She recommended Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin in a video about… queer lit – *gasp*. Her recs are as basic as it gets. I love Giovanni's Room and it’s one of my favorite books but if you're making a living in the literary world it feels kinda lazy to stick with the same old famous titles and not explore more.
It's like she's playing the market, knowing her audience prefers to look literary without diving into the deep cuts. Or maybe she genuinely thinks she's a total rebel just because she's not pushing Colleen Hoover's books. Idk which is worse.
Dakota does not read much at all. I could write 10 paragraphs about how she doesn’t read but suffice to say usually when she describes books she’s “read” there is no analysis—instead she reads the blurb, gives a totally unrepresentative summary, recites buzzwords e.g. unhinged woman, or generalizes about the literature of an entire region (e.g. “this is Latin American literature so you know it’s going to be dark and erotic and twisted.” “This is Russian literature so you know it’s going to be bleak and depressing.” Like tf? The only book you’ve read is Frankenstein. What are you talking about.)
Other than that it’s evidence enough that when she went away with notorious non-reader Jack Edwards even he commented that every time Dakota tried to read she literally fell asleep.
She’s not playing the market, she simply just doesn’t read enough to provide any more than the most basic recommendations. There’s a reason she doesn’t have a goodreads linked when practically every other booktuber does.
this last video was particularly obnoxious because she’s like “I recommend books over and over to drive it home!” No, it’s because you read a Poe story in high school and that’s sustaining your recommendations to this day.
