Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis

9 reviews

orchidd's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

this was like reading about poorly adjusted people on reality TV

tags: lesbian gender, butch/femme, homonormativity, performativity (and inability to stop performing), construction of femme gender as in opposition to butch gender

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Torture, Cursing, and Body horror

Moderate: Drug use and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Excrement

butlerebecca's review against another edition

reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

Idk about this one - not what I expected but had very poignant reflections on gender and performativity throughout
- Update a month after reading, I keep thinking about this so I'm upping in from 3.25 to 3.75, left some lasting thoughts about queerness and the performance of desire

Main character is insufferable and wish she was reflective about this sooner than the last 5% of the book

First time I read a book with a character that uses he/she pronouns interchangeably throughout - I want a book from baby Jesse’s perspective!!!

And Jules was totally Rachel Maddow, right?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Homophobia

m_onalisaa's review

hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing

• Loveable characters? Yes

0.25

i no longer identify as a lesbian

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Bullying, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Cursing, Abandonment, Body shaming, Medical content, Blood, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Biphobia, Sexual violence, Body horror, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Drug use, and Toxic relationship

icmcmx's review

challenging fast-paced

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

0.25

Don't. Just save yourself the time and just go straight to therapy. 

It's like the writer took the most absurd things she could think of & threw them together in this grotesque mess of words. 


This is not being queer.  Please don't think that this is it. 

Also would love to call the RSPCA for that poor dug. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Body shaming, Drug use, Sexual content, Torture, Ableism, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Biphobia, Classism, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Medical content, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

lilkstew's review

2.5

Jenny Schecter, is that you?

I don't even know where to begin with this book. The opening certainly captures my attention with the Grinch nudes, but the shock factor wears off quickly after the third attempt at catching the reader off guard with bizarre references or questions. Even the body horror at the end falls so flat because it tries so hard to be transgressive and thought-provoking. It isn't, though.

I don't usually mind autofiction or think it's a bad thing, but this instance is too much for me. Dykette had the mark of Iowa's MFA allllll over it (and not in a splendid way). The pug. The pink. The self-importance. The article. The thirsting after the totally-not-Rachel-Maddow character. Idk, this book is marketed as a thoughtful, insightful look into contemporary butch/femme dynamics, but I think this book has such an ungrounded viewpoint that it feels shallow.

I read another review that described the book as an argument that someone has in their head, which felt so true. But I think that this book specifically reads like the arguments that that HRH Collection girl has with herself. I know she's horrible, but that's exactly how the pacing and neuroticism of the book come across.

Also, whenever there is a long description of someone's outfit, it feels very similar to My Immortal. It's actually uncanny. It's all very "I put on black high heels with pink metal stuff on the ends and six pairs of skull earrings." It seriously makes me wonder if Jenny Fran Davis was inspired by that fanfiction. 

Anyways, if you are looking for a snapshot into the mind of a modern-day Bushwick version of Jenny from season 6 of The L Word, perhaps you will love this book. I, personally, do not think it's a book that has earned itself the status of a staple of lesbian literature. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence and Body horror

annietaber's review

Literally so disturbing and for WHAT. I like a dark novel but the sudden body horror was simply too much and wasn’t even remotely connected to the plot or any character development. Shock just for scandal’s sake. I couldn’t recommend it to anyone in good conscience. Also, the characters never revealed who they were. Each action they made caught me off guard consistently; I’d think I knew each character and then they’d react in a way completely unhinged from any prior development or plot. Seemed confused in its vision and goal; instead all I got was that to be a modern lesbian you had to mutilate yourself— literally and figuratively. I thought about finishing just to say I’d read it, but after sleeping on the horrifying porno scene, I couldn’t justify putting myself through that for a book that wasn’t even important to me in the first place. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Body horror, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Gore, Blood, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

the_lesbrarian's review

dark emotional funny tense slow-paced

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

3.0

This disturbing and complex novel is one I will be thinking about for a long time, but will probably never be able to read again. Centered around three very online butchfemme couples on Christmas vacation in upstate New York, Dykette explores the nuances of contemporary lesbian identity through the eyes of a deeply unlikeable narrator, Sasha. We watch relationships unravel into queer body horror at the intersection of exaggerated performance of online and real-life identity. 

rep: 3 main lesbian couples, non-binary lesbians, butch/femme dynamics, he/him lesbians, they/he/she lesbians

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Body horror, and Gore

Moderate: Gaslighting, Infidelity, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, and Medical content

Minor: Sexual violence

asha_m's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Body horror, Sexual violence, Sexual content, and Torture

growliegrl's review

dark emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

Loved the idea of this story: queers just being queer and the drama that comes along with just living life. We deserve queer books that aren’t only about trauma or coming out. However…… I did find the characters a bit flat (like some other reviewers here). The manipulative main character’s self-absorption was painful to read. Does this actually make this book genius? Maybe sort of. I’m all for the feminist horror of a protagonist driven to hysteria. But this book just didn’t hit like a Mona Awad novel does. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Gaslighting, Bullying, and Body horror