I read Silver Elite so you don't have to

Who in their right mind would read The Hunger Games and say “this is cool but it’s too political and it needs more spice”, you ask? Well, here’s your answer...

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had countless discussions about Silver Elite with my friends. I’ve had lots of information shared with me so I decided to collate it all into one post for future reference. When a friend offered to lend me their copy, morbid curiosity got ahold of me and I decided to see what all the fuss was about for myself.

Quick disclaimer! While some of this includes facts and quotes, most of it is my own subjective opinion, and I’m not particularly trying to be convinced otherwise - if you loved Silver Elite, you likely won’t care much for my criticisms and that’s fine. I would not recommend wasting your time reading this. If you think I’m being a hater, you’re right. I am, but it’s warranted. By the end of this, I hope you’ll understand why.

Let’s go back to the beginning. An indie debut gaining a lot of attention? It’s unheard of, really. Readers were immediately suspicious because a debut by a completely unknown author getting as much attention from its publishing house as Silver Elite did was, to put it simply, odd. Rumours began to arise that the author, Dani Francis, was a pen name for a famous author, and it checked out. She had no presence online whatsoever, apart from a recently opened account to advertise her book. Del Rey - the publisher - also put a lot of effort into getting eyes on the book. It even has foiled edges and special editions, features that are harder to come by for newer, lesser-known names than gold. It's also been picked up as a Book of the Month option for May. All of this screamed ‘bestseller’, not unknown indie debut.

It’s now confirmed that this is true by the publisher: ‘Dani Francis’ is a pen name for a Canadian NYT bestselling author.

It was all fun and games initially: possible big-shot names were thrown around (Victoria Aveyard and Ali Hazelwood, to name a few), on the basis of some random references to broken printers and vague similarities to certain Star Wars couples. Some people even suggested Elsie Silver, a cowboy romance author, because of the similarities between her name and the book title, as well as the fact that the main character is raised on a ranch and the general Western theme of the book. Again, this was all in good spirits. All of the mentioned authors are well-loved and respected in the book community.

Then it started to go downhill. Other readers began to call out those who were trying to figure out who Dani Francis is, rightfully arguing that doxxing her would be defeating the purpose of a pen name. They were worried about keeping author anonymity safe - many authors are known to write under pen names for various reasons to protect themselves and their personal lives. In fact, your favourite author probably uses a pen name for the listed reasons. It’s completely normal.

But here’s the thing: the publishers in their press release on Edelweiss specifically stated that Dani is a NYT best selling author using a pen name, so naturally that created intrigue. They must’ve expected people to try figure out her identity. If this was a 100% privacy-based pen name, I can’t see the publisher feeding into the rumours. Personally, I initially assumed that Dani would’ve most likely been an author trialing a new genre with a judgement free pen name.

Then people started to think deeper, wondering what other reasons a NYT bestseller would have to want to write under a pen name. To start fresh? Were they trying to get into a new genre, like I thought? Maybe. Or were they possibly trying to avoid existing controversies? As new information started to come out about Silver Elite, suspicions rose and the rumours grew into apparent right-wing agendas and controversial themes in the book, people started to decide that maybe it was for the better that we figure out who exactly the big name behind this book is.

Note the Ali Hazelwood quote

Where exactly did the real controversy start?

Shortly before the release, the publisher shared a Q&A on Threads with Dani which included the following quote:

“What inspired you to write Silver Elite?”

I was craving a dystopian fix! I'm a huge fan of dystopian stories, especially ones with kick-ass female leads. But I find that a lot of these types of books are for young adult readers, and I've always wanted to find a series that's on the spicier side. When I realised there weren't a ton out there, I decided to create my own spicy dystopia.

You don’t have to be a literary genius to realise how stupid this sounds. The idea of anyone reading a dystopian book and going “this needs more spice” is downright insane. Someone like that has no business writing dystopian fiction, since they’ve missed the whole point of the genre. Those books are not heavy on the spice for a reason, mainly because the characters have more important things going on. Like I dunno… there just might be a reason for the lack of spicy dystopian books. Especially since the apparent inspiration was The Hunger Games. It baffles me that someone could read a book about kids being forced to kill each other and think “this is cool but it would be better as porn”.

Context is also extremely important to consider. Recently, there’s been a rise in the right-wing rhetoric that ‘reading isn’t political’. Dani’s answer appears to support that entirely. Politics wasn’t mentioned in any of her answers, only light jokes and references to the romance and spicier aspects of the book. To me, it felt as if she was trying to diminish the political aspect of dystopian literature (ie. the whole point of it). It encourages readers to not critically think about the books they read. Considering we live in a world where books are being banned in schools for being even slightly political, this rubbed me and many other readers the wrong way.

“Close off your brain, ignore politics and read whatever garbage you’d like to” is the opposite message authors should be trying to send out right now. It wasn’t a great look - Francis’ inability to engage with the dystopian genre and her insensitivity was painfully evident.

Long story short, if you aren’t going to attempt to have any type of social commentary or even try to be vaguely dystopian then you don’t get to compare yourself to The Hunger Games, or any other book in the genre. The reason why THG is so loved is because it actually had something to say. It had depth; that’s why people keep going back to it. This is literally just a shallow smut-without-plot flick, which is fine, but don’t try to trick readers into reading it by pretending it’s actually meaningful.

Controversial Marketing

A lot of the issues lie with the marketing: Silver Elite is described to be a ‘sizzling dystopian romance’, a downright insane combination of words and completely misleading. Nothing about this book was dystopian, apart from the most basic, shallow features. The politics was nonexistent, and the actually dystopian elements were barely explained. No, this was a romantasy set in your standard dystopia. From the first chapter, you could tell the emphasis was going to be on the romance element. She meets the love interest - grumpy, mysterious commanding officer Cross - after a one-night stand with another soldier. She’s attracted to him immediately, obviously, and he plagues her thoughts for the rest of the book.

An official statement from the publisher called the main character “Katniss Everdeen for grown ups”. There is so much wrong with this statement. First off, comparing a dystopian book to The Hunger Games is one way to turn me off from it entirely. As soon as I see that, I know it’s gonna be shallow, unoriginal garbage. But calling your main character Katniss for adults is just downright insensitive and, in this case, painfully incorrect. She’s allegedly for grown ups solely because she has sex with peacekeepers, that’s it. She’s nowhere near as nuanced or complex as Katniss, who’s four years younger than her. Where Katniss grieves over her family and undergoes one of the best and most realistic character arcs in YA history, this main character *checks notes* gets railed by President Snow’s son and constantly messes up the rebellion plans? And she’s the grown up version of Miss Everdeen? That can’t be right.

Let’s make this clear: there is nothing remotely “grown up” about this book, aside from the abundance of unnecessary and horribly written sexual content.

Side note: trying to market the book by saying it’s “Fourth Wing meets Divergent" was a horrendous choice too. It’s like saying “yeah, this book is like the two most notorious books of its genre spliced together, it’s gonna be good, trust me”.

But no, Silver Elite is different. It’s not just a dystopian book, it’s an ADULT dystopian book. Now, when I think of adult dystopian books, I think of 1984 and Handmaids Tale. I would never even consider to use Silver Elite as an example of adult dystopian literature. Honestly, it’s not even a contender for a good YA dystopian. I could name about twenty YA dystopian books that are far more mature than this trope-driven, consumerist-wet-dream absolute train wreck.

This book shouldn’t have been marketed as a dystopian. If it was released as a fantasy-romance, it would’ve been fine. It wouldn’t have received nearly as much criticism as it is now, at least not for this (it still sucks regardless). Some people have mentioned that this was likely done on purpose to set Silver Elite apart from the influx of carbon-copy romantasy books currently being pumped out into the market. Silver Elite is identical to them. It’s got the same tropes, the same plot, the same godawful dialogue, lack of world building and immature writing. The only difference is that it’s apparently a dystopian. Spoiler: it’s not. See, Powerless, for all its faults, was at least marketed as a romantasy. This book is no different. It’s nothing but a trope-driven, shallow, fantasy. A vibe read, and nothing else. It is not a dystopian, and it is not an adult-level book.

