Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

59 reviews

farah24's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Grief, Murder, and War

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

esterohman's review against another edition

dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

3.0

This was a quick and easy read, although not my favorite Greek mythology inspired novel. I liked the focus on female perspective, and it was interesting seeing the missing viewpoint in the original stories. However, it just wasn’t that exciting to read. I think that it’s just my own perspective and not the fault of the book however. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and War

Minor: Vomit

irisreads1996's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-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? It's complicated

3.75

A retelling of the Greek myth of the battle of Troy but told through the eyes of Briseis. Really interesting to read a Greek tale from a woman’s perspective. Barker made some nice stylistic choices like writing chapters from Briseis’ POV in past tense while writing chapters focusing on Achilles or other men in the story in present tense. This made it really easy to differentiate whose view you were in without writing any names at the beginning of the chapters. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and War

Minor: Body horror, Domestic abuse, and Violence

jessellisx's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-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? No

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Infertility, Misogyny, Sexism, Grief, and Alcohol

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicide, and Pregnancy

gondorgirl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Animal death

corganick's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Rape

Moderate: Child death

annasbookreviews's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad medium-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and War

gracewiley's review

reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Blood, Grief, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Excrement, Vomit, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

incrediblemelk's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

Barker had already written many books by the time she wrote this, and it feels deliberately written into the recent literary trend for ancient Greek mythological revisionism, which Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles (2011) and Circe (2018) were writing into.

I haven't read The Song of Achilles but its treatment of the Achilles/Patroclus relationship would be an interesting point of comparison with The Silence of the Girls, which focuses much more on Briseis, the Trojan queen who becomes Achilles' fateful, fought-over war prize.

Here, Achilles and Patroclus are joked about as gay lovers among the other Greeks, but share a deeper and harder to explain love that stems from some childhood mutual recognition of trauma. Patroclus is basically the nicest of the men Briseis meets, and she comes to love him too (no, not in that way) to the point where their shared loss of Patroclus provokes a kind of rapprochement between Achilles and Briseis towards the end of the book.

In general this is quite a striking and grim picture of life for noncombatants in the Greek war village outside Troy, nine years into the Trojan War, who have been living there long enough to have small children by their captors. Barker vividly summons the misery of enslavement and the different ways in which different women respond to their change in social circumstances.

When we talk of war we imagine soldiers living alone and self-sufficiently in a homosocial environment, but this novel brings to life those whom historians patronisingly call "camp followers" and frame as parasitic opportunists. This novel is full of the textures of domestic life: cooking, cleaning, weaving cloth, tending to fires, serving meals, the problems of waste management and the pleasures of grinding herbs for medicine.

Knowing the mythology and the other literary depictions of these characters made the novel more rewarding – for instance, the way Barker treats the supernatural in both a skeptical and a quotidian way. Briseis doesn't believe that Achilles truly was invulnerable except for his heel – that's clearly propaganda to her – yet we see his nymph mum Thetis emerging from the mist-cloaked sea, and witness the way Hector's corpse miraculously becomes whole every time Achilles tries to desecrate it.

After Chryses, priest of Apollo, is rebuffed when he pleads with Agamemnon to return his daughter Chryseis, Briseis joins in the prayers to the "Lord of the silver arrows" and "Lord of mice", and plague strikes the camp and begins to spread from the sick rats, in what could be either a natural consequence of the filthy conditions, or the god's revenge.

The tragic irony, of course, is that Agamemnon is one of the most superstitious characters, and yet his petty mortal selfishness leads him to fatally offend the gods again and again. Of any of the Greeks, his actions are basically most directly responsible for the carnage of Troy and its long repercussions through Greek life, from the complete destruction of the House of Atreus to the Odyssey.

Briseis witnesses the final captivity of the Trojan royal women and observes that everyone is annoyed by Cassandra's raving prophecy that she and Agamemnon are heading off to their deaths. "Mate, I wouldn't want to have that in my bed," says one soldier – and it's the everyday blokeyness of these men, juxtaposed with the misery they inflict on women, that makes this a striking read.

It's less successful when it leaves Briseis's point of view and adopts that of Achilles himself. I found myself wishing Barker hadn't done this. It illuminates Achilles' character but it seems out of place in a book whose raison d'être seems to be restoring the voice of "silent" women.

BTW I really didn't like the title – it just reminded me of The Silence of the Lambs, but the novel doesn't borrow any of the themes of that story so why piggyback on it? It's based on an ancient ideology that linked women's virtue to their silence and invisibility. The whole Trojan conflict was caused by men but projected onto women, so it was interesting to give voice to Briseis.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Slavery, Violence, Trafficking, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Genocide, Rape, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

readingoccasionally89's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

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

3.75

it started off well and the change of perspective (to the women’s perspective) is definitely a plus for me, but it was WORK reading this book, especially in the middle. 
one thing that bothered me aswell was how the relationship between patroclus and achilles is described, especially because i read this after tsoa, (which i definitely liked better.) but that’s just my personal opinion and NOT a flaw of this book. 
i think the intention of this book was to show the hopelessness, troubles and crimes in the trojan war from a woman’s perspective, in which pat barker definitely succeeded, but stil i wouldn’t call this book a favourite. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and War