Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

11 reviews

thomasdj's review

challenging dark funny slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Addiction, Alcohol, Cursing, Drug use, Vomit, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual violence, Death, Sexual assault, Excrement, and Child abuse

Minor: Xenophobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Murder, Fatphobia, and Miscarriage

zoinkie's review

challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Death, Medical content, Racial slurs, Rape, Drug abuse, Drug use, Excrement, Sexual content, Alcohol, Racism, Vomit, Addiction, Classism, and Terminal illness

camila_v's review

dark funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

I won't give it 5 stars, because I enjoyed the movie more and it made the characters seem more... human? Empathetic? Idk
This book is acid, hard, bleak and hilarious at the same time. 

It's all written in modern scots, so be aware of that. I recommend making your own glossary, you'll need it. 

This book is also a trigger warning fest, it has almost all trigger warning possible except necrophilia or something like that.
It's not for the thin skinned, but if you can handle anything that an author throws at you from the perspective of a drug addict in the 90's.

It's super recommended, even if you have never seen the movie.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual violence, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Homophobia

Minor: Animal cruelty

rubster's review

dark slow-paced

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

3.75

once again book way better than the movie, in both good and bad ways. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Child death, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, and Drug abuse

my_a's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

It felt hyper-realistic, like people were filling me in on their lives. The style sucks you in. 

But I didn't get a lot of it. Seemed like a series of short stories rather than a novel. You get used to the dialect quickly but I found it difficult following who was narrating & who was being spoken about - so I'd know what was happening but not who it was between. Especially was confused by the switching people characters names and nicknames - but didnt want to google them and ruin any plot! Made it really hard to track characters and plot. Lots of moments seemed undeveloped and just left without follow up - particularly "The First Shag in Ages" chapter. Somes scenes and dialogue I found really disturbing and uncomfortable.

I think I need to watch the film and re-read it more intentionally.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Violence, Grief, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Torture, Miscarriage, Toxic friendship, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Racism, and Sexism

Moderate: Ableism, Trafficking, and Fatphobia

porporina's review

adventurous challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Violence, Grief, Murder, Animal cruelty, Rape, War, Ableism, Fatphobia, Gore, Abortion, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug use, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Excrement, Hate crime, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Self harm, Vomit, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, and Classism

quinnviv's review

adventurous dark reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

Was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I went into it knowing that it could be a difficult read due to the dialect however that was my main draw to the book for research purposes. What I initially set off on when starting the book changed entirely once I found myself in the world and with the characters, who I didn't necessarily like but seemed to care for in some way.

The way Welsh differentiates the characters point of views through the change in writing style and accent was marvellous and I loved the working class perspective on big topics. I would've loved to see more of Stevie's and Nina's character as they presented an interesting outsiders look into the depravity of the scene that Renton has found himself in. My only gripe with the book was that at times I found myself disappointed in the disappearance of story threads but the disjointed structure of the book seemed to reflect the headspace of its characters which I appreciated.

This structure of vignettes coming from multiple peoples perspectives rather than a fully cohesive story was reminiscent of sitting around a table with old friends and telling the highlights/lowlights of the past year. It treated the reader as smart, engaging with topics of systematic injustice for the working class in Britain with an educated but genuine voice of the lower class, as well as forcing you to infer gaps within the story.  The moments where the perspective was from a woman showed an appreciation for their resilience when not only are they systematically oppressed but also poorly treated by the misogynistic men in the story. 

Practically, reading this book allowed me to process the writing much easier as well as improved my Scottish accent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Misogyny, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, Death, Child abuse, Body horror, Sexism, Cursing, Animal cruelty, Drug use, Drug abuse, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Terminal illness, and Rape

Moderate: Alcoholism

edusa777's review

dark fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Alcoholism, Drug use, Drug abuse, and Child death

Moderate: Racism, Racial slurs, Fatphobia, Sexual harassment, and Sexual content

yossy_cookie's review

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

Trainspotting is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I actually didn't finish it the first time I read it, but recently came back and re-read it and ended up really enjoying it.

The main thing to be aware of is the writing style. The book is written entirely in Scottish dialect, quite a lot of which is phonetic, which forces you to read it in a Scottish accent and it also uses Scottish dialect words. It took me about 20 or so pages to get used to - once I was used to it, I was able to read at a reasonable speed and wasn't really thinking too much about it (until I got to a bit that I didn't understand and had to re-read/think about). I didn't like it at first but I did as the book went on, I felt that it got me more into the characters heads and lives. If you aren't used to the Scottish dialect though, I think that this would be a really difficult book to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Drug use, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Misogyny, and Sexual content

moonandmadness's review

dark emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

When I say this has every trigger warning under the sun, I mean it. Despite this, I don't feel the horrors contained in this novel ever lack self awareness. Although I can see an argument about cheap shock factor being exploited, I felt that the strength of this novel is facilitating empathy without ever glamourising, or glorifying the characters - an even more startling feat when considering how thoroughly unpleasant most of them are.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Child death, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Excrement, Fatphobia, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia