67 pages • 2 hours read
Emily RathPucking Around
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Cultural Context: The Controversial Influence of BookTok on the Publishing World
Emily Rath’s Pucking Around achieved popularity by becoming a viral hit on BookTok, a subset of social media platform TikTok wherein creators make short videos discussing, recommending, analyzing, or joking about books. While genres discussed on BookTok vary greatly, many romance, Young Adult literature, and fantasy (especially Young Adult fantasy) titles have gained rapid popularity through this social media phenomenon. The capacity of BookTok to launch certain books into overnight prominence has led publishers to take notice. BookTok receives both praise and criticism as a tool for sharing literature and impacting publishing.
Despite this, a number of common criticisms of BookTok have arisen. The chief objection is that the format of the platform is too shallow to allow for deep analysis or contextualization of books, and that it instead reduces novels to “soundbites” or only focuses on commonly used tropes. Another common complaint concerns the ubiquity of certain titles, though Leigh Stein, who penned a defense of BookTok on Literary Hub, frames this criticism as endemic to those who are unfamiliar with the different sub-communities within BookTok (Stein, Leigh. “Booktok Is Good, Actually: On the Undersung Joys of a Vast and Multifarious Platform.” Literary Hub, 28 Apr. 2023). Further criticism of BookTok examines the ways in which the platform privileges texts written by white authors. “I can’t really think of a single book that’s blown up on BookTok that wasn’t written by a white person,” commented Leah Koch, one of the owners of independent bookstore The Ripped Bodice (McCall, Tyler. “Booktok’s Racial Bias.” The Cut, 18 Nov. 2022). Both sides of the debate agree, however, that BookTok is highly influential to readers and publishers alike and dictates many market trends around romance novels.
Genre Context: Sports Romances and “Why Choose”
As a novel with many different social influences, Pucking Around occupies two subgenres of romance literature: the sports romance and the “why choose” romance trope. Sports romances refer to romance novels in which at least one character is a member of a high-level sports team; typically, the plot focuses on a professional team, though some sports romances may feature college-level teams that are especially high-ranking within the collegiate sports world. Sports romances typically contain at least one scene featuring a game or match of the central sport, in which the heightened emotions around the competition mirror the romantic emotions of one or more of the protagonists. Popular sports in sports romances include football, soccer, and hockey. Other popular contemporary hockey romances include Hannah Grace's Icebreaker (2022) and Elle Kennedy's The Graham Effect (2023). However, the disproportionate representation of hockey in romance novels often gives rise to criticism for its inherent lack of cultural diversity. In 2023, for example, romance author Adriana Herrera wrote on social media platform Threads, “I love hockey romance. A few of my favorite romances are hockey moms. But writing a piece on its popularity & not naming the demographics of that sport is interesting. An author can write a series with 20 hockey romances & never have to write a Black or brown hero, which is impossible in pretty much any other sport” (Herrera, Adriana [@ladriana_herrera]. Threads. https://www.threads.net/@ladriana_herrera/post/Cvne3ANga8R).
Unlike the typical sports romance, the “why choose” romance trope focuses on two main characters who opt not to limit themselves to a monogamous relationship by the end of the novel or series. The “why choose” trope therefore stands as a challenge to the stereotypical “love triangle” convention that often dominates romance plotlines. Rather than forcing characters to choose one partner over another, “why choose” stories conclude with the creation of polyamorous relationships: often closed ones in which the main characters agree not to pursue any additional romantic partnerships outside their specific polycule. This genre is sometimes labeled (rather problematically) as “reverse harem”; this term has also been heavily criticized as a racist and anti-Muslim misapplication of the term “harem,” which refers to a particular space for women’s use in a household. The term is also criticized for anti-gay bias, as it connotes one woman (typically cisgender and straight) who engages in sexual encounters with multiple men (also typically cisgender and straight) who do not have sex with one another. In this context, Pucking Around is clearly designed to challenge these problematic limitations within an otherwise progressive subgenre of romance literature by featuring non-heterosexual men in the “why choose” polycule.
Series Context: Jacksonville Rays
Pucking Around is the first novel in the Jacksonville Rays series by Emily Rath and is preceded by a novella entitled That One Night: a prequel that describes the night that Rachel and Jake first meet and have sex in Seattle. This crucial event is frequently referenced in Pucking Around, for in many ways, it serves as the catalyst that eventually allows the characters’ polycule to form. The novel is also followed by a sequel novella called Pucking Every After: Volume 1 which Rath describes on her website as a “Spicy HEA Novella,” referencing the acronym for “Happily Ever After” that is the cardinal generic convention of romance novels, regardless of subgenre. These three titles in the series all focus on Rachel, Jake, Ilmari, and Caleb as the central characters. The second full-length novel in the series is entitled Pucking Wild, and concerns Tess, Rachel’s best friend who is introduced in Pucking Around, and Ryan, one of Ilmari and Jake’s teammates on the Rays. This second novel, released in 2023, is billed as a “reverse age gap,” a romance trope which describes a female protagonist who is significantly older than the male protagonist. (Once again, the subgenre label is not without issues, for the term “reverse age gap” is sometimes criticized for the use of “reverse,” which implies that a heterosexual, cisgender man should be older than his female partner; critics of the term assert that it supports the intersection of sexism and ageism.) A third book in the series, Pucking Sweet, is billed for release in 2024 and is announced to feature two male protagonists and one female protagonist.
