Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Ordinary Monsters

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Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro

5 reviews

anns_storybound_sanctuary's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

5.0

I love this book. Another 5/5 this year.

What impressed me the most was the story telling, the world building, the characters and how the author achieved it to give every character their own voice. The diction, punctuation and grammar is different for every character which gives them even more depth.

The prose is also just gorgeous. The way J. M. Mirow describes each scene, setting the mood before diving into the action. This for me makes the storytelling even more immersive

The story itself is set mostly in Vicotrian England, at the end of the 17th century. This gives this book a dark academia feeling even though half of the cast of characters is under the age of 18. The story is written in a lot of different POVs which contribute to the immersion.

I wouldn't rate this book as a YA novel as which it was marketed here. There is a lot of violence and loss in this book. Which I as an adult reader appreciated but is not fit for children.

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clarabooksit's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.25

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kaiyakaiyo's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? No

4.5

I actually quite liked this. I still call bullshit on the only black character coincidentally being the character that has to kill themselves then heal themselves repeatedly to help the white chars but everything else was pretty good. White authors using black pain to further plot, color me surprised. Surprisingly fluff-less for a book this big, most chapters had a purpose and I liked that! Would read another in this series, but i hope it’s not this big

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quizzle99's review

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adventurous dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

1.0

where to start?

this book is incredibly ableist, I can't believe it was ever published. for the record, I'll be reviewing the Dutch translation of this book, but tropes don't change, although I have to translate the Dutch back into English. also, yes, I am disabled and chronically ill. I am not blind but have experienced ableism.

first, I was shocked to read this sentence: "de bovenste gang was lang en breed en ze liepen er langzaam doorheen, als invaliden." this translates to: "the uppermost hallway was long and wide and they walked through it slowly, like invalids/disabled people." sadly, I don't know the term used in the English version, but that doesn't matter, because even if Miro used Disabled people, the statement itself is very ableist. why this comparison was made in the first place is beyond me. It's unwarranted. It could've easily been taken out. without the comparison you still have a strong sentence. so why the comparison?

I hoped that was it, just something small, something unbelievably shocking, still, but a one-time (big) mistake.

it's not. Not far after a new character is introduced. a blindfolded woman, born blind. why blindfold the blind? I have no clue. I don't want to speak of it, it's just disgusting. what the author makes this character do? she TOUCHES THE FACES OF THE CHARACTERS SHE MEETS. this is a gross, harmful, Hollywood stereotype. BLIND PEOPLE DON'T TOUCH FACES. My jaw was on the floor. I thought I couldn't read on. I had to pick up the book to skim through it the next day.

It sadly doesn’t stop there. The blind character is always described as turning her blind head, characters assume often that when she does something she does that as if she can see. She’s described by them as a blind woman who can see. It comes very close to the characters accusing her of faking. It’s exhausting to read. Furthermore, it’s implied by the blind character too: “Ik weet hoe u eruitziet, meneer Ovid. U bent niet de enige buitenlander in Cairndale.” Which translates to: “I know what you look like, mister Ovid, You’re not the only foreigner in Cairndale.” Although we don’t know if someone told this woman his race, surrounded by the other tropes and statements such a sentence furthers the implication that she can see.

Then there’s another scene where this woman touches a dead man’s face and knows who it is, which is very impressive, because blind people wouldn’t know. On the same page she pokes into a fire to retrieve a burning diary, because she smelled it. What? How high on drugs do you have to be to write a blind character who can do things sighted people would’ve difficulty with doing. Also, blind people aren’t superheroes. There’s no way a person can locate an object by SMELL.

What we don’t know is if she has a talent like the children there, as also is speculated on by the children. Even if her impossible actions, for a blind person, were because of a gift, Miro has still made a massive mistake. Either way there’s the ableist face touching trope. And if this character CAN see through her talent, that means he has written this disabled character as a token character, just to have it in his book! If she can see through her gift, it means that her blindness would no longer be a disability, which is one of the ways the harmful Magical Cure trope is used in books. But even if you would argue that this character can see through her talent, when we read from her point of view, she explains she is born blind and has adapted in the world and her blindness is still a disability. She never mentions a talent herself, so we can assume she doesn’t have one.

To conclude this rant. Even besides the ableism in this book, it was unbearably long to read, with so many boring details and characters being described the same like five times in a row. After 300 pages I was still longing for some action, as I only had read 2. It’s a slow book, with no hints where the plot will go. I urge people to not pick up this book, it will save you years of your life.

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khakipantsofsex's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

4.0

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