unfortunately, I’m going to join the minority with this one.
•It started off on the wrong foot and never quite recovered. the pacing and writDNF @ 25%.
unfortunately, I’m going to join the minority with this one.
•It started off on the wrong foot and never quite recovered. the pacing and writing felt anticlimactic, bogged down by futilities and unnecessary commentary rather than focusing on what truly mattered. for example, the protagonist’s training to become a war nurse—a crucial element—was barely explored. instead, we were left with a heroine who, despite lacking even the most basic experience to exercise in her own country, somehow found herself shipped off to a war zone just three months later.
•the rushed timeline stripped the story of any credibility. case in point: within seconds of the female protagonist announcing to her parents that she was joining the army, officers appeared at their door to deliver news of her brother’s death. and then; where was the mourning? he died, we got a fleeting mention of her training, and suddenly, she was already on a plane to Vietnam. the entire narrative was painfully devoid of depth, recounted in a cold, clinical manner with not a single genuine emotion in sight.
•Frankie, the female lead, was a walking cliché; the privileged aristocratic daughter with a level of naïvety that bordered on stupidity. I tried to be patient, hoping for some kind of character development, but none ever arrived. the truth is, someone like her wouldn’t have made it past the tarmac, and that’s me being generous. her decision to become a war nurse wasn’t based on conviction or passion but rather on a comment from a man she had met twice:
“Women can be heroes,” he said, lighting a cigarette. Frankie laughed.
ma’am, were you held hostage in your mansion your entire life? no? you went to college and became a nurse? so why did it take a random man’s words for you to have this revelation? it was 1966..
•then there’s her father’s reaction to her enlistment:
“The men serve,” Dad said sharply. “The men.” He paused. “
“War bachelors, Frankie. Married men who think love’s a free-for-all when bombs are falling. Don’t you go all that way and shame us.”
this is coming from a self-proclaimed Kennedy supporter, and yet the rumors of JFK’s infidelity apparently never crossed his mind. nor the fact that his late son used to be a party lover with drag races addiction. sigh, the sheer irony of it all.
•some of Frankie’s comments also rubbed me the wrong way:
“Frankie stared at Barb. Honestly, she didn’t know many Black people.”
sis, you graduated from a college in California in 1966-the same year the Black Panther Party was founded. The Black Student Movement was already rising. the idea that she had somehow never encountered or interacted with Black people before? beyond ridiculous.
“Frankie had never thought about nurses in Vietnam; the newspapers never mentioned any women. Certainly no one talked about any women at war.”
imagine, just imagine going to Vietnam finding Vietnamese women AND Vietnamese nurses. what an odd thing, huh?
•and now, let's talk about ✨the love interest✨. the audacity of this book being titled The Women when the central romance involves (so far)... a married man with a child. his words?
"If only l'd met you first," he said.
sir, please. that's where I draw the line. and a few chapters later? boom-love confession.
at this point, I was done. because i kept wondering where were the women in the narrative ? honestly, i wouldn’t have expected more coming from a white writer writing from the point of view of the oppressor and to add insult to injury a book praised by Bill Gates.
—————— here we go..♥️ (big br with all my besties!!)...more
all the right ingredients were present in this novel to depict it as enticing enough for me to read: a biracial couple, with her as a single DNF @ 30%
all the right ingredients were present in this novel to depict it as enticing enough for me to read: a biracial couple, with her as a single mom of three and widowed, and him as a firefighter while she’s his physical therapist. he’s an iota younger than her, and it’s love at first sight (not usually a fan of this trope, but I was convinced the single mom aspect would redeem it). so imagine my surprise when, by 30% into this 460-page book, her children were barely mentioned, and her role as a mother only made a vague appearance in her subconscious. she didn’t even mention them to the male lead. of course, the protagonists were already madly in love by then (but couldn’t act on it yet, because her job prohibited it). one of the major reasons I couldn’t finish the book, though, was the male lead and his brothers’ casual use of pejorative and sexist terms to describe women, like ’bunny boiler’. I was genuinely uncomfortable with how easily one of them said: ”that chick definitely has a crazy gleam in her eye like she’s figuring out where to hide the body. that’s why I fucked her from behind, actually. that crazy look in her eye kind of freaked me out.”
many thanks to Hambright PR for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review ...more
couldn’t make it past chapter 2. his dick was mentioned 12 times in two chapters only. ———— it’s been a hot minute since i read anything by thiDNF @ 10%
couldn’t make it past chapter 2. his dick was mentioned 12 times in two chapters only. ———— it’s been a hot minute since i read anything by this author.. the book just came out & the premise sounds so good!...more
if i read one more time a sentence including virgin, blood and sheets the two brain cells i have left will literally combust after suffering dnf @ 40%
if i read one more time a sentence including virgin, blood and sheets the two brain cells i have left will literally combust after suffering through half of this piece of full misogynistic shit.
now, i wanna adresse the girlies. once again, i’ve seen this book literally everywhere and everyone was talking about the mmc as the perfect man. the gem of the mmcs. well, if these are nowadays standards i don’t want them. nino (mmc) and his brothers (minus adamo) are the most disgusting men i’ve ever read about, so far. i hated every minute of being trapped in nino’s head. every misogynistic and macho thought or conversation he shared with his brothers was the epitome of 'regressing the image of women'. their only hobbies ? their only knowledge and culture? their conversation skills? all orbited around one single thing: women. or precisely : p#ssies, virgins and virgins’ blood and of course wh...more
•meh mmc •shallow protagonists •way too many side characters my head is spinning •effortless and not AT ALL detailed writing, it oscillated betdnf @ 25%
•meh mmc •shallow protagonists •way too many side characters my head is spinning •effortless and not AT ALL detailed writing, it oscillated between silly and unrealistic dialogues to inner monologues too long and just focused on the side characters
ps: the list can go on and on but i think this is sufficient to back up the "dnf" if the "why are u being so unfair dnf-police " is not too far ...more