Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Moonflower Murders

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

20 reviews

sridevi93's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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books_and_cream_cheese's review against another edition

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mysterious 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? It's complicated

1.5

Das Konzept des Buchs, eine Kriminalgeschichte in einer Kriminalgeschichte einzubetten und beide zu verknüpfen, finde ich fantastisch - leider lässt die Umsetzung meiner Meinung nach noch etwas Potenzial offen. Die beiden Elemente hätten an der ein oder anderen Stelle besser verknüpft werden können. Die Handlung, die leider einige problematische Entscheidungen und Beschreibungen seitens des Autors enthält (so sind z.B. sämtliche homosexuellen Charaktere als verachtenswert und pervers dargestellt), aber zwischenzeitlich durchaus spannend ist, führt leider zu einem etwas enttäuschenden Ende.

Für mich persönlich war es auch sehr offensichtlich, dass hier ein männlicher Autor aus Sicht einer Frau erzählt. Die Art und Weise, wie die Protagonistin die Männer und ihre Beziehung zu ihnen beschreibt sowie einige seltsame Formulierungen lassen das sehr offensichtlich werden.

Alles in allem ein spannendes Konzept, das in der Ausführung jedoch enttäuscht. Daher leider nichts für mich.

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lisaarnsdorf's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I really struggled with how to rate this book. I hated some aspects of it and really enjoyed others. But overall, the negatives outweigh the positives for me.

On the plus side, it’s really well written with elements and wordplay woven through that are truly mind boggling. I really liked the story within the story.

But the present day mystery was such a bummer. Horowitz clearly wanted to tie the current murder back to the first story. But the aspect of Alan Conway’s life he chose to build out was his sexuality. And he did it by making all of the gay characters in the story terrible people who were terrible because they were gay. Right from the ghetto, having the murder victim be yet another gay man left a bad taste in my mouth. But the predators he turned the gay men into was totally unnecessary and sickening.

I almost didn’t finish the book. I should have listened to that intuition. The reveal only made the gay men into worse villains than they started as.

It’s a shame that such a well crafted book should rely on such hate.

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tellybelle13's review against another edition

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2.5

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lzad's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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finlaaaay's review against another edition

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medium-paced

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

1.0

I was already iffy about this book because I remember some things about the last works of Horowitz's that I read that put me off him. I gave it a go anyway because I thought the book-within-a-book conceit was enjoyable.

From the start it pissed me off because two of the three dead characters were gay men. Like honestly, that would be fine. Gay people die too, right? Not every instance of the bury-your-gays trope has to be negative, necessarily. But the ending royally pissed me off –

it turns out that the husband of the murdered woman, who we've spent the entire book batting away from suspicion because he's obviously such a loving husband, was a former rent-boy trying to make ends meet in London and killed his former male lover in a fit of rage. He then kills his wife when she figures things out. Horowitz takes delight in describing how perverted and depraved the dead guy had been, as if to justify it. His former rent-boy character then runs off to commit suicide, i.e. he didn't face consequences for his actions. His main character Susan then comments in the very next chapter how delightfully unhomophobic society has become. Bleaugh. I can think of a thousand other ways this could have ended satisfactorially.

Oh also the narrator of the audiobook does such an atrocious Scottish accent for that character that I burst out laughing as she was describing how he got away with the murders. Fucking godawful.

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