Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - The Silence of the Girls

Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

8 reviews

tetedump's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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pagesofplatypus's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

A riveting tale of the Battle of Troy through the eyes of Brisies, slave to Achilles. In an era of Greek myth retellings with a feminist twist, this one sits in the top. The stories of the women taken captive by the Greeks are all varied and equally gripping and understandable in each woman's reaction to her situation.

The chapters are mainly from Brisies' pov, which I found to be the most interesting, but a few were from third-person pov mainly centering on Achilles. These chapters were also very different and engaging because it shows Achilles in a very different light than what many may typically view him and his story.

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jelkebooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-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? No

2.0

Maybe something is wrong with me but I truly do not understand how this could ever be considered a feminist retelling. The only female character that mattered in this book was our main character, Briseis. The other female characters could have just been called slave #1, slave #2, and so on because they were not distinct characters, and barely played a part in this book in general. On top of that Briseis is such a passive character. Her only purpose in this book is just narrarating what all these men are doing. She herself added absolutely nothing to this book. The only thing that felt "feminist" about this book were the random quotes added in every so often, that were indeed about female empowerement but felt so random within the story. It just read like the author had those quotes ready and build a story around that, rather than those things feeling natural to the story.
Now, I do have to say that I didn't hate this book. I did quite like the writing. It was also a really quick read, and I do think some things were really interesting in this book. Especialy when it comes to the idea of having to be around the people who murdered your people, and seeing them have to make the best of things. The inner conflict surrounding that was quite interesting. I also quite liked that we got perspectives from Achilles and Patrocles at times. It just brought us a bit more in the action than Briseis' POV could do. It isn't much, but it is something.
So yeah, this wasn't a terrible book, I just kind of didn't get the point of it. It was a bit of nothing, and I just overall felt very underwhelmed with this book. I was quite bored towards the end as well. I don't know. I'll probably not continue with the series, even though I have heard amazing things about book two.

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katelynwillliams's review against another edition

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dark reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

i loved how this book used the classic narrative techniques and themes/struggles of the Iliad to recall the original text, while also adding new meaning. For example, she uses a catalog to evoke the stories of the numberless men who die at Troy, but it is through their mothers’ stories that we hear of them. Similarly, themes of choice, fate, honor, hospitality, and glory were explored through Achilles, like the original text, but also through Briseis, who reflects on her own feelings as well as Achilles’.

For all it’s accuracy to the original epic, the amount of British slang really bothered me. While the imagery could evoke the distant past, the constant use of “bloody” / “bloody hell” brings the reader immediately back to the present. It also made this dark book on the realities of war comical in a way.

Though the British slang was kinda crazy, this was an accurate and refreshing retelling of the Iliad.

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chloj_'s review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring medium-paced

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

4.5

review:

first things first: i love a greek mythology retelling, and this did not disappoint. however, this is something a lot more than simply a mythology retelling. this is such an amazing reflection of womanhood. barker does such a beautiful job of relaying the female experience, with all it’s varying emotions and complexities. depictions of war are typically male dominated; blood, gore and war is so often synonymous for masculinity. while her portrayal of masculinity is complex and very well-written (particularly that of achilles), the raw vulnerability of the story’s women is breathtaking to behold. it was powerful, incredibly moving, and truly (in my opinion) a modern masterpiece.

!!spoilers ahead!!

‘his idea of female beauty was a woman so fat if you slapped her backside in the morning she'd still be jiggling when you got back home for dinner.’ damn me too
‘she could’ve been kind to me and she wasn’t; she could’ve helped me find my feet and she didn’t.’
‘when i got to the door i paused with my hand on the latch and looked back, but she’d already turned away’
the main character’s relationship with femininity is so cleverly written- both her relationship with other women, and with her own femaleness
‘but the dying man, his face wiped clean of pain, cradled his spilling intestines as gently as a mother nurses her newborn child.’
‘“it’ll be alright,” i said, knowing it wouldn’t.’
‘he fucked as quickly as he killed, and for me it was the same thing. something in me died that night.’
the emotions in this book are soooo beautiful done
‘the bed was cold.’ this one sentence is so incredibly powerful
‘no girl ever dressed more carefully for her wedding than achilles for the battlefield’
‘as long as i lived and remembered, [my brothers] weren’t really dead.’
the relationship between briseis and iphis is SO special- it is born entirely from shared tragedy and the kindness only women can share with each other.
that depiction of wasteland at the end of 46/start of 47 is SUCH a beautiful depiction of the waste of female beauty (both physical and mental) at the hands of men
‘the world began to close in around me, and i realised that the songs belonged to my brothers and not me’
‘i always remember that she wept for me when i couldn’t weep for myself’
the list format of the people Achilles killed / how they died is SO good- it really displays how the repeated trauma and war has made tragedy something clinical.
‘before leaving, he always bent down and kissed him in the mouth, though the lips had darkened and begun to retract.’
‘Why him? Why not me? He asks the questions over and over, as if one day they might have a different answer, and the burden of guilt be lifted at last.’
achilles grief is written so beautifully
‘and i do what countless women before me had been forced to. i spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and brothers.’
‘now my own story can begin’

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blueberry0531's review against another edition

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dark sad 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

3.0

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priscilla's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

"Make no mistake, this was his story - his anger, his grief, his story. I was angry, I was grieving, but somehow that didn't matter."

What a fantastic book. The writing was phenomenal and, though it did feel a bit slow at times and a bit gruesome at others (and there was one particular bit of fatphobia towards one character that didn't sit well with me at all), I feel like it did exactly what it set out to do. It shows Briseis perspective on an age-old story, but without losing sight of the fact that she is, to some degree, powerless and trapped in a narrative that never cared for her.

The writer used some amazing devices to get right to the reader's heart, for example in the scene where

Achilles murders a LOT of Trojans and Briseis talks about how none of their names mean anything to the reader - until you hear the stories their mothers tell about them.

This book deals with the harsh conditions that Briseis and the other Trojan women live in in a very matter-of-fact way, which only highlights just how awful it all is.

At the same time, there were a few times where I laughed out loud, most notably when

Odysseus talks about them only needing a good wind and then they'll be home in three days - what a fantastically hilarious way to hint at his story, I cannot, hahaha

.

All in all, a great book.

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lavendl's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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