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ofthewildland's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
"the truth is, loud and proud is great. but for some of us, it gets exhausting. and confusing."
3.5/ 5⭐.
ARC Provided by NetGalley for an honest review.
(Trigger Warnings: sexual assault, self harm, mental illness, biphobia, bullying, implied sexual content, f-slur used to refer to oneself, mentions of alcoholism, mentions of underage drinking, mentions of drug use, parental abandonment, potential outing, mentions of Tr*mp.)
Told in the form of a student theses, Take Her Down is a modern queer Julius Caesar retelling with plot twists and representation that is done flawlessly.
First of all, I will start off by saying that the premise of this book seemed promising.
I loved the representation and how casually it was done.
It was comical to me how, in most stories, characters are usually being ostracised for their attraction to the same gender, but in this book, Bronwyn is "exiled" because of her attraction to a straight, white man.
I think the author did a wonderful job at capturing the uncertainty surrounding queerness and sexuality, especially as teenagers.
The mental health coverage was superb!
As promising as the premise of this book seemed though, the further I read, the more bored I became.
There is an excessive amount of useless information in this book that could have easily been taken out. Backstories of characters who have minor roles. Five pages of pointless inner monologue. The repetition. Irrelevant.
The characters were okay, but I couldn't find it in myself to care for them. There was a disconnect between myself and the characters. They weren't getting through to me the way I thought they would.
The mystery surrounding Jude's narrative was the only thing that kept me completely hooked. I also wanted to see what consequences Bronwyn would face.
The ending felt like a cop out, in my opinion. But I get why the author did it this way.
The format almost reminded me of A Good Girl's Guide To Murder, but make it extremely gay and add some biphobia.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Sexual violence
Moderate: Alcohol, Self harm, and Biphobia
Minor: Drug use
beforeviolets's review
DNF at 42%
Thank you to Bold Stokes Books and NetGalley for providing me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Before I get into my review, the reason why I DNF'd: an entire chapter was essentially dedicated to referencing Harry Potter. It didn't even add anything relevant to the story. Instant pass.
This book was one of my most anticipated of the year. A sapphic Julius Caesar retelling? I mean, sign me up! Especially since I really enjoyed the author's previous Shakespeare retelling, Two Winters (A Winter's Tale).
But this book was just a complete and utter failure. The story was set during the Trump election era, yet was set at a school reminiscent of the school in Faking It - where it is shameful to not be gay, trans, etc. - which confused the atmosphere. It leaned so heavily on both the Trump era and this school culture to reason out every single plot point, but their competing qualities just completely cancelled out the stakes. Like we're supposed to believe that you were scared to go to school after the Trump election when your school is mostly queer and non-men? As a queer and Jewish person who went to school in the Christian South that day, I could just not get behind this. Yet despite this school's so-called "progressive" culture, it was wildly biphobic, lesbophobic, and generally toxic. The setting felt specially designed to be as oppressive to bisexual characters, which is appalling considering the dedication is to the bisexual readers.
The JC character is a lesbian who bullies the Brutus character for "cheating on her identity" when she dates a boy. Yet the JC character isn't even a lesbian herself, apparently having had crushes on boys, and so the Brutus character decides to try to out her as bisexual by catfishing her as a boy. This book also contains a lot of rhetoric that seems to imply that young people nowadays don't use the word "lesbian," which felt a little too close to some TERF rhetoric I've seen on the internet for comfort.
The writing seemed to be INCREDIBLY hesitant and insecure. Plot points and backstories were reiterated time and time again, almost as if in fear that the audience had already forgotten everything that had happened. It caused the story to drag, the already non-existent stakes to drop, and the characters to feel exhaustive.
I can't emphasize how disappointed I was by this read, especially because it was something I had genuinely been looking forward to for quite some time. Julius Caesar deserves better. Queer people deserve better.
CWs so far: mental health, anxiety, biphobia, bullying, sexual content (implied), f-slur (used to refer to oneself), alcoholism (mention), drug use (mention), underage drinking (brief), parental abandonment, potential outing, takes place during Trump era and discussed often.
Thank you to Bold Stokes Books and NetGalley for providing me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Before I get into my review, the reason why I DNF'd: an entire chapter was essentially dedicated to referencing Harry Potter. It didn't even add anything relevant to the story. Instant pass.
This book was one of my most anticipated of the year. A sapphic Julius Caesar retelling? I mean, sign me up! Especially since I really enjoyed the author's previous Shakespeare retelling, Two Winters (A Winter's Tale).
But this book was just a complete and utter failure. The story was set during the Trump election era, yet was set at a school reminiscent of the school in Faking It - where it is shameful to not be gay, trans, etc. - which confused the atmosphere. It leaned so heavily on both the Trump era and this school culture to reason out every single plot point, but their competing qualities just completely cancelled out the stakes. Like we're supposed to believe that you were scared to go to school after the Trump election when your school is mostly queer and non-men? As a queer and Jewish person who went to school in the Christian South that day, I could just not get behind this. Yet despite this school's so-called "progressive" culture, it was wildly biphobic, lesbophobic, and generally toxic. The setting felt specially designed to be as oppressive to bisexual characters, which is appalling considering the dedication is to the bisexual readers.
The JC character is a lesbian who bullies the Brutus character for "cheating on her identity" when she dates a boy. Yet the JC character isn't even a lesbian herself, apparently having had crushes on boys, and so the Brutus character decides to try to out her as bisexual by catfishing her as a boy. This book also contains a lot of rhetoric that seems to imply that young people nowadays don't use the word "lesbian," which felt a little too close to some TERF rhetoric I've seen on the internet for comfort.
The writing seemed to be INCREDIBLY hesitant and insecure. Plot points and backstories were reiterated time and time again, almost as if in fear that the audience had already forgotten everything that had happened. It caused the story to drag, the already non-existent stakes to drop, and the characters to feel exhaustive.
I can't emphasize how disappointed I was by this read, especially because it was something I had genuinely been looking forward to for quite some time. Julius Caesar deserves better. Queer people deserve better.
CWs so far: mental health, anxiety, biphobia, bullying, sexual content (implied), f-slur (used to refer to oneself), alcoholism (mention), drug use (mention), underage drinking (brief), parental abandonment, potential outing, takes place during Trump era and discussed often.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Lesbophobia, and Bullying
Moderate: Outing, Mental illness, Abandonment, and Alcohol
Minor: Alcoholism, Drug use, and Sexual content
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