Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

19 reviews

andremay's review against another edition

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4.5


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aquariusvintage's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • 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

2.5


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star_oats's review against another edition

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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? Yes

1.0

Wasted my time with this book. I had to slog through the endless sexism and slutshaming only for none of them to have any semblance of character depth and development and for the plot twist and ending to be so underwhelming. 

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breegoux's review against another edition

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Three racist terms or references 7% of the way in. Authors need to do better

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giulsfloris's review against another edition

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

1.0

To me, this book was just… boring, predictable and pretentious. The characters weren’t well developed, they were annoying and overall badly described. They lacked depth and fell into a bunch of stereotypes. The women were used as a plot device more than once and didn’t have anything interesting to add.

It baffles me that this book has such good reviews since it also contains racist slurs and is filled with misogyny and sexism. Even worse, there’s no actual redemption or growth for these people. I personally don’t like static characters who don’t take opportunities to grow and change. This is narrated by an adult man’s point of view and yet it lacks the maturity and understanding of what a bunch of almost-adults did.

I considered DNFing this so many times so I skipped a bunch of boring parts in the second half of the book (especially since half of it is basically just Shakespeare dialogues copied and pasted into the story, you could really say he co-authored this thing), and I eventually finished it but boi was this disappointing. I don’t dislike Shakespeare, I studied some of his works at both high school and university, so I was convinced I’d like this book, but I did not.

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bookishenby's review against another edition

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2.5

the homophobic and transphobic comments ruined an otherwise ok book for me. there weren’t a lot of those specific comments, but for a book released in 2017 it was disappointing, even if it was set in the late 90’s. along with some other poor choices in writing (a Romani slur, and some unfortunate comments about eating disorders, to mention a couple) this just ended up being very disappointing after hearing so many people rave about it. 

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sopherdopher's review against another edition

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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

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angstifies's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

loved this book. 
the vibes were so good, the story always intense and compelling and i loved the character dynamics so so much. 

there are so many layers, so much foreshadowing and meaning i literally could not put the book down and when i eventually did after finishing the epilogue i wanted to go back and reread it immediately, which says a lot. also james and oliver. that’s all. 

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ayowrrld's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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abrasieve's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.5


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