Dani Francis really tried to convince us that there was a gap in the market for adult dystopian literature, and then proceeded to write a horrendous copy of a YA dystopian book but with sex. This is a big issue with recent books: being marketed as adult literature solely because they contain sexual themes. Think Fourth Wing and ACOTAR. The writing in these books are arguably worse than their YA counterparts they are so desperately trying to distance themselves from, but since they’ve got smut, they’re marketed towards grown ups. This book, and them, lacks the maturity and complexity to be an adult book, let alone a dystopian adult book. The main character is 20 but has the maturity of a five year old. She makes stupid decisions throughout the whole book that puts the whole rebellion at risk. Multiple times. Katniss would never.

Honestly though, most of my blame falls onto the myriads of editors and publishers involved in this book. How did none of them realise this was a terrible idea? How any sane human read 500 pages of this bullshit and go “great, let’s publish it!” is beyond me. The publishing industry is truly a joke.

To publish this book as a dystopian is a failure on the part of the publishing industry. This genre-blending and mixing is all well and good until shit like this starts happening. Dystopian literature is one of my favourite genres, and to see the essence drained out of it and mashed into consumerist bullshit hurts. Dystopian fiction is the one genre you cannot "turn your brain off and enjoy". We live in a society where we cannot afford to turn our brains off. Some genres can be enjoyed for escapism. This is not one of them.

ARC Reader Controversy

Another marketing issue, that leads into wider problems, is the role of ARC readers with this release. If you aren’t aware with the term, ARC readers are typically book influencers who receive a free copy of the book in exchange for a review. It’s mainly for publicity - to get the book into the world. I’ve been an ARC reader plenty of times and I can confirm that I feel pressured into writing a ‘good’ review on the book. I often embellished my ARC reviews, and I know plenty of people still do. I know a lot of friends who ARC-read this one. You feel obliged to be nice, considering the author chose to gift you with the book. After reading this one and then the reviews, I am more than certain that that’s what’s been going on with this book. The amount of influencers glazing this book on Goodreads was absurd. Their reviews were so forced, it was like they were being held at gunpoint. The issue with this is that it gives other readers unrealistic expectations for the book. Considering these ‘normal’ readers are paying for the book out of their own pockets, not receiving it for free, this is unfair. Once the book actually came out, the different between the ARC and normal reviews was comical, and just goes to show how misleading pre-release reviews can be.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

The story is set in your standard dystopian world. It’s based in the distant future where the human race is divided into normal humans, and those who have enhanced abilities (known as Mods). Basically reverse Powerless. The totalitarian government who runs the place is hellbent on wiping out all the Mods, or using them for his own selfish purposes, because ‘if I can’t be special, nobody can’. There’s a smudge of interesting lore behind that - or at least, there was potential for there to be interesting lore - but it’s never explored. Huge waste.

Hiding the fact that you’re a Mod is illegal. This is easy for the government, because the Mods have a telltale sign of their powers - whenever they use their powers, the veins in their arms glow. Most Mods wear long-sleeved clothing to hide this, which is honestly kinda pathetic. The government could easily have banned long sleeves and saved themselves a lot of trouble. The Modded characters are literally constantly communicating with each other via telepathy in public, right under the soldier’s noses. The only thing keeping them from being caught are their sleeves. It takes no real effort or brains on the Mod’s part to hide their powers. It reeked of sloppy world building; so stupid, and the first plot hole I noticed.

Let’s move onto the characters. Wren Darlington (an incredibly overused name in fantasy books, mind you) is our 20 year old protagonist and a hidden Mod. She is a horribly unlikable person.

From the opening scene, we get a taste of her selfishness, superiority complex, and tendency to self-sabotage. While “escaping” from a one-night fling, she actively leads the guy on while telling everyone else how clingy he is. He is a Command soldier - a member of the military oppressing her kind (Mods). She hates and fears Command soldiers, but also seemingly exclusively seeks them out as sexual partners. Not to kink shame but um… alright. Maybe if there was some psychological explanation behind this, I wouldn’t have minded it, but there’s none. The story literally starts off like ‘this is Wren: she likes to sleep with the soldiers who are ordered to kill her and her whole race’. No further explanation. Yuck. It’s giving slave x master (no, literally, considering the Mods are literally used as slaves).

