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?

Oh my goodness I ended the last book with King Lear and now we’re starting with King Lear in this one??? Incredible 🤩

This might just be me and my algorithms, but I've been seeing a lot of people (not just here!) DNFing or complaining in their reviews about "info dumping", specifically in fantasy books.

For those that aren't familiar: "Info dumping is when the author gives out excessive information to the reader all at once, leaving the story stagnant." This often leaves the readers bored, especially if the author goes off on a tangent and it's not relevant to what's happening right now.

I feel like I've noticed a trend (again this could just be me lol) where people are throwing the term around when they aren't entertained at all times. The author's job is to try and explain their fantasy world so that you can understand the story! Often that doesn't include action scenes, but lots of explaining (done in different ways). Maybe it's the MC explaining a situation to someone or some extra descriptions added to each chapter. Whatever it may be, those parts are important! I, as a reader, want to know about the world I was just thrown into. Tell me more even!

It could be the result of reading so many trendy romantasy books, where something is happening all the time, or maybe it's just people who are new to fantasy. Or something else entirely!

I'm curious to know what you guys are seeing! Are you noticing authors actually info dumping more or are people just not used to fantasy worlds? Or are we still just throwing terminology around without understanding it?

I woke up today thinking about this because I have read and hear comments that say that people won't read certain books or finish them because they felt like the book was "stupid" or that it gives them a headache because the book is "so simple". In my case, I enjoy most books I read and I can even give it a 5 star rating because it either brought out a strong emotion in me (rage, sadness, etc.), or I just enjoyed the story of the book and could appreciate the way it was written and I did not analyze it or thought that the story or narrator was "dumb" or something. In general I do not do the analyzing books thing, specially with fiction, and I would like to hear from people how do they approach reading. Is it something that needs to be like studying, is it for enjoyment, is it for critique? I'm genuinely curious.