Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes

46 reviews

cranshrooms's review

funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

This book was a lot of fun! The style is innovative and engaging, it eas easy to invest in the characters and their stories, and the end was very satisfying. The afterword, however, felt rather on the nose and undeserved.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Chronic illness, Drug use, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Racism, Transphobia, Blood, Grief, and Pregnancy

menagerie_of's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Death and Sexual harassment

katylizg's review

adventurous challenging dark funny tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, and Sexual harassment

justagremlin's review

dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

 

Nice book if you’re in the mood for some dark academia shenanigans. The chapter sizes are small, which makes it a fairly quick read. I always like books that have “journal entry” formats. I did feel like even though this is a multi-POV book, they didn’t spend much time on the two female MCs. It got a bit better as the book progressed, but while they were at the school, we didn’t see any of them learning

; actually, on that note, they barely spend any time at the school. I would’ve loved to have read more about the murder curriculum, but it feels like barely any time is spent on that :( And towards the end, the segments with Cliff are hard to follow.

 

But overall its not a bad read and I had a fun time with it. 

3.25/5

Recommended For: Fans of darkly humorous dark academia set in the past

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Homophobia, Racism, and Transphobia

homophobia transphobia racism:

The period this book takes place in is the early to mid-1900s so some of the characters are bigoted

Murder/Violence

Read. The. Title.

Rape, Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment

One of the targets to be murdered is a boss that sleeps with female employees and blackmails them. One of these employees is mentioned to be drugged. Another target is another boss who sleeps with several employees.

Suicide

The Main character recounts an employee committing suicide after being drugged assaulted and blackmailed by her boss, another character is revealed to have faked his suicide to look like a murder. Also lots of talk of making murder seem like suicide.

madalynn_owens's review

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.25

This was a really interesting and unique book! I could really really see this working as an 8-10 part mini series and thus was a bit lengthy at some points.
I found myself enjoying one of the MCs vastly more than the other 2 simply due to the time spent with them.
There is also a weird I think thinly veiled anti-abortion tiny side plot for about 3 pages that feels out of place but maybe I’m just misreading it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Death, Suicide, and Violence

Minor: Gun violence, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Sexual harassment

katyhosbein's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

Loved learning about McMasters and the journeys of three students with unfortunate employers 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Sexual harassment

annhenry's review

dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Hate crime, Suicide, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Pregnancy

elenilkd's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

A great mix of dark humor, thriller, and a little Hogwarts-esque fantasy! A little slow and predictable sometimes, but I can appreciate the base idea here, especially as a fan of horror and thriller comedies. 

Kind of wish the end was a little more flushed out though. I’m glad to see the three characters reunite, but was almost too happy and predictable of an ending for what’s overall such a dark comedy. Was the love interest really necessary if it wasn’t going to be fully addressed or developed? Could the Dean really not see his own death coming? How many students are offered to come back as faculty like that?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Gore, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

audiobookish's review

funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

Pros: Lighthearted and humorous tone, charming fictional setting with a dark academia/more "grownup" Hogwarts vibe, the bits of the story that focused exclusively on the schooling and classes were the most fun and intriguing!

Cons: The plot wasn't particularly strong and felt somewhat bland at times for a novel centered on "how to murder someone" fictionally of course. I only found one of the three main characters highly likeable, the other two were unremarkable. The resolution at the end left something to be desired in my opinion. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Sexism, Violence, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Racism, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

Set in the 1950s, so sexism is prevalent in heavy doses alongside sexual harassment. Brief racism encounters mentioned also.

collsin05's review

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? No

1.25

Good idea but terrible execution. Doria and Gemma were after thoughts and Cliff used up too much thought. The whole thing was a convoluted mess with long sentences, clunky paragraphs, and unnecessary chapters slowing now the pacing at intense plot points. I mean

Gemma was possibly killed and there were about 4 chapters between her getting crushed by cinderblocks and us checking in on her at the hospital to see if she even was alive

Gemma was never meant to succeed. She was never meant to be anything other than an object for Cliff to fond over. We were only introduced to her “backstory” after Cliff had been dreaming of her and acting like he knew her. The misunderstanding keeping them apart was her relationship with Jud, but that was just because she had to “platonically seduce?” Her target so she needed practice. Like I said that was all just made up for the purpose of making Cliff jealous. And she was set up to fail, with her flimsy little plan all the teachers said would fail, but they graduated her anyone despite them all agreeing that she wasn’t ready… because Cliff was ready. And if Cliff wasn’t going to be at school to play water polo and work in the kitchen, then why would the narrative bother taking place at the school? For female characters to exist outside the male gaze of the real and only protagonist? No she she had to go

and she had to fail because how else could she return to the school and be reunited with her beloved whom she had never spoken to. How else could she have a happy ending?

it was a general convoluted mess with deep sea diving, secret trash can drop offs, cross dressing, stealing cars, something about the Dali lama and there was this one Latvian delivery boy? It was impossibly to follow. There were no real plot twists and between Cora, Gemma, and doria there was an unsettling demonization of female sexuality as if their sexuality was owned by some polygamous man or another with true female promiscuity being severely punished and virginal purity being rewarded. Even if the narrator did call out this double standard and did punish the worst male offenders.

But it was clear in the end that the pure girl would be rewarded by winning Cliff, and the independent woman who don’t need no man would be turned into a pig one way or another, and that Cliff is the only true protagonist

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Excrement, Medical content, and Sexual harassment

The audio book has great narrators and the physical copy has nice illustrations But overall I would not recommend it. Reviews from 1 star to 3 stars all agree that understanding was severely hampered by how convoluted and unnecessarily long it was