I like a little brashness in a dystopian FMC (cough cough Katniss Everdeen). However, Wren’s impulsivity is not due to a strong moral compass or sense of justice - she simply just acts selfishly, and everyone around her has to deal with the consequences. She had no forethoughts about the impact of her actions on others. She doesn’t appear to love anyone, not really. Her alleged best friend is barely mentioned. Wren doesn’t even seem too bothered when she’s taken away to a fucking concentration camp. And of course all male characters are introduced by how hot Wren thinks they are instead of normal physical descriptions.

I’m all for complex and even unlikable main characters when it makes sense in the story. But there was no indication that the reader was supposed to be actively rooting against Wren as much as I did. She was so unrelatable, and not just because she had insane magic powers.

Anyways, carrying on with the usual sob story: her parents are dead and she’s being raised by Uncle Jim, a grumpy father figure and an undercover wanted criminal and rebellion member. When her actions lead to Jim’s capture and public execution for being a hidden Mod, her life is turned upside down.

Under suspicion from the government, Wren is brought in for interrogation. Fortunately for her, she’s got multiple abilities under her sleeve (including a super rare power that allows her to control other people), and her veins don’t glow when she uses her powers like all the other Mods either for an unexplained reason. So she evades being caught, and is instead drafted into the military. No, I’m not joking. She’s unwillingly conscripted and sent to a high-security military training facility. This makes it simultaneously harder for her to hide her powers, as well as giving her an opportunity to aid the rebellion and feed them inside information to topple the regime.

This whole situation also further proves how useless this government is. I could probably topple the regime myself, with nothing but seventeen years of pop culture knowledge and sarcasm on my side.

So the whole book is just Wren working her way up the rants, fooling everyone and feeding intel to the rebellion, all under the watchful eye of Cross Redden, the son of the general who wants her people dead. Oh, and she’s also hooking up with him. Yeah, her commanding officer who also wants to eradicate her race. Talk about power imbalance. God, I hate that trope. But I’ll talk more about that later.

Another completely random plot point is that sometimes Mods telepathically connect with another Modded person when they’re a kid. This makes zero sense, and it’s only there to create a lousy star-crossed lovers storyline. Basically, Wren connects with this guy who calls himself Wolf.

Now for the record, I knew that Cross was Wolf immediately. Why?

1. That ‘telepathic connection’ subplot served no other purpose. It’s clear Cross was going to be the love interest from the blurb alone, so when Wren started describing Wolf as “the only person who knew her and who she loved”, I knew he was going to be revealed to be Cross. Especially when it was revealed that they were using code names.

2. Cross was clearly the love interest from the moment he was first introduced. They had instant chemistry (no they didn’t, but the author tried to gaslight us into thinking that they did).

Honestly though, I disliked Cross so much that I was really hoping Wolf wouldn’t be him and we’d get a different potential love interest. I already despised him for being a solider in a fascist regime, but then he went and unironically called himself a “bad boy” and that gave me the kind of ick you can’t possibly come back from.

On the topic of Cross, let’s talk about the awful romance storyline (which unfortunately made up 90% of the book).

It’s insta-lust, it’s toxic, it’s shallow. It’s 50 overused tropes in a trench coat.

Cross has zero personality and is all inappropriate comments (he’s also just really bad at his job; he was so unprofessional). The “enemies to lovers” was just giving sexual harassment in the workplace, considering how underdeveloped the world was. They were literally just a copy and paste version of the same romantasy couple we get in every new viral BookTok masterpiece (right down to the tattoos and a certain special telepathic bond… the girls who get it, get it…).

Now I’m going to be careful choosing my words here because I don’t want to sound like a purist, but I'm just so tired of the overflowing amount of sexual content in fiction as of lately. It’s got to the point that readers have to ask if the book we're interested in diving into has smut in it or not. It’s so hard to avoid, and even as someone who’s not particularly bothered by sex scenes in books, it’s too much.

