Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - Notte americana

Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Notte americana by Marisha Pessl

36 reviews

triscuits36's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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deadflytrachea's review against another edition

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slow-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

1.0

First and foremost, I have to give credit to the author for the clear amount of effort she put into the book. The extra media elements found online such as Professor Beckman's Syllabus and the trailers for Cordova's films made it feel more real, more of a spectacle.

However, this effort doesn't save how obnoxious I found the main character Scott McGrath to be. He made somewhat misogynistic remarks twice early in the book that I gave pass to simply because I figured the author was deliberately making him this way because the author is a woman.

However, the completely unnecessary bout of transphobia when he was at The Oubliette nearly ruined the experience. It didn't mean anything, it was just there for genuinely no reason, except what? Make it clear Scott is an asshole? We already knew that considering how poorly he treats most people around him and how cynical he is.

The author makes several bizarre passing remarks about any characters who weren't white, cis, well-educated etc. It felt like they were caricatures only existing to further the white male character's journey. While yes he grows as a father, he doesn't grow outside of that, the "found family" of Scott, Nora, and Hopper did not feel fulfilling or warranted.

and Cordova! The entire message behind him seems to be that he is a tortured genius, that his art and the terrible things he does is justified because he is the only person "brave" enough to go into as much depth for the passion of his art. It's so uninspired and boring.

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theglowcloud's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense 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

2.0

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auntiejamie's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

2.0

A cruel book full of Boomer logic and pearl-clutching. Tediously long and overbearing; the story, the places, and it's characters are not nearly as interesting as to justify this toilet paper scroll that is hellbent on telling you just what's wrong with "today's generation."

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takeoutbox's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

0.25

This book is such trash, never had I read something that fell from a 4 to a 1 within a few pages. It started off kind of interesting with the mixed media...then it resorted to a cartoonish journey of going from A to B to C to D to every other letter.

Also, this book was published in 2013, not 1913. If you need to rely on racist, transphobic and misogynistic tropes for your novel to be quirky, you need to do better.

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solouncapitulomas's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

first of all I have to say it, I fucking love long book but this book DID NOT need to be that long, a solution? removing most of the main and secondary characters, let's be honest ashley and cordova where the best characters and all the additional ones we never saw again.

I was so bored with McGrath's story but I did appreciate the parallels between him and cordova and their daughters, but the other to characters? unbearable, the author could've focused on the lore of cordova and on Ashley (a character like rebecca from daphne du maurier more interesting in death and with the power to eclipse every other character without even trying) instead of fucking introducing two boring people (nora and hopper) with no business being there and maybe if those two stayed like another one of the additional people we met along the way they would've been bearable but no, they had to join the hunt and be useless

wtv, I finished this book before the end of October and that was that

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