Got this on loan from the library and it was painful. Gabe is kinda the worst, Mia is yet another heroine who doesn't deserve tOh dear. No, thank you.
Got this on loan from the library and it was painful. Gabe is kinda the worst, Mia is yet another heroine who doesn't deserve to be treated the way she is, and the other men are frankly just gross. There is kink and there is being an ass.
Full disclosure, I did DNF this at about 15%...more
While the idea of an autistic heroine is compelling, the work done here by Helen Hoang was simply appalling. Stella Lane, while a highly interesting hWhile the idea of an autistic heroine is compelling, the work done here by Helen Hoang was simply appalling. Stella Lane, while a highly interesting heroine when divorced from the romance plot lines, still had a character arc that was almost entirely focused on figuring out how to overcome her autism diagnosis. In the end, she does seem to finally grasp that overcoming her diagnosis is a terrible way to think about this, and accept that she is a fully functional human regardless of any diagnoses, but I am not convinced the author believes this.
Despite her own diagnosis, Hoang's list of recommended authors at the end of her book includes a mix of both respected and controversial figures in autism research and advocacy. While Samantha Craft and John Elder Robison seem to be people working toward acceptance and awareness of autistic individuals and the ways they interact with the world, Rudy Simone and Tony Attwood are controversial figures, who seem outdated in their work with autism and autism advocacy. This mix of attitudes makes for a very confusing read on what the author thinks about her autism diagnosis. I can only conclude that Hoang herself is conflicted on understanding how she should feel and react to her own diagnosis, as well as her main character's.
Even leaving my issues with the portrayal of autism aside, the premise of the book is (as Hoang says in her author's note) a "reverse Pretty Woman, although that movie is much more Cinderella than this book is. Stella, our heroine, hires Michael, our hero, to give her lessons in how to have good sex, then later (view spoiler)[changes their arrangement to being a fake-dating scenario (hide spoiler)]. This leads to a lot of my problems with this book. Firstly, the entire premise of Stella having to get over her touch-aversion was insulting and problematic. Secondly, Michael's character was frustrating as he is introduced as an escort who hates his job. He also has selective hearing when it comes to Stella saying "no" to things. For example, the first sexual interaction they have, he ignores her signs of discomfort about multiple things, from kissing to taking her clothes off. Despite the fact that this always works out for him (even in later interactions where he ignores her), it rubbed me the wrong way, and definitely isn't something I would be okay with in a relationship--especially not one I was paying for.
Stella is also characterized very much like an aromantic, asexual person in the opening chapters, as she has internal monologue about how she doesn't like dating or sex, and describing the relationship parts of the dating (or, what would usually be seen as romantic--gifts, going out to eat together, spending time together) as boring, annoying, or upsetting to her. She also remembers a sexual encounter from her last date that was (in my opinion) non-consensual as the event caused her to disassociate. This characterization is not necessarily changed as the book goes on, but Stella instead is characterized as having found her magical, perfect person who doesn't trigger her.
My final point about Stella is that she actively believes, even at the end of the novel (or at least, we're never told she's been convinced differently) that her ASD diagnosis makes her less somehow than other neurotypical people. This leads her to hide her diagnosis from Michael, who doesn't actually care, and causes a lot of unnecessary miscommunication drama.
Michael, too, is hiding things from Stella, which is talked about in very overblown terms for what actually happened. Because of his father's actions, Michael (for reasons unclear even after finishing the book) decides that he is going to be exactly like his father, regardless of what he actually wants to do. This eventually (view spoiler)[is revealed to have played into his taking the escorting job, even though he hates it, and into his breakup with Stella at the climax of the book's plot (hide spoiler)]. Again, had he actually communicated his misgivings and concerns, with literally anyone else in the entire novel, a lot of this would have been cleared up much earlier in the plot, and miscommunication drama would have been cut way back.
Finally, I really hate to say this, but I don't think Helen Hoang can write sex scenes. Every time I read a sex scene, I did not find it sexy, but instead found it embarrassing, upsetting (due to Michael ignoring Stella's requests), or just odd. Hoang's descriptions of sex were frequently juvenile, and Michael's nipple obsession was extremely uncomfortable to read about. It was extremely objectifying and weird. Hoang also frequently referred to genitalia with a vague "down there" or "sex" instead of choosing a term or using the word "vagina." This seemed isolated to Stella for the most part, as she was comfortable using the word "cock" to refer to Michael's penis. Over all it just wasn't an enjoyable or titillating reading experience due to this odd word choice factor. It also seemed like Hoang was trying to go for a fun, light-hearted tone but missed, which made it read like parody played straight.
Other moments I found icky included a moment where Michael says he is going to "seduce [Stella] out of her anxiety," and the entire bar/club sequence, which starts with Michael commenting on how even though she's in her thirties she looks barely legal, and ends with Michael getting kissed by a former client (who he does nothing to discourage), and Stella leaving because she (rightly) thinks this is disrespectful and gross when they're out together, and also because she's overstimulated from the club environment. Michael is also extremely misogynist in his internal monologue, which makes his relationship with Stella seem very unbalanced.
If I wanted, I could probably list problems I had from every chapter, but that seems excessive for a Goodreads review. Allow me to leave you with this: If you like stories where perfectly nice girls fall for the asshole, miscommunications would be avoided if the characters talked to each other for five minutes, terribly written sex scenes, and frustrating and ableist portrayals of autism, this might be the book for you! If not, please, do me a favor and do not read this book. It's not worth it. ...more
While I don't deny the fact that yoga is a vital part of Hinduism, and may be considered part of "worship" for many Hindus, in American culture, yoga While I don't deny the fact that yoga is a vital part of Hinduism, and may be considered part of "worship" for many Hindus, in American culture, yoga has become so mainstream and divorced from any religion that most of Hunt's arguments are fallacious.
