This guest review is from Poppy, who picked up Kulti after it was featured in a previous books on sale. This book is frequently recommended when it comes to sports romances and is an autobuy author for many readers, so we’re happy to finally have a review for it on the site!
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I saw the sale for Mariana Zapata’s Kulti a few weeks ago on this site and one-clicked it pretty quickly. The story blurb promised some of my favourite blends of catnip: strong heroine with cool-ass career, competence pr0n, slowburn romance and, most of all, a broody hero. Yay. Plus, I used to watch soccer games with my dad in my youth, and was looking forward to getting reacquainted with the game. I downloaded the book and happily read through the night. #badbookdecisions
Up till around 4am I was enjoying the story. There wasn’t quite as much about tactics and on-field action as I would have liked, but that wasn’t a big deal. There were many other things to love: Sal Casillas’s sense of self-worth and drive, her relationships with the people in her life, and of course, that delicious slow-cooker romance with her assistant coach, the eponymous Reiner Kulti.
I’ll talk about what happened after 4am in a bit, but first I want to give the book due credit for the parts that I truly enjoyed. First, Sal’s strong sense of self (wow, all that alliteration was unintended). It was refreshing to read about someone who could look at her body and say, eh, I like it. More than that – she celebrated her body for being “a sign of the craft I’d been working on my entire life. It was my machine: short torso, wide-ish shoulders and muscular thighs. They were mine, and I wasn’t embarrassed of it. I was happy with myself… I needed my legs to take me to the end of the universe and back, and they did.” Preach it, sister!
I also loved Sal’s unapologetic ambition. She literally goes the extra mile by going for 8km runs before soccer training, and works a second job so that she can afford to keep playing pro-soccer. Her second job in landscaping is also something she likes, and she gets along well with her boss. The lady has got life figured out.
Sal’s self-love also extends to the way she interacts with the people in her life. She recognises when Kulti was being rude to her (and also that she doesn’t deserve it), she cultivates strong friendships with her soccer teammates Jenny and Harlow, and struggles realistically with jealousy from other teammates. I also loved reading about her relationship with her family, especially the bond she has with her dad. There’s some sympathetic writing about her efforts to reach out to her younger non-soccer-playing sister Cecilia, who is trying to find her identity vis-à-vis her more successful siblings (Sal and her brother are both pro soccer players). I wished Cecilia, who is in a legitimately difficult position, was written in a less one-dimensionally “bratty younger kid” manner – I don’t wish to put in any spoilers, but read the scene on Sal’s father’s birthday dinner from her sister’s point of view and it takes on quite a different flavour. However, I do understand and appreciate that this is Sal’s story, and would therefore lean towards Sal’s feelings and perspectives.
In any case, Sal has got a fulfilled, exciting and meaningful life before she meets Kulti. I absolutely loved that. One commenter on the sale post mentioned that the coach-player dynamic was handled well, and I completely agree. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but suffice to say, the slowburn was totally worth it for me. And although the book is titled Kulti, it’s really about Sal – she and her career take centrestage with Kulti’s full, albeit gruffly-expressed support. Ok, some aspects of the romance did stretch my credulity a tad [here’s a spoiler: near the beginning of the book, Sal recounts the adoring, fangirl letters she sent to Kulti when she was a kid, and how he never replied, and now could never know of it since he has become her coach; at the end, it’s revealed that Kulti not only knew all along about her letters but had kept and framed them up]. Then again, it is a story about a multi-millionaire retired international soccer star meeting and falling in love with a not-very-known Women’s League player from Houston who supports herself with landscaping jobs after training, so I suppose credulity could be suspended anyway.
Now for the skeleton waiting in the spectator stands. Here’s the part I bumped up against at 4:01am (ok not really, but I’m adding a touch of drama):
I was busy spraying lines on the grass when I noticed Kulti speaking to two female teachers who would be working the registration table. He was gesturing at something on the sheet and they were nodding enthusiastically, which didn’t say much because he probably could have been telling them that he pooped golden nuggets and they would have been excited, based on the way they’d been looking at him.
Hookers.
And… hello slut-shaming my old friend!
(I also want to pause here to say that if someone did tell me he pooped golden nuggets I would be super excited. Second pause: oh Sal, I nod enthusiastically when the barista at Starbucks pronounces my name correctly. You probably shouldn’t read too much into that.)
Let me clarify that this example was not isolated; I quote it because it was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Here’s another example of Sal laying down a sorry-not-sorry judgement on her ex-boyfriend: “He’s slept around a lot since we split. I’m not one of these girls that think men who have slept with hundreds of women are sexy. That’s gross. I don’t loan my body out to just anyone, and I don’t like the idea of a bunch of girls knowing what someone I love’s penis looks like, you know?”