The issue isn’t the inclusion of smut, but rather the fact that it often overshadows the rest of the book. I feel like most of the new BookTok authors out there only want to write a book for the purpose of writing sex scenes. You can tell when the smut is the main focus of the book, especially in this one, even without the author stating that themselves the way Francis did. It’s as if she wrote all the spicy scenes they wanted to and then moulded the plot loosely around them. On second thought, I’m quite certain she did do that.

I’m also over the wash and repeat trope-driven books that are being pumped out right now. This as well as the authors just trying to throw in as much spice as possible while neglecting the plot, creates a mess. It’s fine in romance I guess - some people would argue that it’s not a very ‘serious’ genre, but dystopian lit has always been known for its depth. I get that spice sells but I miss real plots.

If the world is crumbling around you, and you’re marginalised and oppressed and possibly on the verge of execution, who has time to worry about romance? There are quite literally so many other things to worry about.

Cross and Wren don't talk at all throughout the book, they literally just have sex and ignore each other in public, but at the end they’re all teary and exchanging ‘I love yous’ to each other. It was so laughably unbelievable. They had no chemistry whatsoever. Their entire relationship was forced.

“I wrote this book for readers like me, the ones who devoured books like the Hunger Games but wished the romances were more front and centre” - Dani Francis about Silver Elite

General Criticism

We’ve established that if you’re looking for a book that has the apparent aesthetic of dystopian novel, but doesn’t actually discuss any part of it, then Silver Elite is for you. But here’s the thing: even if you don't judge Silver Elite as a dystopian, it still objectively sucks.

Wren is flaky, inconsistent, and completely unaffected by growing up under threat of death. Every emotion the reader sees is momentary and transparent. She describes her sex life in more detail than she does the world around her. Her internal discussion of the world and its ruling force boils down to “all people should be treated equally”. That’s it. We get a few breadcrumbs of historical events and the social scheme, but nothing overly complex or overly relevant to the characters or storyline.

None of the other characters were unique, or important to the plot. They all kind of blurred together after a while. I didn’t particularly care for any of them.

The world-building is basically non-existent and relies a lot on the readers prior knowledge of other popular dystopian fiction features to fill in the blanks. The summaries we get feel like they’ve been written by AI. There’s no emotion in any of the descriptions provided by Wren, our main character who is simply devoid of any emotion. Her voice comes off as detached, and as a result, I was unable to connect whatsoever with her world.

The dialogue was cringe-inducing and the spicy scenes even more so. There was no tension or chemistry between the characters outside of incredibly bland lust. Their whole relationship was just them hooking up in secret with no feelings attached. And suddenly Francis was trying to convince me that Wren and Cross were deeply in love at the end of it. As if. She even added in a painfully forced star-crossed lovers plot line to drill this in further, which was such a miserable, pathetic, downright lazy attempt to make their romance make sense.

I feel like I should add that the word “Hellfuck” is used 19 times. “What the hell?” “What the fuck?” No, let’s create a new brilliant, innovative term instead. Hellfuck. I wasn’t having it, no thank you. Dear old Dani really said ‘let’s focus all our creativity into coming up with a new cuss word instead of enhancing the world building or character development’. She should’ve chosen the world building.

The ‘Chosen One’ Trope and the Concept of Rebellion

It is made clear early on that Wren is not like the other girls, or literally anyone else for that matter. She’s exceptional in every way and can do things others can't that give her advantages. I hate this fated chosen one trope in dystopian fiction. It is the antithesis of a true dystopian protagonist.

Back to THG: Katniss Everdeen is the protagonist, not by fate or by choice, but because she was the girl who happened to be thrown into a certain situation at the right time. She earned her place as the ‘chosen’ one.

Dystopian fiction was invented to act as a cautionary tale. Good books should be able to hold a metaphorical mirror up to the reader and make them question how different is this fictional world from theirs. How many bad decisions away are we from collapse? What would you do, if you were in this situation? And the protagonist, typically a member of a realistic marginalised and oppressed group, is there to assure the reader that they can be them. Just not in Silver Elite, unless you have an innate ability no one else does. Or four.

