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A review by sarabara
Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom
2.0
Well, that was unpleasant to read. While it is well-written, much of it reads like torture porn. Is your life not hard enough? Do you want to suffer more? Read this book.
As a woman, I've lived through this kind of shit: the misogyny, sexism, self righteousness from religious bigots, the powerlessness to fight against well-funded powerful men making laws that take away our agency, our dignity, and our choices. I don't need a detailed play-by-play where every single awful thing done to the female protagonist is laid out in excruciating detail.
Did this have some fun creepy folklore and witchy themes? You bet. But if you want to read about badass witches dealing with these same themes, read Alix Harrow's "The Once and Future Witches". In her hands, the story doesn't feel like you're forced to relive all your trauma.
This book made me angry. You don't get to profit off the horrors inflicted on women for millenia by your own fucking gender and not be held to the highest standard.
The icing on this shit cake was the fact that the comeuppance was just okay. If you, the author, are going to torture us for 100 pages with the most horrific shit men and religious zealots can and will do to women, the comeuppance better be fucking spectacular. It was...fine. Had I not lived through 100 pages of torture porn, it might have been satisfactory. But that was not the case.
You might be thinking, but this is a horror novel, it's supposed to give you all of the ragey feels. I'd argue that you can do that without exploiting women's suffering in such a way that makes it feel like you're reliving the shit we undergo to this day. You want to read a good horror that doesn't exploit women's suffering, read T Kingfisher's "The Hollow Places" or "The Twisted Ones". Or watch "Fresh" on Hulu. In the hands of women creators, these stories tend to not feel like trauma porn. And there are male authors that are doing it well, too. Nat Cassidy's, "Mary: an Awakening of Terror" is absolutely spectacular. Seriously, go read it.
In summation, I do not trust this author with my limited free time. There are too many good stories and authors to waste another moment suffering through my literature.
As a woman, I've lived through this kind of shit: the misogyny, sexism, self righteousness from religious bigots, the powerlessness to fight against well-funded powerful men making laws that take away our agency, our dignity, and our choices. I don't need a detailed play-by-play where every single awful thing done to the female protagonist is laid out in excruciating detail.
Did this have some fun creepy folklore and witchy themes? You bet. But if you want to read about badass witches dealing with these same themes, read Alix Harrow's "The Once and Future Witches". In her hands, the story doesn't feel like you're forced to relive all your trauma.
This book made me angry. You don't get to profit off the horrors inflicted on women for millenia by your own fucking gender and not be held to the highest standard.
The icing on this shit cake was the fact that the comeuppance was just okay. If you, the author, are going to torture us for 100 pages with the most horrific shit men and religious zealots can and will do to women, the comeuppance better be fucking spectacular. It was...fine. Had I not lived through 100 pages of torture porn, it might have been satisfactory. But that was not the case.
You might be thinking, but this is a horror novel, it's supposed to give you all of the ragey feels. I'd argue that you can do that without exploiting women's suffering in such a way that makes it feel like you're reliving the shit we undergo to this day. You want to read a good horror that doesn't exploit women's suffering, read T Kingfisher's "The Hollow Places" or "The Twisted Ones". Or watch "Fresh" on Hulu. In the hands of women creators, these stories tend to not feel like trauma porn. And there are male authors that are doing it well, too. Nat Cassidy's, "Mary: an Awakening of Terror" is absolutely spectacular. Seriously, go read it.
In summation, I do not trust this author with my limited free time. There are too many good stories and authors to waste another moment suffering through my literature.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Violence, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Gore, and Blood