Hunt also uses outdated references for the majority of the book (pre 1990s references popped up frequently, and I don't think I saw anything dated earlier than the mid 2000's), which makes it seem like he did no research into modern yoga and the culture of physical well-being that surrounds it in America. In fact, he states outright that there is no difference between religious yoga and the watered-down version currently most commonly practiced in the US today.
Finally, Hunt makes the preposterous claim that Christians practicing yoga can become possessed by demons. He posits the theory that because in its original religious context, yoga is seen as an opening of the body and the mind/spirit, it's practitioners become open to demonic possession. He equates this to the (VERY different) practice of VooDoo priests and priestesses of deliberatly calling spirits (loa) down to "ride" them. To his mind, there is no difference between them, because any form of "openness" whether that's meditation, yoga, hypnosis, etc., allows for evil spirits/demons to take possession of your mind and body. He also makes no distinction between Christians and non-Christians, saying that yoga will allow even Christians to become demon possessed (Paul states that the indwelling spirit of Christ protects us from possession, but not influence, by demons).
Overall, I cannot recommend this book, as it contradicts biblical truth....more
This was terrible. I have a lot more thoughts on it than just "UGH BAD" but wow. This was painful to read.This was terrible. I have a lot more thoughts on it than just "UGH BAD" but wow. This was painful to read....more
So, for one, this says it's for couples, but this is definitely mostly directed at men. Or at least that's what it seems like from my perspectiOh boy.
So, for one, this says it's for couples, but this is definitely mostly directed at men. Or at least that's what it seems like from my perspective. Harvey is writing from a man's point of view to other men. The few places he does speak to women, it's basically to tell them that they can't leave their abusive marriage and need to stay with their husbands, even when that husband is being genuinely harmful and abusive to them and their children.
This is the kind of toxic theology that drives people away from the church. I cannot in good conscience recommend this to anyone....more
**spoiler alert** Julia Quinn, I expected better than this.
I didn't expect much, this is a Regency romance novel, after all, and there are certain gen**spoiler alert** Julia Quinn, I expected better than this.
I didn't expect much, this is a Regency romance novel, after all, and there are certain genre tropes to uphold. I don't read these books for realism, I read them for entertainment. But the gross mishandling of mental illness in this book is just unforgivable.
Having a wife who is clinically depressed to the point of suicide is horrible, yes. Watching her try to kill herself, then slowly die of the consequences is even moreso. But that does NOT give you an excuse to invalidate your second wife's concern that you don't do anything but say hello, eat meals, and fall into bed.
Eloise deserved so much better than a man who gaslights her out of her concerns, then distracts her by declaring his love. She deserves better than a man who says to her face that her concerns are invalid, that they "don't have a problem," because Eloise isn't suicidally depressed.
And we, the readers, deserved better than this steaming pile of crap. Especially because the ablism doesn't show it's full disgraceful head until two chapters from the end of the book.
I'm honestly questioning if I want to finish the Brigertons series, that's how offensive and gross I found this book....more
I'm very angry about this book, and the way LaSalle talks about women. Clearly this book is the product of the early 00's, but even then I can't imagiI'm very angry about this book, and the way LaSalle talks about women. Clearly this book is the product of the early 00's, but even then I can't imagine this book was considered a forward-thinking book. I've never read a book this anti-woman while being this pro female sexuality.
I've taken some serious time to ruminate on this book and digest why I am upset with it. My main reasons boil down to the condescending tone of the book, LaSalle's madonna/whore complex with Garbo and Shearer, and LaSalle's insistence that any movie post-code enforcement cannot be feminist or liberating.
The condescension isn't something you can really get around or talk about aside from that it exists, so I'm going to skip over that and move on to the other two things I hated. First off was the tendency to glorify Greta Garbo as a latter day Madonna figure, often speaking of her with overt religious references and overtones. Contrast this to his tendency to immediately before or after these rhapsodic passages, talk about Norma Shearer like she was a degenerate whore. I just--you know what? Let me copy/paste my rant via IM about this, because that captures it better than anything I can write post-finishing this crap. (Full disclosure, it also features way more swearing than my usual reviews do.)
Jennifer Lee: He keeps completely writing off the late thirties and the entirety of the forties because they fall under the realm of the production code, so clearly there can be nothing liberating or feminist about those movies. He continues to be condescending about actresses and their performances while at the same time fetishizing their on-screen personas. He seems to find no value in pre-code films that stick to what I'll call the "traditional" formula for couples. And he ascribes to the virgin/whore dichotomy but slightly twisted, where the virgin becomes a long-suffering saint and the whore becomes a "slut with a gold heart." I am literally only continuing to read this so I can eviscerate it on goodreads. Also, the embodiment of his slut is Norma Shearer, while he waxes rhapsodic about Garbo's suffering saint performances. It's hella icky.
Longsuffering Friend: That book still. Ah. Word
Jennifer Lee: OKAY HAS THIS ASS EVEN *WATCHED* A PRE-CODE MUSICAL????????? "COMPARE FAVORABLY TO TECHNICOLOR MUSICALS FROM THE LATER DECADES" WHAT THE HELL IS THIS BASTARD EVEN ON? HE LIKES THEM BECAUSE THERE ARE TITS. THAT IS LITERALLY HIS REASONING. THEY SHOW NUDITY SO THEY'RE AS GOOD AS ROGERS AND HAMMERSTIEN. FUCK YOU, YOU LASCIVIOUS JERK. Jerk may take some of the acid out of that last comment, there, but I couldn't think of a good enough profanity. "DRAINED OF LIFE AND SPONTANEITY???????" MICK LASALLE, I AM FUCKING *COMING* FOR YOU. *Hagrid voice* DO NOT INSULT GENE KELLY IN FRONT OF ME!
