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wretchedtheo's reviews
417 reviews
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Did not finish book. Stopped at 58%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 58%.
I've read almost all of Dickens' works, but this one is extraordinarily dull. I tried. I really did. I couldn't get through it. It really is ...bleak... *sitcom laugh track*
Kivu by Jean Van Hamme
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Powerful message of awareness, but it's very clearly made by white people for white people. And it's got a bit of a white savior narrative, who am I kidding it's got a SERIOUS white savior narrative.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, War, Medical content, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Child abuse, Child death, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Racism, and Violence
The Black Lizard by Edogawa Rampo
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Poems for Palestine: Recent poems by nine Palestinian poets & actions you can take to stop genocide now by
emotional
reflective
sad
5.0
Heartbreaking, earthshaking poems, the kind that change your life. "Grant them a death as beautiful as they are"... I am not the same. Free Palestine from the river to the sea.
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
Trite and shallow, Tender Is The Flesh adds nothing to the conversation, reinforcing stereotypes of gender, race, sexuality, ability and ethnicity at every turn. Uninteresting, uncomplex characters, lack of diversity. Thematically incongruous, sentimental writing style. Constant heavy-handed exposition in every chapter, delivered in all the most tired and clichèd ways possible. Nothing is believable.
The characters' construction is ableist, with characters we're meant to hate being deformed and/or disabled. It's racist too, reinforcing ethnic stereotypes. The human woman protected by the main character is white-skinned and green-eyed (obviously to make her more palatable and worthy of sympathy within the context of an unexamined and uncritical reading) despite the fact that the action is set in South America. There is a Romanian villain who's obsessed with hunting humans for sport and eating them while they're still alive, ranting about how he's draining their energy and life force - as a Romanian, I cringed so hard at this thinly veiled and utterly unimaginative Dracula reference. It's all so mindbogglingly stupid. And the "plot twist" at the end is completely unearned, coming literally out of nowhere, with no foreshadowing or setup to validate the brutal payoff. Bazterrica so obviously just hoped readers would confuse their shock for amazement, for something profound. "Wow, I never saw that coming!" Yeah, because it makes no sense. Unpredictability isn't what's worth celebrating. Ingenuity and creativity are - and that's exactly what this synthetic, commerical, paper-thin excuse for a dystopia lacks.
The characters' construction is ableist, with characters we're meant to hate being deformed and/or disabled. It's racist too, reinforcing ethnic stereotypes. The human woman protected by the main character is white-skinned and green-eyed (obviously to make her more palatable and worthy of sympathy within the context of an unexamined and uncritical reading) despite the fact that the action is set in South America. There is a Romanian villain who's obsessed with hunting humans for sport and eating them while they're still alive, ranting about how he's draining their energy and life force - as a Romanian, I cringed so hard at this thinly veiled and utterly unimaginative Dracula reference. It's all so mindbogglingly stupid. And the "plot twist" at the end is completely unearned, coming literally out of nowhere, with no foreshadowing or setup to validate the brutal payoff. Bazterrica so obviously just hoped readers would confuse their shock for amazement, for something profound. "Wow, I never saw that coming!" Yeah, because it makes no sense. Unpredictability isn't what's worth celebrating. Ingenuity and creativity are - and that's exactly what this synthetic, commerical, paper-thin excuse for a dystopia lacks.
A Cursory History of Swearing by Julian Sharman
Did not finish book. Stopped at 30%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 30%.
I'm actually very interested in the history and linguistics of swearing, but this book isn't a proper study, it doesn't cite its sources. I believe it's too old for that and doesn't take its subject matter seriously enough. I'm sure it has cultural significance in its own way, but it just wasn't what I was looking for.
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
The Penelopiad is easy reading, that much I'll say for it. Its feminist turn seems laudable - until you realize the story which claims to have intended to give a "voice" to the voiceless twelve maids of the Odyssey really just reduces them to an amorphous, homogenous collective character, only one of which is even given a name. They don't get any lines in the story proper, except what Penelope reports them having said. When they are allowed to speak for themselves it is only in the "choruses" - segments of verse where the still-unnamed girls strangely parody their own pain for the reader, occasionally veering into current pop culture references for our sensible enjoyment, speaking with one collective voice.
