Reviews with content warning for Sexism - On the Road

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

38 reviews

vaguelyredhead's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective 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

2.5

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tobiassoar's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective medium-paced

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

2.5

There are moments of brilliance where I truly understand how novel this book was in its time.

However, the majority of the time I was either bored or repulsed by the racist and paedophilic passing comments by the narrator.

I understand it’s a product of its time and should be treated as such, but it was truly a slog to get through at times.

And if he loved Dean so much, they should have just kissed.

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wanderingwonderbread's review against another edition

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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? It's complicated

1.0

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timmytunter's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective medium-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

2.75

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islandofgreen's review against another edition

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Definitely feel that this is a classic that hasn't aged well. I can see its appeal to some with the very descriptive and often beautiful prose, and can see how some people would connect with the main character in some ways - he's a self-proclaimed misfit and doesn't know what he wants to do with his life - he just wants freedom to do his own thing and see his friends.

I, however, couldn't get into it. I found the writing dry and the pace of Sals' adventures to be too fast with too little meaning behind them. I just don't understand what the point or the message of this book was. Not only that, but I found the characters completely unappealing - not just in terms of their views (which were racist and sexist) but also just the fact Dean is reckless and selfish and Sal just follows him around.

Really I don't think I'm the target audience for this book as a woman - in the book people of my demographic were overly sexualised and objectified, which in reading made me feel very uncomfortable.

On the topic of uncomfortable - the amount of paedophillic comments made in this book - something I could not get past and eventually made me put down this book before finishing it.

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bonesfor5dollars's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective medium-paced

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

2.25

I went into this book with the curiosity of the 'Beat Generation.' Counterculture movements have been a fascinating topic to me and so to read a book that 'captures the beat generation,' I was quite eager to dig into this book. However, what I got out of this was pure disappointment and just a poorly-aged book that contains questionable characters and ideas. While the writing style of Kerouac can be interesting at some points, I feel the book is entirely bogged down by the characters who are probably the most unlikable characters that I've seen in a book. How they describe people of color is just baffling especially from Sal, who has some of the most baffling descriptions and observations of African Americans, and Mexican Americans. The main characters also sexualize underage women a lot and get extremely bad by the end of the book, when they are in Mexico. Also, the manner in which women are presented in this book is just terrible as well, as the main characters often exploit women either for sex or for money and make comments on how women are objects.

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nomatophobia's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring reflective 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

3.0

This book might have changed my life whether or not it's deserving. In the time that I was reading this, I took a few fun spontaneous adventures of my own and I'd like to believe it was a little bit inspired by the chaos of these pages. That being said, this is the definition of "does not hold up." I'm not sure how much of this was intentionally offensive because it seems for the most part it just wanted to show how the characters got along with so many different kinds of people, but if you tried to count the amount of slurs in here you'd go crazy. The lack of plot didn't bother me as much as bearing my 21st century eyes to this much bigoted language.

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