Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

38 reviews

_alyssar_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Body shaming, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Child death, Death, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Trafficking

avaa1000's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Toxic friendship, Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Bullying

strawberrymushie's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Classism, Blood, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Body shaming, and Death of parent

spex's review against another edition

Fat shaming & Anti-Semitism in the first chapter

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming and Antisemitism

lct's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia and Body shaming

Moderate: Toxic friendship and Bullying

Minor: Death of parent and Homophobia

cozywithraven's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Gore, Genocide, Misogyny, and Cultural appropriation

Minor: Slavery

soph22's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia and Body shaming

niseag's review against another edition

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming and Fatphobia

Moderate: Sexism

kaziaroo's review

adventurous dark funny medium-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

3.5

I picked this up because I enjoyed the film, although I didn't realise it was based on a children's book. It did contain some very undisguised dark themes though, so if it wasn't for the age of the characters, the writing style and some of the humour, I'd be tempted to call it YA.

It's a shame to see that children's stories still rely on fatphobia and making fun of "ugly" people for humour, and there was a lot of stereotyping of what "good" and "evil" people look like – although a lot of this is critiqued by the narrative, there were some blurred lines: for example, while we are shown that being mean to Dot about her fatness is bad, the author also mentions her size nearly every time she appears, and her size and appetite makes up most of her characterisation. Thankfully, there wasn't a hooked nose in sight, unlike in the film. 

While the plot dragged a bit in places, I really enjoyed the characters in this book and loved the portrayal of a character's descent into madness and the protagonists' respective identity crises. It was a really fun, if dark, read.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Fatphobia, Medical content, Body shaming, Bullying, Violence, War, Animal cruelty, Sexism, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Lesbophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Xenophobia, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Mental illness

kllyholt's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.25

I found this book to be funny & interesting in the way it’s addressing fairytale such as beauty = good and ugly = evil. Unfortunately I cannot tell if the author is attempting to actually subvert those tropes and is doing a poor job at it, or genuinely agrees with them, because in the end 

Agatha becomes beautiful to look at and Sophie turns into a hideous witch, even though prior to that everyone was surprised that beautiful Sophie could be evil and plain Agatha could be good- which was much better in my opinion.

 
I’m assuming it’s more towards the latter, which is incredibly disappointing to see. The story itself is still rather entertaining and I’m interested to see where it goes so I will probably finish out the series, but I hope the way these tropes are addressed changes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming and Toxic friendship