Sure, it looks fresh, interesting and modern, but that's all skin-deep. Apply an ounce of critical thinking and there's no substance behind it. The reader feels smart for getting it; the slave girls are still indistinguishable - or, better said, undistinguished - one from another.
As is the case with most feminist fiction written by TERFs, there is a bizarre obsession with rape. It is everywhere, especially where it doesn't need to be, and not once is such a sensitive topic handled with thoughtfulness or care. The author seems to positively delight in it, so haphazardly does she strew it about in her tale. Any criticism of this can of course be stopped up with "yes, well, y'know, it was like that in those times."
There is also that insistence with which the protagonist reminds the reader she is Not Conventionally Attractive, and proceeds to repeatedly bash at least one other female character for the crime of being, in fact, Conventionally Attractive. The Penelopiad could've done something interesting with Helen - that age-old sex symbol beloved of men, why not reclaim her? Why not at least explore her motives and mentality? Why not do anything but turn her into the Ancient Greek version of a bitchy, brainless, boy-crazy high school prom queen stereotype? But no. Whatever.
These are not the only areas in which Atwood's feminism disappoints. What seems on the surface to be a liberating revision of a tale so old as to have become the stuff of symbol within the European cultural consciousness really just reinforces preexisting power structures, giving a voice and agency only to a (European) woman. The Penelopiad's eponymous protagonist is a queen, a rich lady, a slave owner. Of course she loves her slaves and looks after them. (Of course, it's not her fault what happens to them, she was like a mother to her slaves, boo-hoo! Gosh, where have I heard this before?) But in her "story-making" there is no room for the "maids" (her slaves). She speaks for them. It is classist. It is whatever the feminine equivalent of "paternalistic" is. All the violence done to the slave girls is conveniently heaped onto the male characters' heads. Poor, innocent, white and teary-eyed Penelope had no hand in it whatsoever.
Again, TERF ideology is visible in the construction of the male characters. None of them are allowed to be the slightest bit good or kind, or even likeable. They have no redeeming traits. Moreover, the narrative is interrupted by several weird, unnecessary takes about men that lump them all together in an uncomfortably bioessentialist style. The male slaves, oppressed by their rich lady owner, are hardly even mentioned. Because it's not about them. It's not about anyone but Penelope.
You could make the argument that all of this is intentional on the author's part, that Penelope is established as an unreliable narrator - but you have to consider Atwood's stake in this, something she makes clear from the very introduction of the text. She says she wanted to write the story of "what Penelope was really up to". Fair enough. But right afterwards - and, more preposterously - she claims to have been "haunted by the twelve maids" (seriously?) and therefore, she wanted to tell their story. Very well, Atwood. Then why not give them all names, and personalities, and character arcs? You didn't have to make this a novella, you could've made some space in the story for the slave women you righteously claim "haunted" you. How very convenient for you that your beloved protagonist-narrator's mistreatment of the slaves can be spun around as an indictment of The System, As A Whole™ when you run into any criticism for the complete and utter lack of conscious and meaningful intersectionality in your critically-acclaimed, commercially successful feminist epic.
Finally, the style - though as I said earlier, easy to read - has this contrived wryness to it that really gets annoying after about three pages. I only finished it for an exam. I'm glad I didn't buy it. This novel is for self-righteous, self-victimizing white feminists comfortable in their privileged worldviews and eager to wallow in a faux-profound yarn whose nobly suffering female hero will confirm their biases, stroke their egos and have them nodding their heads as it tells them how oppressed they are without challenging them even once to think of those worse off than they. In short, it is not for me.
Sure, it looks fresh, interesting and modern, but that's all skin-deep. Apply an ounce of critical thinking and there's no substance behind it. The reader feels smart for getting it; the slave girls are still indistinguishable - or, better said, undistinguished - one from another.
As is the case with most feminist fiction written by TERFs, there is a bizarre obsession with rape. It is everywhere, especially where it doesn't need to be, and not once is such a sensitive topic handled with thoughtfulness or care. The author seems to positively delight in it, so haphazardly does she strew it about in her tale. Any criticism of this can of course be stopped up with "yes, well, y'know, it was like that in those times."
There is also that insistence with which the protagonist reminds the reader she is Not Conventionally Attractive, and proceeds to repeatedly bash at least one other female character for the crime of being, in fact, Conventionally Attractive. The Penelopiad could've done something interesting with Helen - that age-old sex symbol beloved of men, why not reclaim her? Why not at least explore her motives and mentality? Why not do anything but turn her into the Ancient Greek version of a bitchy, brainless, boy-crazy high school prom queen stereotype? But no. Whatever.
These are not the only areas in which Atwood's feminism disappoints. What seems on the surface to be a liberating revision of a tale so old as to have become the stuff of symbol within the European cultural consciousness really just reinforces preexisting power structures, giving a voice and agency only to a (European) woman. The Penelopiad's eponymous protagonist is a queen, a rich lady, a slave owner. Of course she loves her slaves and looks after them. (Of course, it's not her fault what happens to them, she was like a mother to her slaves, boo-hoo! Gosh, where have I heard this before?) But in her "story-making" there is no room for the "maids" (her slaves). She speaks for them. It is classist. It is whatever the feminine equivalent of "paternalistic" is. All the violence done to the slave girls is conveniently heaped onto the male characters' heads. Poor, innocent, white and teary-eyed Penelope had no hand in it whatsoever.
Again, TERF ideology is visible in the construction of the male characters. None of them are allowed to be the slightest bit good or kind, or even likeable. They have no redeeming traits. Moreover, the narrative is interrupted by several weird, unnecessary takes about men that lump them all together in an uncomfortably bioessentialist style. The male slaves, oppressed by their rich lady owner, are hardly even mentioned. Because it's not about them. It's not about anyone but Penelope.
You could make the argument that all of this is intentional on the author's part, that Penelope is established as an unreliable narrator - but you have to consider Atwood's stake in this, something she makes clear from the very introduction of the text. She says she wanted to write the story of "what Penelope was really up to". Fair enough. But right afterwards - and, more preposterously - she claims to have been "haunted by the twelve maids" (seriously?) and therefore, she wanted to tell their story. Very well, Atwood. Then why not give them all names, and personalities, and character arcs? You didn't have to make this a novella, you could've made some space in the story for the slave women you righteously claim "haunted" you. How very convenient for you that your beloved protagonist-narrator's mistreatment of the slaves can be spun around as an indictment of The System, As A Whole™ when you run into any criticism for the complete and utter lack of conscious and meaningful intersectionality in your critically-acclaimed, commercially successful feminist epic.
Finally, the style - though as I said earlier, easy to read - has this contrived wryness to it that really gets annoying after about three pages. I only finished it for an exam. I'm glad I didn't buy it. This novel is for self-righteous, self-victimizing white feminists comfortable in their privileged worldviews and eager to wallow in a faux-profound yarn whose nobly suffering female hero will confirm their biases, stroke their egos and have them nodding their heads as it tells them how oppressed they are without challenging them even once to think of those worse off than they. In short, it is not for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Slavery, Death, and Rape
Fancy Nancy and the Delectable Cupcakes by Jane O'Connor
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
An adorable children's book with a smart and empathetic message about taking responsibility for your weaknesses and finding workarounds for them.
I Am Not Starfire by Mariko Tamaki
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Cool art style, quick and easy read, but the main character was kind of annoying and the diversity was so annoyingly in your face. It's like they were trying to flex how epically liberal they were ON EVERY SINGLE PAGE. I love diversity and am very leftwing but in this book it was just sooooo ugh