “we’re just having a discussion!” tone as this fucking post from JM.

    And I was out of there immediately because: nope. I really do not need to waste my time validating these disgusting opinions by “discussing” them. Just nope. So good for you, Jenny, for opting out of this bullshit.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  12. Kylie
    Kylie

    Thank you for this. I don’t follow JM and have only read the shitty book you were going to review–it was terrible and I’ll never read anything by her again. She seems like a really awful person.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
    • Vanderboom
      Vanderboom

      Agreed. I don’t need to read or hear anything more about Jamie McGuire. But given the screenshots here, I hope Emilia Reyes writes a book.

      May 20, 2020
      |Reply
  13. Jules
    Jules

    After watching Contrapoints latest video on Cringe (and more specifically “morbid cringe”) I agree that the trainwrecks do not deserve any more oxygen and ignoring them is difficult but we HAVE to do it. They are toxic but anything we do is only going to be parlayed into the *opposite* of what we desire, which is their downfall.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  14. Don’t know whether you looked at the next chapter of ‘Beautiful’, but it’s so bloody awful you might well feel you’ve had a lucky escape.

    Is it a bad idea for me to keep going with my review of ‘Walking Disaster’? I kind of feel like anyone who reads the review and decides it’s a good idea to support her is the kind of person who’s going to be doing something truly awful anyway (I’m not saying you’re wrong to ragequit, just wondering whether I should or not).

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
    • Lili
      Lili

      Long time lurker here, but wanted to pop in and say I’d enjoy reading your reviews if you choose to go on!

      May 13, 2020
      |Reply
    • Rachel
      Rachel

      As sad as I am that Jenny isn’t going to finish this round of JHBC – which is ABSOLUTELY understandable! – I would love to see you finish yours!

      May 17, 2020
      |Reply
    • Anne-Marie SHIELS
      Anne-Marie SHIELS

      I liked your blog posts Dr Sarah, so I hope you continue … but whatever you decide, all the best.

      June 11, 2020
      |Reply
  15. Tammy
    Tammy

    A JM ‘discussion’ is a JM gaslighting of her fan base, plain and simple. It’s her MO, truthfully. Thank you for this.

    May 13, 2020
    |Reply
  16. Stormy
    Stormy

    Ah, so she’s like the people “just asking questions” in the world history subreddit. I bet she says “I’m just saying…” a lot.

    May 14, 2020
    |Reply
  17. Anon
    Anon

    Please forgive the extreme length and crappy format of this post, Jenny. Also, CW and TW for offensive terminology.

    This whole thing brings to mine two common and infuriating phenomena which bell hooks discusses in “talking Race and Racism”

    She writes, “While more individuals in contemporary culture talk about race and racism, the power of that talk has been diminished by racist backlash that trivializes it, more often than not representing it as mere hysteria.”

    She goes on to explain, “[individual] black people/people of color often describe moments where they challenge racist speech at meetings or in other formal settings, only to witness a majority of folks rush to comfort the racist individual they have challenged, as though that person is the victim and the person who raised questions a persecutor.”

    I’m definitely seeing a lot of this in JM’s “discussion,” its informal environment notwithstanding.

    Not that you need me to tell you this, but you’re perfectly right not to pick this particular battle.

    I’m not up for it, either, and I’m a member of the group she hates.

    I caught a whiff of JM’s racism when I came across her…interesting portrayals of POC in BD and RH. I’m glad to know I wasn’t being paranoid.

    It’s not as if I needed another reason to despise this dumpster juice guzzling creature.

    I’m friends with one of the negative reviewers she attacked and had cyber jumped. She’s already been canceled, at least in my book, for that; this just cements it.

    And I don’t give a quarter of a fuck if Ahmoud Arbury *was* a thief (last I heard; he was just trying to get a closer look at a house in construction); you call the cops! What you don’t do is pull out your weapon and take his life!