Longsuffering Friend: *gaaaaaaasp* *the piano and crowd fall silent in every saloon in the country*
Jennifer Lee: *grumbles about how I may not like American in Paris either, but there was no need to call it pessimistic and depressing, for Christ's sake* Yup. I'm going to issue a personal challenge to Mick LaSalle and fight him. I may not win, me being really horrible at any kind of fighting, but I'll do my best to defend the honor of the late thirties, the forties, and the fifties. And also to get back at him for liking pre-code musicals because they have nudity. Um, did. Did I just read that right? So, for the whole book he's been praising these women and these movies for the sexual freedom and their feminism, and now, when he's talking about a movie where a wife cheats on her husband and refuses to apologize, he gets all "Well, this is too much."
Longsuffering Friend: Men. Are. Scum.
Jennifer Lee: And I quote: "It gets worse. Next thing, she's blaming him." The speech he quotes from to support this? The opening line he quotes is "Whatever's happened, some of it's your fault, some of it." She goes on to talk about how he's cold to her and she'd rather he never forgive her if it means she gets a man who "makes you so dizzy you don't know what's happened and you don't care!" Oh, ouch. He just called a scene where a woman is trying to figure out who was in her bed last night "funny." Because she cringes every time a man says hello to her. Oh, and two paragraphs later, a woman who abandons her child to feed her cocaine addiction is wrong when she says there's something missing from her soul, because according to this ass, "maybe she has a little *extra* something." Wait, not abandons. "neglects to the point of malnourishment." *not my impressed face* Like, I'm not saying all women have to be bastions of wifely good humor and motherhood (obviously) but I fail to find anything particularly admirable about child abuse. Which apparently LaSalle does? Or seems to? His implication isn't that the role is daring and therefore interesting compared to films made during the code, but that it is a type of woman to aspire to be? His whole point through this chapter is confusing and not well thought out, though, so.
Longsuffering Friend: Hmmm
Jennifer Lee: I really want to force Mick LaSalle to say things like, "rape is bad and I will not find it humorous when a woman flinches at men who say hello to her" and "sometimes men are the ones at fault in the breakup of a relationship and I should not try to pretend it's unreasonable for a woman to call a man out on this."
Longsuffering Friend: Make him say it 100 times
Jennifer Lee: "Women are not objects for me to fetishize, no matter how many movies they appeared in, or how many sheer dresses they wore." *glares at this two-page soliloquy on how the production code forcing filmmakers to be subtle is a myth* It's not that his points are wrong, it's just that he's making condescending blanket statements about his points.
Well, I knew it would be bad going in, so this is a clear case of Dead Dove: Do Not Eat happening here (if you don't know the Dead Dove reference, go Well, I knew it would be bad going in, so this is a clear case of Dead Dove: Do Not Eat happening here (if you don't know the Dead Dove reference, go watch Arrested Development, check Know Your Meme, and get back to me later).
I was expecting the racism, and BOY. IS THERE EVER RACISM. From the way African American characters talk to the way they're described, to the way Bond thinks about them, the racism is legit permeated through the entire book. It's gross, it's difficult to read, and in a couple places it was stomach-turning.
Perhaps because the racism was so prevalent, thereby turning on my critic brain, it was much harder to ignore the sexism (and blatant lack of female characters aside from the occasional woman doing a woman's job, like nursing, or housekeeping). Solitaire is pretty much helpless, does nothing to advance the plot, and is basically there for Bond to drool over, and Mr. Big to practice toxic masculinity on (seriously. He's keeping her locked in a room until she agrees to marry him. It's gross).
And then there was the shocking ageism. It's shocking because I wasn't expecting it. No other review I read mentioned this. No warning was given. They start talking about Florida and it shows up briefly, but it's not clear how very against old people Ian Fleming was until they're in Florida and Bond and Leiter and driving down the street watching the retirees and mocking them and making ugly, disrespectful generalizations about them by turns. So much for "in my day we respected our elders." No, you didn't, apparently. You talked about them ruining Florida with their presence, being gross and old and useless, and mocking them for having gray hair and retirement gifts and wrinkles.
I suspect the ageism can be chalked up to Fleming's own sense of uselessness and grotesquery at growing older. The sexism can be chalked up to his personal fantasies (which by all accounts are exactly what he started writing the Bond novels to explore). The racism, though . . .
As has already been observed, Fleming lived among black skinned people in his Caribbean home. He would have interacted with them daily. If the views expressed in this novel are to be trusted, then he was, without caveat, a racist. Which makes me feel very differently about Ian Fleming.
You might be able to tell, I didn't enjoy this book. I thought I could get past the racism--all the reviews warn about it, after all, so I knew what I was getting into. But there was so much else wrong here, too, that it became intolerable....more
"There is an awful lot of shouting, yelling, and fighting in this book, as well as a dearth of fluff and an overabundance of broken people. Not sure h"There is an awful lot of shouting, yelling, and fighting in this book, as well as a dearth of fluff and an overabundance of broken people. Not sure how I feel about that. "
I do, in fact, know how I feel about that now. Disappointed, because I can't finish this. I'm halfway through and I strongly dislike Cam, I find Anna totally unbelievable as a character, and I'm not at all enamored of Seth. I don't like this book. I don't like the pacing, I don't like the writing, I don't like the characters. About the only thing I'm interested in is the plot, but that's so slow in coming that it's not worth it to finish this.
