Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - The Paper Palace

Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

14 reviews

beetdirt's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense fast-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? Yes

3.0

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michelle_mc96's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-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

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cecereads__'s review against another edition

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4.5

This was defo a page-turner for me. I was pretty much fully immersed in the story.
I think the author is very accomplished in getting the characters to act/interact/react authentically (however disturbing or sad it might be for the reader). Quite a lot of deeply disturbing/tragic occurrences making it a very tough read at times. There’s a point where I wanted to fight one of the characters… I was beyond fuming.

The weakness of the dad was hard to read. The girls had a lot going against them from the start. Many of the things that happened (outside of the most heinous ones done by Conrad which made me f-ing fuming) made me want to cry for them.
Anna was a favourite. Eleanor is definitely a flawed character - sometimes you know what explains her behaviour but it was also clear that she didn’t want the responsibility of making the choice between the two. But it is almost impossible when you have a love for both, I do recognise that. Not sure how I felt about the ending bc she could easily change her mind from one moment to the next. Which was so heartbreaking for Jonas to keep having to relive. I do, though, like that she was self-aware most of the time e.g. in how her blaming Jonas (unfairly but understandably immaturely) was their downfall after the drowning - but Jonas was 14 at the time for goodness sake …

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avelavalamp's review against another edition

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This book is about WASPs, but the author made casually racist choices in her descriptions of non-WASP characters. She lost me when she said “the Puerto Rican girls eyefuck me.” Why say this about nameless characters in a health clinic and only appear in three lines? Why use this extremely harsh language when

the narrator’s stepbrother is ACTUALLY molesting and raping her or when the childhood friend she loves ACTUALLY does want to f*ck her and she wants him to?! The term “eyefuck” would’ve been appropriate in both scenarios, and yet it’s never used—it’s reserved for the Puerto Rican girls seeking reproductive care—to make them seem “scary” for no reason

?! Add to that using terms like “crackhead” to describe an actual human, women consistently insulting one another with “don’t be such a cow” (fatphobic) and mid-book randomly assigning Jewish identity to the main family with no development? Microagressions abound.

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