Another example:
Coming up against this type of attitude in a book that was overall so celebratory about female achievements and relationships is a bit like digging into delicious creamy lasagne and pulling up pieces of a cockroach on your fork. (True story!)
Using sex workers as shorthand for “bad women”, equating consensual sex with loaning out one’s body, constructing frankly improbable circumstances to prove the heroine’s “innocence”, setting up the Psycho Ex character as villain – that’s one wing, two feelers, and a bunch of freaky jointed legs.
While I didn’t finish the lasagne, or indeed the rest of the meal at that restaurant, I did finish the book, enjoying the romance whilst feeling disheartened and a bit betrayed. That would have been the end of things if not for a little debate I got into with a fellow non-romance-reading bibliophile friend. When I complained to her about the slut-shaming in Kulti, she asked with genuine bafflement, why on earth would you feel betrayed? You didn’t complain when you read The Human Stain or Lolita. Aren’t works of fiction supposed to hold up a mirror to bad human behaviour? Why should romance be different from other genres?
That got me thinking. I realise, prior to that conversation, I had not actively thought so much about what romance meant to me and why I have been reading it for so long. I still don’t have a perfect answer, but I think it could be something like this: for me, I don’t want romance to just hold up a mirror to bad behaviour. There’s enough of shitty behaviour in the world. This year has felt exceptionally tiresome. I want romance to be a safe space, a haven from toxicity, racism, sexism and pussy-grabbers. (I’m speaking generally here. All grabbing in this book was very consensual.) This is not to say that romance novels should avoid any mention of bad behaviour, but that I hope such behaviour would be called out or addressed as opportunities for growth. At the very least, the romance I read provides a refuge, a place to lay my head for a few hours without worrying about hidden cameras. At best, romance has a unique power for me: the power to make me hopeful and optimistic that the type of stories created within the genre perpetuates inclusivity and gathers a community of people interested in doing the same. Every romance novel has the potential for knocking out a brick from the Skyscraper of Toxic Masculinity (i.e. Trump Tower?) and building a warmer, safer space where bullshit gets barred at the door.
But having said all this, I’m honestly not sure if this is a fair expectation. I don’t wish to tramp all over authors’ creative licenses or make problematic assumptions about what other readers want from their reading experiences; I can only speak for myself and what I want from mine. Luckily for us, the happy thing is that even within the romance genre, there are many books to cater to everyone’s needs. We can all pick what we want from the shelves and head off to our respective little safe spots without stepping on anyone’s toes. In the words of The Bachelor’s remarkable Corrinne Olympios, “You do you. You go, girl. Imma do me.”
Me, in this case, will continue sending back plates of lasagne with unwanted bugs in them. Here’s wishing everyone Happy Reading in 2018!
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Ok, first off, as someone who has both worked and dined (mostly dined) in a LOT of restaurants, let me say ew. No, really, just ew.
That said, though Kulti was a B+ for me, you’re spot on regarding the slut-shaming. I also agree with you about reading being my safe place. Unfortunately, for all that I truly enjoy Ms Zapata’s writing, I can’t name one work of hers that slut-shaming doesn’t make at least one appearance. None of her books qualify as A’s to me because of this and I’ve read them all.
Great review! I love Mariana Zapatas books, and I read every new release of hers, but the slut shaming (the heroine thinking women around her are sluts or whores) is there in almost all the books, and it really bothers me.
It just feels so unnecessary!
And since it’s there in so many of Zapata’s books, you can’t really excuse the writing with the heroine in a particular book (for example in Kulti) having some growing up to do.
What a great review! Though I’m sorry that an otherwise good book was ruined for you by the Cockroach of Slut-Shaming.
I especially liked your thoughts on what you want, emotionally, from a romance. I agree. In fact, I’ve reached the point where I tend to read only fiction that is escapist – if I want to be depressed or angry or upset, there are always newspapers and other non-fiction. Why make myself miserable to no purpose? After all … real-life awfulness at least one can try to fight or mitigate – fictional awfulness, one can only witness, helplessly.
I do wish that we, as a society, didn’t have this idea that the only important books are the sad ones. It’s true that they can provide important insights (and hopefully empathy) for those who have not experienced difficult things directly, but I think books that actually give us hope are so very important – both as a place we can rest, and as a source of inspiration and strength when we are ready to return to the fight.
I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who said “Who are the people most opposed to escapism? Jailors!”.
