Reviews with content warning for Sexism - The Centre

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

24 reviews

suchsweetsorrow89's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious 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

3.5

Yippee out of my reading slump :D I would say the pros of this book are that the story itself was really interesting and it was honestly fast to visualize and get through. I would say this comes off less as a sci-fi and more as a thriller in my opinion (similar to Get Out the movie), but with a lot of diversity and some really smart moments. This was a blind purchase for me, and I think that is the best way to go into this book.

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cassielaj's review against another edition

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fast-paced

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

1.0

At 20-30%, I kept reading because I thought it might eventually go somewhere.
At 50%, I thought we were finally getting to something decent.
By 75%, I was finishing this out of spite.
This book is all kinds of confused about the story it’s telling. The majority of it is just the story of a woman unhappy with her life and striving for more. There’s a whisper of a “thriller,” until it smacks you across the face at about 85% and then ends so abruptly and with such an obvious cop-out that I feel nothing but annoyed that I spent the day reading this. And frustrated that it really could’ve done something. Take out everything about her weird ex (who is set up to be way more important than he is) and her best friend’s business and relationship (which is probably the best-developed content but totally irrelevant) and you have a 20-page short horror story with a decent premise, a wild twist, and an obvious ending. I’m annoyed that this book tried to do so many things (cultural critique, class & colonization discussion, womanhood, etc.) that could’ve been good but did them so poorly.

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chris_reads's review

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-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? Yes

4.0

The end felt a little abrupt. Characters could be frustrating but were ultimately compelling. The prose and themes are where this book really shines though.

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angelkisses's review

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dark funny mysterious fast-paced

overall a pretty enjoyable book with an engaging thriller plot and commentary on the intersections/interactions between colonialism, patriarchy and classism (material exploitation more generally, as it impacts and is impacted by superstructure).

something weird about mentioning David's time in the IDF (specifically to do with mind hacking?) and not go further into it... considering this story is so clearly about The Centres exploitative origins and nature (cannibalism as a metaphor for colonialism) its weird that there wasnt any pushback from the narrative around Israel as a ethnostate apartheid settler colony especially when the narrative explicitly deals with things like Parition and British imperialism.

I think it's a bit confused but ultimately very readable!

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waterrodeo's review

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

1.0

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q_bert13's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

3.75

An interesting story filled with a cast of complex characters. I enjoyed Manazir Siddiqi’s writing style, and how she would include memories & events from the past to fuel the ‘present’ in the story.

SLIGHT SPOILERS!

However, towards the end I did not enjoy the dynamic between the MC and her (possible lover)’s father. I know it’s to emphasize the MC’s flaws and create a sense of fear/discomfort between them, but still… super creepy.

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hanz's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

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skogsheks's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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queersubtext's review

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dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

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jamiee_f's review

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I loved the premise, I liked our main character, and I was so excited to understand the mystery of The Centre! Anisa was sassy and online and very millenial which I appreciated. She's even kind of an unlikeable main character, which I usually enjoy. There was good commentary on success, friendships, relationships, finding yourself, being an immigrant/child of immigrants, cultural appropriation, who has a right to write which stories, class consciousness, and I liked most of that but it was a LOT to tackle all at once. Then it just.....absolutely dragged in the last half/third.

I couldn't motivate myself to finish

after it seemed like we were slowly driving towards magic cannibalism without a real explanation, and it seemed like all our characters were on board with it. I guessed it would be some sort of cannibalism pretty early on, but by the end it felt like the metaphor of cannibalizing people's souls for cannibalizing culture got SO heavy handed but also didn't go far enough.

I looked up the ending after I met the men who created the center by paying slaves to participate and submit their bodies/souls to the process, because the book was moving too slowly, and it was no longer fun how unlikable all these characters were. I was more interested in understanding the how and why of the process, that's what I was hoping for, but it didn't feel fleshed out enough (no pun intended). I also didn't like the reveal at the end that our main character decided to dedicate her own soul to the Centre. Like...why? It was unsatisfying to me.

I wanted to like it, I wish the ending third did it for me, because the premise was so call and the first two thirds I enjoyed! I would try another work from this author.

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