Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Any Man by Amber Tamblyn

18 reviews

maur1vannistelrooij's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Rape, Sexual violence, Self harm, and Physical abuse

indigo149's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Transphobia, Sexism, Self harm, Medical trauma, Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Physical abuse, Eating disorder, and Alcoholism

chloseencounter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Any Man was a stunning and unique experience. I’d 100% recommend the audio book because it’s extremely immersive. 

I really enjoyed hearing all the different POVs of the antagonist’s victims, this was a very raw look into all the various outcomes that can come from surviving sexual assault, weather it’s dealing by humor, family, control, emptiness, self destructive behavior, or even suicide. While the characters were interesting and their storylines were heartbreaking, the most special thing to me about this novel is the look at what women so often deal with when faced with sexual violence but through the eyes of a man. Unfortunately female victims of sexual assault are all too common, we hear about it so much in fact, our society has become desensitized to the sexual abuse women face and how it’s handled by the public. Flipping the narrative and using men as the victims not only opens up an important conversation about men who have experienced sexual violence and how they are treated but also made the subject feel much more shocking. Then I suppose we can ask ourselves…why is that? Why is being sexually assaulted as a women so commonplace that it doesn’t feel nearly as gut wrenching to read?

The most eye opening part in my opinion was the very last bit, when our serial rapist responds to the journalist, in which she replies with a lot of grotesque language about how a women might think about men as essentially prey or even nonhuman. Then she sends the same exact paragraph replacing the pronouns with she/her, it was sort of appalling to see how different those paragraphs felt right next to one another. Why one was shocking and the other…felt sort of normal. As a women it was easy for me to read the paragraph and think “yea that’s just how men often think of us”, and yet the same exact paragraph but with men as the group being preyed upon felt much more abhorrent. 

At the end of the day, I think that ultimately there wasn’t one predator but multiple women predators. The story seemed to lump these people into one frightening amalgamation of a women because how could society believe that there may be multiple women out there preying upon men, it must be a repeat offender. However, when a women is attacked it could literally be “any man”, which is a very smart way to make a statement about how both male and female victims of sexual violence are seen unfairly by the general public.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Death, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Child abuse, Transphobia, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

katebrownreads's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Torture, Body horror, Blood, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence

Minor: Deadnaming and Transphobia

autumnwhite's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Sexual content, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Cursing, Cancer, Gore, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death, Chronic illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Stalking, Grief, Hate crime, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual assault, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Lesbophobia, Medical content, Rape, Self harm, Transphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness

literaryliaisons's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Deadnaming, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, Child abuse, Body horror, Body shaming, Cursing, Self harm, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Suicide, Transphobia, Animal death, Eating disorder, Misogyny, Pedophilia, and Sexual content

trycerabel's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Blood

Moderate: Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, and Rape

Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Torture

gymbeannz's review against another edition

dark sad fast-paced

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

2.0

 This book, including the author, is everything wrong with the world.

The most disconcerting thing about Any Man is that it is written by a female.
To think that a female would have any clue what it feels like to be a sexually assaulted male is beyond me. And to think, she attempts to do it... what... seven times? Sevenish different men? I can't even remember. And all in first person, or from emotion-based poetry.
Based on this alone, I realised I couldn't take the novel seriously.
And I was correct. It's not made to shed light on the male's point of view.

Uncomfortable as it is to say, while the novel's purpose is to somehow promote feminism, I suspect it also acts as therapeutic revenge porn for the author. That's... concerning to say the least.

Maude is never caught. Her single communication with the press is a four page list of rhetorical questions that would make anyone feel like a guilty slime, even the reader! We learn she's never been abused, she does these things... for fun. My assumption then? She hates men.

I don't mind a character hating men. We get all sorts in this world and their point of view is a rare and interesting one. But I just can't shake the feeling that the author approves of Maude.

Amber Tamblyn turns a book about male rape victims into a "lesson" about female sexual assault. To be honest, the attempt to connect the two is very impressive. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Torture

Moderate: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Vomit