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Twitter users have noted that the book reads like a hit piece against Rowling’s critics.

In recent years, J.K. Rowling, creator of the critically-acclaimed Harry Potter novels, has become a deeply controversial person in the publishing industry. Rowling has repeatedly shared controversial opinions on a variety of social matters, in particular becoming an extremely disliked figure in the transgender community. This week, Rowling released a new novel, and onlookers have noted more than a few backhanded references to her controversies.

The book, titled The Ink Black Heart, follows a cartoonist named Edie Ledwell who is hounded and persecuted by a mysterious pursuer online after creating a cartoon deemed to be racist, ableist and transphobic. Online users quickly noticed the similarities between this plot and the many controversies and protests directed at Rowling herself.

“She has published a 1,000-page self-insert fanfiction where she’s the victim—it’s the kind of behavior that you’d expect from a petulant teenager, not a grown adult with immense wealth and power,” Lark Malakai Gray, co-host of the queer Harry Potter podcast The Gayly Prophet told NPR. “I have no idea what she expected, but seeing the internet fill with jokes about the book has been an absolute joy after all the harm she has caused my community over the past several years.”

✍️ JK Rowling's new thriller sees a female celebrity hounded by self-righteous children's fantasy fans.

Read the full review 👇 https://t.co/ewl7gNY3WG

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) August 27, 2022

Rowling, for her part, insists that any similarities between the story and her life are a coincidence, as it was allegedly already a finished manuscript by the time her controversies began.

“Although I have to say when it did happen to me, those who had already read the book in manuscript form were [like] – are you clairvoyant?” Rowling, under the pen name Robert Galbraith, wrote on the book’s website. “I wasn’t clairvoyant, I just – yeah, it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like.”