Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

10 reviews

readersreadingnook's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative sad fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Sexism, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Rape, and Body shaming

Minor: Drug use and Addiction

daisyrain98's review

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Cried, wasn’t what I thought it was gonna be about but it’s real and it’s heavy. Loved the art and was interested in learning about this work culture I would have in no other way looked into myself.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Car accident, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Rape, Misogyny, Sexism, Body shaming, Bullying, Addiction, Sexual harassment, and Sexual assault

traa's review

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Stalking, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Infidelity

Moderate: Mental illness, Grief, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Car accident, Classism, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Colonisation, Cursing, Drug use, and Gaslighting

Minor: Blood, Body horror, Fatphobia, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Cancer, and Excrement

jlye's review

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

3.25

This is hard to rate without sounding super judgmental because it is a very personal, vulnerable account of Kate Beaton’s time spent in the oil sands. I grew up in Newfoundland and graduated from university the same year as Beaton. I too felt bitter that I worked so hard for a degree that couldn’t get me a job. The job market was shit and every fresh graduate was underemployed and saddled with debt. However, there were options other than the oil sands to make money and pay down student loans quickly. A lot of people with arts degrees went overseas to teach English and were back home within two or three years debt-free. Everyone had heard horror stories of camp life, sexual harassment, cocaine, injury and death at Fort Mac. I was surprised by Beaton’s naivety about life in the camps and her decision to go there. Teaching overseas paid well and it was a job that didn’t result in losing your soul or compromising your ethics. I know this sounds judgmental, but I guess I just I have a hard time understanding why a woman with a liberal arts degree would choose such a difficult path.

What I appreciated the most from the book were the perspectives of the people who were in the oil sands because they truly had few other opportunities. The people who were displaced after the mines and fisheries were shut down out East. They had families to support and many only had a grade school education or no education. Unlike Kate Beaton, those guys were there because they had to be. Those guys were there for the long haul, contrasted starkly with Beaton’s youth and what we know will be a bright future ahead. 

I am disappointed that the book dedicated only a few frames to the impact the oil sands has had on Indigenous communities. The epilogue mentions that sexual abuse targeted towards Indigenous women is even worse in Fort Mac and at the camps.  This book is receiving so much National attention, and I get this is a memoir focused on a white woman’s experience in the oil sands, but Indigenous voices on such important issues deserve more than a footnote.

“The almighty dollar comes first. At the cost of our lives - as long as they get their money”. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Stalking, Body shaming, Sexual harassment, Death, Misogyny, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, and Cursing

ktdakotareads's review

dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Body shaming, Drug abuse, Addiction, Toxic friendship, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, Drug use, and Sexism

Moderate: Bullying, Grief, Infidelity, and Fatphobia

pewter's review

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

We Cape Bretoners have always had to live in two places for the sake of the almighty dollar, and this story just feels so validating. This deep yearning from home is portrayed lovingly and carefully by Beaton in lyrics and accents, alongside of a deeper fear of losing one's self to a place. Frightening and phenomenal - this is a must read for anyone who's had to leave home, but also for those of us who have empty seats at the table. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment and Sexual assault

Moderate: Sexual violence, Rape, Sexual harassment, and Sexual assault

Minor: Addiction, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Cancer, Cursing, Gaslighting, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Mental illness, Colonisation, Stalking, Rape, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Bullying, Car accident, and Grief

jenthebookgeek's review

adventurous challenging emotional informative fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Classism, Colonisation, Alcohol, Body shaming, Cancer, Cursing, Sexism, Drug use, Car accident, Rape, Sexual assault, Gaslighting, and Infidelity

readingbrb's review

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Misogyny, and Rape

Moderate: Colonisation

Minor: Racism, Body shaming, Cursing, Stalking, Gaslighting, and Drug use

jenny_d's review

challenging reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

I have never read a book not set in Newfoundland that made me miss it so much.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Racial slurs, Sexism, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Body shaming, Bullying, Car accident, Cursing, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Stalking

honeymonster's review

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

I have been a Kate Beaton fan since Livejournal.  I have all of her solo books.  I love her, in that fangirl sort of don't-really-know-her way.  So of course I pre-ordered this book.  And it is.. just amazing.

Ducks is the story of Beaton working in the Canadian oil fields to pay off her student loans.  It shows you the loneliness and isolation, plus all of the gross shit the women had to put up with, some of it from other women.  But little moments of hope and humanity still work their way in.  It's not all grim, but maybe that makes it worse?  There are no easy answers, and Beaton does not try to provide them.

I loved the art in this book, her usual cartoony style interspersed with maps and detailed, amazing full page landscapes.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting, Grief, Rape, Alcohol, Addiction, Animal death, Body shaming, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Car accident, Classism, Colonisation, Drug use, and Misogyny