Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

21 reviews

mloschi's review against another edition

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

4.0

Good fantasy, with interesting world building and mystery. I liked the dark academia setting. I felt like conflicts within the plot happened and resolved very (almost too) quickly. But overall a good book for some escapism. 

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mimiduggins's review against another edition

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

3.5

There is a lot to like about this book: the world-building, the history, interesting characters. One major thing kept me from loving it and definitely distracted from the entire book. The main character’s willful and conscious decision to accept, acknowledge, and embrace the misogyny and sexist ideations of the love interest. 

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clarabooksit's review against another edition

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I hated this. The writing and story are cheesy, soapy, and cringey. The absolute worst thing about it, though, is the romance: Matthew is controlling and creepy, has anger issues, and treats Diana like a stupid child, and they fall in love to the point of desperation in only three weeks.

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alishamegan's review against another edition

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I hate Matthew. Super typical arrogant forceful aggressive male hetero love interest and literally a self admitted abuser and killer of women lol. I really don't like how he treats the female MC (which is super controlling and possessive). He is so one dimensional and the female MC has no personality tbh. Super disappointed.

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bookishchef's review against another edition

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

1.5

This book is like Twilight. 
But without the love triangle.
And somehow even more toxic.

You thought Edward stalking Bella was creepy? 
Meet Matthew Clermont! He is actually mentally and physically abusive to our bland Mary Sue protagonist named Diana.

If you're Matthew, life is easy.

Diana has a panic attack? Threaten her life. 
Diana is feeling scared? Threaten her life.
Diana is feeling horny? Threaten her life.

Why? Because you just cannot help yourself of course. After all, it is sooooo hot when men treat women like

A. fragile objects they're supposed to control and protect. 
B. things to literally kill.

This book perpetrates the idea that men cannot help themselves from abusing, controling, and commanding women. 
Worst thing is, that every time Diana goes against Matthew's wishes, she is immediately punished by the plot. Which only confirms that women are supposed to listen to the men in their lives according to this book.

I have no clue how I, the reader, was supposed to find any of this romantic. All of the scenes were either highly uncomfortable or straight up abusive.

The excuse of "he just can't help himself" is as old as time and has been used time and time again to excuse shitty behaviour from men. 
And Diana, the MC, decides that this excuse is not an excuse at all. She seems to think this is actually the way the world works. She doesn't even take the horrible "I can fix him" attitude that so many romance MCs take. Instead she just completely accepts Matthew as the toxic asshole he is and gives up every part of her life to listen to him and conform to his ideas of an ideal wife. 

So yeah this book stole the toxicity from Twilight and made it 10x worse. 

You know what else it stole? 


THE WEIRD BABY PLOTLINE 

Yup, you heard me correctly. 
This author really looked at Renesmee and went "wow that's such a cool plot point". 
Remember how Bella wasn't supposed to be able to get pregnant because Ed was a vampire? Well, same goes for Diana in this story. For a solid 80% of the book, we hear nothing about pregnancy rates between witches and vampires. (Diana is a witch and Matthew is a vampire)

Matthew refuses to have penetrative sex because of *plot*, and Diana gets frustrated because of this. And then suddenly out of NOWHERE it is revealed that witches and vampires can't have babies together BUT Diana has *special* DNA which means she is able to conceive with Matthew. Matthew supposedly didn't know this, so his aversion to penetrative sex was completely unrelated. 
Even so, this entire plotpoint seems to exist to make Matthew right once again, and to rip off Twilight. 


Truly do not understand why this gets 4+ stars on Goodreads.

ALSO OMG WINE GETS MENTIONED MORE THAN THE MC'S NAME I STG

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georgiaalexturnbull's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Really enjoyed it until
Matthew returned to Sept-Tours
then I hated the dynamic between the two protagonists 

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linesiunderline's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense 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

Sometimes you just want a good story to really sink into. Sometimes that story will have vampires and witches and romance and Oxford in it, and there will be parts of it you don’t really get but whatever, you won’t be mad about it, even if it is a teensy bit overwritten in places.

Did I think I would really enjoy this one so much, to the point that I put the second audiobook on hold before I finished the first? I did not. But Vampire Matthew has quite a presence. So does Oxford and all of the witchy atmospheric business. I’m all in.

If you are an Outlander fan, this one is for you. I have to go watch the TV series now.

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katielaine_w's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious 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

3.25


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applesaucecreachur's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-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? No

1.5

God this book sucked. It seemed like Matthew’s (the centuries-old vampire love interest) name was on every page at least once, even in scenes where he did not have a physical or dialogue presence. I’ve been calling it “post-grad Twilight”
because of how many similarities there are – Falling ridiculously fast for a vampire who watches the MC sleep, is controlling, and who constantly is explaining how dangerous of a predator he is (ya got that right, pal). 
It took everything in me to be able to finish this thing. And I was SO excited about a lighthearted book of witchcraft! How do people enjoy it? Jeez.
... Although, that being said, I REALLY enjoyed the Bishops’ house. It was hands-down the best character. And Em and Sarah were actually a halfway-decent depiction of lesbians.

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stormwise's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

2.5

Hmmmmm. 

It's not that I entirely disliked this book - I'll be reading the sequels - but I spent a lot of time complaining about this book as I read it. 

On paper this sounded right up my alley: a story that begins with a witch in a library? Nice. However this novel had a much heavier focus on romance than I expected - not necessarily a bad thing, I do like romance, but... 

Did anyone else who read this book find it a little...sexist? Misogynistic, even? I struggled to find Matthew an attractive romantic lead when he was so frequently being controlling towards Diana, or having wild mood swings. It was a bit "Twilight for adults" in my opinion. The 'alpha male' bullshit had me rolling my eyes on a regular basis. 

Also, if I had a penny for every time my mum recommended a 500+ page fantasy-romance novel that turned out to have multiple sex scenes in it, I'd have two pennies, which isn't a lot but it is weird that it's happened twice (the other one was Outlander which I read last year and, weirdly, have similar criticisms for). 

The writing style was also a bit...long-winded. I love a good bit of descriptive writing but sometimes less truly is more and overly floral language just bogs down the scene. 

My various grumbles aside, the overall plot was sufficiently compelling, dragged as it was through endless scenes of monotony which were fortunately bolstered by the intriguing cast of characters. I really liked the magic and the way the world worked with witches, vampires and daemons. I just wish Diana had spent less time taking naps or having decisions made for her... </spoiler >

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