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A review by zoey222
The Woods Are Dark by Richard Laymon
1.0
The equivalent of a gory slasher movie in book form, though the imagery and situations depicted here are more intense, disgusting, and visceral than would be allowed in even the nastiest of movies.
I was greatly surprised by how much sexual violence was in this book. The author was very, very interested in depicting sexual assault of women. Because the treatment of horror was so one-sided in that respect, I unfortunately have to knock this story down from 4 stars to 1 star. I would have been fine with rapes if men were also victims, or if sexual assault was used to characterize a specific character's arc, instead of as a shock-value enhancer obviously sprinkled across the entire story and forced into almost every situation.
Altogether it was a horrifying read, but the author is obviously victimizing women way more than necessary, which turns him into a real-life creep. Thus, it gets the worst rating possible, and if you can't understand why that matters, then here is a really fun read:
https://www.robertjacksonbennett.com/why-are-you-writing-a-rape-scene
I was greatly surprised by how much sexual violence was in this book. The author was very, very interested in depicting sexual assault of women. Because the treatment of horror was so one-sided in that respect, I unfortunately have to knock this story down from 4 stars to 1 star. I would have been fine with rapes if men were also victims, or if sexual assault was used to characterize a specific character's arc, instead of as a shock-value enhancer obviously sprinkled across the entire story and forced into almost every situation.
Altogether it was a horrifying read, but the author is obviously victimizing women way more than necessary, which turns him into a real-life creep. Thus, it gets the worst rating possible, and if you can't understand why that matters, then here is a really fun read:
https://www.robertjacksonbennett.com/why-are-you-writing-a-rape-scene