We need books that can give us templates for a future that is brighter than the present, not just in the big things, but in the little, everyday, niggly things, too. And I think in a genre that exists to provide some of these templates, it is absolutely fair to criticise books for reinforcing the everyday sexism that we would all like to escape.
(Also, drat, because that did sound like a fun book, apart from the cockroaches. Which, by the way, was a glorious metaphor, used perfectly.)
Well, that’s a big nope from me. I know women can’t always get along or see eye to eye on things (that’s only human), but slut shaming always feels particularly juvenile to me.
I tried to read another Zapata book and it didn’t resonate with me despite the great reviews. Sounds like her books are just not for me.
Thank you for this excellent and thoughtful review—and a new metaphor for books that should be great but end up disappointing us: cockroach in the lasagne. Love it (the metaphor, not the cockroach). I’d been on the fence about reading this book, but because slut-shaming (and its companion element—female characters who embody the worst cliches about women just so the heroine shines brighter in comparison) almost always means a DNF for me, I’m going to give this a pass.
I enjoyed this book overall, but agree about the dismissal of other women’s sexual choices. There’s a strong element of putting down other women to make the heroine more clearly “good”.
I’ll also just mention that the slow burn is so slow that most of the romance is in the last few chapters. I also found the epilogue unnecessary.
I’ve been on the fence about reading this book. I’d heard good things about it, but what’s been holding me back is that I’d read The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by the same author and there were serious editing issues with the book. Then I noticed that 3 of Ms. Zapata’s books (including Kulti) have quality warnings from Amazon for errors. And they’ve been there for months. As an independent author myself, I understand that shouldering the responsibility for a clean manuscript can be daunting, but whenever I’ve received a notice from Amazon about quality, it was a priority to fix it.
Additionally (not having read this book but another by Ms. Zapata), I found the pacing off, much like another commenter noted. It’s very slow and then (literally) wham, bam!
I’d still like to read it, but until Ms. Zapata fixes the quality issues, I don’t know that I can.
Great review! I tried to read The Wall of Winnipeg because of all the raving reviews and it was DNF for me. Mostly because the slow burn was more like a glacially paced burn and I was bored out of my skull, but also because there was a strong whiff of Not Like Other Girls around the heroine. This sounds like much of the same. Hard pass.
I started my Zapata reading with Lingus, which has a porn star hero. Lots of slut shaming by the heroine in that one, though I was told Lingus wasn’t the best book to start with. Kind of bummed to see the slut shaming is a recurring problem in other books.
I basically agree with everyone else. I read The Wall of Winnipeg and while I did really like parts of it, the repetitive use of “the Wall of Winnipeg” instead of the guy’s name (in the heroine’s thoughts) threw me out of the story every time it happened. Also, glacially paced is right. Slow burn is fine, but something should have happened by the three-quarter mark, for me, instead of the last chapter. I also agree that the heroine was very “not-like-other-girls” in a way that makes me feel snarly and not very sympathetic.
I also picked up Kulti from the sale’s post here, read it and enjoyed it enough to pick up Zapata’s other books.
And yeah, slut shaming is definitely a common thread throughout them. And I hate it, because it absolutely pulls me out of the story, out of feeling sympatico and sympathetic with the heroine. There’s a bit in “Wait For It,” where the heroine is bullied by a Shitty Jealous Woman (which isn’t a great trope to begin with) about the length of her shorts at a baseball game — but it comes after this long inner monologue where the heroine opines about how the other women at the baseball games she used to go to would wear daisy dukes and dress like — you guessed it! — hookers.
And I couldn’t get past the first chapter of “Lingus,” because of ALL the slut-shaming and sex negativity that a heroine at a porn convention was directing at literally every other con-goer.
I’d probably put Kulti at a B for myself — it was definitely good enough that I wanted to read Zapata’s other books, but after reading those books and seeing the slut-shaming commonality between all of them, I don’t know that I’ll be reading any more.
Confused. I found random advances toward the hero repellent in Wall of Winnipeg because he blanked that out so hard, it was obviously non-consensual…and was actually disturbed that Zapata plays it for laughs in one egregious case. (Ie not shame-y enough of non-consensual grabbing for me. I was all “Don’t Touch us shy people! Especially not there!”)
Wow, you just saved me a ton of time. I literally just checked this out from the library, and it will be going back, since women slut-shaming other women is one of my hard passes in romance novels.
