Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven

27 reviews

bookishmillennial's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

disclaimer if you’ve read other reviews by me and are noticing a pattern: You’re correct that I don’t really give starred reviews, I feel like a peasant and don’t like leaving them and most often, I will only leave them if I vehemently despised a book. I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. Everyone’s reading experiences are subjective, so I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not, regardless if I add stars or not. Find me on Instagram: @bookish.millennial or tiktok: @bookishmillennial

Premise (from the author’s own description!!!):
🥀 f/f enemies to lovers
🌲 Northumberland in the 90s
🔮 sinister rituals
🖤 slow burn romance
🩸 all-girl fight club
🌞 grump/sunshine
🛏 there’s only one bed
🔪 hurt/comfort

Thoughts:
Hmmmm, what to say, what to say…. I love a sapphic reimagining with ace representation of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde but I especially support young angry femmes. 

It was giving Wednesday x Enid & I didn’t hate that! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Animal death, Sexism, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, and Gaslighting

rightwhrleftme's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring tense slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Grief, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Panic attacks/disorders, Animal cruelty, and Injury/Injury detail

buchherz_eva's review against another edition

dark hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Murder, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

matcha_cat's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Murder, Violence, Misogyny, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Self harm, Alcohol, Blood, and Physical abuse

bird_song's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Misogyny

zombiezami's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal cruelty, Religious bigotry, Animal death, Child death, Body horror, Physical abuse, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Misogyny, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Vomit, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Sexual harassment, Medical content, Torture, Gore, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Stalking, Alcohol, Grief, and Rape

Minor: Infidelity

hayleythegoose's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Sexism, Animal cruelty, Violence, Animal death, Death, Misogyny, Body horror, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Suicide

Minor: Toxic relationship and Toxic friendship

itsnotalakeitsanocean's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

Overall I think this book is okay, but I don't think the blurb on the back of the book does a good job of explaining the basic premise of this story. I picked this book up for cheap in a final clearance sale at my local Forbidden Planet, so I'm not too annoyed.

Things I liked about it:

• It filled that Dark Academia niche that scratches at my brain on occasion.
• It was nice seeing a POC who is heavily implied to be autistic and have a sex life.
• It was nice seeing a slow burn, non-sexual sapphic relationship

Some minor nitpicks:

• I don't think the author realises you can be sapphic and asexual at the same time in the case of Lottie. Seeing how rare asexuality is portrayed in media (let alone respectfully) I can understand where this misunderstanding comes from, but maybe some further research/sensitivity readings would be warranted next time.
• Some of the descriptions can be a bit repetitive and sometimes got repeated pages apart from each other.
• The antagonists gave up far too easily. The girls' victory felt too easy when all they did was essentially walk up to a secret society meeting (in the back of some bar no less), barge in, speak up and threaten one of the family members and that was it. The clues were there for Dacre's true motivations but the "mystery" felt a bit half baked
• There were a bunch of loose ends that just ended up being dismissed at the end, almost in a very out of place fourth wall break as if the characters knew we'd be questioning these loose ends too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Suicide, Misogyny, and Sexism

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual harassment

mal717's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Okay, so I was not sure if I would finish this for most of the book. But, I stuck it out because the story is seriously intriguing on so many levels. And in the end, I'm really glad I did, because the wrap up is not only wild, but absolutely redeeming. The characters are kinda hard to get into, but really I guess there's a reason for that, so I suppose be prepared. 

Also, not to like spoil this for other people but there is mention of a cat being killed, but either that actually didn't happen, or the cat comes back to life and gets the person back. So, like, I just need other people to be prepared for that because I was not. Animals dying is like my big no, and I ruined a book for a friend because I mentally blocked out an animal being killed and I won't do that ever again lol 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Religious bigotry, Violence, Misogyny, and Death

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Cursing, and Domestic abuse

Okay, I mentioned the cat death above, and like I said, either it really happened and the cat comes back to life, or it was hallucinated and the cat is a butthead. It isn't clear, though it is just kind of just accepted the cat came back to life?

grrrlbrarian's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A really enjoyable read - loved how dark, tense and moody this novel was. Also loved the relationship between Lottie and Alice, and Alice's past with Noemie, which really echoed my own experience as a teenager. About 2/3 of the way through the book, I did start to feel a bit lost and the plot felt like it was all over the place, but it all came back together in the end.

Side note specific to the audiobook: this is the first audiobook I've listened to, and although I loved the narrators' emotional and funny performance, I did find it frustrating that they constantly mispronounced things, including Hafsah's name. Could really have done with someone to check pronunciations during recording.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Body horror, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Gaslighting

Minor: Chronic illness, Suicide, Misogyny, and Vomit