This makes me sad, because I used to love Nora Roberts. Once upon a time, she was my go-to supermarket paperback pick. No more, I think. Not for a while anyway. It'll take some time to wash this bad taste out of my mouth.
See, Cam is written to be the ultimate bad-boy. He's coarse, over-sexed, violent, commitment-phobic. He also has a soft heart under all that throwing things, following you home, tossing you out of his bed and into the hall while you're still naked shit. He's totally devoted to his family, so that makes it okay, I guess? *rolls eyes*
Anna, the female lead, isn't much better. She wears stereotypical frumpy librarian clothes while at work as a social worker so she'll be "taken seriously," but drives a sports car. In her off time, though, she dresses like the stereotypical eighties sex-pot, because I guess that's what you do when you're a beautiful woman trying to have a professional career. Heaven forbid you actually dress well at your job. You might get fired for being too pretty. *rolls eyes more* Anna also has the dubious backstory of having been raped while watching her mother also be raped and murdered. After this trauma, instead of taking years to freak out and be afraid of men and sex, like literally every woman I know who was raped at a young age (by which I mean under fifteen), Anna at age twelve sleeps around with various other . . . people. I guess we're never told if they're male or female, or what age, but really now. *unimpressed face*
In between Cam being a raging, egotistical asshole and Anna being . . . whatever the hell she is . . . we get the plot. This revolves around the Quinn brothers trying to figure out what happened the night their father had his fatal car accident, who Seth really is, and ???? something else. What else I'm not sure, but it always felt like this nebulous third question was going to pop out of somewhere before the end of the book.
So, between my annoyance at the characters and the slow as molasses in January plot, we had the writing. Which was . . . I don't know if it was mediocre or bad or if it just was not the style I was expecting or what, but I hated the writing in this book. I've got no idea if Nora Roberts has always written like this and I only just realized I don't like it because it's been so long since I read her and my tastes have changed, or if I just subjected myself to the badness because I didn't know better, but wow.
Nope. I'm done. Which is sad, because I'd hoped to be sucked into a series, but instead I'm probably going off contemporary romance for a long while....more
I have such conflicting feelings on this book. I think the main problem I have with it is that it feels like two separate novels that got smushed intoI have such conflicting feelings on this book. I think the main problem I have with it is that it feels like two separate novels that got smushed into one. The first novel (the one the book sets up in the first chapter) is a novel about a young woman in an abusive relationship finally starting to realize that the way she's being treated is wrong, and that it's not her fault or responsibility to make her boyfriend happy, particularly not when he's never on her side and clearly doesn't love her (clearly to an outsider, I suppose, it's never easy to see things clearly when you're in the middle of them). The second book is a time-travel romance novel about a 16th century gentleman and a modern woman falling in love across time while trying to solve a historical mystery.
Had the book just been one of these plots--either one!--I probably would have really enjoyed it. Instead, their being combined made everything very confusing. Sometimes the book was funny when it should have been serious, sometimes it dealt with situations seriously when they should have been comical. Nicholas was able with no trouble to pick out appropriate clothes for Dougless in the modern section of the book, despite only having a few back issues of fashion magazines for advice. Somehow Dougless managed to blend in with the middle class in 1560, despite having no historical background (her father is the historian, not Dougless herself) to help her and no practical coaching from Nicholas. Both of them spend long periods of time acting like crazy people without any consequences to their actions.
The things I am going to remember most from this book are the off-the-wall weirdness of the two main characters, the frustration the time-travel plot caused me, and the relationship between Dougless, Gloria, and Robert. I am not going to remember Dougless and Nicholas. I am not going to remember the way they solved the mystery. I am not particularly pleased with how they resolved the Dougless/Nicholas portions of the storyline, and I felt very strongly that the issue with Gloria was never addressed with the gravity it should have been given. If my boyfriend was accusing my daughter of lying all the time, if my daughter was in turn accusing my boyfriend of abusing her, I would not blindly believe one of them over the other. Robert does just that. Instead of sitting everyone down and having them talk, Robert chooses to believe Gloria, or at least to act like he does.
The only thing I enjoyed about this book was that at the very end, (view spoiler)[Dougless refuses to take Robert back, even though she believes he has truly changed. I cheered at that, even though I know Deveraux probably wanted us to end the book with some empathy for Robert. Sorry, no. Robert was manipulative and mean the entire length of the book, and I pretty much was disgusted by him from first page to last. (hide spoiler)]
In the end, I'm glad I finished this book, but I'm not particularly happy with the actual resolutions to everything. Part of this is probably the comedy of errors I went through upon first finding the book. I misread "Dougless" as "Dutchess," misunderstood the plot to be more like Timeline than Back to the Future, Part II, and thought the "I'll love you across time" ending was trite and stupid. I knew I'd made a mistake shelling out even a dollar for this book when I actually read the goodreads reviews and they were nearly all short-of-breath and glowing with praise or variations on "this book sucked." It's never a good sign when the reviews are almost all five stars or one star. That said, the writing was very good as far as readability, tone, and voice went. It was just a big NOPE as far as actual plot and characters....more
What on earth possessed me to read this novella? There are three things in fiction that I hate: Everyman narratives that don't bother t*long sigh* No.
What on earth possessed me to read this novella? There are three things in fiction that I hate: Everyman narratives that don't bother trying to be anything else, eastern philosophy as plot point(s), and proselytizing. When I read Life of Pi I felt betrayed by the use of philosophy as plot point. When I read The Alchemist I was both baffled and upset by the Everyman narrative, the use of monomyth, and the confusing mixture of eastern and western philosophical principles. With Siddhartha I'm mostly just annoyed that I wasted my time with yet another book that manages to do nothing but meander through vague philosophical ideas that it doesn't even manage to get right, while attempting to make me care about an Everyman who is more bland and boring than the original Everyman in those intensely frustrating morality plays I had to read in high school.
