Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

3 reviews

kelseyrm's review

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.25

i liked it a lot, but honestly im not the biggest fan of fantasy books like this bc i can never follow along with the world building. i was really confused abt the tox stuff and the ending felt rushed and unfinished.
but lots of wlw rep i love that! and hetty was a great protagonist. i felt like her and reese didnt have a lot of chemistry tho, like i didnt hate them together but i wasnt loving it(maybe bc it felt rushed too..im more of a slowburn type of girl)
unrelated but some parts made me cringe, you know when you can just tell that an author used to write fanfiction? dont get me wrong i love reading ao3 but i dont want to read borderline fanfiction in an actual published book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Violence, Murder, Death, Death of parent, Child death, and Gore

Moderate: Medical content

Minor: Homophobia

katielaine_w's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, and Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Homophobia and Lesbophobia

moonlitemuseum's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Several things came to mind when I was reading this book, each alone and then occurring simultaneously:

The dismal disquiet of the school setting in Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. The loamy prose in Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach series, an attempt to block out something encroaching that may very well be, is, already inside you. The character "Vriska Serket" from online web behemoth "Homestuck". The mechanic in the visual novel "We Know The Devil" where two friends pair up and leave the third flagging sadly behind. The promotional image often used for "Girls' Last Tour", which I have yet to read, but which haunts me with how lonely and determined it's protagonists look -- all suited up in hardy jackets and thick boots against a cruel and endless post-apocalyptic background.

2020 was a hard year to read Wilder Girls in, but maybe that's why I stuck fast to it like a lichen on a rock.  In a time of ever-worsening climate change and chaos around an illness, fiction helped mask it enough that I could swallow it, and the mask Wilder Girls wears is very thin. Practically translucent. It's about a disease that's pervasive, infectious and unavoidable, and it's also about how badly everyone fucks up the response to that disease even with plenty of advance warning. It's about friendship, sort of, but it's also about how little you can really know anyone. It's about crabs. It's about a landscape that's beautiful and awful, compelling and repellent. It's about body horror. It's about

kissing your most difficult friend

. It's about the innate horror of something moving behind what you can see. It's about...

Wilder Girls isn't a book I would recommend someone to read if they like tidy endings or even compassionate ones with lots of optimism.

It has a dour, difficult ending. You don't learn all the answers. All three of the main characters are in dire and possibly inescapable circumstances.

I liked the ending very much. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves difficult fictional girls of all pedigrees, with a strong caveat for the medical, physiological and

parasitic

horror contained within it. It was a difficult and upsetting book to read for 2020, but that may be why it was a great book to close out the year with. I can't wait to read more like it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Self harm, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, and Torture

Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, and Homophobia