Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

21 reviews

dearbhlanoonan's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Pedophilia, and Rape

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body shaming, and Car accident

bill369's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I and my dear friend have read Lolita together.

I don't have a favourite character and I suppose it wasn't the author's intention for the reader to like the main characters. He did that well. I do dislike both Humbert Humbert and Dollores.

For me, this book was rather boring. Sure the plot was interesting in a way however not gripping enough. Reading this book even felt like a chore at a time. Except for the marvellous writing, there's nothing to highlight. And for the writing and the writing only, this book gets the rating it gets.

Page 300, made up predestined destiny.

 

I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader’s mind. No matter how many times we reopen “King Lear,” never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert’s father’s timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We would prefer not to have known at all our neighbour, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.

 

The end of the book was one of the better parts. I did enjoy it.

Overall, I'm glad I read the book. The writing is amazing despite the story being unappealing to me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Body shaming and Sexism

Minor: Child death, Car accident, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

quinn24's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Stalking, and Death of parent

Moderate: Body shaming, Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide, Transphobia, and Kidnapping

Minor: Drug use, Racism, Antisemitism, and Alcohol

m0rdred_the_fallen's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Seré honesto, leí el libro sólo para formarme mi propia opinión sobre el; por lo mismo no lo abandoné, a pesar de que llegó un momento en que pensé "Ugh, aun si estuvieras hablando de una mujer de tu edad, te pediría que pares con el lenguaje tan floreado".
Ahora que lo terminé, puedo decir que entiendo, completamente, porqué es tan controversial pero el lenguaje tan lírico y floreado realmente me molestaron al leerlo. También está el hecho de que, en mi opinión, puedes quitarle un tercio, o hasta dos, del libro y seguiría entendiendose porque HH toma para siempre para hacer cualquier cosa.

Incluso podría centrarse en uno de los viajes a los que HH obliga a Lolita a ir, o el escape de Lolita, o el asesinato de Clare Quilty

 
Personalmente, fue una lectura pesada, entiendo porqué es polémica, pero no empaticé ni con HH y Lolita no tiene ni voz en el libro así que tampoco me apegué mucho a ella. 
El final fue bueno,

por un momento pensé que viviria el resto de sus días impune, atacando otras niñas, así que verlo ir a prisión por asesinato fue un buen giro

también es donde siento que el ritmo fue mucho más llevadero.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Car accident, and Death of parent

kenchingfox's review against another edition

challenging dark funny lighthearted 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Stalking, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

kayesomething's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Pedophilia, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Gun violence, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Car accident, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Death, Homophobia, Antisemitism, and Pregnancy

jmcordero's review against another edition

challenging dark sad slow-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Incest, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Car accident, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Minor: Stalking and Pregnancy

karenaerts's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

Moderate: Body shaming, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Blood, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

bunivly's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

this book was the ultimate mind fuck. honestly think i need five years to recover from it fully. its disturbing and cringe worthy but so well written. using such flowery and feminine language to describe such a dark and unsettling novel was such a beautiful choice. when i say “it’s complicated” for lovable characters, i mean dolores who has now become one of my favorite characters of all time. the only reason this book didnt get a five for me is because at some points it becomes so painfully slow, i can not bare to read more than five pages in a day. overall, this book is a must read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Murder and Alcohol

Minor: Body shaming

mireanthony's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’ve been meaning to read this book for so long that I’ve gone from being Dolores’ age to nearly being Humbert’s. This dredged up a lot of feelings for me, both cathartic and agonizing. I would not recommend this book casually but I did enjoy it and I think it is rare in deserving its status as a literary classic. Of particular note to me is Nabokov’s statement in his afterward, written a few years after Lolita was published, for its relevance to certain views on fiction today:

There are gentle souls who would pronounce Lolita meaningless because it does not teach them anything. I am neither a reader nor a writer of didactic fiction, and... Lolita has no moral in tow. For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiousity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.

To be flippant for a moment, I feel like this book belongs beside Catcher In The Rye, “Rick and Morty”, Fight Club, etc. with “media that demonstrates good taste if you’re marginalized but a glaring red flag coming from a cishet white man”. I just feel like the fundamental problem of identifying with a character that’s meant to be condemned and seeing him as the hero of the piece is the problem here. But then, this isn’t a hot or a new take, as people have been misunderstanding this book since it was first published, if other media I’ve seen around it is any indication. 

Anyway. Great book, deserving of its recognition as a classic and a work of art, terrible villain as the protagonist, agonizing to read. My singular complaint is that the edition I have (second Vintage International edition, June 1997) does not have footnotes translating Nabokov’s usages of French. Pretentious dick (affectionate). 

My only justification for reviewing a piece of controversial classic literature is that I am very bored and so far this year reading and writing about it has been a small bright spot for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Kidnapping, and Death of parent