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soupgirlreads 's review for:
Ruby Spencer's Whisky Year
by Rochelle Bilow
This is a book for the following target audience:
-straight
-white
-millennial women
...who makes drinking some type of alcohol their entire personality (*cough* wine moms *cough*)
Which is fine, but I am none of the above.
I actually did really appreciate the detailed food writing (I could really tell that the author has a background and passion in writing and making food), and I also really liked how the book didn't pit the female characters against each other, which happens much too often in "cozy," small-town, hallmark-esque books/movies.
However, I could tell that the author tried really, really hard to make Ruby this progressive, feminist, girl's girl, even though not every book out there needs to have deep sociopolitical commentary and this book proved why. It just made the moments where Ruby isn't the most "progressive" really stand out in a bad way (e.g., when Ruby makes fun of some random, harmless man's erectile dysfunction disorder, or implies that BO smells like "curry," or when she completely glosses over the fact that the male love interest lashes out at inanimate objects when he loses control of his anger MULTIPLE TIMES). Honestly, for the last one, I did contemplate DNF'ing this book when it happened, because WTF?
The flowery prose also lowkey drove me crazy because of the unnecessarily descriptive detail that the author tried to cram into every single sentence. Sometimes "X did Y." is enough!
All in all, this book made me realize that while infinitely less problematic, it's still fucking weird when white people fetishize other white people culture (take a shot of whisky every time the MC says "It's so Scotland!")
-straight
-white
-millennial women
...who makes drinking some type of alcohol their entire personality (*cough* wine moms *cough*)
Which is fine, but I am none of the above.
I actually did really appreciate the detailed food writing (I could really tell that the author has a background and passion in writing and making food), and I also really liked how the book didn't pit the female characters against each other, which happens much too often in "cozy," small-town, hallmark-esque books/movies.
However, I could tell that the author tried really, really hard to make Ruby this progressive, feminist, girl's girl, even though not every book out there needs to have deep sociopolitical commentary and this book proved why. It just made the moments where Ruby isn't the most "progressive" really stand out in a bad way (e.g., when Ruby makes fun of some random, harmless man's erectile dysfunction disorder, or implies that BO smells like "curry," or when she completely glosses over the fact that the male love interest lashes out at inanimate objects when he loses control of his anger MULTIPLE TIMES). Honestly, for the last one, I did contemplate DNF'ing this book when it happened, because WTF?
The flowery prose also lowkey drove me crazy because of the unnecessarily descriptive detail that the author tried to cram into every single sentence. Sometimes "X did Y." is enough!
All in all, this book made me realize that while infinitely less problematic, it's still fucking weird when white people fetishize other white people culture (take a shot of whisky every time the MC says "It's so Scotland!")