    Unless he poses an immediate threat to you and yours, you don’t wield that weapon but hold him at gunpoint until the authorities arrive.

    And I love how quick people in a privileged, dominant group are to haul out their decontextualized and, in all likelihood, far less frequent experiences of certain types of harassment and violence as examples of why people outside that sphere are ignorant, lying, exaggerating or disingenuous in discussions about racially motivated violence!

    And there’s the hypocritical tone policing spot on the racist bingo card, McGuire. Implicit racism and ad hominem attacks (so what if someone is a “lib”) are perfectly alright while justified anger is not? Really?

    And here’s another on the racist bingo card; black-on-black crime somehow exculpates racist whites from lynching.

    There’s another one on the bingo card; social justice movements/precepts must necessarily be intersectional?

    Guess hoteps and white feminists missed that particular memo.

    And here’s yet one more on the bingo card; I’m bi- racial and am thus precluded from racist thought and action. LOL!

    And I love how she embraces the myth that all non-whites are hated equal.

    Even better is her mistaken belief that her dubious eligibility for the oppression Olympics means one fucking iota in a conversation about a lynching.

    More importantly, I’ll eat a dusty copy of BD if she doesn’t pass for white while keeping this particular piece of “exculpatory evidence” of racism handy for just these kinds of discussions.

    I’ll be linking to this entry in a status update on GR so that the readers I know can make up their own minds about this author.

    After that, I’m jumping on this bandwagon:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A

    Right now, I’ve got “neighbors” who think wearing a face-covering in a crowded grocery store constitutes tyranny and that the nation will be “great again” once Covid 19 eradicates “mud people” and elderly/disabled “useless eaters.”

    May 14, 2020
    |Reply
    • Ariel
      Ariel

      You laid it all out quite beautifully and masterfully!

      The “but what about black on black crime?!” comment stood out to me for some reason. It’s so seemingly innocent, yet so blatantly transparent. I know it’s a tactic used by racists, who don’t want to seem openly racist in internet discussions everywhere, but here it struck me as particularly insidious, probably because it’s mentioned in the context of a black man having been gunned down for jogging. And it’s the same tactic anti-women MRAs use, when they want to derail discussions about women’s issues. It’s just concern trolling by the numbers.

      Looking at the Facebook comments also made me worry about the younger side of McGuire’s fandom. She writes New Adult and I wonder how many of her younger, less knowledgeable fans are members of her Facebook groups…I really hope she doesn’t manage to radicalise those young people, who like her romance novels…

      May 19, 2020
      |Reply
      • Anon
        Anon

        I have a Bingo card I haul out whenever the topics of race and racism pop up online.

        It looks a little something like this:

        #Notallwhites, “let’s not talk about racism but about the *real* issue,” “what about white pain?” “Obama won the election, twice,” #Alllivesmatter, “let’s be colorblind,” “POC should ask more nicely,” “what about the oppression of (insert marginalized group who nonetheless receives privileges associated with whiteness)?” “I’ve got black friends,”” libturds,” “typical race-card player,” “but black on black crime,” “black people say it,” “SJW!”

        I’d have had so much fun in that thread.

        Racists posters hate when I boil their walls of text down to spots on a Bingo card because it undermines the “seriousness” and originality of their social commentary/arguments. More importantly, it’s a pithy way of punching a gigantic hole in their impassioned declarations that they aren’t racist.

        As to her impressionable readers, I seriously hope they don’t drink her flavor-aid, but I won’t hold my breath.

        I’ll be happy if they don’t all end up trapped in abusive relationships with and/or pregnant by their very own Maddox brothers.

        June 9, 2020
        |Reply
        • Jules
          Jules

          “Racists posters hate when I boil their walls of text down to spots on a Bingo card because it undermines the “seriousness” and originality of their social commentary/arguments.”

          Love that. Sometimes the only way to deal with that excessive a level of willful ignorance is to just take the piss out of them. Getting angry just “proves their point” in their mind. Laughing at how fucking stupid they are is sometimes the best you can do, at least online.

