Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

97 reviews

thesmutsister_emma's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

1.75

"You Refuse to Read Classic Literature."

Can we start with even if I never have to read or hear Shakespeare in or out of context ever again, it will still be too soon. Half of this book, I had no idea what the hell was happening because the main characters were speaking in Shakespeare quotes directly. I can hear the TikTok girl now... "You refuse to read classic literature. Not a question." You're damn right I do and this is why. I could not tell you what half the dialogue in this book was saying. No idea. Empty head, no thoughts.

Another large issue I had with this book was it was so damn predictable. I called the whole plot 50 pages in. The entire thing. Piece by piece. I'll send screenshots if you need them. And for me to call the entire plot without knowing what the hell half the characters were saying a solid 65% of the time is sad. I think the last book I hated this much was Ice Planet Barbarians and I despised that book.

Quite frankly, I feel like this book was not built for me and that I never should have even picked it up.

The Final Verdict
If you don't mind a predictable plot line and not being able to understand half of the conversations happening, have at it. I'm going to stick to my romance novels from here on out. (yes, I understand the hypocrisy. The difference is, a romance novel isn't supposed to keep you guessing, this was.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Minor: Biphobia, Body horror, Bullying, and Blood

jenmcreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.25

As a recovering theater kid, I definitely enjoyed this book. The structure of the story and the environmental setting are very well done. I struggled some with the level of misogyny in this book, especially as directed toward Meredith. It is arguable that this was Oliver's misogyny since the book is told from his perspective, but it was left without substantial critique and was quite grating at times. Otherwise, Rio did an incredible job plunging the reader into the story. The scenes that take place during performances did a spectacular job balancing the show on stage with behind-the-scenes antics. The use of Shakespeare was so smart and satisfying to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Toxic friendship

chris_reads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Physical abuse, and Alcohol

Moderate: Addiction, Infidelity, Misogyny, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Murder

Minor: Homophobia

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Bullying, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Eating disorder, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Cancer, Incest, Transphobia, and Fire/Fire injury

Further warning for a student/teacher relationship - never framed as a bad thing as far as I can tell.

badmom's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Biphobia, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Misogyny, and Gaslighting

_piercingwords_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

A really intense read that got me out of a reading slump. 

The story feels very real, on an emotional rather than logical level. The structure is a nice touch and fitting for the Shakespeare centered story. There's a lot to be analysed, a lot of foreshadowing and parallels to the plays alluded to in the book;
definitely a book you need to read in depth to really be able to appreciate the thought put into it, I will have to read it again, more thoroughly and with the knowledge of everything happening.

In the end, it is a love story, in a twisted, untraditional way.
It left me with a few questions unanswered but I couldn't put it down, the tension high until the last page and I do recommend it, especially to Shakespeare lovers.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Addiction, Body shaming, Bullying, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Vomit, Grief, Suicide attempt, Outing, and Alcohol

3arth2kaye's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Minor: Misogyny

maddyisnotilliterate's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

As William Shakespeare once said *clears throat* “whateth the fuckerth?”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Minor: Misogyny

I nearly started crying when I found out James died

eleanorcd's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

I didn't expect to like this book all that much, and then I devoured it in two days. I am not a huge Shakespeare fan so I was a little apprehensive, but it is a fairly well-done pastiche. It was a quick and easy read and pretty engaging. I do, however, have some complaints.

My main complaint was the character dynamics. Spoiler free complaint: none of the relationships are convincing. No chemistry and bland. Some of it is explained a bit at the end, but even still it was dry and awkward. Now, a spoiler version:

james and wren? such an unconvincing couple. no chemistry. same goes for oliver and meredith.

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Another problem I had was the predictability. Perhaps it's that this book is so often marketed as The Secret History for English/theatre students, so I could tell pretty quickly which characters aligned with which from TSH (ie. Richard is obviously Henry, the girls all different aspects of Camilla, Oliver as Richard, Alexander as Francis, etc.). Apart from that, though, the book is a bit painfully predictable. Some of it made sense, like someone getting killed at a certain point mimics the trajectory of a Shakespearean/Greek tragedy, but other aspects were way too predictable and I felt they were poorly done.

cough james killing richard, this was too obvious and didn't make sense to me. i get that it was an accident but WHY would james have gone out looking for richard when he knew things would end badly. he's smarter than that, and it all felt out of character

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Overall, this book was fine. It's also worth noting that it's very misleading to recommend it based on someone liking The Secret History. They are very different books and comparing them does IWWV absolutely no favours, lol. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Misogyny

t_swizzle's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol