Resenhas - The Black Coats

Carous 05/01/2020

Not All Men™
ABANDONADO - 70%
Eu decidi repostar duas resenhas do Goodreads que refletem precisamente minha opinião sobre o livro porque estou cansada de toda hora criticar as mesmas coisas e simplesmente não tenho mais energia para escrever minha própria resenha pontuando tudo o que torna este livro abominável e um completo desserviço. A prova do meu cansaço é que sequer traduzirei as resenhas. Vocês que lutem para lê-la. Eu simplesmente não aguento mais.

Colleen Oakes escreveu uma resenha da bomba no Goodreads. A inspiração para a história foi a morte de uma amiga. Só digo que se ela foi vítima de feminicídio e ganhou >esta< homenagem, espero que o fantasma da falecida puxe o pé da escritora. Não só puxe como a sufoque com o travesseiro.

Difícil crer que ADULTOS trabalharam neste livro e ninguém, em nenhum momento, detectou nada nas milhões de desinformações sobre feminismo nele. Nenhum amigo beta, nenhum leitor sensível (acho que nem teve), nem o revisor. Ninguém para dizer: "Se é para escrever isso, então pare agora ou modifique isso, isso e isso" O livro foi concluído assim mesmo e passará para jovens essa mensagem equivocada.

Colleen Oakes deve ter terminado de escrever achando que fez um bom trabalho, quando esse livro nem merecia publicação.
E não duvido nada que alguma editora brasileira compre os direitos dele. É bem a cara de selos como a Seguinte, Galera Record e Rocco pegar uma história que não reflete o feminismo nem sororidade e divulgar como uma história feminista pra caralho.

Mas mesmo que o livro não trouxesse tanto desserviço ao tentar ser feminista - a ponto de parecer que foi a ministra Damares quem escreveu essa sandice - , ele ainda assim seria ruim e não merecia uma nota alta.
A história é cheia de furos bastante detectáveis.
Que tipo de organização recruta adolescentes para fazer o trabalho duro por eles? Quem em sã consciência envia adolescentes de 17 anos para a casa de homens com ficha criminal ou histórico de agressão e estupro? O grupo existe desde 1972 e em dois meses uma garota desmancha tudo por causa do namorado? Um treinamento de algumas semanas transforma as pessoas em ninjas?
E, Jesus, a importância que a autora dá a hipnose é de dar sono...

Nem o ritmo nem a falta de ação ajudam - mas confirmam que este livro não merece ganhar mais que 3 estrelas. A gente espera que um livro sobre meninas se vingando de homens seja eletrizante, mas ganha são páginas e páginas monótonas. Tem também as páginas com os monólogos repetitivos de Thea sobre a morte da prima e, principalmente, sobre o novo namoradinho e como ele a faz sentir e a salvou da depressão.
Diferente das pessoas de quem repostei as resenhas, eu gostei, a princípio, do namoro e do garoto porque permitia mostrar múltiplas facetas da protagonista; embora concorde que é desnecessário romance em todo livro YA e que Drew é sem graça tal qual a relação dele com Thea e carece de química. Mas aí Oakes resolveu dar muita importância ao nerd branco, hétero cis padrão com quem Thea se relacionava e o caldo entornou.
Foi dele que saiu a maior pérola que me fez simplesmente desistir do livro.
Ele é contra a namorada pertencer a essa organização secreta porque o tempo que ela gasta com ela é tempo que não está com ele - e ele a quer do seu lado, babando seu ovo e lambendo suas bolas o tempo todo. Então ele simplesmente diz à Thea que estupradores, agressores e homens abusivos também merecem uma segunda chance.
Estupradores
Agresssores de mulheres
Homens abusivos
Também
Merecem
Uma
Segunda
Chance.

Eu li esse parágrafo tantas vezes e fiquei tanto tempo parada nele que achei que tinha tido um derrame.

Fácil para quem não é alvo de crime de gênero falar um troço desses.

Achei legal que a protagonista é negra e sua família também. Até porque a escritora é branca, mas larguei o livro com dúvidas se ela escreveu direito isso. A questão racial é bem rasa e mencionada esporadicamente. Sinto dizer que bem como imagino que autores brancos fariam.

