Transcription
So, an interesting controversy has developed in the literary world, and I want to throw my two cents in. As of recording, this is a developing story, so some information might be outdated by the time you watch this, so uh, whatever.
In March of 2025, an author named Mia Ballard self-published a horror novel entitled Shy Girl about a down-on-her-luck woman named Gia. I don't know about that, Chief. Isn't that kind of like me naming my protagonist Rick or, god forbid, Rickus? But maybe I'm looking too deep.
Anyway, scrapped for cash and pressed firmly under the boot heel of life, Gia resorts to a very odd way of making money: role-playing for a wealthy accountant named Nathan as his pet dog. But as Nathan becomes more possessive and controlling in their so-called relationship, Gia begins to embody her role a bit too well, and eventually, something must give.
Before we get into why this book's controversial, a little mini-review first. Yes, I did read the book. And no, I won't say how because it's practically unavailable everywhere I looked. And don't worry, we'll get to why.
So, the story is okay. There's not much more than the summary I just gave you: woman agrees to roleplay as a dog for money. The man is revealed to be a sadistic fetishist and decides to keep her indefinitely, and it's largely her physical and mental degradation at his hands. Uh, dog gone it, I guess.
Shine Girl is an example of a budding horror genre called femore, centered around body horror, BDSM horror, and similar tropes from a female perspective. Yet, there's usually a theme of empowerment and righteous anger tying it all together. 2024's The Substance is probably the most noteworthy FEGO entry in recent times, and literature has seen its own insurgence.
Shy Girl is played fairly straight throughout its run. It starts to show its teeth at the end where Gia's physical appearance becomes more and more dog-like, and it's unclear whether this is happening in her head or if it's actually happening in real life. And there's some pretty gnarly imagery with her transformation and a subplot where Gia is trying to forcibly miscarry a baby that Nathan unknowingly pumped into her.
The lead-up to the actual internment could have been handled better. Gia turns down a prospective job interview because Nathan's offer is more lucrative. I think it would have been better for the job interview to crash and burn, thus giving her a better reason to take on Nathan's offer. And there definitely could have been more time dedicated between Nathan and Gia before he finally showed his true colors. So, I'd say substandard, but not awful in the story department.
How's the writing? Oh boy. This was self-published, so I can understand the occasional typo and spelling error. And the formatting leaves a lot to be desired, as there are huge breaks in between passages for no reason. But that shouldn't have mattered, as Shy Girl was picked up by Hatchet Book Group for formal distribution in the UK with a US release planned for 2026. A true success story and a wonderful inspiration for self-published writers out there.
However, as for the actual writing style, the whole thing is written in a way I can only describe as poetic yet vague. No variation in the voice besides this annoying, sterily structured melodrama. Lots of flowery, repetitious comparisons. The amount of times a knife or a blade was invoked made me want to stick a knife in my own eyes, and an abundant use of "it's not X but Y." It's X Y Z, something X, something Y. Does all that sound familiar? If you've been following my Billy Cool saga for a while, you probably know where this is going.
Despite the novel getting rave feedback in 2025, in January of 2026, Redditor u/here_endeth_the_lesson, or however it's pronounced, who claims to be a professional editor, alleged that Shy Girl's prose bore the hallmarks of a large language model. They cited the very things we saw in the text, as well as an interview where Ballard's responses also appeared AI-generated.
Barely a week later, booktuber Frankie Shelf released a nearly three-hour video essay breaking down the book, lambasting the story and writing, revealing that the original cover art was a cropped Win Lewis painting that Ballard had apparently found on Pinterest. Wow, that is so stupid. It's not even funny, which swings right back around to being funny. And once again alleging that the book was at least partially written with AI.
"It's so empty. It's flat in every way: themes, characters, plot, writing. And that is because, in my opinion, large chunks of this book were written with assistance from a generative AI."
Mia Ballard would actually leave a response on Frankie's video. "Hello, Frankie. This is genuinely heartbreaking to write because I've been a fan of your channel for a long time, but I need to clarify a few things. I did not edit or format Shy Girl myself. At the time, I didn't have the money for a professional editor or formatter. Those services are expensive, and I was working on a broken laptop, doing the best I could with what I had. Someone in my writing group offered to help and assured me she'd do a thorough job, so I trusted her. In the process, she also changed a lot of the wording and encouraged me to lean more poetic because that's my background, and I listened. I should have done one final careful pass before publishing, and that's on me. But the formatting and editing issues being pointed out are not present in the traditionally published edition. Most importantly, I did not use AI to write this book. What I can say is that the version you're referencing was edited by someone else, and I only later realized she may have run parts of it through an AI tool during her editing process. When my first book, Sugar, was edited by someone different, I never received these AI allegations. The accusations started after I used the same person for my novella, which I've since pulled, and for early versions of Shy Girl. I'm not able to watch the rest of the video for my mental health, but I needed you to hear this directly. Being a Black woman in the publishing space has been exhausting. I get attacked constantly when all I'm trying to do is write. Mia."
