Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

15 reviews

isaacrubberducky's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book is another great addition to the Discworld series, but it comes with a caveat. Here and there Discworld has the occasional fat-phobic joke. It is annoying but it does not usually come up very often. However, this book is about opera ... it comes up a lot. 

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achingallover's review against another edition

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funny 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

4.0


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sonia_447's review against another edition

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adventurous funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.0


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questingnotcoasting's review against another edition

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

3.5

The Witches are my favourite Discworld series but I thought this was the weakest one so far. However I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Indira Varma with Bill Nighy and Peter Serafinowicz and I definitely enjoyed the story more because of that. The plot was pretty entertaining but I missed some references because I'm not really familiar with the story of The Phantom Of The Opera. Also I didn't feel like Agnes was dealt with particularly sympathetically as a fat character which did affect my enjoyment a bit. 

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mcmanduke's review against another edition

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

4.0

Always love a witches story! 

This one does age itself a bit since it's clearly written in response to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical hype at the time. As a musical theatre nerd kid in the 90s I found it nostalgic if a little heavy handy with the references. 

The fat jokes are pure 90s cringe but if we forgive for the era it was written, it is a bit ahead of it's time. Featuring a young, fat, woman character striking out on her own and becoming aware of just how rare and important intelligence can be in the world. 

While all the witches' appearances get mentioned throughout their stories, it does seem like the younger witches (Magrat, Agnes) get a harsher treatment. 

I hope we see Agnes continue to grows in her strengths without a "makeover." (The ending has me a tiny bit concerned on that front.)  

It was also nice to see Granny reflect and grow a bit. Nanny and Greebo are always a delight. 

Overall, a really enjoyable story!

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tl_mathews's review against another edition

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adventurous funny 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

2.0

I love Discworld as a whole, but this was one of the harder ones to get through for me just due to the rampant fatphobia.  I still love the characters of the witches, and there are some really good moments in the book, but I'd probably skip this on re-reads.

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bookgraham's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious relaxing fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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3.75

Granny Weatherwax is a pretty neat character idea, but she’s also my biggest frustration with the Witches subseries. She’s mean, passive-aggressive, won’t admit she’s wrong, and determined to make people do what she thinks is best for them regardless of their opinions on the matter. Luckily for my enjoyment of this book, Granny is slowly starting to get a little bit better, and Agnes, the third protagonist along with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, is even more fed up with Granny than I am. 

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg have decided that Agnes should become their third witch now that Magret has escaped from under Granny’s thumb. Agnes, though, hates the very idea, and instead takes her spectacular vocal talent to Ankh-Morpork to become an opera singer. Granny and Nanny come up with an excuse to follow her there and interfere. Also the plot of Phantom of the Opera is going on, complete witha mysterious black-suited mask-wearing opera house “ghost,” murders, and a gorgeous lead singer named Christine (although this Christine can’t actually sing). 

Agnes is prodigiously fat, and though this doesn’t bother her in the slightest, there is a lot of fatphobia from others and some of the humor is based around fatphobic jokes. Although there is quite a bit of actual humor, as well. It’s definitely not as funny as some of the other Discworld books, but I think it’s the funniest of the Witches books so far. 

There’s not really anything here that I would call a main plot. There’s the whole Phantom of the Opera thing, which mainly becomes a whodunit mystery trying to figure out who is the opera house ghost so they can stop him from murdering people, Agnes trying to find where she fits into the world of opera, Granny doing her best to meddle in everything (with Nanny cheerfully along for the ride), and a very bizarre subplot about an Ankh-Morpork-born opera singer pretending to be a foreigner and really hating how everyone goes out of their way to feed him foreign food that he doesn’t like but requesting the Ankh-Morpork food he does like would blow his cover. No, I’m not sure what the point is supposed to be either. 

Though I can’t say I’m a particular fan of how things worked out for Agnes in the end, overall this was a solid book. It kept me interesting, it made me laugh, I liked Agnes a lot, and Granny Weatherwax’s more enraging aspects were toned down. It’s not my favorite Discworld book, but it’s definitely not my least favorite, and it may be my favorite of the Witches books so far. 

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sockandkey's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.75


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chemicalcain's review against another edition

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2.0

Lots of ableism and fatphobia in this one. By that I mean fatness is one of the primary jokes. One of my least favorite Pratchett books so far.

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