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A review by thebakersbooks
Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
I'm a completionist and usually have a hard time DNFing books, but this? This was a pleasure to stop reading. Maybe this book was enjoyable for a certain audience (fantasy romance readers) in 2007 when it was published, but it aged very poorly.
I don't intend to waste more of my time by writing an extensive review, but the crux of my issue with Magic Bites is that the female main character constantly judges other women. She's the epitome of pick-me, not like other girls, "strong female character" psuedo-feminism that actually puts women down. All the characters she respects and deals with as peers or superiors are male; female characters stick around just long enough for the MC to compare herself physically, find herself lacking (despite every male character propositioning her within an hour of meeting her), and smugly declare she'd rather be strong than pretty anyway. Cue eye roll.
There is also:
- overt fatphobia within the first couple of chapters ("an overweight slob" and "Gene Autry gone on a long Twinkie binge")
- two controlling love interests, the "nicer" one of whom is creepy as fuck (says he doesn't like to be startled "except by young, attractive women" in his first exchange with the MC; gets the MC's number from a co-worker after she refuses to give it to him)
- baked-in racism of the variety where the author describes characters' skin color only if they're Black or brown and the MC having no respect for in-world groups' cultures and traditions (the author frames this as funny/quirky)
- a passage where the MC is describing a vampire and she says, "Undeath had sharpened already delicate features, making it look like a concentration camp victim." Even if the author wasn't aware that European vampires were created based on antisemitic tropes, that would be a massively inappropriate thing to write.
I happily wash my hands of this book and recommend that people actively avoid reading it. (Also, that's the last time I take book recs from one of my wife's co-workers.)
I don't intend to waste more of my time by writing an extensive review, but the crux of my issue with Magic Bites is that the female main character constantly judges other women. She's the epitome of pick-me, not like other girls, "strong female character" psuedo-feminism that actually puts women down. All the characters she respects and deals with as peers or superiors are male; female characters stick around just long enough for the MC to compare herself physically, find herself lacking (despite every male character propositioning her within an hour of meeting her), and smugly declare she'd rather be strong than pretty anyway. Cue eye roll.
There is also:
- overt fatphobia within the first couple of chapters ("an overweight slob" and "Gene Autry gone on a long Twinkie binge")
- two controlling love interests, the "nicer" one of whom is creepy as fuck (says he doesn't like to be startled "except by young, attractive women" in his first exchange with the MC; gets the MC's number from a co-worker after she refuses to give it to him)
- baked-in racism of the variety where the author describes characters' skin color only if they're Black or brown and the MC having no respect for in-world groups' cultures and traditions (the author frames this as funny/quirky)
- a passage where the MC is describing a vampire and she says, "Undeath had sharpened already delicate features, making it look like a concentration camp victim." Even if the author wasn't aware that European vampires were created based on antisemitic tropes, that would be a massively inappropriate thing to write.
I happily wash my hands of this book and recommend that people actively avoid reading it. (Also, that's the last time I take book recs from one of my wife's co-workers.)