Okay, let's break this down. Firstly, leaving a public comment like this is not a good PR move, especially for such serious allegations. I'm no legal expert, but if she had to do something, I think either a formal public statement or an attempt at one-on-one correspondence with Frankie's Shelf would have been better.
Secondly, while I sympathize with not having money or support to ensure high-quality work, these are still skills you can learn for free and hone over time. And many of the mistakes I caught could have been easily rectified with a quick read-through, which I had done. Self-published authors with no money or support can still put out technically flawless works. So, I'm not sure how much water this explanation holds.
Thirdly, who is this writing group friend who purportedly workshopped Mia's book with AI? Have they come out? Have they been named? Did Mia not recognize LLM prose when she saw it? She claims that her prior book, Sugar, did not receive AI allegations and that had been workshopped by a different friend. I'm not saying Mia's lying, but this break in the case needed better handling and elaboration before being presented.
Fourthly, I'm not Mia Ballard. I don't know what kind of feedback she receives, and I don't doubt that some criticism and vitriol might be motivated by her being a Black woman, but bringing it up in this context does not sit well with me. It sounds like she's wielding the racially motivated attacks on her as a club and shield against Frankie's arguments, which were, although very critical, analytical, and neutral in their language. And that's just really scummy to me. Receiving hate for who you are is awful, but using said hate as a rhetorical tactic to try and guilt people into silence is also pretty bad.
Despite the controversy brewing for several weeks, it took an independent analysis from the New York Times in March of 2026 to finally convince Hatchet to pull the UK books, cancel the US release, and put out a statement voicing their commitment to original creative expression and storytelling. Mia Ballard would correspond with the New York Times, reiterating the culpability of the nefarious AI workshopper, pledging to pursue legal action, whatever that entails, and claiming, "This controversy has changed my life in many ways, and my mental health is at an all-time low, and my name is ruined for something I didn't even personally do."
Okay, that is, as of filming, what we know about the Shy Girl controversy. What are my thoughts? Well, assuming Mia is telling the truth about the nefarious AI workshopper, ultimately she herself was the one who published it. So, she bears full responsibility for how it turned out. I too would feel betrayed if a colleague hacked up my book with AI, and that person, whoever they are, deserves warm pillows and wet socks for the rest of their life.
But as a self-published writer, Mia was obligated to practice due diligence with assessing her own work, especially after someone else had a time at it. At a point, there is no more excuse. It's also shocking to me that nobody at Hatchet recognized AI-generated prose. We're always hearing about how GenAI is becoming better and more difficult to spot, but the excerpts I highlighted were almost meme-level AI prose. You could argue that not everybody knows how to recognize it, and that could apply to Mia, but surely the editors at Hatchet ought to have been in the know and on high alert. It took Redditors and YouTubers and investigative journalists to raise an alarm.
What does this say about the future of the industry? Hopefully, this was just a fluke and not the start of a pattern. Or, and this is a very grim possibility, Hatchet recognized the AI prose but published it anyway, only reversing their decision once the public outcry became too much to ignore.
But while this may sound very bleak, the silver lining is that the reading and writing communities are united and passionate enough against GenAI to cause real change. I think in this case, it's totally fine to look at the positives. That said, I personally try to blame stupidity before malice. So, unless something else comes out, I'll have to take Hatchet's word for it.
On another note, there's something to be said about not only recognizing AI prose, but also detecting it. For now, stuff like this is fairly easy to weed out, and the folks who raise concerns about Shy Girl were not only well-meaning, but also well-informed. However, there are times when meaning well isn't enough. AI paranoia has gripped readers and writers across social media. And anything that looks unorthodox or too similar to AI prose, even if it isn't, will be labeled as such. Remember, LLMs are trained off pre-existing data. If there are tells in AI prose, it's because a human author already wrote like that. Mash's XY phrasings are not unique to AI. We as humans own them. AI just copies us. Too many people have been slandered and attacked thanks to good intentions in this fight. Prudence and good faith are just as important as vigilance.
It's also worth noting that online AI detectors are not reliable. They call false positives and fail to detect actual AI prose enough times to put their integrity into question. They are not the be-all and end-all in this struggle. Full disclosure, I have used zero GPT in my own investigations of AI prose. However, I only use it to visually emphasize a point when I recognized AI prose on my own. The times I used it, it was already obvious, and it always came back between 90 and 100% certainty.
Finally, I should state that no matter how good AI prose gets, it can and must never replace human art. Regardless of their awareness or intent, Hatchet ultimately did the right thing by pulling the book. And I hope this case spurs other publishers to be more stringent against AI prose. I've said before that a society that delegitimizes immaterial things is one that's doomed to fail. And if we lose the immaterial concepts of creativity and human spirit to products and decreased output time, then ultimately we'll lose more than just that. Take care everyone. I'll see you all next time.