This trope detracts from the importance of deeply planned community movements in response to large-scale oppressive regimes in favour of individualism, or a sole hero. Rebellion is not the job of one person, despite what this books insinuates.

It involves many, many people. United, we stand. Divided, we fall. It’s all fun and games watching superhero films and imagining Clark Kent swooping in to save the day in your average fantasy media. But in a dystopian, a genre based on plausibility and history, this isn’t possible. Rebellion is planned, it’s complex, nuanced.

Problematic Themes

According to many readers, there are blatant themes of xenophobia, racism, and antisemitism throughout the entire book. I’m still doing research on the antisemitism (although I’m assuming it’s about the concentration camps, which are horribly written. That would make Cross and his family Nazis, which turns the whole ‘hooking up’ situation into something even more horrific), but the racism and homophobia is clearer. Wren’s best friend, a queer woman of colour (this is specifically stated, but doesn’t play any role in the book other than to check off diversity metrics) is sent off to a ‘labour camp’. Could this be coincidental? Sure. Given the context, however, it likely isn’t. Obviously this could be a commentary to real-life events, but looking at how distanced the author has made herself to actual politics, I doubt it. Me, as well as many other readers, have pegged it down to blatant racism and homophobia.

Add the fact that we don’t know who this author is, or what books she’s written, it’s weird. Really weird. It could be Sarah J Maas, an author known for her xenophobia and racism, but the writing style doesn’t quite support that (no mentions of watery bowels as far as I noticed).

There are also themes of non-consent and rape in this book that are handled awfully. Silver Elite is not an enemies-to-lovers or even a forbidden romance. Instead, it features a ‘romance’ with an awful power imbalance. A commanding officer who’s the son of the world’s biggest fascist, and a trainee who’s secretly part of the group that said fascist is trying to eradicate. Even though Cross didn’t know Wren was a Mod at this point, the fact that she’s under his power in the workforce us bad enough. In real life, Wren would likely not be able to consent in this situation.

My criticism is not that this dynamic is featured, it is that there are exactly zero conversations between Wren and Cross, or with the reader, about consent. It would’ve been a great moment to bring in and highlight those ‘adult’ themes that the book claims it has. I know the "I read for escapism” girlies are gonna hate me for this but it has to be said.

Non-consent is rape. Just because Wren is attracted to Cross does not change this. Cross is realistically not your average ‘morally grey’ hates-everyone-but-her MMC. He is the oppressor having sexual relations with the oppressed who is unable to escape the situation. Wren claims that she’s using him to get information, but she clearly has no choice in the matter. It was disgusting to read about, not because of the idea of rape but because it was skimmed over and romanticised.

This book also felt like is being written for “both sides” as Wren often empathises with the literal enemy as if they aren’t killing, enslaving, and doing human experimentation on her people. There was just so much repetition of “oh but they’re brainwashed”, and at first it was okay - because it’s true, the soldiers were being brainwashed. But Wren continued to try defend them to herself and excuse their literal xenophobia towards her people. Whoever Dani Francis is, I am quite certain they’re privileged and white because there’s no way you’d find a POC trying to justify the oppressors. Me personally, if someone was actively supporting a genocide of my race, I would NOT be trying to justify their thought processes. Also, there was a weird portrayal and discussion around mental health in this that rubbed me the wrong way. The vilification of mental health and the use of schizophrenia as a cover-up word was really out of place too. Clearly Dani Francis didn’t have any sensitivity readers.

The Dystopian Fall Off

I know I keep going on about how this book failed as a dystopian, but let’s talk about the genre as a whole.

Ever since The Hunger Games came out, the dystopian genre simultaneously skyrocketed and fell off entirely. How so? THG proved that YA dystopian books can work. It took the complex themes from Battle Royale and 1984 and, instead of watering them down, slightly altered them to fit a younger audience. After Suzanne Collins published it, and it soared to fame, many other authors decided to follow suit and cash in on the YA dystopian money bag.

