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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
I cannot recommend this book at all. I could not make it through the description of child abuse in the first chapter.
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Chef's kiss 🤌
Disgusting, deranged, explicit.
What invited me in was the morbid curiosity, watching a tragedy and destruction of innocent lives right in front of my eyes, not being able to stop the wonder as next step just stirred the story into another unbelievable direction. Yet it was so very believable.
How pretty privilege actually can work, even if the person is outright monster, how patriarchy and misogyny can be used as a justifying force for treating the victims as the ones who actually wanted it because the abuser is an attractive young woman. And which young boy doesn't have sexual fantasies about this abuser? Look at her!
The unreliable narration, the prose, how each word was perfectly placed, the story where we see a female sexual predator offending boys (instead of vice versa)...
🤌👏👌
Though probably not a book for everyone, this was really good.
Disgusting, deranged, explicit.
What invited me in was the morbid curiosity, watching a tragedy and destruction of innocent lives right in front of my eyes, not being able to stop the wonder as next step just stirred the story into another unbelievable direction. Yet it was so very believable.
How pretty privilege actually can work, even if the person is outright monster, how patriarchy and misogyny can be used as a justifying force for treating the victims as the ones who actually wanted it because the abuser is an attractive young woman. And which young boy doesn't have sexual fantasies about this abuser? Look at her!
The unreliable narration, the prose, how each word was perfectly placed, the story where we see a female sexual predator offending boys (instead of vice versa)...
🤌👏👌
Though probably not a book for everyone, this was really good.
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I agree with other reviewers, I have trouble assigning a rating to this book because it is very troubling. I heard it is analogous to Lolita, and I do not agree. I was surprised when finishing it that the person who recommended it described it that way.
The abuser gets caught and sentenced to probation and goes on to continue abusing other children. The court and public opinion parts were realistic and I appreciated that part, but
The book is graphic and titillating. I thought it was pretty well-written, and I think the book had potential to be an analog of Lolita if the author wrote the scenes differently. I would have easily rated it higher if the author had written the scenes depicting the abuse with different language. I do appreciate that the author did not use vulgar terms for anatomy, but the scenes are presented as erotic. Some minor editing of scenes would have gone a long way.
The book is graphic and titillating. I thought it was pretty well-written, and I think the book had potential to be an analog of Lolita if the author wrote the scenes differently. I would have easily rated it higher if the author had written the scenes depicting the abuse with different language. I do appreciate that the author did not use vulgar terms for anatomy, but the scenes are presented as erotic. Some minor editing of scenes would have gone a long way.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail
I would *not* recommend choosing this as a “beach read” like I did. Especially sitting amongst your whole family. I would also probably not ever recommend this book to anyone unless they were intrigued - in which I would say it’s very compelling
Fun, pretty short. Very depraved. The description and inner monologue was amazing, really 5/5. However, characters and narrative felt like an obligation rather than something the book cultivated- hence 3.5/5. Wouldn’t recommend using text-to-speech in public with this.
dark
funny
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What in the f did I just read, and why in the f did I read it.
dark
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Rape, Death of parent
The comparison between Lolita and Tampa is inevitable. What other kinds of books will have the reader go on a journey with a main character that is a pedophile? I don't know about other readers, but personally, I only know these two so I can't help but compare them. I don't think it's surprising for me to say that they're actually quite different from each other, and not just in writing style, but in how the subject matter and the characters are handled. Tampa can almost be a criticism on how society treats beautiful women. Particularly privileged white women. Like how it is easier for people to ignore bad things when they also have the capacity to be abusers. One of the things that Tampa might share with Lolita is the fact that you are in no way rooting for the protagonist. There was no “oh man i hope they end of together.” It was more like “I can’t wait until she gets sent to jail.”
I remember being weary about reading Lolita because I was afraid that it was going to romanticize an legitimately abhorrent issue. To my relief, it didn't romanticize it at all and instead painted the protagonist as completely delusional, and hiding behind a facade of so-called intelligence. Tampa on the other hand doesn't have pretty prose and flowery language. The book is crude and incredibly explicit. There's no hiding of the character's predatory nature, and it was supremely uncomfortable reading a first-person narrative of someone who was meticulously planning statutory rape. It was both shocking and fascinating. I had to disconnect from the main character's psychopathic nature otherwise I think I would have started screaming. Being able to disconnect however, gave me a better time of being a more objective reader- if that can be believed. Maybe that speaks more of Alissa Nutting's ability to write about this subject matter, and be able to keep the reader's attention enough for them to continue. It didn't stop me from feeling wildly uncomfortable and in need of a cleansing afterwards though.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how to rate this book. It lands in an area so far out of my comfort level that I have no idea if I enjoyed it or not. It was both too fascinating and horrifying for me to come to any conclusion.
Spoiler
Too bad that didn't exactly happen. And oh boy did that give me bad feelings.I remember being weary about reading Lolita because I was afraid that it was going to romanticize an legitimately abhorrent issue. To my relief, it didn't romanticize it at all and instead painted the protagonist as completely delusional, and hiding behind a facade of so-called intelligence. Tampa on the other hand doesn't have pretty prose and flowery language. The book is crude and incredibly explicit. There's no hiding of the character's predatory nature, and it was supremely uncomfortable reading a first-person narrative of someone who was meticulously planning statutory rape. It was both shocking and fascinating. I had to disconnect from the main character's psychopathic nature otherwise I think I would have started screaming. Being able to disconnect however, gave me a better time of being a more objective reader- if that can be believed. Maybe that speaks more of Alissa Nutting's ability to write about this subject matter, and be able to keep the reader's attention enough for them to continue. It didn't stop me from feeling wildly uncomfortable and in need of a cleansing afterwards though.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how to rate this book. It lands in an area so far out of my comfort level that I have no idea if I enjoyed it or not. It was both too fascinating and horrifying for me to come to any conclusion.