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courtneyfalling's review
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Dark feminist retellings of the myths in Ovid's Metamorphoses? Conceptually I'm so here. But this collection was... heavy and very viscerally in the characters' voices and experiences. I have to wonder who the intended audience is because people who pick up feminist Ovid retellings probably already agree that these stories are about gendered violence and likely have experienced gendered violence themselves, but this collection feels very sharp and potentially retraumatizing to that exact set of people. Not all the time, and not in an intentionally dangerous way, but still... this was pretty hard to get through at points and I had to wonder to what end.
Edit a few weeks later: the more I think about it, the more that the equation of sexual violence and vulnerability to cis womanhood in this book feels gender essentialist and slipping into TERFdom...
Edit a few weeks later: the more I think about it, the more that the equation of sexual violence and vulnerability to cis womanhood in this book feels gender essentialist and slipping into TERFdom...
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Domestic abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Stalking, Suicide, and Torture
Minor: Animal death, Cannibalism, Dysphoria, Lesbophobia, Pregnancy, and Transphobia
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