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A review by raytoro
The Inverts by Crystal Jeans
1.0
So many words and yet so little of importance said.
Disappointing to say the least. Here were my main problems with it:
1. It honestly felt like it lacked queer romance- wlw romance in particular. I get it wasn't exactly marketed as a romance, but the blurb talks about "indulging their true natures behind closed doors" and there was very little indulging for Bettina! The only mentions of romance she had were once when she was a teenager, when she gets in a relationship with a truly horrible and pathetic person (with whom very little sex and NO romance is described) and then finally with her long term girlfriend WHO IS HARDLY MENTIONED AFTER THEY ACTUALLY GET TOGETHER???
2. It also lacked murder, WHICH WAS LITERALLY DESCRIBED IN THE BLURB TO BE THE MAIN CONFLICT OF THE STORY! It happens in like the last 50 pages and doesn't affect them at all! It could have been removed from the book and nothing would have changed.
3. The horrifying descriptions of bodily functions. Vomit, diarrhoea and genitals are so incredibly disturbing i wanted to die reading them. I'm not even being particularly harsh here, they were actually the vilest thing I've read in a while. I can't tell if the writer was trying to be funny or something, i was just extremely disturbed.
4. The weird amount of body shaming. I'm not being a snowflake here, Bettina makes fun of quite literally every female character's body.
5. The main characters were honestly just really annoying. My favourite kind of character is the morally grey, kind of horrible kind of character- but these 2 were extremely insufferable. I read review of this before reading, saw that people hated them and thought "no, I'll be different, I love horrible characters" but no i also hated them. You will likely not be different, don't waste your time on it. Don't hope for a morally grey anti-hero because what you're going to get is a predatory, gross, irritating pair.
6. The horrible portrayal of stereotypes. What was that about, hm? As queer woman myself, I recognised all the horrible disgusting stereotypes portrayed in this book. I truly have no idea if the author is gay, if she is it is truly shocking that she didnt catch herself doing this while writing it. Bettina is a predatory lesbian who has sex with men for attention/ revenge, Bart is a drunk whore. These kinds of things are stereotypes were trying to dismantle as a community, its terrible that a piece of gay media would reinforce them!
So why 2 stars? Everything i have described is terrible? I'll give it to Crystal that her writing style is very nice to read and i was entertained (for better or for worse) throughout the entire book. Good writing, terrible content.
Gays if you're reading this, please remember that just because something is queer doesn't mean its good. Be judicious in the media you consume.
Crystal if you see this, sorry for being harsh but everything i said is true. Try again maybe.
Disappointing to say the least. Here were my main problems with it:
1. It honestly felt like it lacked queer romance- wlw romance in particular. I get it wasn't exactly marketed as a romance, but the blurb talks about "indulging their true natures behind closed doors" and there was very little indulging for Bettina! The only mentions of romance she had were once when she was a teenager, when she gets in a relationship with a truly horrible and pathetic person (with whom very little sex and NO romance is described) and then finally with her long term girlfriend WHO IS HARDLY MENTIONED AFTER THEY ACTUALLY GET TOGETHER???
2. It also lacked murder, WHICH WAS LITERALLY DESCRIBED IN THE BLURB TO BE THE MAIN CONFLICT OF THE STORY! It happens in like the last 50 pages and doesn't affect them at all! It could have been removed from the book and nothing would have changed.
3. The horrifying descriptions of bodily functions. Vomit, diarrhoea and genitals are so incredibly disturbing i wanted to die reading them. I'm not even being particularly harsh here, they were actually the vilest thing I've read in a while. I can't tell if the writer was trying to be funny or something, i was just extremely disturbed.
4. The weird amount of body shaming. I'm not being a snowflake here, Bettina makes fun of quite literally every female character's body.
5. The main characters were honestly just really annoying. My favourite kind of character is the morally grey, kind of horrible kind of character- but these 2 were extremely insufferable. I read review of this before reading, saw that people hated them and thought "no, I'll be different, I love horrible characters" but no i also hated them. You will likely not be different, don't waste your time on it. Don't hope for a morally grey anti-hero because what you're going to get is a predatory, gross, irritating pair.
6. The horrible portrayal of stereotypes. What was that about, hm? As queer woman myself, I recognised all the horrible disgusting stereotypes portrayed in this book. I truly have no idea if the author is gay, if she is it is truly shocking that she didnt catch herself doing this while writing it. Bettina is a predatory lesbian who has sex with men for attention/ revenge, Bart is a drunk whore. These kinds of things are stereotypes were trying to dismantle as a community, its terrible that a piece of gay media would reinforce them!
So why 2 stars? Everything i have described is terrible? I'll give it to Crystal that her writing style is very nice to read and i was entertained (for better or for worse) throughout the entire book. Good writing, terrible content.
Gays if you're reading this, please remember that just because something is queer doesn't mean its good. Be judicious in the media you consume.
Crystal if you see this, sorry for being harsh but everything i said is true. Try again maybe.