Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

Poslednja Želja by Vesna Milutinović-Đurić, Andrzej Sapkowski

4 reviews

jewelkr's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

My adult kid gave me this book as a birthday present because we enjoyed watching the Netflix series together.  This is one of the cases when the moving image production is better than the book.  I'd like to say it's because the stories were written in the previous century by a boomer male and obviously men's opinions of women/people have changed so much since then but regrettably  I can't - women's lives are still a full of  inequity and fear.  I will say that the people who produced the series addressed a lot of the absolutely disgusting misogyny in the book, as well as restringing the story in a cohesive manner and giving Geralt a personality.  Reading one account after another of what a woman (always referred to as a "girl" by the author) looks like, whether she passes the male-imposed standard for attractiveness, the incredible, cliche'ed detail of their breast-enhancing, thigh-revealing, hip thrusting outifts (compared to the male characters of whom very little is said about what they wear), the sexualization of the fight scenes between the Witcher and his female foes (always thighs and breasts exposed during a viscous fight to the death), the opening scene of an actual girl sexually attacking the Witcher in his sleep as part of her priestess training - it was all so gross that I had a hard time processing the stories behind these disturbing revelations of what men think when they see women.  The stories were interesting, although I was hoping for more of Geralt's back story, and you have to keep in mind that these stories preceded the Game of Thrones celebrity not to find them kind of hackneyed.  Sadly, no matter what male writers imagine, women are always relegated to one of three roles - virgin or girl I'd like to have sex with, whore or in this case demon, and female bringing beverages to men.  If we are imagining a different world, couldn't we fantasize something different for the women for change?
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kevin_the_intern's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

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ravenreader's review against another edition

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  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
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matth's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Definitely a book of the 90s. Lots of issues wrt misogyny. I’m not having a bad time but I probably wouldn’t be reading without the tv show existing. 
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