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A review by rikerandom
The Women's War by Jenna Glass
2.0
cn: death (by suicide, beheading, mercy killing, magic, (off-page) torture, …), sexual assault (rape, forced prostitution, …), miscarriages, violence against children
THIS IS NOT A FEMINIST BOOK!
I really wanted to like this book because the premise was awesome. Then I started reading it and within the first 10 % several characters committed suicide / were pressured into killing themselvs, countless women were raped and I don't know what else. I originally decided to just dnf the novel but then read on anyways. It got simultaneously better and worse.
I liked a few things about the book. It's world, some of the characters, the writing, some of the ideas behind it and I did get drawn into the story after a while. But I also hated so much of it (spoiler ahead and also serious tw regarding all the stuff listed above):
- It is NOT queer inclusive. At all. In fact the whole thing is based on an absolutely binary concept of gender. There is pretty much only either strictly male or strictly female. And there's not a single queer character in sight. No trans or enby characters but also no sign of anybody being non-hetero.
- There's also no disabled people in this, the only fat character is ridiculously evil and … I can't say that I remember any character description that, especially in combination with the skin colour of the hand on the cover, implied that anybody in this book was not white. Apart from those who were even whiter, of course (there's racism against the whiter guys?). Oh, it's also classicist (is that the right word?) and there's not a single peasant in sight, apart from some lady's maids who don't actually get a voice in this.
- I absolutely hated that it is strongly implied that only women who explicitly said 'no' to and/or struggled against their rapists got 'rape-magic'. Got repeatedly raped by your abusive husband but never managed to do more than silently cry into your pillows? Well, too bad.
- Then again, rape apparently also doesn't really lead to trauma in this world, so … yeah … All the women forced into prostitution are pretty much fine or at least aren't shown to experience any mayor issues after being freed. They're just mostly okay?!
- Somehow women and especially women who do magic (who are usually also prostitutes) are really not well regarded in any of the countries in this world and yet in some super surprising twist of fate half the guys aren't really that shocked about them doing magic or turn out to be amazing allies?!
- I hated the (on page) violence. Most of it felt so clumsy, heavy handed and often unnecessary. Yes, I get it, women are in a horrible position in this world and all guys (apart from the good ones, of course) are superduper absolutely evil. Still, I don't need all those rape scenes and other stuff.
- Parts of the story seemed weirdly disconnected from the rest and there where plotlines that didn't seem to have any actual relevance to anything. It just gives this novel this feeling of "Hey, I'm just an introduction for a coming series and in the sequels it will totally make sense, that these characters were introduced!"
- This is mostly about sex. Who can have it, who can't and, oh, how cool, now women can have sex with whoever they want too! Sure, this is meant to convey how women suddenly have all the power, because they can't have children unless they want to, but it just isn't done in a way that works and only seems to result in trying to see how many rape and fade-to-black sex scenes can be put into this.
THIS IS NOT A FEMINIST BOOK!
I really wanted to like this book because the premise was awesome. Then I started reading it and within the first 10 % several characters committed suicide / were pressured into killing themselvs, countless women were raped and I don't know what else. I originally decided to just dnf the novel but then read on anyways. It got simultaneously better and worse.
I liked a few things about the book. It's world, some of the characters, the writing, some of the ideas behind it and I did get drawn into the story after a while. But I also hated so much of it (spoiler ahead and also serious tw regarding all the stuff listed above):
- It is NOT queer inclusive. At all. In fact the whole thing is based on an absolutely binary concept of gender. There is pretty much only either strictly male or strictly female. And there's not a single queer character in sight. No trans or enby characters but also no sign of anybody being non-hetero.
- There's also no disabled people in this, the only fat character is ridiculously evil and … I can't say that I remember any character description that, especially in combination with the skin colour of the hand on the cover, implied that anybody in this book was not white. Apart from those who were even whiter, of course (there's racism against the whiter guys?). Oh, it's also classicist (is that the right word?) and there's not a single peasant in sight, apart from some lady's maids who don't actually get a voice in this.
- I absolutely hated that it is strongly implied that only women who explicitly said 'no' to and/or struggled against their rapists got 'rape-magic'. Got repeatedly raped by your abusive husband but never managed to do more than silently cry into your pillows? Well, too bad.
- Then again, rape apparently also doesn't really lead to trauma in this world, so … yeah … All the women forced into prostitution are pretty much fine or at least aren't shown to experience any mayor issues after being freed. They're just mostly okay?!
- Somehow women and especially women who do magic (who are usually also prostitutes) are really not well regarded in any of the countries in this world and yet in some super surprising twist of fate half the guys aren't really that shocked about them doing magic or turn out to be amazing allies?!
- I hated the (on page) violence. Most of it felt so clumsy, heavy handed and often unnecessary. Yes, I get it, women are in a horrible position in this world and all guys (apart from the good ones, of course) are superduper absolutely evil. Still, I don't need all those rape scenes and other stuff.
- Parts of the story seemed weirdly disconnected from the rest and there where plotlines that didn't seem to have any actual relevance to anything. It just gives this novel this feeling of "Hey, I'm just an introduction for a coming series and in the sequels it will totally make sense, that these characters were introduced!"
- This is mostly about sex. Who can have it, who can't and, oh, how cool, now women can have sex with whoever they want too! Sure, this is meant to convey how women suddenly have all the power, because they can't have children unless they want to, but it just isn't done in a way that works and only seems to result in trying to see how many rape and fade-to-black sex scenes can be put into this.