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A review by ourmagicclem
The Burning by Laura Bates
4.0
"You can call me a prude and you can call me a whore, but really you’re just calling me a girl. I am a girl. But those other things are yours. They’re in your minds, not mine."
Alright so this book is complicated. I liked it even if not everything works. It’s the story of Anna, a teenage girl who just moved to Scotland with her mother to start over after a nude of her was posted online without her consent. Things are going well at first, nobody knows, she starts to make friends… but of course, it’s impossible to outrun your past, the pictures reappears and the bullying starts again.
I think the book does a great job at showing how brutal revenge porn and bullying can be. Seeing all of this from the perspective of Anna makes it all the more horrible to read, especially since it’s obvious she is still really affected by what happened at her old school.
I also liked that the most important relationship in the story are the ones she has with other women, namely her mother and her two new friends Cat and Lish. She does have a love interest in Robin but that relationship is far less important. In a story about sexism, focusing on female friendship seems like the right choice.
And then, there is the whole Maggie thing. I understand why it’s there, the parallel between the witch hunt of the past and the witch hunt Anna is experiencing, very different and yet born out of the same mindset, different experiences and consequences but all about misogyny and punishing women for daring to not be the perfect women, for daring to have sex, to use their body in ways men don’t like, to speak up against the men who abuse them. Burned at the literal and metaphorical stake for their perceived wrongdoing while the men get away with abusing their power. That being said, I don’t think the way it was done was the best. The supernatural aspect didn’t feel at home with the story. Especially since she is doing tradition research about it anyway, I feel there was a way to do it that would have fit better with the story.
But overall, I liked it. I think it handles the subject really well. I would really recommend it.
Alright so this book is complicated. I liked it even if not everything works. It’s the story of Anna, a teenage girl who just moved to Scotland with her mother to start over after a nude of her was posted online without her consent. Things are going well at first, nobody knows, she starts to make friends… but of course, it’s impossible to outrun your past, the pictures reappears and the bullying starts again.
I think the book does a great job at showing how brutal revenge porn and bullying can be. Seeing all of this from the perspective of Anna makes it all the more horrible to read, especially since it’s obvious she is still really affected by what happened at her old school.
I also liked that the most important relationship in the story are the ones she has with other women, namely her mother and her two new friends Cat and Lish. She does have a love interest in Robin but that relationship is far less important. In a story about sexism, focusing on female friendship seems like the right choice.
And then, there is the whole Maggie thing. I understand why it’s there, the parallel between the witch hunt of the past and the witch hunt Anna is experiencing, very different and yet born out of the same mindset, different experiences and consequences but all about misogyny and punishing women for daring to not be the perfect women, for daring to have sex, to use their body in ways men don’t like, to speak up against the men who abuse them. Burned at the literal and metaphorical stake for their perceived wrongdoing while the men get away with abusing their power. That being said, I don’t think the way it was done was the best. The supernatural aspect didn’t feel at home with the story. Especially since she is doing tradition research about it anyway, I feel there was a way to do it that would have fit better with the story.
But overall, I liked it. I think it handles the subject really well. I would really recommend it.