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A review by sarahconnor89757
Things Slip Through by Kevin Lucia
1.0
This book has a strong premise and an interesting yet uncommon format, for that alone I would usually give a good rating. It sells itself as urban horror and that's exactly what it delivers, and although I was happy to see some ambitious social commentary it lost a lot of its impact when presented with cliché characters. Not to say that the characterizations aren't well done, but they are all extremely obvious; you'll see identical ones in any book of this genre. But like I said, that's not necessarily a bad thing as it's delivering exactly what it says it will.
The problem is that there were too many women.
Well, that's not exactly true… I guess I should say there are too many women for an average male author to handle.
You expect a book like this to have very few women, or very few women that aren't corpses were simply mentioned to establish that, yes, women exist within this universe but you just won't see them. Lucia has very few female characters in relation to the males but there are quite a few and they hold a lot of responsibility for advancing the plot. That sounds great. Unless you actually care about female representation.
I realize we had a problem when I got excited at the mention of a female character having had a conversation with her mother but quickly reread the line and realize the conversation was about her father. We almost passed the Bechdel test. Usually I wouldn't apply the Bechdel test to a novel (not because it isn't completely relevant, but because I'd rather enjoy the astonishment of finding one that does pass instead of continually getting my hopes dashed) but Lucia set himself apart by actually trying to involve women so it was so glaringly obvious that none of them had relationships with each other and although they were essential to advancing the plot the advancement was, in most part, for a male character's story.
I made it to about the middle of the book because once I became hyper aware of the potential this book had and yet page after page I continued to see the failure of representation it became insufferable. If I quit too soon, let me know. If a miracle happened and two women, identified enough to be given names, conversed about anything other than a man let me know. I'll congratulate Lucia on being one of the very few authors to achieve the bare minimum in female representation.
The problem is that there were too many women.
Well, that's not exactly true… I guess I should say there are too many women for an average male author to handle.
You expect a book like this to have very few women, or very few women that aren't corpses were simply mentioned to establish that, yes, women exist within this universe but you just won't see them. Lucia has very few female characters in relation to the males but there are quite a few and they hold a lot of responsibility for advancing the plot. That sounds great. Unless you actually care about female representation.
I realize we had a problem when I got excited at the mention of a female character having had a conversation with her mother but quickly reread the line and realize the conversation was about her father. We almost passed the Bechdel test. Usually I wouldn't apply the Bechdel test to a novel (not because it isn't completely relevant, but because I'd rather enjoy the astonishment of finding one that does pass instead of continually getting my hopes dashed) but Lucia set himself apart by actually trying to involve women so it was so glaringly obvious that none of them had relationships with each other and although they were essential to advancing the plot the advancement was, in most part, for a male character's story.
I made it to about the middle of the book because once I became hyper aware of the potential this book had and yet page after page I continued to see the failure of representation it became insufferable. If I quit too soon, let me know. If a miracle happened and two women, identified enough to be given names, conversed about anything other than a man let me know. I'll congratulate Lucia on being one of the very few authors to achieve the bare minimum in female representation.