The issue is that these books completely missed the point of the dystopian genre: the politics. They focused on the romantic element, typically a love triangle - further showing just how much they missed the point of The Hunger Games. The most popular example is Divergent. Society is split into different factions, there’s some rebellion against the standard corrupt leaders, etc, but the main focus is on Tris and Four’s relationship.

I get it - romance sells. THG is the perfect example of that: with the Peeta-Gale plot line (which also had a deeper symbolism of Katniss’ internal moral struggles). But especially in this genre, it has to be balanced and written well. While Collins executed it perfectly - that blend of political commentary with a story accessible by and targeted towards a wider audience - most other books in the YA dystopian genre did not. And if anything, the new ‘adult’ dystopian books are even worse.

Male gaze or ChatGPT?

As mentioned near the start of this, there are plenty of rumours flying around about who wrote this book. Personally, I’m torn between three options: the author is a man, a conservative white woman or an AI software.

The possibility of Silver Elite being AI-generated is highly unlikely. It’s farfetched. Honestly, it’s downright impossible, but I do get where people are coming from. The book does have a very shallow, AI feel to it - it felt more like a summary than anything. Given that works created by AI cannot currently be copyrighted in the US, it would be an odd choice for a major publisher to go down this route. Especially since a lot of the authors it works for are vocally against AI. However, the fact that people actually, genuinely believe it’s written by AI is an issue by itself, though. Seriously, you have to be a horrible writer for people to accuse your work of being AI-generated. Take notes, Dani.

Another theory is that Dani is a man using a female sounding/ambiguous name to get into the market. The blurb about the author does try hard to conceal the author’s gender. This might be so it can be used for plausible deniability later. A lot of people believe it‘s a male author who openly makes fun of romantasy readers but also wants a piece of the money pie. The book is also heavily written from a male gaze-y perspective. At one point, the busty main character went braless, but it was okay because she was wearing a tight black tank top so her nipples wouldn’t be seen, as if that is the only issue with being braless. Any woman who’s played sports or trained at the gym knows that it doesn’t work like that. It was also a weird thing to mention regardless. The weird rape theme and the power imbalance would make a lot more sense if it was written by a man too. However, I doubt Francis is a man because they’ve been referred to be she/her pronouns by the publisher and fellow authors. Then again, last week there was a whole controversy about a cis man pretending to be a lesbian author. He catfished an actual model, using her pictures online, etc. So I wouldn’t put it past them.

This brings me to the next supposed suspect: a conservative white woman.

They’re a big target audience for romantasy books, as well as the typical writers. It’s also worth adding that literally all the ‘cancelled’ authors are in that category too. It’s the most likely theory, and it checks out. It does come across as a weird power imbalance kink self-insert fantasy, now that I think about it. They do love that. Makes sense that they’d send the queer brown girl to a concentration camp too. And the overall Western aesthetic sure isn’t helping their case.

For starters, every male character is obsessed with Wren for some reason. One guy quite literally begs her to have sex him. It was awful and it reminded me of how men write and perceive women, as objects and nothing more. Wren herself wasn’t much better. Half the book is her forgetting her mission all because Cross is in her vicinity. It was nice seeing her having control over her sexuality at the very start, but when it started to become an overbearing presence in the plot, it was too much for me. When it started hindering her, I was pissed. It reeks of internalised misogyny and desperation for male approval.

Also, side note but the random use of Australian slang pissed me off too, not for any reason other than it was stupid and didn’t fit in at all. If I had to read another “keen?” at the end of a sentence, I would’ve exploded. She didn’t even use it right. My culture is not your costume!!!

The whole book had a very Western feel to it, probably because the main character was raised on a ranch. It felt like a cowboy romance mixed with a poor attempt at a dystopian. That is to say, a mess and an utter failure. The dystopian society was simply a sexy backdrop for the two main characters and nothing more. I heard someone on Threads say it was like a “Republican computer” wrote the book and I feel like that sums it up perfectly.

After reading Silver Elite, I’m convinced that Dani Francis is an already-cancelled writer trying to make a ‘fresh’ comeback and failing miserably. I honestly don’t even care who it is, but if I were them I would definitely want to stay anonymous.