Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

262 reviews

cthulhu_calamari's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I read this right after re-reading The Iliad, which is not as great as its expectations. This book gives so much deeper and resonant context and meaning to the Trojan War that it should be considered a required companion to its source. Greek myths were meant to evolve with their audience, and *this* is the form that should be considered canon in the current age. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and War

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Confinement

daniielle_lee's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual violence

Minor: Child death

kartemis's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

well done and very honest adaption of the iliad!
While first a bit slow and hard for me to really get into, the story eventually captured me.
And even though I know the story of the iliad and all the main plot points and tragedies, Briseis added an interesting pov and switched around the story focusing on the often forgotten and silenced women & girls in war. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, and War

Moderate: Child death, Death, and Rape

pagesofplatypus's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Fatphobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, and Pregnancy

Minor: Child death

islamaunder21's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

• Considering how patriarchal Ancient Greek culture was, I found it refreshing to read the famous tale of the Battle of Troy from a woman's perspective. This book certainly lives up to its title, brutally portraying the traumatic and tightly restrained experience of women in this period, especially from the perspective of captured women turned war trophies and sex slaves. I also enjoyed how accessible Pat Baker made this story since ancient history is often portrayed in an either far fetched and overly fantastical way, or through a stuffy super-academic lens. Therefore, despite this being a mythological retelling, the book didn't feel overdone and sadly some aspects of the women's experience still ring true today and felt somewhat relatable to real life, albeit in a watered down way. I also liked the emphasis on female friendships which was a welcome change from the competitiveness so often encouraged between women in Western society.
• I guess if it's a retelling there's not all that room for adapting the story too much, and maybe this is because I've already read 'The Song of Achilles' so the narrative wasn't new to me, but I did find a lot of this book a bit boring and the narrative style itself wasn't especially captivating. I was expecting there to be some kind of rebellion or assertiveness from the captured slave women but it was a bit disappointing that for the most part they were passive and resigned to their imprisonment,
  apart from Briseis's attempted escape which she gives up on
    , although obviously a sex slave isn't going to be able to just girl boss their way out of violent oppression and perhaps this portrayal was more realistic. Maybe my issue isn't with this itself, but with the concequential monotomy and lack of depth/expression of the female characters. Also this is pedantic of me but some of the story was told from Achilles' and Patroclus' perspective so it didn't feel like it was that ground-breaking in championing and empowering women's storytelling or centering the female experience.
• However, I do feel like I learned a bit more about the traditions of Ancient Greece and undervalued women's work which made an important contribution to society in this period. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Pregnancy, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

its_riana's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault

stitchbooks22's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense 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? Yes

2.0

The silence of the girls wasn’t badly written and was easy enough to get into reading.

However, can publishers and marketing teams stop pushing the term “feminist retelling” onto books that are so clearly NOT a feminist retelling? That is my biggest issue with this book. If the book had been done differently, it had the potential to be a feminist retelling. But trying to focus a bit more on the women in a story that is male dominated and being unsuccessful at focusing on the women and their own lives does NOT make a book a feminist retelling. That is my main gripe with this book.

So if you’re looking for a feminist retelling of Greek mythology, this is not it. Otherwise it was an okay book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

baobaebye's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

josiejavier's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, and War

katelynwillliams's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Moderate: Fatphobia and Suicide