Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

50 reviews

gon_fishing's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Grief, Homophobia, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

blueroo's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Really good read but the triggers are incredible. If you have a trigger, this book WILL activate it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Child death, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Rape, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Misogyny, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Incest, Grief, Gore, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Drug use, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Death, Chronic illness, Bullying, Body shaming, Blood, Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, and Abandonment

Moderate: Vomit

savannahbennem's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

not too happy with this book, i know a lot of people like it but i couldn’t get into it as much, super slow paced and i kind of regret reading it i could only read like 50 pages at a time without getting bored, but the ending was good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Vomit

mlarick's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

definitely recommend checking out trigger warnings!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Murder, Emotional abuse, Child death, Child abuse, and Alcohol

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, and Grief

Minor: Sexual content, Sexism, Misogyny, Cancer, Bullying, Body shaming, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

missbee1239's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

3.5

This book overall was a good read. It was very interesting to try and figure out who killed these girls. The beginning of the book and the end kept me engaged but the middle was a little hard to get through. I'm glad I did though because the ending was probably my favorite part of the entire book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Misogyny, Gaslighting, Drug use, Death, Murder, and Physical abuse

geetswrites's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Phenomenal read. Gripping, twisting, piercing. The interweaving of the mystery/thriller elements and Camille's life, family and history was stellar. I've fallen in love with the way Gillian Flynn writes women, their complicated messiness, their individualism, their darknesses. I guessed the ending, or rather the answer to the mystery, fairly early on, but the point of the book was never that in the first place. The way Flynn keeps up the push and pull among the characters, the intrigue and the overwhelming feeling of impending doom throughout was especially masterful. The foreshadowing was just the right amount of eerie, innocuous where it needed to be for revelatory moments to feel especially satisfying, and glaring where the ominous realities needed to be spotlighted.

Camille's relationships— with her mother, with Amma, with side characters like Curry and Richard and John, but most importantly with herself— will stay with me for a long, long time. There are hauntingly relatable moments throughout, and for all its extreme severity, the core of the story is rooted in perfectly believable awfulness. The exploration of motherhood, daughterhood and selfhood as intertwined, bitter experiences supplemented by all the gruesome, unflinching imagery was revolting, painful and positively brilliant.

I can't possibly fit everything I think and feel about this book into this review, so I hope it suffices to say that I'm now completely enamoured by Flynn's writing, characters and thematic choices. Everything else she's ever written is immediately making it to the top of my TBR list. What an author.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Drug use, Medical content, Medical trauma, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Violence, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Minor: Cancer, Fatphobia, Gore, and Homophobia

kodi_rae's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Not quite as compelling as Gone Girl and Dark Places but still very compelling. I think my main critique is that the ending felt a bit rushed. I’m excited to see what the show adaptation is like!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Moderate: Body shaming, Rape, Self harm, and Sexual assault

princessgonchar's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This flip-flopped back and forth for me between being painfully unsurprising and insufferably confusing all while being such a slow crawl to the end for being under 300 pages.

I'll start with painfully unsurprising. Granted, this was published in 2006, but this idea of

crazy mother who wants to take care of her kids so she makes them sick

feels so overplayed at this point, and it was clear that that was happening from the beginning. Also

Amma was a bitch the whole time and it was obvious that Adora couldn't poison the kids who weren't hers

. Like I just wanted an ounce of surprise.

The problem is that there was some surprise, but it came in the form of total nonsense. Like why in the world would

Camille sleep with John????

. It came out of literally no where, and I think there was supposed to be something endearing about the reading of the scars, but it all just felt so contrived and weird. Almost nothing Camille did at the end of the book made sense to me. And there were a significant amount of times were I was just like "why??? why is this happening????". 

Also, I unequivocally hated every single character in this book. I want to make it clear that I didn't not like this book/its characters because it/they felt overly dark or it/they wasn't feminist enough. I mean the book is about child murder, it's going to be dark (and tbh nothing bothered me too much except for the

incessant eyelash picking, but I have a weird thing about eyes, so

), and if you're reading thrillers for the feminist theory, then I think there are more problems at hand.

That being said: Camille wasn't endearing or even remotely sympathetic, there was literally no reason why she should have gone back to Missouri or why she stayed. I don't think the journalism thing was convincing enough. Richard sucked, her family sucked harder, and there was literally not a single character that made me go "well, at least they're in this scene." It was a constant battle of the characters to see who ended up my least favorite. And I hate to say it, but it might have been Camille.

I gave it two stars instead of one because I do genuinely think Gillian Flynn is good at writing. The voice in the novel was really good, and I liked a lot of the descriptions (even if it slowed things down a bit). Also, the reveal at the end with the

teeth in the dollhouse was really well done, even if Amma was clearly the murderer the whole time

. 

This was such a disappointment for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Excrement, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Self harm, Torture, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Minor: Rape

avocet's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Violence, and Vomit

wayneslibrary's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit