Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Acts of Service

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman

22 reviews

annajoybooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

yasmeenk's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

It was interesting to read about the experiences of a young woman exploring her sexuality and grappling with the impacts that exploration has on her life and existing relationships. She reflects on her own desires and seeks out the opinions of others to assist her. Fairly unlikeable but I appreciate the characters still. I feel like the end could have been a bit less abrupt and tied up more loose ends. Some points could have been a bit less abstract.

Content Warnings

rabebi's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark funny reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.0

this book sounded so interesting it took me on a journey of - what assumed to be some sort of self discovery. but in the end it lacks the revelation it builds up to.

Content Warnings

5_doogwood_drive's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

Jesus fuck, I don't know. It's exceptional, I'm not sure if exceptionally bad or good, but it's something. You won't like it if you hate Sally Rooney. And there's definitely way more sex than needed, even if the book is about sexual dynamics and stuff. Also too little sapphic stuff, I bought this because it was in the LGBTQ section of the book store, I wasn't really expecting reading so much about the sexual prowess of a straight guy. Still, there's something there, a real feeling, a real conflict, and the fact I'm still fighting with myself about this inspite of all the above... maybe I don't like rating books based on what's bad about them.

The book only makes sense if you assume Nathan actually did something bad to the woman who sued him.

Content Warnings

anka_not_anchor's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

God. How am I supposed to feel? This book is entrancing and gripping in so many ways. Focuses on major moral grey areas.

Content Warnings

librarianknight's review against another edition

Go to review page

Look, if I needed someone to tell me that rather than being with a woman I should be with a man who's sexually degrading and uncaring for my consent, and that other women are only my competition, I'd talk to my Catholic grandmother.

Also, I promise quotation marks are really cool and the lack of them doesn't elevate your writing whatsoever.

Content Warnings

glitterdeww's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

My feelings on this book went through so many iterations. I think there's a really salient point here that I finally placed in my update.

Acts of Service is primarily a study on sex. The plot is relatively thin from beginning to end, and serves to reinforce the psychological, cultural, and philosophical analyses of sex and sexuality through the main character, Eve. As her worldview shifts, Eve relates her personal beliefs to other characters, no matter how briefly they reside in the context of the story.

As one might expect, the scenes involving the act of sex are graphic, but it's the energy around these scenes... the ways in which sex is tied to attraction, class, vanity, monogamy, consent, kink, control, and freedom... That seemed, at least to me, to be the most challenging. And similarly, the additional characters of Olivia and Nathan are... Difficult. So many of their intentions were left walking the line between selfish, cruel, and pitiful.

The prose used throughout the book can be excellent, almost hypnotic. It both confused and fascinated me, very much like a slow moving car crash. I still don't know if or how I liked it.

~*EDIT from a week later*~

This book has been nagging at me for days now, and I think I've hit on a "more" conclusive review after remembering tiny aspects to the writing that, in retrospect, are very intelligent and very important.

There are a number of lines in this book that felt like throwaways as I was reading it... But I think they were intentionally placed to pull the reader back from reaching the same conclusions as the main character. When I said before that the plot of this book is thin... In regards to action in the plot, that still is true. The most notable events in this book took place within Eve's character, and the changes in her are meant to be unsettling. Initially I wasn't sure if the author meant to convince the reader of any argument the characters make, but when remembering those throw away lines...

A cult joke, a hint that Nathan may have actually been Olivia's college professor, comments about a LACK of communication being ideal, boundary violations all over the place, Olivia's visible anxious ticks...

...None of these are meant to convince the reader of anything, but they are all intentionally meant to pull the reader into discomfort just as Eve is choosing to disregard them. The book is also framed with two passages on feminism which painfully illustrate how Eve's beliefs have changed.

I saw another review where the individual asked, "Did any other lesbians read, and actually like, this book?" That comment put the final pin in my thoughts on the writer's intention, because who IS the audience for this book? It's fellow queer folks, women, progressively minded and sex-positive individuals that probably look a lot like Eve at the beginning of the story. The book is not meant to criticize any progressive cultural practices, like queerness, kink, nonmonogamy, etc, but rather to show how, when constant pressure is applied by systems like patriarchy, we can change our worldviews in such a subtle way that we don't even realize it. If you cease to think critically why you align yourself with particular groups or labels, your "ideals" are more easily corruptible. And that's terrifying. No, this was not an enjoyable read, it was damn depressing. That's the point.

Eve thinks towards the beginning that men like Nathan... Cold, calculating, privileged... had "gone out of style." This is a reminder that if you ignore a pervasive problem by acting like it has already gone away, it will eventually corrupt you.

Content Warnings