Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Outlawed by Anna North

92 reviews

spcandybars's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny 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

4.25

This book puts me in a complicated feeling. It starts off promising. A well established setting and lore and quick progression between scenes and events. It’s just the last maybe fourth of the book that begins to lose the plot. It feels like a story the author wasn’t sure how to finish. It’s not about any one relationship so it can focus on the dynamic of the world but I believe not developing the dynamics of the core found family is actually a detriment in this case. It’s a fairly short story that honestly needs a bit of fleshing 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility

Moderate: Death, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Homophobia, and Gun violence

linzomatic's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Infertility

Moderate: Mental illness, Homophobia, and Religious bigotry

ripxw's review

challenging emotional inspiring 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abortion, Gun violence, Infertility, Medical content, Pregnancy, Medical trauma, Racism, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Misogyny, Rape, Terminal illness, Death, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Forced institutionalization, Sexual violence, and Homophobia

hope_gabrielle_'s review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy

Moderate: Infertility and Abortion

Minor: Grief, Homophobia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Racism, Death, Dysphoria, Suicide attempt, Violence, Miscarriage, Self harm, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Mental illness, and Medical trauma

readinghavoc's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative fast-paced

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

4.5

I had a really good time reading this. It felt like exactly the type of thing I needed to kickstart my end-of-year reading/get me out of a small reading slump. It was exciting to get to see so many diverse types of queerness and identity in a setting where those histories are often erased. This novel managed to get a lot done in a short space while not feeling overly rushed. 

I'm really fucking upset about Lark, though. Who would have guessed I could simp so hard for a man? I'm still mourning his life with Ada in Pagosa Springs. I do wish there was more of a clear build-up to Ada being ready to take over Alice's surgery, but I also think given the pace of the book, it was still really well done. 

Yay for queer cowboys! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Outing, Gun violence, Abortion, Ableism, Homophobia, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Suicidal thoughts, and Murder

Minor: Sexual violence, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Excrement, and Incest

sullivc5's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

It's Billy the kid meets the handmaid's tale  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Sexism, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Religious bigotry, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, and Death

Minor: Torture, Domestic abuse, Rape, Miscarriage, and Suicide

melissalivanos's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective 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

3.75

It was a good book, but hard to read sometimes. The dystopic “if a woman can’t have a baby, she’s a witch who needs to be hanged” tone is rough to stomach in the current political climate. But I liked the characters, the plot, the ending, and the prose. The novel successfully examined the themes it set out to examine, and left me with a lot of thoughts and feelings. It’s just not the kind of book I’m in a place to dolly enjoy right now. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexism, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Homophobia, Suicide attempt, and Miscarriage

arielanderic's review against another edition

emotional lighthearted slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Gun violence, Homophobia, and Animal death

Moderate: Death

rachaelreading's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed “Outlawed” well enough… but I really wanted to love this book. The synopsis totally grabbed me. The Wild West with a feminist and queer twist? Sign me up! 

That brings me to best part of this book: the plot and the world. This is sort of a John Wayne meets a Handmaid’s Tale type universe in which women are persecuted for infertility. Our main character Ada is one such woman, who at only eighteen years old has to flee her town and leave her family behind after failing to conceive a child. As you’d know from reading the back of the book, this is eventually how she falls in with a gang of outlaws. The world-building is a bit clunky, but once I got a handle on the alt-history timeline, I was really able to immerse myself and enjoy the ambience of the setting.

Although I loved the world, I didn’t love the characters. Actually, I didn’t feel much of anything at all for these characters. To be perfectly honest, Ada is not a particularly strong lead and undergoes virtually no meaningful development through the course of the narrative. Flatness actually plagues pretty much all of the characters in this story. The Hole in the Wall gang is composed of women and the Kid (AFAB) whose backstories aren’t elaborated on until the last 60 pages and whose characterization can be broken down into one or two words apiece. The most interesting thing about the Hole in the Wall gang (outside of the plot happening around them) is that as a society of women, they take a queer approach to gender. Most of the gang spend their time dressed as men, and it’s heavily implied that the Kid is non-binary or genderqueer. I’ve seen other people saying that these gender dynamics were confusing, but I personally feel that they were just poorly fleshed out.

“Poorly fleshed out” pretty well sums up my biggest gripe with this novel. Unfortunately, it felt like Anna North tried to tackle too many topics (race, sexuality, gender, mental illness, feminism) and ended up failing to really generate any meaningful commentary on any of them. At best, a lot of this feels rushed and at worst it borders on insensitive. Ada, our first person narrator, is white, cisgendered and heterosexual. This means that many of the themes that are touched on in this novel only impact two-dimensional side characters. News and Lark feel like they only exist in order to allow racism or homophobia to make an appearance, but as neither of them are well-developed characters it ends up feeling like tragic tokenism rather than representation.

TLDR; a fun enough read in an interesting world, but the characters and writing lack depth.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility

Moderate: Homophobia, Miscarriage, and Racism

wulfhorstmom's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Misogyny, Gun violence, Infertility, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia