schopenhauers_poodle's review
fast-paced
1.0
I couldn't even finish this book it was so irritating and bad. This is one of those books that is about a radical or radical politics and is actually a poorly drawn caricature of both. It's also so incredibly dated, with references to Occupy Wall Street, for example, that it was hard to focus on the narrative or any other part of the story without being distracted. Additionally, this book suffers from a man writing as a woman poorly--the main character is just not believable as a woman and again, it's highly distracting. Let's say the benchmark is maybe, idk, Mating by Norman Rush? (I'm not even saying that was good, necessarily.) The writing for the female protagonist is leagues worse in "True Believers."
Let's consider a few things that turned me off even attempting to finish the book. Within the first few chapters, the main character, a teenage girl, is involved in a conversation about rape and how women want it. This was highly off putting and was the first time I wanted to stop reading, yet, unwisely, I continued. She also is very into James Bond and the Bond movies, a hypermasculine series of films which is highly unbelievable to me and Andersen spends far too much time discussing them which blows his cover as a man writing for a woman. The highly unlikeable characters including the teenage granddaughter that gratuitously uses the word "gay" as a pejorative to describe any and everything she doesn't like. The smug boomer grandmother that constantly throws cold water on any of her granddaughter's aspirations to do something to help people or causes. The condescension of Karen about the Occupy movement and G20 protests just doesn't age well given the more recent movements we've collectively lived through like BLM and SCOTUS pro-choice protests. Honestly, this whole book felt like some kind of boomer op to convince anyone in the following generations to just give up and give in to cynicism and capitalism. Hated it, hated it.
Let's consider a few things that turned me off even attempting to finish the book. Within the first few chapters, the main character, a teenage girl, is involved in a conversation about rape and how women want it. This was highly off putting and was the first time I wanted to stop reading, yet, unwisely, I continued. She also is very into James Bond and the Bond movies, a hypermasculine series of films which is highly unbelievable to me and Andersen spends far too much time discussing them which blows his cover as a man writing for a woman. The highly unlikeable characters including the teenage granddaughter that gratuitously uses the word "gay" as a pejorative to describe any and everything she doesn't like. The smug boomer grandmother that constantly throws cold water on any of her granddaughter's aspirations to do something to help people or causes. The condescension of Karen about the Occupy movement and G20 protests just doesn't age well given the more recent movements we've collectively lived through like BLM and SCOTUS pro-choice protests. Honestly, this whole book felt like some kind of boomer op to convince anyone in the following generations to just give up and give in to cynicism and capitalism. Hated it, hated it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Homophobia and Rape
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