Reviews with content warning for Cursing - Paradais

Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Paradais by Fernanda Melchor

23 reviews

kaiulanilee's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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jlebon's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.25

Whilst I did still overall enjoy this book, it is undoubtedly a frustrating read from cover-to-cover. Whether it is Melchor's sprawling sentences and aversion to punctuation, paragraphs or chapters, or the fact that nothing really happens for the first 95% of the book and the narrative climax is condensed into a few, brief, confusing final pages, there are a number of criticisms I have with this book.

This is particularly frustrating in that I think the concept of the text is fantastic, being extremely dark in nature, presenting incel culture through the lens of the two main characters Polo and Franco and the destructive effect this mindset has upon both themselves and the people around them. However, Melchor has to be given plaudits in her nuanced presentation of such issues, cultivating characters that are products of their environment and aspects of society. Nevertheless, I do think that this was elongated to an unnecessary extent with a great portion of the middle of the text going over well-trodden ground. However, I understand how this could also be symbolic of the trapped mindset the protagonist Polo finds himself in.

As a final point, given the huge build-up to the climax of the narrative, I found the ending unsatisfactory in its briefness and confusing nature.

Again, I understand that this is representative of Polo's loss of mind but for the build-up I wanted that bit more.

By no means a bad book but I definitely think it could have been improved in a multitude of aspects.

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gerzonvillegas's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

3.25

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laneport's review against another edition

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challenging dark fast-paced

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

4.5

An incredible work of literature and translation. But brutal, and hard to enjoy.

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darbo's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

3.5

A disgusting and vulgar piece of literature.

Paradais certainly was not a favourite of mine. Fernanda Melchor uses disgusting and vulgar language that might deter some readers, and make the ones that do decide to stick around uncomfortable. However, this is not a definite. I am sure there are also readers who do not mind that sort of language, and I obviously see the point the author is trying to make with this. It is quite clearly the voice of someone who is angry, and for good reason. At the same time as being a disgusting, misogynistic, and cynical piece of literature with absolutely unlikeable characters, it is also a voice that needs to be heard and an issue people need to talk about urgently.

However, let me warn you. This book fulfills all the trigger warnings you can think of; alcoholism, misogyny, violence, r*pe - just to name a few. And all of them are very much graphic at that.

Needless to say, this book was not the one for me, hence the 3/5 stars (3.5 on StoryGraph). I agree with the authors' point, but I disliked how they chose to portray it, even though such offensive language and violence is probably the right way to do it. Better to just read it for yourself.

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