          This one: “POC should ask more nicely,” Holy shit! Do people really say/think that? WTF?!???!!! Ask nicely to have the basic human right to walk down the street without the risk of getting stopped by the cops for just existing? Ask nicely to not be killed just for having darker skin?

          “white pain”? My only “white pain” is that I burn really badly if I don’t wear sunscreen. I cannot think of any kind of “white pain” that is equal to the daily fear of being pulled over, arrested, accused, beaten or even killed just for being the “wrong color” in the wrong place.

          As a white woman I can’t truly understand what it is like to be on the receiving end of racism. I truly wish no one knew what it was like.

          I went to a predominantly black high school. I was one of 4 white students in the whole school (the school was only 240 people though so it wasn’t huge) and I was never made to feel like I didn’t belong. I never felt out of place. I was accepted. Sure, there were cultural things I didn’t always understand, but my friends were always willing to fill me in.

          In contrast, I went to a predominantly white elementary school. I hadn’t really thought about it then, as it was all I really knew. In 5th grade we got our first black student, a shy girl (like me) who liked The Pointer Sisters (like me) and reading (like me). Naturally we became best friends.

          No one else would talk to her, at all. They pretended she wasn’t there. That was my first second hand experience with racism and it was heartbreaking because she was nice, fun, respectful, sweet. Her only “fault” was being black. I didn’t get it at all. I was so naïve back then.

          People, en masse, suck. They hate anything that is different. Anything that threatens their belief that they are superior.

          June 9, 2020
          |Reply
          • Anon
            Anon

            WARNING: wordy and poorly formatted reply to follow. You wouldn’t believe the audacity.
            Check this out:

            https://medium.com/@tessintrovert/racism-101-tone-policing-92481c044b6a

            Also, when you have time, check out the epic and emotionally draining comments sections of these blog entries from John Scalzi’s Whatever.
            https://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/
            https://whatever.scalzi.com/?s=shut+up+and+listen

            These generated a ton of buzz and heat when they went live, so feel free to ignore them if you’ve been there and done that.

            As for idiots on line, I’ll admit to occasionally losing it and letting fly with a good ole fashioned woopin, but I try to be as academic (academic specifically meaning organized and systematic in my employment of evidence, rhetoric, and fallacy free argumentation) as possible.

            I’ll also own up to weaponizing the heck out of my command of the language, dubious though it may be (my sentence structure and punctuation are shit and racists should be singular in the previous post); the contrasts between my posts and their livid, capitalized, abbreviated and incoherent screeds make for some excellent comic relief.

            Just imagine an argument between a semi-articulate Taz the Tasmanian devil and principal George Feeny and you’ll get what I mean.

            Anger, when wielded properly, won’t necessarily prove their point, especially when you come armed with cast-iron facts. As long as you’re not lobbing ad hominem attacks or other fallacious crap, you’re mostly good to go.

            As for the other thing, cries of “but, but, but white pain” tend to issue from the “police brutalize and kill whites, too” crowd and are another attempt to derail the conversation.

            There are also the “this isn’t a race issue but a (insert tangentially related issue that impacts whites)” folks who want to talk about a general need to be kind rather than the need to be antiracist.

            We also get to hear smug and harrowing anecdotes from descendants of mostly European immigrants detailing bootstrapping and emotional fortitude in the face of classist nationalists.

            They’re either silent on or disingenuous about their eventual matriculation to the “white/American/fully human” rung of America’s ethnic hierarchy and insist that whatever privileges they enjoy are hard earned rather than awarded based on skin color.

            They’re arguing a few other things:

            1. The African American experience is trivial in comparison to theirs because United Negro College Fund/affirmative action/programs and protections aimed at non-whites.

            2. The African American experience is so similar to theirs as to render all complaints of racism stupid or hyperbolic.

            3. Freedom, a temporary language barrier and even more temporary poverty are just as bad as being sold, caged, bread like livestock, segregated, profiled, redlined, harassed and lynched with impunity.