To be fair, I did try to put aside my own biases against this type of story, but there is only so long I can stave off my natural inclination to huff in disgust and roll my eyes before it overwhelms me. I think I'd rather read Life of Pi again than ever have to endure another work by Hesse....more
Okay, I have to admit, I'm totally baffled by the praise this book gets. Maybe, once upon a time, this book would have been acceptWell, that happened.
Okay, I have to admit, I'm totally baffled by the praise this book gets. Maybe, once upon a time, this book would have been acceptable LGBT+ representation, but from today's standpoint, the only queer people in this book are either mentally incapacitated or evil. And that's an issue for me.
Also, Mildmay was annoying and I didn't like him. Felix spent the entire book being used like someone's sentient lamp that keeps burning through bulbs. The bisexual character was the main villain. Mildmay got weird every time he thought another man might be coming onto him. Shannon turned on Felix (who he'd been claiming to love) immediately upon finding out Felix might not have been truthful about his past.
And the book just dragged on, and on, and on, and on.
But then that last chapter kind of got good, and now I actually am interested in reading the next book, which makes me even MORE angry at this one, because how dare you be utter crap and then pull interesting developments out for the first time at the very end?
Honestly, this book was so boring that I can't even summon up enough rage to write a really scathing review, I'm just generally annoyed and insulted that this book exists....more
If this is what Eloisa James novels are like, count me out. I thought maybe I was just having trouble with The Ugly Duchess because I didn't like the If this is what Eloisa James novels are like, count me out. I thought maybe I was just having trouble with The Ugly Duchess because I didn't like the characters, but this book might actually have been worse.
Kate was fine at the beginning. I liked the way she handled herself with Mariana and her affection for Victoria, but almost as soon Kate got in the carriage with Algie, her entire personality changed from being capable and interesting to being a whiny, forlorn girl who complains about her age and her looks at 23.
Gabriel was an ass. Particularly vile was the fact that despite his betrothed being at dinner with the rest of his family, he leaves the dinner to go have sex with Kate, who has been stranded in his room, despite her protests, because . . . well, because that's what Gabriel wants, and Gabriel, like Lola, always gets what he wants. Gabriel also has an illegitimate brother that he doesn't even bother to acknowledge until Kate figures it out and calls him on it. He saves another girl's reputation, but only because he tricked Kate into promising him a kiss if he did. He tells Kate point-blank that she doesn't have to worry, he won't seduce her, and then reneges on his word within the space of a few pages.
Aside from that, the plot was so thinly constructed that I stopped caring about most of it almost as soon as the plot elements were introduced and only read to the end because I was hoping Tatiana and Berwick were going to run away together. Alas, this did not happen....more
**spoiler alert** I think it is finally time for me to review this play. I've read it several times, including at least once in college, and I despise**spoiler alert** I think it is finally time for me to review this play. I've read it several times, including at least once in college, and I despised it at the time. I reread it after that literature class because I felt like I couldn't possibly hate a book that entirely (I had not encountered Markus Zusak at the time, a man who has written books that make both my Most-Loved and Most-Hated lists, and who continues to confound me with that paradox).
Retrospect leads me to believe it's not that I hate the play itself. After all, Miss Julie deals with similar themes and has a highly nihilistic outlook on life, and I love that play, so much so that I sat through Jessica Chastain as Julie just to see Colin Farrell play John. No, it's not the play itself, or the themes that it deals with. It's Nora, Torvald and Krogstad. Krogstad you're supposed to dislike. He's slimy and blackmailing Nora and a forger to boot. Torvald you're also not supposed to sympathize with fully. He's a sexist pedant who infantilizes his wife and dismisses the entire idea of her being intelligent in any way. He also comes off as creepy and maybe a little bit of a pedophile, as he insists on treating and behaving toward Nora as if she were a child. But Nora we're supposed to identify with. We're supposed to sympathize with her plight, understand her dilemma.
I hate Nora.
Hate is a strong word, so let me explain.
Nora allows herself to be viewed as weak and childish by her husband despite there being so many ways to show him her intelligence. She could (and probably should) have taken over while he was ill and demonstrated her strength of mind and willpower to him, but instead she shelters him from that, and instead uses her father's name to cheat her way into a loan. When she's found out, instead of telling her father or her husband and allowing them to help her (which is framed in the narrative of the play as . . . wrong, somehow? I never understood that, it seemed like Ibsen was trying to tell the audience that her asking for help would have been weak or somehow destroyed her life more than being blackmailed would) she uses her allowance (she's not allowed access to Torvald's bank accounts, which was common in those days, but it does seem unusual that there isn't a difference between the house accounts and her allowance) to pay off Krogstad slowly. When everything comes to a head and she's forced out into the open (after a frankly baffling scene where she dances the Tarantela for literally no reason I could think of except to bash the audience over the head with the idea of her as the fly trapped in a spider's web), she decides she's a horrible person and spends the rest of the play beating herself up over that. She continues to behave like a child throughout, usually when she wants to avoid something unpleasant. She abandons her children with no explanation to them of why she is leaving (I don't mind her leaving them, honestly, but I do mind her not telling them why or saying goodbye). She decides (rightly) that Torvald is a terrible husband, but instead of doing anything about that she quits.
And that quitting, when it comes down to it, is what drives me up the wall about this play. Through the entire play, Nora tries. She tries and she strives and she battles and does whatever she can to make things work and then, at the end of it all, when she might finally be able to get the respect and treatment she deserves, she quits.
