Reviews with content warning for Rape - Either/Or

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

gabek's review

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adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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bookwhore07's review

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funny reflective fast-paced

Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

a lot of “surely she’s not going to have sex with this man” and then “oh”

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karabeavis's review against another edition

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funny informative reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

I struggled with this one. On the one hand, the writing is incredible, and sure. Phrases like “the tap coughed” are brilliant and stuck in my mind. It’s set in Harvard and the ins and outs of a peer group of talented, precocious students from all over the world: this should be an interesting premise.

I found the book excruciating at times. For me, the main character is hard to identify with and have empathy for. Despite having a cool mum who is a no—nonsense doctor, in regular contact, the protagonist is hapless, and

Spoiler

the sex she finally has is absolutely awful. There doesn’t seem to be a single pleasurable encounter. Pleasure doesn’t come into it. The character is totally neurotic, an American thing I observe in American sitcoms etc. It’s hard to like her.

. It’s set in the 1990s — my adolescent period too. This character is empowered in some ways but also naive! She wants to live a little, which is the point of the last third of the book.

Back to the writing which is layer upon layer of cultural literature references: the book is thoroughly researched and clever. I loved the description of Selin’s time spent at her grandmother’s house in Turkey.

Overall highly esoteric and inwardly gazing. I like the sophisticated world the character moves in, but at the same time, I loathe it. I wanted to love this. there’s a buzz around it and many adore it!

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moonbeamreads's review against another edition

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Big tw: rape and dubious consent regarding most of the sex scenes

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lybe's review against another edition

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Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

I enjoyed The Idiot but this just fell flat. Batuman's extraordinary humour that was such a big contribution to why its predecessor was and is so popular is still there (and I did laugh out loud several times, thank you very much) but the novel as a whole feels tedious and lacklustre. Batuman's interviews surrounding its publication were truly interesting but those ideas and concepts are just murmuring around in the background and rarely ever transpire superficially in a naïve (American?) way.
I would have most likely DNF'd this if I hadn't been listening to the audiobook.

Spoiler

The amount of mostly unreflected r*p* scenes in this? What's with that?

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