RESENHA 1 - escrita por Jenny em 30/03/2019
"Holy fuck, holy actual fuck, what did I just read? How did this book take such an incredible nosedive from potentially good to absolutely awful? I really don't know, but the least I can do is give you my long-ass rant about how much I disliked this book. Please, grab a snack or a drink or both, this is going to take awhile.

First off, let me elaborate on what I originally stated. When I said, "potentially good," I meant that when I got to about the halfway mark, I was thinking this was going to be a three star book. I had no hopes that it was going to get better, but to me three stars isn't that bad (obviously because it's average). But then the halfway mark hit and suddenly everything tanked SPECTACULARLY. The characters? Boring and generic with only a handful of redeemable moments. The story? Predictable, cliched, and fucking BORING, but I'll get to that later. And the writing? Mediocre at best, cringe-worthy and cheesy at worst. Now, the ranting begins.

Wow, where do I even begin with the characters? Thea, our main character, started off fine. A teenager grieving the death of her cousin Natalie, a death that has gone unsolved despite a potential suspect. One thing I did appreciate about this novel is that at least Thea's character arc revolved around her coming to terms with grief, and honestly that was handled well, no complaints here. However, she goes from reclusive teenager to "badass leader" of her Black Coats group in just a few chapters. No lie, there is no build up, no sense that she was even leader material, but because she's the main character she HAS to be the leader. Not only that, but considering how reclusive she was in school (which is told to us, rarely shown) she instantly falls in love with the first guy the readers are introduced to and she's totally okay with hanging out with him and flirts with him. Because, you know, that's totally the behavior of a reclusive teenager. Not only does her character take on the role of leader out of fucking nowhere, but no one in her group challenges this (despite most of them having pretty assertive personalities) and I kid you not when she talks to her team she sounds like those stereotypical leading characters that always have to sound bad-ass just to remind you that they're bad-ass. It was cringe-inducing and came out of nowhere. I'm not going to bother discussing the other characters because, quite frankly, none of them are interesting. Each one has a personality trait that defines them and a skill set that defines them and that's it. Going off of that, we now get into the biggest problem with this novel-the story is effectively a cliched, terrible action movie.

I shit you not, all through the last half of the novel, the action movie cliches just kept piling up. Main character becomes a bad-ass out of nowhere and leads a team of misfits on missions? Check. Main character has an insta-love relationship with a guy for no fucking reason other than to further the plot and for there to be romance in the story? Check. Organization that sounds good on paper but turns out to be predominantly evil? Check. Main character pisses off organization so they kidnap her boyfriend? Check. Mentor figure mysteriously vanishes but comes back at the last possible second during a mission to save the group? Check. Main character and boyfriend make out immediately after he is rescued despite still being in danger? Check. Only other male character that had trained main character turns out to be on evil organization's side? Check. NEED. I. GO. ON???? Because trust me, I could. But there is one thing other than everything that I have stated that may have ruined the book from the start, and that is pacing.

The pacing in this novel is unnecessarily fast. Honestly, I can't believe I'm saying this since I adore stand-alone novels, but this novel should have been at least a duology. Oakes crams so much shit because she wants to have a complete story in one novel that everything suffers because of it. The characters, the story, the writing, all of it is beyond bad because Oakes tried to put her whole story in one book and couldn't give proper attention to any one aspect of her book. If this novel had been a duology, she could have focused on the characters more, made them more nuanced, give them richer backstories, and let the story takes its time to unfold, then leave the story on a cliffhanger to pick up in the second book, which could have been more story-driven. Instead, what was bestowed upon us is what reads as a hastily written story drowning in cliches lead by some boring characters bogged down by mediocre writing. I think I've proven my point by now, but before I wrap up, I still haven't addressed the elephant in the book-the revenge plot.