I have often felt very hypocritical because of my opinion of this play. I know women who have been in abusive relationships not unlike this one, and my advice to them would almost always be to get out. But here, for some reason, Nora's unequivocal exit from the lives of Torvald and her children (and her friend Christine) makes me angry and upset--and not in the way Ibsen probably meant it to. For whatever reason, Nora leaving at the end of the play doesn't feel like a woman leaving an abusive marriage. It feels like a spoiled child quitting the soccer team because it's too hard.
Where Ibsen falters is in presenting Nora as so childish. Even when she's speaking seriously with people, she's childish and childlike. When she finally starts acting like an adult, it rings false, and when she leaves, it smacks of a temper tantrum, or a kid who wasn't aware that the activity he signed up for would be hard work. Instead of staying with Torvald and working with him to try and change their marriage for the better, she gives up and leaves. Maybe it's my upbringing, where I was taught that when you make a commitment, whatever that is, you stick to it. Maybe it's my loyal heart, that makes me cling to people longer than I should just in case they change for the better. Maybe it's none of that. I clearly have a bias here, and I'm okay with that.
That's not to say this isn't an excellently written play, because it is. But I also hate it with a fiery passion....more
Look, there's nothing wrong with contrasting Proverbs 7 and Proverbs 31. But don't turn it into a parade of judgement, condemnation, and blaming womenLook, there's nothing wrong with contrasting Proverbs 7 and Proverbs 31. But don't turn it into a parade of judgement, condemnation, and blaming women for mistakes that are equally the man's (specifically in regard to sexual sin).
I'm sure Kassian is a great mom and a nice person, but even in just the introduction she comes off as shaming women who wear makeup and like to keep up their appearance. She also shames people who stumble in their Christian walk. She puts all the responsibility for staying "pure" on the women/girls in relationships and none on the men. This is not what girls need to be reading to teach them to be Christlike. This is teaching girls to judge their peers and their elders, to blame themselves when boys push them for more, and to aspire to a standard that a lot of women and girls, myself included, don't find at all appealing--marriage and motherhood.
Paul says when he talks about marriage that while it's better to marry than to burn with passion, marriage (and relationships in general) are NOT to be our primary focus. Our focus is to be on God and on serving him the best we can as we are right now. He also says that marriage is not to be entered into lightly, and that sometimes it is better to remain single.
We need to stop teaching girls that the ultimate end they can achieve is to get married and have children. As Christians, our ultimate end is to lead a Christlike and God-pleasing life, bringing Glory to God by our words and deeds. The boys get taught that. Why should girls be different?...more
I have to admit, I did like the premise of this particular novel quite a bit. Girls who are into cars? Hit me up, man. But unfortunately, despite beinI have to admit, I did like the premise of this particular novel quite a bit. Girls who are into cars? Hit me up, man. But unfortunately, despite being into cars, Rachel turned out to be pretty much every romance heroine ever.
And let's face it, this book was pretty much a train wreck from the word go. Rachel is a pampered princess who hates her perfect life because she's never thought of actually talking to her parents about anything and instead has spent her entire life pretending to be like the daughter they lost to cancer before she hit puberty. May I just remind everyone that Rachel is a seventeen year old who is being held up for comparison to a thirteen year old who was completely different from her. I mean, I know there are families that do this to their children, but Rachel seems weirdly hung up on this fact. She mentions it a lot in her internal monologues. She also says a lot of the time that the only reason she's alive is to replace her dead sister (maybe that gets addressed later in the book, but I had to quit halfway through, I couldn't take it any more). Never mind that she has like, five brothers, one of whom is her twin. Never mind that if she'd take five minutes to sit down with her mother and say "Hey look mom, I know you loved Colleen, but I have never even met this person and it's really unfair of you to try and hold me to her standard, so I'll do these charity events for you, because I know they're important to you, but you need to let me be my own person, okay?" they could probably resolve their issues peaceably.
And then there's Isaiah, who insists that he's a bad boy, a bad guy, and a dangerous person to be around. He also insists he hates his mother, but he stalks her well enough to know her routines. He's just. I didn't like him. He didn't read as an actual teenager to me. And he was stupidly oblivious about certain things that happened in the book (like Rachel getting blamed for the cops coming to the drag race) and he ended up being really annoying. Like, seriously dude, pull your head out from between your legs and deal with your life. He was also really subtly chauvinistic, which was always couched in terms of gentlemanliness. Like, he had this whole monologue with himself about how he liked that Rachel waited for him at the door instead of going through it herself because he liked opening the door for her and most girls he knew wouldn't do that. Literally dude, she waited there because she didn't know where she was going, not because she wanted you to open the door for her.
And then there's the fact that I made it halfway through the book and they hadn't even started to deal with the main storyline of the book--which is that Rachel and Isaiah have to work together to earn money to pay off the drag race guy who thinks Rachel snitched. And there was a bunch of melodrama about how Isaiah was going to get beaten up and Rachel was going to get raped if they didn't, because she was so pretty Eric the Drag Racing Jackass wouldn't be able to resist. And then they spent another hundred pages angsting about whether they should keep spending time together, whether Rachel should go to the police (which would literally have solved everything, including Rachel's inferiority complex re: her dead sister), and then whether Rachel should stay out of it and let Isaiah handle things himself or if she should help out.
FOR FUCK'S SAKE PEOPLE. Man up and start communicating like adults already. Gosh darn it.
