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withlivjones's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
A really interesting and detailed feminist study in response to Joseph Campbell’s famous 1949 book. Tatar explores a massive range of heroines, from ancient mythology to folk tales to contemporary books and films. There are so many different case studies that just shows how there really isn’t one way to be a heroine - unlike Campbell’s hero with 1000 faces and his model of the hero’s journey, there are so many ways in which female characters can do heroic and transgressive deeds.
A few things:
- There is a fairly wide range of source material that Tatar discusses, but I noticed that particularly with the contemporary texts they were quite Western-focused; I would have loved to see, for example, a discussion on the heroines of Studio Ghibli films or Shoujo manga.
- While the book is interesting, there’s a lot of quite dense prose to wade through, and so I found that the book ended up feeling a bit repetitive and losing the full effect of its messages.
- Prepare to have many many books and films spoiled for you - the sheer volume of case studies is great but it also means that a lot of plots get spoiled within a paragraph so that the heroines of said plots can be discussed in depth (for example, if you’re still catching up on GoT I would avoid the last chapter).
A few things:
- There is a fairly wide range of source material that Tatar discusses, but I noticed that particularly with the contemporary texts they were quite Western-focused; I would have loved to see, for example, a discussion on the heroines of Studio Ghibli films or Shoujo manga.
- While the book is interesting, there’s a lot of quite dense prose to wade through, and so I found that the book ended up feeling a bit repetitive and losing the full effect of its messages.
- Prepare to have many many books and films spoiled for you - the sheer volume of case studies is great but it also means that a lot of plots get spoiled within a paragraph so that the heroines of said plots can be discussed in depth (for example, if you’re still catching up on GoT I would avoid the last chapter).
Content Warnings
Minor: Eating disorder, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Rape, Death, Gun violence, Incest, Misogyny, Murder, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, and War
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