Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Tomboyland: Essays by Melissa Faliveno

3 reviews

ciararenaud's review

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Dysphoria, Gun violence, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Alcohol, Animal death, Sexual violence, Biphobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Grief, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Sexism

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, and Classism

katsbooks's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

"In a small town, the promises of religion are the language of protection..."

"I wonder, sometimes, if I believed in God, would I still feel so afraid?" 

"In a small midwestern town, darkness gets buried like a secret."

"So often, though, the things we hope to be true about ourselves and the things we really want are incongruous."

"...bucking a traditional system is never easy."

"It takes a great deal of privilege--by way of money, education, and access--to live within one's ideals."

"...there are no good guys or bad guys. There is only us."

I really enjoyed this collection of essays. Faliveno's writing was really amazing. I liked how the essays were split up into sections. The sections made it easy to pause when I needed to since the essay's were a little longer than I liked. I also liked how the different sections tied together larger themes within each essay, however, sometimes the sections could be a little disjointed. I expected these essays to focus more on gender and sexuality, and while that is definitely a large focus of many of the essays, they explore much more than that. I identified with a lot of the author's conversation on what it's like to grow up as a woman in the Midwest. In addition to midwestern culture, gender and sexuality, the text also explored themes like motherhood, grief, cultural expectations, gun culture and one essay about moths that, I have to admit, I didn't quite understand. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Death, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Sexism, and Sexual content

Moderate: Abortion and Pedophilia

ashlyn's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, Rape, Pregnancy, and Biphobia

Minor: Drug use, Gun violence, Abortion, and Eating disorder