This book started off interesting and pretty much made me want to tear my hair out withing a hundred pages. I honestly can't believe I made it as far as I did....more
I hesitate to shelve this as complete idiocy, but that shelf was really created for my own personal cataloging of books I did not enjoy, and this bookI hesitate to shelve this as complete idiocy, but that shelf was really created for my own personal cataloging of books I did not enjoy, and this book falls into that heading without question.
The problem here is that Strobel hasn't evolved at all in his arguments, style, or writing ability since the first book in his "The Case For" series. The Case For Faith actually borrows directly from one of the chapters in The Case For Christ in order to set itself up, and immediately falls prey to the same tropes and literary devices that I found issue with in the first book.
While in this book, Strobel is up front about his former book having been written years after his conversion, he does his best to hide the fact that this book was written well after the first one. Perhaps he did use interviews conducted at the same time for this book, but he does his best to pretend that Christ and Faith were written together.
Faith continues to lean on Strobel's simplistic and overly-narrative prose. This is a theology book, not a novel, and I don't appreciate interjections such as "I laughed at the story," or "I slammed my palm down onto the desk," particularly not in the middle of what should be a transcription of an interview. These literary interjections are distracting, juvenile, and misleading about what Strobel believes. I think they're meant to convey his commitment to the "devil's advocate" role, but what they do is make me doubt the veracity of the claims of his interviewees. If Strobel is being overly dramatic and (in my opinion) behaving foolishly and unprofessionally, then why should I believe the theologians and authorities he consults? Or, conversely, if Strobel is taking an artistic license with how the interview happened, why should I believe that he's properly understood and transmitted the theologians' arguments and thoughts to the readers of his books?
Something I noticed this time that I hadn't with the last, is that Strobel almost never quotes scripture. If his interviewee does, he'll leave that in, but he never cites passages himself. He also never cites outside sources to back up his or his interviewee's claims. He never presents evidence or statistics or cites his sources when he quotes a figure (for example, one of the most egregious, glaring failures to do this comes early on in the first chapter of the book, where Kreeft claims that 90% of the total population of the world to date has been Christian--or seems to do so, I'm guessing that's probably not what he meant but how would I know? Strobel certainly doesn't seem to care about keeping his facts understandable, let alone believable.
I think what most disappoints me about this book is that Strobel has clearly learned nothing about writing since finishing his first book. He would be better served writing novels than theological texts. Please do not ever read this man's books. If you need a book that takes you through basic Christian doctrines on a readable, understandable level, read Charles Coulson's The Faith--it does a much better, more understandable, more theologically sound job at explaining the basic tenets of Christianity. If you need a book about proving Christ exists, read Who Moved The Stone? by Frank Morrison. Technically it's more about the Resurrection than Jesus' existence, but it still does a better job of proving Christ actually lived than The Case for Christianity does....more
The problem with this book is that it seems to have been written entirely in order to allay the white guilt felt by the author. While the setting is hThe problem with this book is that it seems to have been written entirely in order to allay the white guilt felt by the author. While the setting is historically accurate (as far as I can tell, at least), the dialogue and attitudes are not, and that is why this book fails so desperately where it wants to succeed.
A Respectable Trade's first problem comes from the plot itself. In general, it should be a straightforward plot: young, white wife, newly married, falls in love with one of the slaves her husband has given her. If that was the only plot going on through the book, it might have worked out as a novel. But there is also the subplot of young, newly married merchant attempting to rise through the ranks of society while blinded to the backstabbing and cheating being perpetuated against him. Which also could have been a good novel on it's own. Or even combined with the first plot. However, Gregory throws in several plot twists and details that draw our attention away from these two plots, and adds in a third plot (black slave becomes involved in the abolition movement) that ends up muddying where our focus should be to the extent that I'm still not sure where we were supposed to be looking as far as plots go. Maybe Gregory meant to twine all three together and give them equal weight, but the plotline with the most weight is the B-line plot involving the merchant culture in Bristol. This makes the romance A-line plot seem superficial and unbelievable, and the C-line abolition plot seem incidental and tacked-on.
Gregory also doesn't handle the writing with any kind of subtlety. I felt bashed over the head with all the mentions of Josiah's debt, Frances' frailty, and Mehuru's slave status. Granted, a reader of a book with these plots shouldn't forget these three things, but the repetition made me wish I could.
The second problem stems from the characters and characterizations. Josiah follows the ignorant slave owner stereotype to a T, about the only note he doesn't hit is deliberate violence and cruelty toward his female house slaves. Frances bounces from "frail, delicate, dying flower" to "cheerful, healthy, good-spirited woman" faster than a pinball between two bumpers. Mehuru's characterization seems the best overall, but he is also the most powerless character of the three mains. Sarah, Josiah's sister, is a secondary character, but better written than both Josiah and Frances. This means that I don't buy any of the forbidden love plotline, and was actively confused by Mehuru's insistence that he loved Frances.
Third, the book suffers from being both too realistic and too unbelievable by turns. Sort of like it's romantic heroine, the book bounces from dark, realistic depictions of life as a slave to unbelievable passages where Frances and Mehuru fall in love with each other. I also found the dialogue often unrealistic. There were terms used repeatedly by characters who wouldn't know them or use them if they did--Mehuru thinking of one of the child slaves as a "pickaninny" comes to mind, as does Frances' knowledge and use of the word "rape" (while I think that Frances was more than likely aware of the concept of rape, I highly doubt anyone would ever have used the word around her given what we are told of her background--she's supposed to be highly sheltered and protected from any mention of bad things, remember). Several characters also use the n-word to refer to slaves, then never use it again, instead saying "slaves" or "Africans" or "blacks." Clearly the word was used only for shock value, which bothered me.
