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A review by memyreads
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
Did not finish book. Stopped at 7%.
I started the audio book and barely made it 45 mins in. There's an extremely long introduction and forward from the author and a critic or something. I tried listening but it just drug on with both talking about how the author himself had a tragic accident (never said what it was) and how he fell into a dark place for a long time and how it influenced his book and how everyone loved it. Not knocking him for having mental issues after a traumatic event, just saying it could have been conveyed better, as it was it came across kind of edgy and cringy.
Finally, I made it to the actual story....and was quite disappointed. I couldn't get past the writing style first of all. Again, it was presented in an edgy, cringy fashion as if the main male char was the smartest, most logical, most athletic, most handsome person in the world. Which, story wise, could have been true as the only plot element I could gather was that some AI somehow, destroyed the whole world and there were only 4 characters left: our main Chad, a diabolical genius, a man damaged by radiation and the token blonde female. And this is what tripped me up, the way not only the characters but also the author treats the female char. There were so many misogynistic things said and done to this char that I won't repeat as I found it quite disgusting. It made the author come across as some extreme INCEL who was using this writing as some type of self inserted daydream scenario. Needless to say, I found this very off-putting and won't be returning to it.
Finally, I made it to the actual story....and was quite disappointed. I couldn't get past the writing style first of all. Again, it was presented in an edgy, cringy fashion as if the main male char was the smartest, most logical, most athletic, most handsome person in the world. Which, story wise, could have been true as the only plot element I could gather was that some AI somehow, destroyed the whole world and there were only 4 characters left: our main Chad, a diabolical genius, a man damaged by radiation and the token blonde female. And this is what tripped me up, the way not only the characters but also the author treats the female char. There were so many misogynistic things said and done to this char that I won't repeat as I found it quite disgusting. It made the author come across as some extreme INCEL who was using this writing as some type of self inserted daydream scenario. Needless to say, I found this very off-putting and won't be returning to it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny
Moderate: Sexism