Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Femlandia by Christina Dalcher

23 reviews

pagnljel's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

1.0

Almost DNF this book but I pushed through hoping that it would turn itself around. It did not. The concept was definitely cool in having a feminist based colony after the collapse of the world. But the characters are transphobic and terrible. Ends up reading as propaganda for Not All Men

Do yourself a favor and skip this one. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

nahal3's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hey_jad's review against another edition

Go to review page

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
Terfy, anti-feminist, not all men boomer narrative
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

veronica222_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

bookishpip's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

laurenbaggy's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

gloreishun's review

Go to review page

challenging dark reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

I do agree with some of themes and more specifically fears that the book touches upon but the execution and handling of them just didn't sit right with me. The main heroine was insufferable as always and I agreed little to none with her world views etc. My main take from this book was that, no matter if you are a woman or a man, we all have the capacity to be monsters.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

beccajdb's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

4.0

A page-turner with some thought-provoking ideas about feminism, gender ‘characteristics’ and how we might all behave post-apocalypse. This particular apocalypse is one we can all easily imagine and all the scarier for that. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hurlyburlywitch's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

1.5

There was so much I wanted this book to be, and it decided to be none of it. 

The book decides to toss in some arbitrary transphobia, has a mysterious dearth of disabled characters, and contains deeply nauseating and absolutely plot critical
child sexual abuse, torture and neglect.


I was also deeply horrified by an epilogue that
strongly implies biological determinism of misogyny and inequality.


Whilst moderately predictable, I found the characterisation in this book to be inconsistent and extremely variable. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

rhi_reading's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

1.0

A clunky, heavy-handed novel that spends every single page beating you around the head with a large ‘Feminism is evil’ stick. I gave it some grace at the beginning because I thought maybe it was designed to be a satire of the way some people view feminists, that trad-wife Miranda and her misandrist mother would meet in the middle and see each others views. I realised I was very wrong by about 1/3 of the way in, but by that point reading this book had turned in to the literary equivalent of rubbernecking at a ten-car pileup - you know it’s terrible, but you need to see HOW truly awful it is. 

It’s certainly fast-paced, but this pace is achieved by cutting out almost all character development and relationship dynamics.  Every choice made by the characters seem completely random. Why does Emma latch on to Jen Jones (the charasmatic leader of this seeming idyllic off-The-grid community, with a name so subtle she may as well just have been called Dr Evil)  as soon as she meets her, to the point where she abandons her own mother? Jen has done nothing to earn this, there’s absolutely nothing to suggest Emma supported the extreme ideals of Femlandia before all this. 

The ‘twist’ of the book was gross and not even especially clever, but don’t worry because it’s all resolved in pretty much the next chapter. 

There are some absolutely sublime 1* review for this book on StoryGraph that go in to more detail about why exactly this book is so awful, Id suggest reading them over reading Femlandia - you’ll certainly experience more nuance, structure, and entertainment. My search for a great feminist dystopian story continues. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings