Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

9 reviews

abookdork's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Sexual violence, Misogyny, Animal cruelty, Torture, and Violence

valjeanval's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Beukes is a great writer and thorough researcher who created a cast of interesting, powerful, complicated women throughout time. It just sucks that most of them are murder victims. I think I understand conceptually her desire to give voice and depth to the as she calls them “pretty corpses” of crime thrillers, and she does that, but the genre itself is still limiting. The murderer is misogyny person, literally killing women who would otherwise change the world. It’s a solid metaphor, but a frustrating read.

Also, while the time travel element is cool, the paradoxes always hurt my brain a bit. The writing was good enough that my suspension of disbelief was only strained rather than snapping.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, Gore, Misogyny, Medical trauma, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Death, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Stalking

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Antisemitism, Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Outing, and Suicide

Minor: Racism, Transphobia, Sexism, Abortion, and Gun violence

aemowers's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, Blood, and Sexual assault

Minor: Homophobia and Transphobia

jamiejanae_6's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Abortion, Alcohol, Grief, Animal cruelty, Classism, Cursing, Gore, Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Stalking, Sexism, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence

megwilli's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Murder, Violence, and Stalking

arthur_ant18's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Stalking, Animal death, Death, Murder, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Racism, Transphobia, and Drug abuse

Minor: Abortion and Homophobia

jessie_roz's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence and Murder

morriganivy's review against another edition

dark funny sad slow-paced

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

2.5

I enjoyed reading this book but it wasn't a good book. It was funny where it should have been tense.

The shining girls suffers from the author being unable to choose what type of story she wants to tell. Instead of picking a narrative or theme or genra to use it uses a huge mix and doesn't really succeed with any of them. 

The author as well has an obsession of telling us about every single character's sex life, even when it doesn't have any effect on the plot. It feels almost like a sexual grocery list when reading. I don't mind sex being in books or important to narrtives but it feels more like it's trying to sexualise murder victims than it does add anything to the story. 

Another issue I have is that while the book has a diverse array of characters almost all the diversity is in the characters who are brutally murdered and only appear for one or two short chapters over the whole book. On top of that the author leans heavily into sterotypes for them, making it feel more like the diversity was placed in to add to the 'shock' value that it relys on heavily. 

This isn't helped by the three main white protagonists being very unlikeable and boring. Kirby and Dan have a creepy romance that feels like padding through book, which doesn't get resolved by the end of the book. Harper (the serial killer) has the best sections to read but only because he is the worst serial killer ever, he gets caught and beaten up constantly.

My last note is that the book doesn't read like a well crafted narrative. It feels like you are slapped in the face with 'important' plot constantly but most elements get dropped or don't actually go anywhere. Even major plot points have this issue, by the end of the book there are no sastifying anwsers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Murder, Racial slurs, Sexism, Transphobia, and Sexual violence

unicorndave's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

3.5

The killing scenes are particularly brutal, as they are told from the victims' perspectives. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Blood, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual violence, Stalking, Torture, Transphobia, and Violence