The ending was clearly meant to be inspiring and harmonious, but it honestly just made me roll my eyes. May we one day live together in peace? Come on. Have you been watching Fiddler on the Roof lately or what? The sentiment, while valid, is trite and uncharming coming as it does at the end of this particular book.
Just skip this one and save yourself the money. Definitely not worth it....more
I loved Return of the Native even though it made me so upset with the ending, because the ending felt earned by the characters.This was disappointing.
I loved Return of the Native even though it made me so upset with the ending, because the ending felt earned by the characters. Despite my wishing for a different finish, I could understand why Eustacia and Clym acted the way they did. Tess, I just don't get.
I didn't understand why Tess agreed to anything Alec D'Urberville ever tried to coax from her, to start with. She was very firmly against him every time we saw them interact, and then the story took a convenient leap forward and suddenly she'd given in, and I was left scratching my head, since there was literally no sign to that point that she would cave. This pattern with Alec continues through the rest of the book for Tess. Which either makes her a weak character on purpose to tell some morality tale, and is bad writing; or makes her a poorly drawn character to start with that wasn't even supported with good writing to help redeem the poor starting concept.
Angel I was more willing to go along with. I understood his hypocrisy and the decisions that stemmed from that, and the scenes when Angel is contemplating Tess' mistakes and condemning them even as he realizes he's made similar mistakes too plays well for me, seeming less like poor writing and more like Hardy was deliberately attempting to show the hypocrisy of men being allowed to bed whoever they like before marriage (or even during) with no consequence, but women being abandoned and condemned unnecessarily for the same behavior. So, to be honest, Angel is the only reason this wasn't a one-star read for me, since I felt like his scenes in the middle of the book were the reason/message/moral Hardy had in mind when he started writing.
And then, things just fell apart. Really, really apart. (spoilers ahead, you have been warned).
(view spoiler)[Angel leaves Tess, which fine. But Tess is an utter idiot about it and basically just gives up and goes where the wind blows her because her big, strong redeeming man has rejected her and why should she care what happens now? And then she meets Alec again, who has been saved (so he claims) and he's nice to her and tells her he's sorry, and they part, but then Alec keeps coming back, renounces his faith, blames her for everything, and she's just like, "Yeah, that's valid, but I still hate you." Except then her father dies, her mother loses the house, and she goes back to Alec because her supposedly "only love ever she will never ever want or love or look at anyone else who is even vaguely male shaped and not a relative" will never love her again (something which has been the only thing keeping her going for over a year is the hope that Angel will return and forgive her) so she does the only unforgivable thing she could have done and moves in with the guy who ruined her reputation in the first place. And then, when Angel comes back after all, she freaks out, murders Alec, and runs after Angel, tells him what she did, they go on the lam together, and then they end up at Stonehenge somehow and she's arrested there and tells Angel to marry her little sister after they execute her because her little sister is "pure" and the book ends with Angel and Tess' little sister watching for the sign whether or not Tess will be executed and she is. (hide spoiler)]
Like, what the hell? What? What?! What even is this? This is terrible writing and terrible characterization, and literally, by the end it felt like a soap opera plot line without the other characters storylines breaking up the crazy and making it feel more plausible.
You know what, screw this, this was one-star even though I did like the parts with Angel. Complete idiocy. Ugh. Possibly the worst thing I've read this year....more
My memory of this book from when I read it in high school was that it was a fun adventure mostly starring Princess Leia fighting off an evil lizard guMy memory of this book from when I read it in high school was that it was a fun adventure mostly starring Princess Leia fighting off an evil lizard guy. In high school, I probably would have given it four stars. But my tastes have matured since then, and I really can't excuse Steve Perry for this nonsense.
Despite it's almost hypnotic ability to keep me reading despite my better judgement (John Green does the same thing to me, so it's not a condition unique to Star Wars or the Expanded Universe), Perry's novel is mediocre at best. Part of this is that he leans too heavily on established characterizations for the main cast--Leia and Luke, particularly--and doesn't give more than a passing thought to characterizing his other characters at all. Luke managed to come off as the two-dimensional farmboy from A New Hope, and Leia barely passed the Sexy Lamp Test. Xizor veered into Snidely Whiplash levels of moustache twirling villainy, Dash Rendar was clearly a disposable cardboard cutout of Han, but maybe the most egregious was that I could actually see Perry's Vader as someone who might have once been Hayden Christiansen's Anakin Skywalker.
In addition to that, the plot was all over the place. Rescue Han! Become a Jedi! Rescue Han! Planet hop for no real reason! Try to steal information from the Empire! Rescue Luke! Rescue Leia! Rescue Han! It got tiring to even try and figure out what the main plot was supposed to be--although I assume it was Xizor trying to kill Luke and molest Leia against her will.
Which, let's talk about that whole plotline, shall we?
One of the problematic things about Xizor as a character is that he is drawn as the penultimate villain--he's sexy, charming, dangerous, witty, not a man to cross, would kill you as soon as look at you, and oh, did Perry mention? He has date-rape pheromones. Which he uses without remorse on Leia almost before she walks through his door. He then reacts like a typical thwarted rapist--well, give her time and enough of my pheromones and she'll "see reason." I get that Xizor is a villain, and that might be enough to excuse him for some, but Perry wrote him with that kind of wink-and-a-nod, you like him despite yourself, don't you? kind of flavor to him. My feeling was that we were supposed to like the character, if not the character's actions. Which makes the whole date-rape pheromone plotline really problematic. And aside from that, it was just creepy the way Perry wrote Leia. She came off very weepy, wilting woman trying to be strong for her man, which is just not the way Leia is even played in canon.
I really don't recommend this book, it's only getting two stars because it was surprisingly addictive reading....more
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