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A review by jude333
Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
Did not finish book. Stopped at 52%.
I just couldn’t deal with the writing style. The long paragraphs about seemingly nothing just couldn’t capture my interest. I understand that it’s more to show her thought process, but things like that almost every 3 pages just killed me. I can (kind of) deal with an unlikable character, but this was extensive. I need SOMETHING that keeps me wanting to continue spending my time reading about them, and everything was just so awful.
Also the fat phobia was just too much to handle. These awful view points and long rants about these “fat women” did nothing to explore the character for me. It just showed how awful she was, which I was already EXTREMELY aware of. I understand that the point of her character is that she’s completely delusional, but I can only read about delusion so much before I start to discount every word and then it feels like I’m just wasting my time.
I will say, I did have an interest in her relationship with her husband, and that might have kept me going, but there was just so much noise around it that it wasn’t enough. I was reading on a kindle, but then I switched to the audiobook (which honestly did help a little), but I found myself continuously looking at the progress bar to see how much time I had left, and I didn’t want to force myself into a reading slump because of this book.
All in all, I see how some people could carry on with it, but it’s just not for me.
Also the fat phobia was just too much to handle. These awful view points and long rants about these “fat women” did nothing to explore the character for me. It just showed how awful she was, which I was already EXTREMELY aware of. I understand that the point of her character is that she’s completely delusional, but I can only read about delusion so much before I start to discount every word and then it feels like I’m just wasting my time.
I will say, I did have an interest in her relationship with her husband, and that might have kept me going, but there was just so much noise around it that it wasn’t enough. I was reading on a kindle, but then I switched to the audiobook (which honestly did help a little), but I found myself continuously looking at the progress bar to see how much time I had left, and I didn’t want to force myself into a reading slump because of this book.
All in all, I see how some people could carry on with it, but it’s just not for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia and Body shaming
Moderate: Misogyny, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting
Minor: Abortion