Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

4 reviews

aely's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, and Grief

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, and Physical abuse

Minor: Cursing, Sexism, Cancer, and Misogyny

gayelfboi's review

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.25

Revisited it now as an adult and though it’s a moving story with beautiful writing at times, I was thrown off by the amount of fathobia. It’s much in the context of kids being cruel to each other but it was unexpected and went unchallenged. Other than that I really enjoyed it  now and as a child even though it punched me in the gut when I first read it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Transphobia, Body shaming, Homophobia, Bullying, Classism, Fatphobia, and Misogyny

Minor: Sexism, Car accident, Cancer, and Death of parent

wolfiegrrrl's review

reflective sad 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

2.0

Bridge to Terabithia is a story about two kids bullying everyone they don't like, choosing fat people as their prime target. For the majority of the book, I kept hoping that this was going to be part of their character development, but the resolution is weak. Instead of learning to actually care about other people's feelings, they only give characters who are suffering other hardships a pass while continuing to body shame the characters they haven't deemed worthy of their kindness. Sympathy for people suffering is of course a good message, but "fat people don't deserve sympathy unless they're suffering" is just not right.

The grandest statement the author makes is that boys can like drawing and girls can wear pants. That's weak feminism even for the time because she still actively cuts down fat women and girls at every opportunity. It's excessive and unnecessary. Furthermore, she sends a bad message to victims of child abuse. This book's advice to kids suffering from an abusive home life is to "not mix personal life with school life" because "everyone will laugh at you and think you betrayed your parents" and "if your parents beat you up, get over it! it's not a big deal! it happens to everyone!"

This book had promise to it. There's a story in there about Jess learning to be more confident and processing his fears, then losing his friend and having to process that grief. Maybe there's even a story in there about learning to understand other people as well as yourself, but it's so fumbled by the attitudes of the author and the time period it was written in. As it stands, the ending is the most well-written part of this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Bullying, Fatphobia, Body shaming, Sexism, Misogyny, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Violence and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Child death, Death, Cancer, War, Child abuse, Death of parent, and Car accident

iris_irene's review

challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Grief

Minor: Child abuse and Misogyny