Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven

52 reviews

vaguely_pink's review

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dark emotional funny tense 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

4.25

Man, I love angry women. 
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ohsunnyaa's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense 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? Yes

1.25

Female rage isn't the same as anger issues, but this book seems to think they're synonymous. 
I get what the author was trying to do, but she should have done more research than watching girlboss-feminism tiktoks. 

Alice was just an asshole. She was mean to Lottie the second they met, because "she looked similar to her bullies" -the bullies we only see mentioned once as a poor excuse for her behavior. She yelled at a school administrator, because her papers were missing (something that maybe even wasn't that woman's fault). Only once does she get angry at a person who really deserves it. 
Then she does a spell to make her anger disappear and it backfires.

Lottie was described as a "sunshine" but to be honest I never thought that about her no matter how many times the author tried to push it onto me. She wanted to uncover the mystery surrounding deaths on her campus. In order to do that she stalked her roommate and went through her things. 

The thing that made me hate the book the most was that the conclusion was: let women be angry! #Feminism. The real villains are men so women should never take responsibility for their actions.
I don't even want to defend men. And some men here were terrible people. But not all of women's actions can be blamed on men. 
Why was Alice mean to other girls? If a man did something terrible to her
And he really didn't. She cheated on her boyfriend with her girl best friend. When he found out she tried to kiss him against his will so he pushed her away and she fell on a table. And now she's so terrified of men and angry at them.
why take out your anger on women?
Why did Alice TW ANIMAL ABUSE
strangle a cat
?

It's not that I don't believe that living in patriarchal society influences the way women think and the way women's emotions are treated. I just think this book executed that poorly.
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librarianloading's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

I really wanted to love this book. I love sapphic romance, I love classic retellings... I really thought it would be right up my alley.  The underlying themes of generational rage in women and taking back power were enough to keep me reading until the end. The
throat rubies felt very weird and unnecessary
but the rest of the supernatural elements were engaging. I almost DNFed at the vivid description of
Alice killing Salem
. I was not prepared for on-page animal cruelty. Overall, I think this would be a good read for its intended audience; however, as an adult reading YA, it fell short for me. 
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peppermintz's review against another edition

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

3.25

The start was pretty slow and then the book just kept speeding up. I loved how the girls described each other,
like sunshine and a dark forest respectively
. The mention of asexuality was weird thought and it made me feel as if they didn't do enough research -
basically, she said that asexuality fit perfectly until
. It's like, demi or gray sexuality exists. Also, I am so glad they finally got therapy would have saved alot time/stress if it had happened earlier.
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mconant's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious
  • 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

4.0

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cecilie26's review against another edition

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

2.5

Okay, this is the first time that I have tried to read something in this kind of genre. I have read murder mysteries but this is a whole other genre than that in my opinion. 
It was nice to try something new, but this book was really not something for me. 

I’m gonna make some pros and cons, because that the only way that I can make this kind of shot and not write something that doesn’t make sense. 
Let’s start with the pros:
- liked the generational women rage and what it represents
- did like the girl kinda fight club vibe. 

The cons:
- the animal cruelty(could not for the life of me see the reason for that even though
the cat lived
. 
I know the authors perspective was to show how far she would go, but that could have been done another way. I just really don’t like animals being hurt to further the stories cruelness. 
- the romance was a bit weird. It didn’t feel like it came naturally. 

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samanthaxjean's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

2.25

I wanted to like this more so badly. I listened to the audiobook and I think the narrators were not for me. The story was okay, kinda slow and confusing. Ending was disappointing. 
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hollyeabner's review against another edition

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

3.0

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emmataylor173's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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sinnybuns's review against another edition

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

4.5

An incredible depiction of female rage and how easy it is to fall into the trap of believing that in order to be accepted by society, you need to be “nice” and “sweet”. I love that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was incorporated into the story. I also particularly loved that being in love with someone of the same sex was completely normalised. No huge coming out moments or internalised homophobia like you so often find in sapphic romance, especially YA sapphic romances. 
This book is a slow burn in terms of romance but the plot itself moves quickly. If you’re looking to read this for the romance only, don’t. You will be disappointed. The love story shared between the two main characters is a sub-plot and not a main focus in this book. 
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