good lord… when will this book get interesting? please don’t spoil me. Just tell me if it’s worth it 😞

good lord… when will this book get interesting? please don’t spoil me. Just tell me if it’s worth it 😞

Hi all my lovely supporters of women's wrongs! It seems we've tempted fate with this quest; we are now in the position of evaluating a real life woman's alleged wrongs.

There's been some chatter in this quest forum already about Mia Ballard, author of Sugar (in this quest) and Shy Girl. Here's a quick and very simplified primer for those unaware:

Ballard is a Black poet and indie author. She debuted with Sugar in 2024 to great success, and followed up in 2025 with Shy Girl which earned her a book deal with publisher Hachette. [Editing to add for clarity: Shy Girl was also indie published and very successful; after Shy Girl's success, Hachette made a deal with Ballard to traditionally publish.] A few months ago, the online book space became suspicious of Ballard's writing in Shy Girl specifically and called out many "tells" of AI writing. Booktuber Frankie's shelf outlined their suspicions in a 2hr 40min YouTube video, calling Shy Girl "AI slop". In March 2026, Hachette dropped Ballard and pulled Shy Girl from publication (link to the NYT article here ).

This has stirred much discourse. On one side, people see this as a win for human created art and a vote for keeping AI out of the book space (which we love). On the other side, people warn of ruining authors' careers over AI allegations when AI detection is so flawed. Ballard maintains that she did not write Shy Girl using AI, however she did hire an editor who used AI without her knowledge. There is also the added element of Ballard being a Black debut indie author, and also the first to have a book deal canceled over AI. Some argue the injustice of Ballard taking the fall for this when Hachette is just as responsible for the editing of the work they ultimately published.

Amidst all this discourse, I want to ask you all: how do we feel about Sugar's inclusion in this quest? As someone passionate about keeping AI out of the arts (and the book space in particular), I feel conflicted about having Ballard represented in this list. On the one hand, having a "better safe than sorry" stance against AI in books is reasonable, and I would not want to advocate for the consumption of AI generated novels. On the other hand, Sugar was not accused of being AI generated (there is some suspicion about the cover art, but it's pure speculation--Ballard is adamant she modified it herself off a free image she found online). It is also a sort of poetic irony that this discussion is happening in a quest titled Supporting Women's Wrongs. There's something to be said about the discussion value of including morally grey women.

I'm very curious to hear what you all think, and what you believe should be done about Sugar. Do we keep it in, or do we remove it?

Started alchemised then decided I wanted to read them at the same time but holy heck both books are going to break me😭

and if i say libby is super annoying