            4. Fleeing your war-torn, food desert of a homeland=the forcible removal from your bountiful, resource rich homeland.

            It’s a special kind of false equivalency that sends me through the roof.

            First, the argument is based on the idea that all marginalized groups everywhere experience oppression in the same way.
            Worse still, it patently ignores the fact that people from predominantly white nations have and continue to enjoy a degree of humanity and socioeconomic mobility that few African Americans ever will.

            Your friend’s experience of elementary school is why child racists are the only people who get even a modicum of consideration from me. They learned that hatred from somewhere; this includes the teachers and administrators who observed and failed to stop it.

            I remember getting shouted into oblivion when my 4th grade teacher overheard me cracking on an albino who’d been bullying me.

            It didn’t matter one iota that this girl was a bully or that I wasn’t really a colorist; she was going to quash the bigotry where it stood.

            June 10, 2020
  18. Anon
    Anon

    To be clear, the problem inherent in holding a black man, even one you suspect of a crime, at gunpoint is not lost upon me. The best thing to do would be to call the cops (for all the good it would do in *that* town) and go on about your business.
    You pull out your gun if (and this is a big if) you have reason to believe that you or yours are in immediate danger.

    Again, though, you can probably avoid that if you simply alert the authorities and get the hell out of dodge.

    May 14, 2020
    |Reply
  19. Ashley
    Ashley

    As much as I live for a good Jenny take-down, I couldn’t even read any of that because it makes me literally sick that people are trying to justify the shooting of an unarmed human being because of some bullshit excuse of “we thought maybe they had stolen something”

    May 17, 2020
    |Reply
  20. Ariel
    Ariel

    It really is telling how McGuire calls out rudeness, when it’s a disagreeing, yet quite polite person telling her off, and also makes it a point to suggest that people, who call out her bullshit and racism are just pathetic, hate-filled trolls with a personal interest in bringing her down.

    It’s as if she can’t fathom, that a dissenting opinion isn’t directly related to someone being heavily invested in hating her as an individual. It betrays an astounding level of self-absorption, and an inflated sense of her own self-importance. An attack on her opinion (or her “just asking questions”) cannot simply be a reaction to a racist dog whistle. No, it has to do with her personally.

    It’s so childish and, considering the subject matter alone, incredibly tasteless. It’s quite clear to me, that to her this news story is not something serious, heartbreaking or any measure of horrifying. It’s just a useful tool to use – as if she’s participating in her high school debate club for kicks.

    Anyhow, the only details concerning McGuire’s personal life and opinions were things I had found out reading this blog and I must have forgotten half of them, because this honestly kind of surprised me. I knew she was an asshole, but I didn’t know she was…this. And this person ran for the state senate? The author of “Beautiful Disaster”?! Jesus fucking Christ.

    Anyhow 2, love you Jenny, and thank you for writing this post. The katamari bit was art itself (even though I had to google “katamari.” 🙂 )
    It sucks you won’t finish reviewing “Beautiful Disaster”, as I’ve enjoyed you snarkily analysing the first few chapters immensely, but I do understand your decision.

    P.S. Here’s a link to a delightful video of rescue foxes laughing and playing, in case anyone wants to cheer themselves up:

    https://youtu.be/p_QdPLPmgO4

    May 19, 2020
    |Reply
  21. Anon
    Anon

    Please excuse the length and incoherence of this post.
    As promised, I linked to this entry in a status update on GR.

    As for the two books of hers I’d bothered to review on goodreads, I’ve shelved them accordingly and edited said reviews to include the link.

    I’ve left the original text of the reviews intact so that people who are actually interested in the books get the info they want, but the link will be the first thing they see.

    Maybe people who subscribe to McGuire’s ideology will be double-motivated to read the books, but maybe, just maybe, people who abhor racism and are disgusted and horrified by lynching will think twice.

