Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

26 reviews

eabosch's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Violence, Animal cruelty, Child death, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Child abuse, Genocide, Murder, Sexual content, War, Xenophobia, Torture, Alcohol, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Pedophilia, Racism, Excrement, Hate crime, Mental illness, Rape, and Alcoholism

ak9's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Brutal and disgusting but beautiful and poignant 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Colonisation, Death, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Blood, Murder, Rape, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, Vomit, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Sexism, Adult/minor relationship, Ableism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Mental illness, Misogyny, Abandonment, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Cursing, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, War, and Xenophobia

gloombee's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.25

definitely a book for men 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Hate crime, Misogyny, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gun violence, Murder, War, Violence, Child abuse, Child death, Pedophilia, and Racism

thetatteredowl's review against another edition

 Really enjoyed the book's hypnotic, poetic quality, but it had no speech marks, which is always a dealbreaker. Gave up as soon as I reached page 50. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, War, and Xenophobia

namizaela's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

2.0

"The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day."

Granted, I didn't know much going into this book, but I feel like no one talks about how incredibly racist it is? McCarthy writes as if he's getting paid $50 for every slur he uses. In addition, he treats Native Americans and Black people as nothing more than cannon fodder to show how violent the white protagonists are.
Apart from the appalling racism, the plot is basically nonexistent, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but made reading this book confusing. I honestly didn't know what was going on half of the time. I didn't even remember any characters besides the kid, the fool, and the judge.
The saving graces of this book are the prose and the character of the judge, both of which chilled me. However, these merits don't make up for the glaring flaws. I'm disappointed, because The Road was my favorite book of 2020. It looks like Blood Meridian might be my least favorite book of 2021.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Excrement, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, and Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

jakej's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

A towering achievement, so awe inspiring and distinctly McCarthian that it challenges the ideas of what a great book has to do. There is no character development and no protagonist (except in the superficial sense of occasionally being told from the kid’s point of view) and little plot. The purposes of the book are to remind you simultaneously of the necessity of violence to the world, and as a warning of what violence will do to it. More depressing and immersive than The Road, birthed by McCarthy’s archaic and cold descriptions.

The depravity hides a lot of complexity: there are a lot of unanswered questions in terms of plot that translate into unanswered questions about the characters' psyche's. However, the characters aren’t inordinately complex: the thematic treatment is through descriptive imagery and lacerating language, not through characters facing some internal struggle. It reaches near Biblical levels in the sheer amount that can be pulled from it.

Worth reading a dozen times.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Excrement, Gore, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, and Violence