Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird

4 reviews

marshiereads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

I thought the premise was intriguing, but the science and perspectives fell short. They told mostly 30-40 something’s comfortable economically storied while telling us about really interesting things happening elsewhere like the civil war in what was China. The other thing is having literally lived through a pandemic now, the world didn’t react like it did in real life. They had one riot in the book about air travel and nothing else was mentioned (outside of the civil war in china). There was no anti-maskers or anti-vaxers, which I think should have felt good but it just made me angry honestly.

I didn’t like most of the characters you saw a decent amount of (Lisa and Katherine in particular), but found other people much more fascinating yet they were talked about for only a moment (the Russian woman and Rosamie). Amanda and Dawn were probably my favorite perspectives, with the southern standford researcher being the most forgettable. 

I think, if you’re going to do that large of a cast of characters, don’t make most of them from the UK or working in the UK, it’s literally most of them and they’re mostly sad and grieving which makes sense but doesn’t add to the overall narrative that a multi-perspective story generally does.

It’s worth a read but only just.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Body horror, Blood, Death, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Child death, Sexism, Terminal illness, Miscarriage, Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Physical abuse, Police brutality, and Vomit

liesthemoontells's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

On the balance, I enjoyed reading this book. It was easy to read, compelling, and did a good job at illustrating the multiplicities of grief throughout the book. However, this does get repetitive, and the number of viewpoints was excessive, yet still managed to overwhelmingly be straight, white, and western. The world building wasn't as well fleshed out as similar speculative plague fiction such as World War Z and in parts rang hollow.

I was also disappointed at how straight the book was - the one lesbian character who doesn't enter into a relationship with a woman out of necessity is an arrogant sociopath, and the stories of women who fall in love with women after most men have died out are kept at a distance from the reader through news articles and interviews. None of our first person characters enter into a WLW relationship other than the aforementioned sociopath.

It also isn't until 354 pages into a 403 page book that the author spends a moment considering what traumatic impact the Plague would have had on the trans community, treating them like the afterthought that the sole trans character in the book ironically calls out the medical establishment for doing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Infertility, Medical trauma, Violence, Grief, Terminal illness, and Medical content

Moderate: Suicide, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Self harm, Toxic friendship, and Suicidal thoughts

cady_sass's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is so ridiculously good, I don’t have words. This is a dystopian reality that is 100% believable and so, so interesting to think about and reflect on. Weaved through the compelling stories of multiple women across, predominately, Europe, it expertly asks the question, how different would the world be without men? How do we allocate labor and essential jobs, food, sperm (literally)? How to the small amount of remaining men function, how do they react? Does this change the way women view and accept their sexuality? My god I could talk for an hour about how fascinating this is. Just do yourself a favor and read it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Death, Suicide, Cursing, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Medical content, Chronic illness, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Child death, Alcohol, Infertility, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Misogyny, Murder, and Self harm

auteaandtales's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Grief, Infertility, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Racism, Gun violence, War, Cancer, Car accident, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicide, Trafficking, and Transphobia