AliIsGay 19/06/2022
This is not, in ANY way, comparable to "The Handmaid's Tale," because it is horrible.
==general thoughts==
This book was so infuriatingly annoying, it calls itself a feminist book when it's anything but, all feminism aspects of it are overdramatized in a way that makes the reader seem dumb (don't tell me this is aimed towards teenagers, because I am one and this was a disrespect to my intelligence),
It’s such a white, privileged view on feminism and for a book that's supposed to call out society, it lacks good representation, it lacks good feminine representation, lgbtq representation, people of color rep, etc.
All characters are boring, the writing is futile and it does not give weight to the right parts, the romance (with a fucking murderer) is treated with much more importance than anything else.
The male characters are treated with this... apologetic idea (even at the end of the book) while ALL female characters are treated like they're all bad (because they have zero to no development, just like the main character).
It gives suck "I'm not like other girls, I'm so quirkyyyy" vibes that it feels as if I'm reading any female character from the 2010s dystopian wave, it's outdated and a bit insulting.
==whatever-her-name-is-main-character==
She starts the book with a lot of feminist ideology that makes no sense, she's raised in an oppressive society, WHERE does her "rebellious" quality comes from? Well, we'll never know because the romance is more important than any of that. She's annoying and pretentious while at the same time being a stupid [*****]. She has no female friends and her she excuses her male friends bad behavior (again, even at the end of the book, where she supposedly reached her feminist peak). She never evolves in any way, the only thing she knows how to do is give dramatic sentences at the end of 'chapters'
The romance plotline was lazy, bad developed, we get one sentence that is "oh we talked and now I know him deeply" and now she's magically in love, she forgives his bad traits while not forgive the girls, because they're "plain" and "normal" and "want a common married life"
At the end of the book, I was done with her bullshit.
We’ll talk about the ending later but [OFC HER HAPPY ENDING IS WITH A MAN]
==the plot==
There’s no plot, there's no rebellion, no feminism, nothing, all of this feels like a buildup to a feminist war but at the end all we have is the possibility of a rebellion that we'll never get
The world makes no sense, it's bad developed and lazy and I was bored and annoyed at it the whole time. The most interesting part - the usurper storyline - was thrown out and forgotten until the last 10%
==side characters==
They all have no personality, they're just a bunch of stereotypes and all women are treated like unforgivable normie girls while men's actions are excused (in the beginning it made sense but this stretches out to the very end). All relationships feel forced and just.... bad
==the ending==
horrible, we deserved something decent after suffering through this book, but no, we got a boring ass open ending, this book prides itself on being feminist, but it does nothing, it adds nothing to the discussion and nothing happens in this book,
everything felt like a prolog to Grace's story and it was just disappointing that this book barely passes the bechel test, everything in this FEMINIST, FEMALE-FOCUSED book is about MEN.
To all authors out there: do better than this, it is not hard.