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A review by the_creepy_geek
S.T.A.G.S by M.A. Bennett
3.0
Rating: 3.5*
This was a hard one to rate. I really enjoyed the narration and I liked the storyline but there were a few things that brought the rating down.
Positives:
The setting- I really enjoyed he settings of this book, bot the school and the big house. The descriptions of both were really vivid and brought pictures of grandeur to mind. Also, the whole thing gave it a real Agatha Christie murder mystery vibe which I loved.
The motive- I just really enjoyed the idea that there is a whole sect of people in a developed country that would turn their back entirely on technology and see it as a route of all evil. They brought up some valid points and the debates over the subject were really thought provoking.
The conclusion- By the conclusion I’m actually referring to the scene at the top of the waterfall (more on this below). I enjoyed the showdown, it was very dramatic and him being undone by the things he hated most (‘Savages’ and technology) was pretty perfect.
The movie references- soooo many and although I didn’t get them all I still enjoyed it. I also like the David Attenborough name drop.
Greer- awful name but I enjoyed her being a proper Northern Lass. She was bright, warm and funny. She was not perfect (see below) but that made her more human.
The Medievals- They really were a scary little cult and I could feel how dangerous they were. They were menacing and had a real aura of predator, like a pride of Lions. But it was more than that. It was the way they had been building to this for months, weakening their prey over time, studying their behaviour and weaknesses so that they could exploit them all the better once the hunt began.
Negatives:
Greer’s various ‘bad feminist ’ thoughts- Greer had this thoughts a few times throughout the book and it really started to annoy me. If she thought of one of the boys as handsome or felt all butterfly belly around them, she told herself she was a bad feminist. When she wished someone would sweep her off her feet and carry her down a hill to the car, she was a bad feminist. When she didn’t immediately believe a girl who said she’d been hunted, she was a bad feminist. NEWS FLASH- you are allowed to get a bit giddy over a boy, it doesn’t make you a bad feminist. You are allowed to want to be swept off your feet and men can want that too. You are allowed to not believe something that sounds crazy and not be angry at yourself just because a fellow woman said it.
Feminism is not about all this stuff. It is about equal rights for men and women: in the workplace, in the street, in the home, in the law. It’s about everyone being allowed to giddy over someone they find attractive or wanting to be swept of their feet. As long as you don’t disbelieve someones claims purely because they are female then it has NOTHING TO DO WITH FEMINISM.
It just annoyed me because people reading this book who might only now be getting to the age of being aware of what feminism is will think it’s about shit like hating men or siding with women always and it’s not. It’s about striving for a world were the gender pay gap is a thing of the past, women don’t get assulted in the street and old white men don’t inforce a tapon tax. Rant over.
The ending- This book should have ended about three chapters before it did. I had already guessed everything that was put forward in those chapters and it was a bummer that after everything they didn’t technically win. Although I did like the fact that the order seeped futher than they thought, I wanted justice and I didn’t really get it.
The foreshadowing- it wasn’t foreshadowing. She just basically told us how it would end and it killed a lot of the suspence for me.
Overall I did enjoy this audiobook but it didn’t quite hit all the notes I wanted it to and fell a little short for me.
This was a hard one to rate. I really enjoyed the narration and I liked the storyline but there were a few things that brought the rating down.
Positives:
The setting- I really enjoyed he settings of this book, bot the school and the big house. The descriptions of both were really vivid and brought pictures of grandeur to mind. Also, the whole thing gave it a real Agatha Christie murder mystery vibe which I loved.
The motive- I just really enjoyed the idea that there is a whole sect of people in a developed country that would turn their back entirely on technology and see it as a route of all evil. They brought up some valid points and the debates over the subject were really thought provoking.
The conclusion- By the conclusion I’m actually referring to the scene at the top of the waterfall (more on this below). I enjoyed the showdown, it was very dramatic and him being undone by the things he hated most (‘Savages’ and technology) was pretty perfect.
The movie references- soooo many and although I didn’t get them all I still enjoyed it. I also like the David Attenborough name drop.
Greer- awful name but I enjoyed her being a proper Northern Lass. She was bright, warm and funny. She was not perfect (see below) but that made her more human.
The Medievals- They really were a scary little cult and I could feel how dangerous they were. They were menacing and had a real aura of predator, like a pride of Lions. But it was more than that. It was the way they had been building to this for months, weakening their prey over time, studying their behaviour and weaknesses so that they could exploit them all the better once the hunt began.
Negatives:
Greer’s various ‘bad feminist ’ thoughts- Greer had this thoughts a few times throughout the book and it really started to annoy me. If she thought of one of the boys as handsome or felt all butterfly belly around them, she told herself she was a bad feminist. When she wished someone would sweep her off her feet and carry her down a hill to the car, she was a bad feminist. When she didn’t immediately believe a girl who said she’d been hunted, she was a bad feminist. NEWS FLASH- you are allowed to get a bit giddy over a boy, it doesn’t make you a bad feminist. You are allowed to want to be swept off your feet and men can want that too. You are allowed to not believe something that sounds crazy and not be angry at yourself just because a fellow woman said it.
Feminism is not about all this stuff. It is about equal rights for men and women: in the workplace, in the street, in the home, in the law. It’s about everyone being allowed to giddy over someone they find attractive or wanting to be swept of their feet. As long as you don’t disbelieve someones claims purely because they are female then it has NOTHING TO DO WITH FEMINISM.
It just annoyed me because people reading this book who might only now be getting to the age of being aware of what feminism is will think it’s about shit like hating men or siding with women always and it’s not. It’s about striving for a world were the gender pay gap is a thing of the past, women don’t get assulted in the street and old white men don’t inforce a tapon tax. Rant over.
The ending- This book should have ended about three chapters before it did. I had already guessed everything that was put forward in those chapters and it was a bummer that after everything they didn’t technically win. Although I did like the fact that the order seeped futher than they thought, I wanted justice and I didn’t really get it.
The foreshadowing- it wasn’t foreshadowing. She just basically told us how it would end and it killed a lot of the suspence for me.
Overall I did enjoy this audiobook but it didn’t quite hit all the notes I wanted it to and fell a little short for me.