Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy

7 reviews

arlaubscher's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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: Child abuse, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Suicide, Blood, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Self harm, Sexism, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Grief, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Medical content, Mental illness, and Violence

Moderate: Abortion, Addiction, Body shaming, Drug use, Blood, Colonisation, Homophobia, Self harm, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Classism, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Rape, Infertility, Police brutality, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Sexual assault

abmochapman's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Gloria Steinem says about this book that “whether you are reading … again or for the first time, it will remind you that we are creating the future with every choice we make”. And the future that Marge Piercy offers within these pages is incredibly rich and imaginative.

Consuelo Ramos is a Mexican American woman who was unjustly committed to a mental institution in 1970s New York. While she faces institutional ableism and abuse, she finds herself making contact with the year 2137. A time of radical equality, horizontal decision-making, and environmental sustainability, it stands in stark contrast to the present. But it is not guaranteed. The fate of the future rests on the struggle of people like Consuelo.

Woman on the Edge of Time is not a perfect work. Another review named Charlotte Kersten on Goodreads points out some of the more problematic aspects of the book’s discussions of sex work and relationships. Yet, within the novel, I found so much meaning. To me, both utopianism and organizing are about dreaming of something better. And I really felt like Piercy’s dreams for the future reflected this. 2137 seems like a time where I and so many others could thrive.

I fully anticipate returning to (and lending out) this novel again and again. I hope you’ll consider adding it to your list!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Forced institutionalization, Violence, Suicide, Ableism, Death, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Child abuse, Police brutality, Homophobia, Incest, and Sexual violence

Minor: Abortion and Addiction

mar's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Medical content, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Racism, and Confinement

Moderate: Death, Grief, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia

Minor: Suicide, Police brutality, and Racial slurs

aeonidon's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Confinement, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Abortion, Addiction, Death, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, and Sexism

Minor: War, Suicide, Pregnancy, Murder, Police brutality, Child abuse, and Blood

amandabcook's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, and Mental illness

Moderate: Homophobia and Death

Forced separation of parent and child

mskipsey's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Forced institutionalization, and Mental illness

Moderate: Abortion, Homophobia, and Drug abuse

briartherose's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

4.0

A few bullet-point thoughts:

• This is a well-written, creative, diverse novel. I really enjoyed reading it. The mental hospital scenes in particular are powerful, but gritty and uncompromising. They provide an often jaw-dropping portrait of life as a impoverished woman of colour in mid-20th century America.
• The Mattapoisett scenes, while a creative vision of the future, often seemed tangential (and more than a little didactic). The reason for Connie being transported to their timeline isn't made clear until well past the halfway point, encouraging the reader to interpret them as Connie's coping mechanism, or hallucination. Which I don't think the author intended.
• However, the brief scenes in the 'bad future' were fascinatingly horrible. Is their world of exploitative, unpleasantly violent media that far removed from our own?
• A side note about the gender politics of the novel: in Mattapoisett everyone is referred to by the gender-neutral pronoun 'person', or 'per', yet the author insists on referring to those same characters as male or female. Even in-universe someone refers to their people as 'biological males and females'. Either the author didn't really understand the purpose of gender-neutral pronouns, or she was mocking them for it: whichever way it was, it comes off awkward. It seems like Piercy was much more comfortable talking about racial politics than gender identity.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Racism