    Like others, I hadn’t really even thought about this woman until I stumbled upon this post.

    All I knew about her was that she was a mediocre author of rape culture and abuse glorifying books, a thin-skinned, tantrum throwing BBA who couldn’t take criticism of her shitty books and so cried all over social media and sicced her horde of rabid fangirls on my friend for publicly expressing her negative opinion of a product.

    This latest display is just further proof that McGuire is a shitty human being.

    She may, in fact, be a complicated individual who means well and isn’t anything people think she is, but all I and others have are the parts of her that are accessible, mainly, social media posts, blog entries, and interviews.

    Something else that occurred to me is the privilege that inheres in the notion that we should treat books as autonomous entities, and that I owe it to myself to enjoy the books in spite of what I know about an author’s character/beliefs/misdeeds.

    Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t imagine spending money or time on something that was penned by someone who believes that I’m neither human nor part of this country.

    TL; DR, that stance is easy to take when you’re not part of a marginalized community.

    May 20, 2020
    |Reply
  22. Patrick
    Patrick

    I’m a little late to the party, so I’ll just say I look forward to more Jealous Hater Book Club. I’m reading the Twilight series right now. I have some issues with it, but the writing gets better as it goes, and I think a lot of the things people criticized it for are sort of acknowledged within the text. Still not the greatest books in the history of literature or anything, but not that bad. I wonder what “feminist Twilight” would read like.

    May 23, 2020
    |Reply
  23. Christin
    Christin

    Please don’t forget that her own daughter unfriended her and has shared several ‘cryptic’ Facebook and instagram posts. 🙂

    June 1, 2020
    |Reply
  24. Anon
    Anon

    Do tell!

    This wouldn’t happen to be the same daughter who’d been bullied at school and on line, right?

    It couldn’t possibly be the little girl she named and whined about all over social media in order to legitimize her lip service to the anti-bullying cause, right?

    I don’t wish estrangement on anyone, but I’m really, really glad to know that her own daughter sees her for what she is.

    June 2, 2020
    |Reply
  25. Emily N.
    Emily N.

    Just like with the 50 Shades recaps, reading this made me guffaw multiple times despite my boiling blood (cuz I agree with you). Especially: “… and how dare anyone shame her. You’re probably all fat. And gay.”

    July 19, 2020
    |Reply
  26. Pat
    Pat

    Just your title made my day! LOL. Thanks.

    August 4, 2020
    |Reply
  27. […] this because she thought it ‘discussion worthy’ and ‘interesting’. Jenny wrote a response discussing this decision, the decisions McGuire made in her Facebook comment thread about whom to […]

    October 17, 2020
    |Reply
  28. […] Jenny Trout‘s review of the original novel, ‘Beautiful Disaster’. Jenny has since stopped her review, not wanting to give McGuire any further publicity in the wake of her attempts to run for […]

    April 3, 2022
    |Reply
  29. […] magnificent Jenny Trout‘s review of the original novel, ‘Beautiful Disaster’. Jenny has since stopped her review, not wanting to give McGuire any further publicity in the wake of her attempts to run for […]

    September 24, 2022
    |Reply
  30. […] magnificent Jenny Trout‘s review of the original novel, ‘Beautiful Disaster’. Jenny has since stopped her review, not wanting to give McGuire any further publicity in the wake of her attempts to run for […]

    November 24, 2022
    |Reply
  31. […] magnificent Jenny Trout‘s review of the original novel, ‘Beautiful Disaster’. Jenny has since stopped her review, not wanting to give McGuire any further publicity in the wake of her attempts to run for […]

    June 7, 2023
    |Reply
  32. […] magnificent Jenny Trout‘s review of the original novel, ‘Beautiful Disaster’. Jenny has since stopped her review, not wanting to give McGuire any further publicity in the wake of her attempts to run for […]

    January 21, 2024
    |Reply

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