Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - The Silence of the Girls

Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

110 reviews

sr_marshrat's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

1.0

Silence of the Girls had the potential to be an enlightening, if depressing, view of the Trojan War from the perspective of women in the Greek camps. Instead, it's overwritten version of the myth we already know. A few chapters from Briseis' perspective (that truly had potential to be engaging on their own, hence the 1 star) and some ham-handed emotional dialogue between Achilles and Patroclus do not make this a more "real" Troy story.

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savalentine_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark sad 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? Yes

5.0

I didn’t feel much emotions, beside perhaps anger. The whole book felt like a cry of anger, a demand from these women to be read.

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yorozuya's review against another edition

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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.

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chloj_'s review against another edition

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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’

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shadi_anna's review

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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

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evelynepisodes's review against another edition

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Found the book too disturbing for me. I wasn’t interested in a book about rape and murder. I’m happy for that to be a part of the book but not the overall theme of the book.

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readinbythesea's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

This book was so sad, so heart-breaking and so needed. It was the first book I went all out in annotating and I'm so glad I did.

I do not recommend this book to anyone who just read The Song of Achilles, though. You will hate Achilles.

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