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weetziebot's review
4.0
you know that song by the Bee Gees, "Tragedy"? This book is kind of like that.
bundy23's review
DNF. 25%. Badly written and just not my thing. The introduction was interesting though.
stevia333k's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.25
like mainly the reason to read this book is to learn about outdated standards people still get held too & people in our community have been held to. if this was a romance then this would get 3 or less stars. there's more sexual assault scenes than there are romance scenes. (in fact, the commentary is that assault is normalized as the default.) the book breathes with marry-or-die, there's discussions about conversion torture, the F/F couple doesn't get a happy ending, though ones were proposed in one of the characters imaginings. this is also a commentary on institutions, pushout, patriarchy & classism, so my review will focus more on those elements of social commentary & navigating institutions. i should mention that the bluebloodedness of the class analysis means there's almost no characters of color, which is why this isn't a 5 star book since as I read this book I gave less a shit about the romance & more about the institutional abuse. Fractions of a star if able, I'd give 4.25-4.5.
[placeholder for where i'll talk about that commentary:
PS I'm reading the book "complaint" by sara ahmed from 2022 november-december because I found out about it from PhilosophyTube's Catch-22 videoessay & I was able to pick it up from my local library's emedia. that book covers a lot of it with even more insight into how womxn of color get treated. but the stuff about maybe problems in building solidarity among feminists would probably be a thing to continue about.
There was also a memoir youtube video by a black woman about my age who's on spiritual tiktok, where she explains how white bourgeois people network & form their (boy's) clubs.]
there's a lot of symbolism that i missed in this book, but i caught on to enough of it & getting the vibe that things were inserted as symbols, so that might be a fun thing (for example, this book has given me ideas of doing like oracle cards but using greek letters, similar to how there are oracle runes that focus on norse letters). i mention this because the scathing critique of institutionalized courtship & the heterosexist patriarchal policies of the era suggests to me that i need to look into it. (seriously, one of the characters is named "lucifer", so. I think the book said he was a person of color, but it's kind of vague. For example, he also mentioned being Russian & as someone in 2022 I'm not clear on what that means because of how young the USSR was. Considering the red scare went after both communists & anti-racists, it seems as if he's some sort of blurry caricature.)
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Epsilon as a greek letter in STEM is used to talk about membership. It's also used in Coulombs Law to model how well electrical charges are attracted/repelled from each other
Sigma is used to talk about summation
Delta is used to talk about change
Rho is used for density, resistivity, something about organism cell regulation, and something about statistics i don't understand.
[placeholder for where i'll talk about that commentary:
PS I'm reading the book "complaint" by sara ahmed from 2022 november-december because I found out about it from PhilosophyTube's Catch-22 videoessay & I was able to pick it up from my local library's emedia. that book covers a lot of it with even more insight into how womxn of color get treated. but the stuff about maybe problems in building solidarity among feminists would probably be a thing to continue about.
There was also a memoir youtube video by a black woman about my age who's on spiritual tiktok, where she explains how white bourgeois people network & form their (boy's) clubs.]
there's a lot of symbolism that i missed in this book, but i caught on to enough of it & getting the vibe that things were inserted as symbols, so that might be a fun thing (for example, this book has given me ideas of doing like oracle cards but using greek letters, similar to how there are oracle runes that focus on norse letters). i mention this because the scathing critique of institutionalized courtship & the heterosexist patriarchal policies of the era suggests to me that i need to look into it. (seriously, one of the characters is named "lucifer", so. I think the book said he was a person of color, but it's kind of vague. For example, he also mentioned being Russian & as someone in 2022 I'm not clear on what that means because of how young the USSR was. Considering the red scare went after both communists & anti-racists, it seems as if he's some sort of blurry caricature.)
---
Epsilon as a greek letter in STEM is used to talk about membership. It's also used in Coulombs Law to model how well electrical charges are attracted/repelled from each other
Sigma is used to talk about summation
Delta is used to talk about change
Rho is used for density, resistivity, something about organism cell regulation, and something about statistics i don't understand.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Alcohol, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Confinement, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Gaslighting, Trafficking, Bullying, Medical trauma, Outing, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Body shaming, Car accident, Child abuse, Classism, Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Gore, Dementia, Racial slurs, and Racism
eddieharrison's review
3.0
Embarassing to all contemporary pulp how well the romance is written. Sort of an incredible little time capsule.
jored's review
2.0
This was a difficult read. Really interesting historically, but storywise it was frustrating, repetitive and the main characters were flat to unlikeable. It started off ok-ish, but the small amount of character development that happened in the first half of the book was non-existent in the second half of the book.
I know that the book was immensely popular when it was released, but I really wonder how queer women in the 50s
felt after reading this.
I know that the book was immensely popular when it was released, but I really wonder how queer women in the 50s
felt after reading this.
jnarhi's review
fast-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
ebt137's review
4.0
I was actually surprised at how erotic this was. I liked it! Ignoring the end of course, which is good for a laugh I suppose. Of course Mitch hadn't loved Leda the entire time! That's why they had erotic passionate sex that was a million times steamier than any description of any of the guys. Of course Mitch had just been duped, that's why she'd always only had crushes on girls. Of course!
mandygollaher's review against another edition
sad
tense
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? No
2.0