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melinabarbuto's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and Classism
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Cultural appropriation
nytephoenyx's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.75
I don’t know what it is with YA and horror, but most the time they are an absolute mess. At least – that’s how I feel about it. The Tenth Girl is no exception to that rule, but I had problems with so much more than the faltering genre fit.
For starters, The Tenth Girl feels like a between-novel as far as target audience goes. It’s a little too ridiculous to appeal to most adult readers, but the language and sexual themes (especially early in the book) are a bit too mature for the average YA reader. I feel like The Tenth Girl was plummeted into the YA zone because the publisher felt it would make the most money there when it would really be better suited for something-in-between – after all, the New Adult genre does exist, but the industry still feels determined to make that exclusively about steamy romances.
The characters are another problem. At best they are flat, at worst they are inconsistent and uninteresting. I was never able to really root for any of the characters in this book, because they were utterly forgettable. And it’s really not about relating or not relating to either Mavi or Angel. It’s utter indifference because they aren’t rounded enough to get invested.
But wait! There’s more!
Faring was all over the place with plot. The Tenth Girl is advertised as a YA ghost story and it … is not. It may start out that way, with ghosts and the such, but it quickly starts to jump all over the place and really ends more in science fiction than paranormal fantasy. It was supposed to be a major twist, but it was so out-of-the-blue that it didn’t make sense. It was less a “surprise” and more… simply confusing. Sometimes a really good plot can make up for flaws in character and writing because it keeps you curious as to what is going to happen next… but this one absolutely did not.
Finally, I want to talk about Faring’s writing a bit. When I was researching this author, I found a scattering of reviews talking about racist themes and language in The Tenth Girl. Holy smokes this should be discussed more. Faring comes from Argentinian heritage and as such had an opportunity to share her culture, but instead she’s created a “fantasy” indigenous group that is one letter away from being the real thing. The entire first half of the book and the ghost story portion revolves around a bloody sacrificial ritual which is such a horrifying representation of an indigenous people! It’s mentioned in detail for the first time a few chapters in – so early in the story – and is cringy then… but then Faring repeats the story multiple times as we keep going through The Tenth Girl. This book could have strongly used a sensitivity reader because the premise of the entire first half of the book is based around some very problematic material.
Even beyond problematic themes, her writing isn’t good. It’s so metaphor heavy and a lot of the behaviors and threads don’t make sense. Faring works for Penguin Random House and while I truly hope she didn’t get this published exclusively through having all those connections… I’m struggling to see how such a mediocre book in every sense not only was picked up, but advertised so well. I’m trying to be directly mean to Faring (I actually had the opportunity to meet her at BookCon 2019 and she was absolutely lovely) but this book… it’s not good.
If this book is on your TBR… honestly… you can skip it. There’s nothing particularly redeeming about The Tenth Girl. Those who have been with me for a while know that I try to twist books I don’t like as good for another audience, but The Tenth Girl is utterly mediocre in every way and insulting in others and… I’m struggling to think of an audience for it. If you loved this book, I am so happy for you! But for me… yikes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, and Racism
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, and Murder
foreverinastory's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.25
This was very not good....
January pick for the #WickAndJaneBookClub on Instagram
I don't know if this book was read by any indigenous people before it's publication, but I really wish it had been. Or if it had, that publishing and/or the author had taken these claims to heart and edited a lot of this book. There were so many problems with this book and most of them are because of the massive amounts of anti-indigenous rhetoric that this book is full of.
Mavi is on the run from the Argentinian government because her mother is a leftist. Angel is an other haunting the De Vaccaro finishing school. Between these two POVs we are to unravel the mystery of the De Vaccaro school. Angel is never gendered by themselves in this book so I won't refer to them with any male or female pronouns.
So the premise is that the De Vaccaro family are colonizers from Italy that came to Argentina and decided to take land from an indigenous group, the Zapuche. (Pause: The Zapuche are fictional, but in real life there is a native group of Argentina-Chile called the Mapuche. I don't really know what to do with this info but it was weird that these fictional native people are so closely based to real life native people.) The De Vaccaro family steals the land and makes their gigantic school to help young rich girls finish their education. But after this happens, the native people retaliate. A sickness of some sort descends on the house. In order for the colonizers to be saved though, a Zapuche daughter must be sacrificed.
Using the misaligned trope that indigenous people sacrifice their own daughters is wrong. There was some other stuff about the whole ritual and what happened between the De Vaccaro's and the Zapuche, but basically it was all bad and used many stereotypes of indigenous people to make them purposefully look bad. All these people wanted was for the people who LITERALLY STOLE their land to leave. Also there were several instances of the word "savage" being used in reference to the Zapuche people, and that's also just a no. If you don't understand someone's culture, that's not an excuse to label them as lesser or primitive or savage.
On top of all the anti-indigenous rhetoric this book is FULL of, there was also a very lovely anti-Semitic remark thrown in, because apparently we need all the discrimination.
"...in case you are thinking that we were Nazis. But we aren't Jews, either, God forbid."
Yay for casual anti-Semitic remarks. This was made by one of the young girls at the school.
Besides this the whole plot was just boring?? And the twist at the end was weird as fuck and made the whole indigenous storyline unnecessary. Like it could've been replaced with anything else and the plot would've been the same. In other words, there was no reason for how anti-indigenous this book was.
I cannot wait to unhaul this book.
January pick for the #WickAndJaneBookClub on Instagram
I don't know if this book was read by any indigenous people before it's publication, but I really wish it had been. Or if it had, that publishing and/or the author had taken these claims to heart and edited a lot of this book. There were so many problems with this book and most of them are because of the massive amounts of anti-indigenous rhetoric that this book is full of.
Mavi is on the run from the Argentinian government because her mother is a leftist. Angel is an other haunting the De Vaccaro finishing school. Between these two POVs we are to unravel the mystery of the De Vaccaro school. Angel is never gendered by themselves in this book so I won't refer to them with any male or female pronouns.
So the premise is that the De Vaccaro family are colonizers from Italy that came to Argentina and decided to take land from an indigenous group, the Zapuche. (Pause: The Zapuche are fictional, but in real life there is a native group of Argentina-Chile called the Mapuche. I don't really know what to do with this info but it was weird that these fictional native people are so closely based to real life native people.) The De Vaccaro family steals the land and makes their gigantic school to help young rich girls finish their education. But after this happens, the native people retaliate. A sickness of some sort descends on the house. In order for the colonizers to be saved though, a Zapuche daughter must be sacrificed.
Using the misaligned trope that indigenous people sacrifice their own daughters is wrong. There was some other stuff about the whole ritual and what happened between the De Vaccaro's and the Zapuche, but basically it was all bad and used many stereotypes of indigenous people to make them purposefully look bad. All these people wanted was for the people who LITERALLY STOLE their land to leave. Also there were several instances of the word "savage" being used in reference to the Zapuche people, and that's also just a no. If you don't understand someone's culture, that's not an excuse to label them as lesser or primitive or savage.
On top of all the anti-indigenous rhetoric this book is FULL of, there was also a very lovely anti-Semitic remark thrown in, because apparently we need all the discrimination.
"...in case you are thinking that we were Nazis. But we aren't Jews, either, God forbid."
Yay for casual anti-Semitic remarks. This was made by one of the young girls at the school.
Besides this the whole plot was just boring?? And the twist at the end was weird as fuck and made the whole indigenous storyline unnecessary. Like it could've been replaced with anything else and the plot would've been the same. In other words, there was no reason for how anti-indigenous this book was.
I cannot wait to unhaul this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Blood
Minor: Antisemitism