Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

257 reviews

amberrose27's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

Ik hou van briseis altijd en Pat Barker heeft dit heel mooi geschreven. Ik merkte wel op dat het soms wat langzaam was voor mij, maar dat kan ook liggen aan het genre. Ik heb nog niet veel historical fiction gelezen om te weten of het lag aan het genre of het boek in het algemeen. Ik heb wel heel erg genoten en hield van de complexe gevoelens die Briseis had. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ sterren

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Sexual harassment, and War

Moderate: Grief

Minor: Physical abuse and Slavery

friendly_neighborhood_grandma's review against another edition

this is very good quality stuff, but too much for me 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Infertility, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and War

risaleel's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Sexual harassment, and War

Moderate: Alcoholism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Torture, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Infidelity, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Vomit, Trafficking, Grief, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

annasbookreviews's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad medium-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and War

yorozuya's review against another edition

mysterious reflective sad slow-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? Yes

4.0

My book club chose to read 'The Silence of the Girls' by Pat Barker- which suits me well because I absolutely adore Greek retellings!!!

It's the story of the Trojan War that we all know and have heard many times - but told from the  female perspective this time: The Trojan women who were taken as slaves by the Greek.

The prose is overall beautiful and I paused just to admire how the words were arranged several times. There were also some expressions that took me by surprise in the context of this narrative, though perhaps the author wanted to show the coarser side of our more romanticised view on Ancient Greece.

Towards the middle/end, the book shifted to the male perspective a bit too much for my liking. I loved the insight into Achilles's mind (don't I always) and how the same scene could look from both his and Briseis's (the main narrator) point of view but despite the book's title I don't want these women's voices to be silenced.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

nats2643's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Grief, Murder, Sexual harassment, and War

chloj_'s review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring medium-paced

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

4.5

review: 

first things first: i love a greek mythology retelling, and this did not disappoint. however, this is something a lot more than simply a mythology retelling. this is such an amazing reflection of womanhood. barker does such a beautiful job of relaying the female experience, with all it’s varying emotions and complexities. depictions of war are typically male dominated; blood, gore and war is so often synonymous for masculinity. while her portrayal of masculinity is complex and very well-written (particularly that of achilles), the raw vulnerability of the story’s women is breathtaking to behold. it was powerful, incredibly moving, and truly (in my opinion) a modern masterpiece.

               !!spoilers ahead!! 

• ‘his idea of female beauty was a woman so fat if you slapped her backside in the morning she'd still be jiggling when you got back home for dinner.’ damn me too 
• ‘she could’ve been kind to me and she wasn’t; she could’ve helped me find my feet and she didn’t.’
• ‘when i got to the door i paused with my hand on the latch and looked back, but she’d already turned away’ 
• the main character’s relationship with femininity is so cleverly written- both her relationship with other women, and with her own femaleness 
• ‘but the dying man, his face wiped clean of pain, cradled his spilling intestines as gently as a mother nurses her newborn child.’
• ‘“it’ll be alright,” i said, knowing it wouldn’t.’ 
• ‘he fucked as quickly as he killed, and for me it was the same thing. something in me died that night.’ 
• the emotions in this book are soooo beautiful done 
• ‘the bed was cold.’ this one sentence is so incredibly powerful 
• ‘no girl ever dressed more carefully for her wedding than achilles for the battlefield’
• ‘as long as i lived and remembered, [my brothers] weren’t really dead.’
• the relationship between briseis and iphis is SO special- it is born entirely from shared tragedy and the kindness only women can share with each other. 
• that depiction of wasteland at the end of 46/start of 47 is SUCH a beautiful depiction of the waste of female beauty (both physical and mental) at the hands of men 
• ‘the world began to close in around me, and i realised that the songs belonged to my brothers and not me’ 
• ‘i always remember that she wept for me when i couldn’t weep for myself’ 
• the list format of the people Achilles killed / how they died is SO good- it really displays how the repeated trauma and war has made tragedy something clinical.
• ‘before leaving, he always bent down and kissed him in the mouth, though the lips had darkened and begun to retract.’ 
• ‘Why him? Why not me? He asks the questions over and over, as if one day they might have a different answer, and the burden of guilt be lifted at last.’
• achilles grief is written so beautifully 
• ‘and i do what countless women before me had been forced to. i spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and brothers.’ 
• ‘now my own story can begin’

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, and War

Moderate: Body shaming, Cursing, Fatphobia, Pedophilia, and Alcohol

shadi_anna's review

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Slavery, Violence, and War

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Grief

trinofspades's review against another edition

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Trafficking, and War

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Rape, Sexual violence, Trafficking, Murder, and Classism

cannibalgender's review against another edition

dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.5

I’m now done with Silence of the Girls and I’m…disappointed. It does not feel at all like a narrative designed to craft and uplift female characters. Most of the book is internal, but I feel it really REALLY suffered because Brisies’ relationships with other women are glossed over and sort of…told, not shown, in favor of perceptions about Achilles and Patroclus. 

I didn’t pick up this book to hear more about Achilles and Patroclus and their relationship, but truthfully they were they only characters who got to develop complexities and drove the narrative forward. Once Patroclus died, it truly felt that nothing else was going to happen- his dynamic with Achilles and with Brisies drove much of the middle act, and Achilles’ own personal feelings drove much of the third. 

When his POV was introduced I was tempted to DNF. It genuinely felt like not only did the narrative revolve around these men, with the MC and the women around her serving as silently observing props, but this mindset is enforced by the narrative and the MC herself.

Brisies often addresses the audience, and emphasizes how she herself feels like an object, that slavery has made her owned in spirit as well, and although she mocks the women who grow to love their captors, she both grows to love Patroclus (who regularly rapes her supposed friend Iphis, his slave) but chooses not to escape from Achilles, claiming that sexual slavery is “her life now.” An odd narrative about slavery coming from a voice so clearly belonging to a British white woman. 

It’s all well and good to claim to speak for underrepresented characters, but they have to have a VOICE, y’know? An actual new perspective. My favorite parts were getting to see how Helen was viewed by a woman close to her staying in Troy, because like, that’s a character that has been legitimately maligned for centuries. Unfortunately, we don’t see much of her, or Brisies herself, outside of her orbit around Achilles. 

It felt as though the author realized halfway through that this book was not about women, it was about Achilles, and simply had her MC say “well, women are so silenced that I’m only a background player in his story” instead of…writing a story in which Brisies did NOT feel like a background character. 

Frustrating as all hell.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence