Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

The Secret, Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams

4 reviews

heather667's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Body shaming, Murder, Violence, Car accident, and Sexism

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Pregnancy

Minor: Suicide, Mental illness, and Rape

tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

lighthearted 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

First, a couple things I appreciate about this book:

• Our Heroes are pretty bad at sleuthing, and they admit it. A nice choice in a subgenre full of amateur detectives who’ve never investigated so much as a checkbook register but can suddenly solve a murder
• A group of women! Who are friends! And support each other! Rather than constantly tearing each other down!
• Adams has attempted to give the Society members “tragic pasts” and really seems to have considered the ramifications of that for their interpersonal relationships 

So those things are good! And then there’s… the rest of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury and Misogyny

Moderate: Car accident, Body shaming, Murder, Death, Abandonment, Sexual assault, Racism, Cultural appropriation, Fatphobia, and Alcohol

Minor: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Xenophobia, and Pregnancy

maeverose's review against another edition

Stopped at 18% (first three chapters)

I can just tell it’s not gonna be for me so I’d rather not bother. I didn’t hate it. But there were some things that I disliked.

First off it feels like it was written by a 40 something year old white woman, for other 40 something year old white women. Therefore I don’t really feel like I fit the target demographic. The dialogue was also very unnatural and weird. The characters don’t talk like real people.

I didn’t like the way she describes Nora’s disfigurement in such negative words most of the time, when the author herself is not disfigured. Also, only going off of the part I read, it felt a little like her disfigurement was her entire personality? The only information we got about her had to do with her accident or appearance, other than her being a librarian-turned-bookseller and liking books. She was depressed and stand off ish because of her accident and she liked to tell people to read books… that was it, that’s her personality.

There’s the trope that I despise of using very fatphobic language to describe an unlikable character.

I also thought June was a bit of a racial stereotype but maybe that’s just me.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Alcohol, Death, Fatphobia, Misogyny, and Suicidal thoughts

Some anti sex work comments

kyougokazumi's review against another edition

lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.0

The story itself is mediocre but okay if you're in the mood for a light predictable mystery, but the writing is absolutely appalling

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Car accident, Death, Fatphobia, Murder, and Sexual assault