I'm going to be completely honest, I haven't brought it up until this point because I don't have much to say about it. Do I think it was handled well? I guess. It's a stereotypical revenge plot, only with a secret organization rather than a singular person like in The Female of the Species or a school group like Moxie. Did I find it interesting? Not really. It wasn't any different than what any other story with this topic has done, the only difference is that it feels really fucking rushed and was hard to take seriously once the Black Coats became a "sinister organization," like every other bad action movie. Do I think it's problematic? No. It's pretty clear that the Black Coats are not meant to be idealized and while the story demonstrates the moral grey of vigilantism, it's pretty clear by the end that the Black Coats are not to be emulated. And that's pretty much it on that topic, really.

And that's it. That's my long-ass rant about a book I suffered through because I apparently hate myself. I do not recommend this title and would easily recommend The Female of the Species by: Mindy McGinnis if you want a solid revenge plot that deals with injustice and specifically rape culture. I would seriously pass on this unless you want a blisteringly fast and easy read."
LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2767868883?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=4

RESENHA 2 - escrita por Steff Pasciuti em 17/06/2019
LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2725942230?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=2

"Going into reading The Black Coats by Colleen Oakes, I was pretty thrilled at the general premise and what it would hold for me. And I don't know quite what it was that I expected, but the truth is that the story I got was not it. And I've changed my rating several times while considering this story, going lower and lower each time that I think about it. For reference, I began my review with this book as a four-star, shimmied down to a three, and then further to a two. And even now, a part of me is tempted to push it further to one.

So, what truly was the problem with The Black Coats? Well, I think my biggest gripes boil down to the unnecessary and theme ruining romance, the hypnotism, the lack of respectful vigilante justice, and the fact that this book is definitely marketed as feminist but really just isn't. There are various other small issues I have with the novel as a whole, but really those are the ones that got to me. Especially the lack of feminism in a novel that was supposed to be all about it. Scratch my earlier comment, I really do think this is a one-star read. In so many ways, The Black Coats was not the novel that I expected it to be and that, ultimately, is hat let me down. So, let's dive in, shall we?

The Romance

I don't even understand what the point of Drew's existence was. For starters, he was a shitty love interest at best and a manipulatively conniving one at worst. I won't get into details since it's a pretty big spoiler, but I nearly screamed when I found out what he'd been doing for his father. It kind of made me want to gag. But, aside from that, he was an incredibly dull character overall who really only existed to point out problems with the main character, Thea's, preconceived beliefs. That's right, folks; the moral development that the main character makes has absolutely nothing to do with herself and everything to do with her boyfriend pointing it all out to her as though she were a three-year-old being naughty.

Thea is denied self-empowered character growth because the story had to include a relationship. And I could have, in a small way, respected this growth if Drew hadn't been involved in it. I still would have found it problematic, but it would at the very least not have come across as a situation in which a feminist woman is brought down to be less feminist because her boyfriend told her to.

The Hypnotism

I mean, honestly, this plot device was just stupid. This one character was super important because she could hypnotize the people they brought to justice and attacked to not remember any of the things that happened to them. Not only am I a hard skeptic about the existence of hypnotism in the first place, but also just...why? What is the purpose of this plot device? Where was the use? And I can't even begin with how this character became central to portraying a group of characters as evil--a decision I strongly disagree with as a whole--literally just because...well, that leads me to my final point:

Lack of Vigilante Justice and Feminism

The novel spends more time trying to humanize the problematic men that the story's theme says deserve retribution and demonize the people who are handing out that justice than it does trying to send a feminist message. And I'm sorry, but I just expected better. I expected something along the lines of Batman, where the morals are definitely greyed but at the end of the day, the one fighting the criminals is in the right. Or at the very least I expected a novel in which justice was discussed in an innocent until proven guilty matter and addressed from there.

Instead of the novel holding to the original premise that was meant to be focused on getting retribution for the horrible ways in which sexism and patriarchal society has hurt women and denied justice, it turns its strong females into either unreasonable men hating attackers or docile and regretful "good girls" who no longer see any reason to fight against the injustices women regularly face. Instead of these powerful women using their connections and resources to work against the problems of patriarchies, to fight and change sexist systems they just randomly go around attacking men as they act as judge, jury, and executioner.

Seriously?

And they get away with it, naturally, but somehow they need an even better source to cover up their evildoings by...hypnotism.

Yeah, no. This book failed. It portrayed all the worst things people falsely believe about feminism and feminists. And I am very, very upset about it."