This is such a popular book, at times I’ve felt like the only person who didn’t LOVE it, so this review is refreshing to read. I had all the same issues as the reviewer in terms of the implausibility of parts of the romance and especially with the slut-shaming, which is in ALL of the books by this author I’ve read. She seems to have a formula: cool girl heroine who slut shames + reserved hero + slow burn romance = book. It worked better in THE WALL OF WINNIPEG AND ME, imo.
I also didn’t like the juvenile humor in this (SO MANY POOP JOKES – why?!). And, as a huge soccer fan, I was annoyed when she got BASIC things about the sport wrong.
Oh, one thing I forgot to add to my comment is that I also agree w/ the major editing issues in her books. I think it’s in this book where the heroine — in first person — refers to events that she wouldn’t know because they happened outside of her observation. It completely took me out of the story because that’s not just a typo, that’s a huge error someone should’ve caught if this book did have an editor (I don’t recall reading the acknowledgements, so I don’t know).
This was the third book of hers I read (after WAIT FOR IT and WINNIPEG), so maybe I was harsher on it than I would’ve been otherwise. I finally threw in the towel w/ this author when I tried to read one of her books where misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia were RAMPANT, and now I twitch when I ask for recommendations for slow burn romances and she’s recommended to me.
Btw, if anyone is looking for a good romance where the heroine is a pro soccer player, I highly recommend FOR THE WIN by Sara Rider.
Philosophical comment alert:
I’m an English Lit teacher. Brit Lit specialist. Lover of most things OOOOLD.
I bring this up more as a way to establish three things: 1) I tend to consider books within their particular social milieu, 2) I routinely have to read, teach, and think about books that do things that BOTHER me, and 3) I tend to consider an author’s development over time.
I loved Kulti. Zapata is an auto buy for me.
That said, the slut shaming makes me uncomfortable and therefore triggers some serious thinking for me. It reminds me to track any of my remaining tendencies to fall back on Madonna/Whore judgments and language even in the space of my internal monologue. It reminds me that our awareness of the toxicity of slut shaming and our unwillingness to put up with it is currently on a tremendous rise—YAY.
Kulti came out in July 2015; though this makes is recent, on the one hand, SO MUCH HAPPENED in 2016 and 2017 to change our national conversation on the treatment of women that it’s important to keep that in consideration when viewing books written before that time period.
I am NOT arguing that you have to like or forgive a book. I am not even defending the slut shaming in any of the Zapata catalogue. Rather that I personally make myself read things that bother me in order to figure out what is bugging me because that’s how I grow and refine my thinking.
I also would find Zapata to be on the balance female-identity positive, and also providing an important set of primarily LatinX heroines, so I will likely continue to recommend her to others with the “yes, be alert for slut-shaming” caveat.
Just thoughts.
I suspect that slut shaming in books is akin to being told as a kid that using curse words is “lazy”. Instead of describing a secondary character, that character is labeled. Unfortunately, by doing so the author is – probably inadvertently – telling us something about the hero or heroine.
@LML: “Unfortunately, by doing so the author is – probably inadvertently – telling us something about the hero or heroine.”
Or—telling us something about the author.
Not about Kulti but about her other book Wall of Winnipeg and Me. I got SO frustrated at the end because he wakes her up by already touching her/pushing himself on her, and it just made me feel uncomfortable. I wish it had been handled more consensually
I had pretty much this exact conversation in my head after reading Kulti. I also picked it up in the recent sale, so it’s recent in my mind although it’s been out for a couple of years now. I liked Sal, I liked how competent she was, and I liked her family relationships. But I totally had the same thoughts about her younger sister, what teenage girl wouldn’t struggle with her identity with two professional athletes as older siblings? Especially an older sister who is as close to their father as Sal? Then the slut shaming really threw me out of the story and reminded me that it’s a recurring theme in Zapata’work.
I think where I draw the line on things like slut shaming in literature is if it’s clear that it’s a negative behavior. In the above example of Lolita, the entire book is really a tragedy, it’s definitely not a love story. Slut shaming in romance is generally just a normal thing people do that’s not explored or questioned by the characters and it makes me uncomfortable to see it portrayed as acceptable. I expect better from books typically by women, about women, for women.
And yeah, Zapata’s ultra slow burn gets a little old for me. I want to see the characters spend more time negotiating their relationship than you get with her books because generally there isn’t an acknowledged relationship until literally 90% through the book. With Kulti I would have been interested in how they handle moving abroad and living together after such a short courtship. In reality they know very little about each other after hanging out as friends for a couple of months while denying their attraction to each other. The thing is, I still ended up liking it overall. It stuck with me and I definitely have to give the author credit for that when so many other things about the book frustrated me.
