Shu arched a single eyebrow, his lip curling as if he had found something foul in his drink. With delicate disdain, he nudged the book away using his pen. "Why," he asked, voice smooth with disbelief, "are people fascinated by pulp trash like this?"
Ella didn’t look up. She turned a page slowly. "Because it shocks," she said. "Most lives are grey loops—routine, repetition, quiet suffocation. People want rupture. Something violent. Something lurid."
Jack exhaled sharply. His jaw tightened. "Perhaps. But the lack of craft is insulting. These novels are assembly-line fantasies—tropes stamped and recycled. The same brooding figures. The same hollow desires. It’s anesthesia pretending to be art."
Ella closed her book at last, her expression distant. "They’re mirrors," she said. "Reflections of a fractured culture. The problem isn’t the books—it’s what they reveal about us."
Juanita leaned forward, smiling carefully, diffusing tension. "Taste is the last freedom most people have," she said softly. "Let them choose their poison."
