Reviews with content warning for Religious bigotry - Girls Against God

Surrealism and self-reflection reform as magic in this novel. It is disgusting, devoted, and drenched in adoration and bodily fluids.

I could read this novel a dozen more times and still have trouble categorizing it. It is angsty, lyrical, and shows the process of decontaminating oneself of the harshly imposed shame Christianity often ascribed to difference while avoiding the pitfalls of textual shame - the avoidance or curation of language. Hval writes this novel viscerally, with bodies, their parts, their fluids, and the conceptualization and actualization of sins being given true names and tangible descriptors. The struggle between the individual and externally oppressive religion is relatably detailed, and through that lens, this novel has the same impact when consumed as stained glass church windows divorced from their context.

So many readers who came of age on the internet were first introduced to the concept of a queer tenderness or queerness treated like literary fiction rather than something inherently pornographic, through the realm of fanfiction or short stories written to Tumblr prompts, as was very common in the 2010s. Rather than pulling me out of the story, despite how tenuous my grasp on the continuity of this book was, the narrator intermittently addressing the reader directly as "you" harkens back to that very specific reader insert fanfiction feeling, and the love expressed by the narrator for the reader creates that gorgeous, fluid, and velvety sense of adoration. This is an effect that I remember keenly feeling and craving at the young age of the girl in the puberty portrait that is so often brought up in this novel. I don't know that I can claim this specific tone to be authorial intent, but the mood created for the reader by the form and language of this book, with specific focus on the intersection between naturalism and internet subcultures, intertwines beautifully with the content.

I really don't know if I can recommend this novel to others. It is a lot, but it is also gorgeous.

Content Warnings

flyawaytruelove's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

Hval has a horrifyingly amazing talent with description of blood, viscera, hate, and bodily functions. It was described so well that I could reach out and touch it in my mind's eye. There was never a moment where I didn't feel strongly one way or another.

That being said... I don't think I was the target audience. The first half of the book hooked me well. I sympathized with growing up in a community heavily influenced by themes of God, purity, and the pure suffocation that entails. Then by the second half, I found myself straying away. It describes a different kind of hate from the one I personally know, a hate louder and more vicious that demands to dig up the antithesis of 1990s puritan Norway. Also the scat imagery caught me by surprise.

"Shit is the root of capitalism." And boy, I did not expect pages later for characters to start flinging feces(?) around?

It's intense. It's experimental. It's dark. There's nothing wrong with taking a chance with this book since I don't think it's badly written at all. But to me, it was alright even though there were a few times where I just... wanted to stop reading it.

Content Warnings

raintje's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

thesapphiccelticbookworm's review against another edition

Go to review page

mysterious reflective slow-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? No

2.25

Content Warnings

hannahlouise_'s review

Go to review page

dark mysterious reflective medium-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? It's complicated

2.75

I thought I would like this book a lot more than I did, but I also feel like you're not supposed to like it? The framing of the narrative and the stream of consciousness style was executed well but extremely hard to follow, convoluted and in places impossible to understand, but again, I feel like thats kind of the point.

Content Warnings

More...