I liked Kulti but the treatment of the younger sister was problematic. I also liked Wall of Winnipeg but the pacing was an issue. Then I tried
Wait for it” and I couldn’t finish it due to the slut shaming. I won’t buy another one of her books. The problematic themes are recurring and I don’t need fiction to see how badly women are being treated or to justify them treating each other poorly – the real world has plenty of it.
I a) enjoy Zapata’s books, with some exceptions (Lingus is unreadable), and b) find her heroines unsympathetic to others in general. They’re super judge-y about everything. I find her competence porn pushes the boundary between admirable and ridiculous.
I’m thinking of Wall of Winnipeg, where the heroine makes some crazy choices because of her desire to get out of debt, and her last book, Dear Aaron, where we have another one of those superhuman heroines who never sleeps. I get that financial self control is another form of porn for millennial, myself included, for a number of fairly obvious reasons, but I would be really happy to never read another book about a plucky young girl working 3+ jobs and somehow managing to function AND have incredible athletic sex AND not look like death warmed over.
That said, one of the things I like about Zapata’s books is that her heroines are prickly and more difficult and less generic than those of a lot of authors’. I like to see space for women characters allowed to be unfriendly, or not responsible for emotionally caring for others in general (as opposed to specific characters to whom they’re close).
And I strongly agree with all the implications above that Zapata needs a better editor for several reasons, including typos.
I listened to the audio version of Kulti, and while doing so, I was really into it. But after finishing it I feld uncomfortable for several reasons. I tried to put it into words in my Goodreads review, but was not satisfied with the result. This review and the discussion of it was very helpful for me. I now have a better understanding of what bothered me and why I still enjoyed (part of) the story. This book also made me really interested in women´s soccer, and I am super thankful for the recommendation by Amanda!
I was finally able to read Kulti recently thanks to the sale, and frankly I’m surprised at the tone of this review, although everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’m sad that readers have written this book off as slut shaming, when I thought it’s one of the most female-positive/competence porn books out there. The text highlighted here look bad, especially as I read this review, but the thing is, in the context of the story, the point of view of a woman at the earlierstages of developing feelings, and of feeling jealousy for the first time, I glossed over her personal thoughts on those two occasions. I loved the slow burn, I loved the strong women themes, I loved the letting men know when they’ve been a dick, I loved the strong family connections, I loved the platonic friendships between Sal and other males without sexual connotations, I loved the strong female friendships. I loved this book and it’s message and look forward to read more of her books.
Everything Rebecca said. Shocked at the tone of the review and replies and to me, it didn’t feel at all like slut-shaming but rather a girl coming to terms with her own feelings and values. In fact I didn’t see it at all until this review. There’s so much that’s real and positive about this book- her drive, her ability for platonic friendships with men- I have good female friends who are soccer athletes and the ultra slow burn is fantastically realistic. I applaud Zapata for her against-the-grain writing that manages to be funny, poignant, edgy and sexy all at once.
Hello Amy, I agree with what you loved about the book – the review pointed out the same things which are commendable. However I think it’s fair to point out aspects of writing or storytelling that can be more thoughtfully treated, and that’s what the later part of the review did. 🙂
Isn’t Zapata Latina? This not related to the review. Just curious. Does anyone know?
@Amanda – thanks for the Sara Rider recommendation! I finally got around to reading Kulti (late to the party!) and really enjoyed finishing up the Rider series, which I had forgotten about after reading the first book right after it came out!
I’m a little late to the party, but I loved this review!
I’ve only started reading romance novels a year ago, and I’ve enjoyed them so much as an easy, digestible form of escapism and empathetic window into other lives. But then I started to realize there were some…hmm, not hugely glaring problems, but let’s say shortcomings and disappointments in many books I’ve read. Casual slut shaming being one. Other examples I’ve come across: a character dressing up as a “slutty Native American” (…seriously?); a fantasy in which the heroine’s parents tragically were killed in Africa by locals for unknown reasons — problematic because it treats Africa — which by the way has 50+ countries and you could’ve been, well, more specific than just saying the continent (it’s not like people say “I’m from North America”) — as some mysterious, foreign, dangerous land.
Anyways, sorry for ranting. I’ve still enjoyed these books with these “shortcomings” — but they do leave something to be desired. They might not be a big deal to some people, but I think we as readers can and should still ask for better. We can still hold our favorite authors to higher standards, to make sure that the books we are reading are thoughtful and reflect our modern world. Like the reviewer said: “to make me hopeful and optimistic that the type of stories created within the genre perpetuates inclusivity and gathers a community of people interested in doing the same.”