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vanmeers's review against another edition
The Book of Joan is a story of how an environmental catastrophe forced the surviving (rich) humans to seek out life in space where they lose their reproductive organs (they, quite literally, shrivel up) and as they are now sex repressed must self-harm to produce written porn on their bodies.
There are several aspects of the book that I dislike but it is the authors outdated and offensive representation of gender that I dislike the most and find as the number one reason to not recommend this book. She describes a world where gender no longer exists, however, she makes it clear you can still tell when someone was a boy or a girl because of their shrivelled up genitalia. Additionally,the main villain, a man, is consistently shown as someone who mutilates women's bodies and performs 'genital reassignment surgery' on people who do not consent and in a final twist is revealed to be, in the author's words, a woman and the book then proceeds to describe him with female pronouns until he is killed off
There are several aspects of the book that I dislike but it is the authors outdated and offensive representation of gender that I dislike the most and find as the number one reason to not recommend this book. She describes a world where gender no longer exists, however, she makes it clear you can still tell when someone was a boy or a girl because of their shrivelled up genitalia. Additionally,
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Homophobia, Self harm, Sexual violence, and Transphobia
alylentz's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Read for a grad school class and I understand how this fits into the conventions of science fiction, but I don't think it's of value. The arguments it's making in regards to gender are convoluted, reductive, and harmful, in my opinion, not to mention the fact that the ultimate villain who is flaying people alive and mutilating people turns out to be--surprise!--a trans man! . Also, this author's style gets praised for being so elevated but there were multiple examples of sentences or comparisons made that were so over the top I had to roll my eyes. I also don't think the narrative was well-crafted: it really lacks momentum and if I wasn't reading this for school I absolutely wouldn't not have finished it. But maybe I'm too stupid for it! I don't know.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Transphobia, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Sexism, Rape, Racism, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Homophobia, Hate crime, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Body horror, and Blood
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