Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

44 reviews

evelynepisodes's review

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Found the book too disturbing for me. I wasn’t interested in a book about rape and murder. I’m happy for that to be a part of the book but not the overall theme of the book.

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gracewiley's review against another edition

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

5.0


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nialiversuch's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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queen_of_the_rats's review

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dark emotional sad medium-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

2.0


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emilyandthewhippet's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-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

4.0


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michellewalsh's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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emmacartlidge's review

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75


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guivx5's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective 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

3.0

God, this took me ELEVEN days to read. Thank God it’s over

“The Silence of The Girls” relies on the famous Iliad story, a tale with so many different takes and interpretations that it has come to be known, even if just a bit, by everyone. I myself have started to enjoy stories based on greek epics when I first read Madeline Miller’s books. So I had high hopes on this one. And, honestly, it had everything to be really good. The dense characters; the abuses inflicted towards women, usually omitted in retellings; a rich scenario to explore. It had the bread and cheese, and it could’ve been a hell of a lunch. If the writing wasn’t such a slog.

Look, I’ve really tried to like this one. I really did. But getting through the chapters turned into a battle. The author writes like this, using commas repeatedly through the paragraphs, often turning phrases into a mess, a big mess, of convoluted information, agonizing confusion, crossing each other, making the long paragraphs often composed of one or two sentences. It. Is. Really. Exhausting. This, mixed with the questionable narrative choices, made this book the biggest slog for me.

Overall, it’s The Iliad in some way, so it’s good in some way, although I do feel that this book is not so friendly towards people who don’t have much knowledge about the original story. It’s sad it turned out this way for me.

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froggybooks's review against another edition

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

4.0

nearly cried

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velokei's review

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dark sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • 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

3.25

How do I even begin to describe how I feel about this book. 
I like it in the way you like an ugly but healthy puppy, is it ugly? Yes, but it’s still living and breathing and you end up developing an attachment to it anyway. I could barely put it down, but at the same time I really wanted to put it down. 
Briseis (our main character) is boring and just bland. I don’t like her and that should not be the case!  In a book supposedly meant to be centred around women, why is there only one woman’s pov but two mens? And why are both the men far more interesting than the woman? Pat if you wanted to write specifically just about Patroclus and Achilles, that’s okay! My favourite parts of the book involved just the two of them. 
I also don’t get why the last line is ‘Now, my own story can begin’ if the books whole point was supposed to be the story of Briseis, and I didn’t like the changes to the myth including who she marries and
The reveal of her pregnancy, like??? Bit weird but okay 


Tldr
Loved Patrochilles moments 
Hated Briseis she was boring 
Didn’t like the changes to the myth 
This didn’t feel very feminist 

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