****UNSAFE BOOK ALERT **** ****UNSAFE BOOK ALERT **** Careful with this one my safety gang.
Apparently(view spoiler)[ 8 year separation, h remains ALMOST****UNSAFE BOOK ALERT **** ****UNSAFE BOOK ALERT **** Careful with this one my safety gang.
I can't take this trope so common in adult "romance".I hate the double standards of the "romance" self-pub authors. Why it's always the "boy will be boys" "men can't live without sex for 8 years, but women can" I mean. If he's in love with heroine why would he become remotedly tempted by another woman?
I don't care if that's "realistic" The best romance out there is never realistic....more
TRIGGER WARNINGS ALERT Stay away from this one if you prefer safe reads. Don't read my review if the word "rape" makes you unconfortable, because I uTRIGGER WARNINGS ALERT Stay away from this one if you prefer safe reads. Don't read my review if the word "rape" makes you unconfortable, because I use it a lot, because this book has a lot of that.
[image] I don't recommend this if you feel uncomfortable reading about:
Pedophilia (view spoiler)[ Nicasius is only 13 and he's used as a sex slave. The worst is that he is supposed to be willing to be forever a sex slave because the king, his master, gets tired of children when they grow up and Nicasious is eagerly searching for a new master. (hide spoiler)]
Rape and Sexual violence (view spoiler)[ Damianos the Main character is entered in a slave contest where the loser gets raped. He gets drugged by Laurent "his love interest" so that he'll get weakened and lose the contest and Laurent can watch when Damianos gets raped...publicily!! In this book the court takes rape as a sport. Later Damiano's forced to receive oral sex from another slave to the enjoyment of Laurent. I repeat, Laurent is the "love interest". (hide spoiler)]
Stockholm Syndrome (view spoiler)[ Erasmus, A sexual slave, gets raped all the time but he supposedly enjoys being a sex pet and is all grateful when he gets to serve another master because said master treats sex-slaves "better". Sorry but in what sick world a sex-slave enjoys being a slave?How is that romantic or sexy? (hide spoiler)]
Extreme violence (view spoiler)[ Laurent, the MC "love interest", is a Prince and he gives orders to whip Damianos. This is vividly described and Damianos spends some time recovering from his injuries. How is that romantic? (hide spoiler)]
Double standards So Christian Grey gets the sh*t here in GR although he NEVER raped ANA, (although, to be honest he pushed her consent, but NEVER raped her) yet Laurent gets nothing but praise??? So dubious consent, sexual violence, and rape are okay when the characters are male? NO JUST NO!! That's not feminist at all, that's not fair. If the main character had been Princess Damiana everyone and their dog would be screaming murder. "Oh the abusive relationship in romance!" But because the victim is a male then it's okay? How is that fair?
Unsafe reads This is supposedly a slow-burn-romance between two males, but there's a lot of cheating and disloyalty. (view spoiler)[ In the sequel of this rape -fest Laurent who is Damianos owner and master, "lends" Damianos to a group of women warriors so that they can use him for reproductive purposes. Laurent's not even slightly jealous! He laughs with joy when Damianos returns to their tent worn-out from having sex with a lot of women in just one night. Damianos is attracted to Laurent but he is more attracted to women than to males. So we the readers don't get a little bit of cute jealousy and the couple doesn't kiss until way into the second book. (hide spoiler)]
I'm not the most articulated, coherent reviewer, so I invite you to read these reviews if you want more info on the problematic issues of this book.
This book makes me angry. The writing is exquisite and clever, but it's the most disgusting portrayal of an M/M relationship. Contrary to what this book portrays, Homosexual Men have healthy, committed relationships . This is not the best book to portray diverse couples, because, as it is, a lot of people think wrongly that homosexuality and bisexuality are against nature and that Bisexuals and Homosexual aren't capable of loving, committed relationships. This book only re-inforces the idea of sexually "degenerated" characters. In real life gay people aren't like this. Not at all.
I gave two stars to the sequel because the graphic rapes aren't present. It's cleverly written and it's addictive, but it's still a harsh read because poor Nicaise. It's not fair what happened to him.
Final note: There are reviewers here in GR who praise this book to no end, and yet get all angry and write rants about romances like Twilight, Hopeless, FSOG, Beautiful disaster and other romance books of the romance genre. At time it feels like some of those reviewers are trying to make the people who enjoy, for example, FSOG bad with themselves because "they are supporting a book that portrays an abusive relationship". Yet they go and praise this very abusive book.
This isn't about me having a problem with the people who like this book. I think it's okay if people enjoy this kind of books because
* Everyone has different tastes and opinions and all opinions are equally valid. You enjoy this book? That's fine. * WE ALL ARE SMART! WE ALL KNOW HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE REALITY FROM BOOKS. We all know that In real life rape is wrong. The people who love this book to death aren't supporters of rape, this is just a book. But just like the the captive prince fanbase knows the difference between reality and books, the FSOG fanbase knows better than go and get themselves in abusive relationships because of a book.
My problem is when the double standard comes:Contrary to popular GR belief the people who enjoy books that portray abusive M/F relationships are as smart as the people who enjoys Captive prince. Just saying.
So anyone who enjoys FSOG or any other bad-reviewed romance, but never says it aloud for fear of how their opinion will make them look in a site like GR where people trash "abusive relationship" books, should say it aloud. Most of FSOG bashers are top reviewers who praise this rape-fest so there's nothing wrong with liking FSOG or any other poorly-reviewed romance.
If you like me feel unconfortable reading certain topics, ignore most of the 5 star reviews, very few of them mention the problematic issues of this book and most lack trigger warnings. Read some 3 stars reviews and some triggers warnings before deciding if this book is for you or not....more
Never for me. The promising title is pointless if (view spoiler)[ he's going to be with someone else during separation. The author couldn't deny it haNever for me. The promising title is pointless if (view spoiler)[ he's going to be with someone else during separation. The author couldn't deny it happened and most of my friends agree it did happen while poor heroine stayed 10 effin years in celibacy after having a lot of heartache mostly because of HIM. So sexist! This is 2017 authors! Why the double standards? Why men "can't live without sex" while women "can and should" stay celibateduring separation in romance novels? (hide spoiler)]
Just for the record, just because I don't like this kind of story line doesn't mean others won't. I haven't even read this one so people who are searching for a second chance book, please don't take my "I'm never reading this reviews" seriously. ...more
(view spoiler)[ Hero tries to sleep with another woman after he had already gotten together with h. She sleeps with somOW AND OM SPOILERS AND WARNINGS
(view spoiler)[ Hero tries to sleep with another woman after he had already gotten together with h. She sleeps with someone else and hero could have stopped it, but he doesn't. Not enough Grovel. (hide spoiler)]
For anyone who doesn't mind OW and OM this one is very hot right now on Kindle Unlimited go for it! I'll pass but a lot of my friends have LOVED this book!:
Note: For the purpose of my reviews whatever activity with OW meaning kissing, trying to f@ck her, taking her to a hotel (even if later hero regrets it and "can't stop thinkinga bout the heroine", watching her naked counts as disloyalty and cheating IF( and only IF) THIS HAPPENS AFTER H and h get together,. I consider they're together once they have exchanged a kiss even if there's no promise of exclusivity. If it is before they kiss I have no problem, but if it's after they have kissed I hate it. It makes the Hero weak and childish. Specially when the "separation" happens for such stupid reasons. Grow up man! This guy isn't a man, he's a boy pretending to be a man.
Again, a lot of my friends like this bad-boy-type of heroes, so you might as well give this book a try. I'm searching for UNREALISTIC MEN that's why I'll pass.
WARNINGS WARNINGS I don't recommend this book if you feel uncomfortable with books that depict graphically
* Pedophilia/rape (view spoiler)[ A 9 year WARNINGS WARNINGS I don't recommend this book if you feel uncomfortable with books that depict graphically
* Pedophilia/rape (view spoiler)[ A 9 year old girl forced to marry and later bear a child to a grown man (hide spoiler)]
* Incest/child abuse (view spoiler)[ The Buendia family members are constantly falling in love with close cousins, half brothers, nephews. An older woman Amarantha makes out with her underage nephew (hide spoiler)] * Non sensical Violence (view spoiler)[ including the cruel death of a newborn, and that's the ending scene. This book leaves you feeling disturbed (hide spoiler)] *Prostitution * Cheating * Bestiality * Women treated as objects sometimes by their own parents
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If you like me grew up reading marvelous books like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Twilight, The Hunger games, which are all extremely strong in terms of characterization and character development and which are at times trashed by the same critics that praised this piece of cr%p, I doubt you'll enjoy this book because:
* No plot, everything is a messy mix of twisted, and I mean TWISTED, disturbing, cringe-inducing family anecdotes *No character development. * Poor character presentation. Other than I know that Amarantha is somehow fierce it's difficult to describe the rest of the characters personalities. What are their goals? What do they want? What do they fear? Who are they? What are their motivations? * Poor worldbuilding. Am I supposed to know how Macondo, the setting of this book looks like? All I know is that Macondo founders were trying to reach the sea and they couldn't and were tired of travelling so I know there's no sea close to this town. The rules of this world don't seem to follow a logic, either. It's like Garcia Marques just smoke weed and added whatever he saw when he was under the effects of the weed to add magical elements here and there. I rarely notice worldbuilding issues in my reads because I have a strong imagination. Even books that don't describe the rules of their worlds or the setting properly don't turn me off, but since this book is universally praised as a "master piece" I was expecting more. * No coherent timeline, Little to No dialogue * Author breaking the rule of show don't tell 98% of the book
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I should have tried to convince my professor to change this assigment. I should've told him that this kind of topics are potential PTSD triggers for me (which is 100% true, although usually books don't activate triggers for me, certain kind of music and smells are triggering for me) or that they are against my religious beliefs (that'd been a lie, but I wish I had lied) Maybe it wouldn't have worked and still I'd been stuck to read this horrible book, but these professors should be more responsible when assigining this kind of disturbing readings and forcing people to read them taking away our sacred right of DNF a book we don't enjoy .
I'm aware that the author won a Nobel Prize, but it seems to me that it was more like the academy thought it'd be rebellious and edgy to give an award to this author leaving other more talented authors out, therefore steering controversy. Sort of like they did when they gaveBob Dylan the Nobel Prize even if he's a songwriter and poet more than a book writer.
I don't even know who is supposed to enjoy this book. I think that some Hispanic readers might find something good in this book because it seems to me that the author at times was talking about Colombian/Hispanic political issues in a metaphoric way, but honestly there wasn't enough of that.
Also, the opening line of this book is supposedly matter of study in English literature courses around the world
'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.'
I can see why some readers might find that intriguing and get hooked from there, but I read a lot of books with great opening lines/paragraphs in commercial literature. Angefall by Susan EE, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Maze Runner by James Dashner have strong opening lines that get you hooked. I think every reader gets hooked by different opening lines, so why critics and scholars think this opening line is better than any is beyond me. However, I'll say that the ending scene was strong and extremely disturbing. It's a scene that will make you feel haunted and in search of a happy reading because (view spoiler)[ A newborn is eaten by ants. You're supposed to imagine the ants carrying only the carcass of what was moments before a lovely baby ... who was born with a pigtail O_O (hide spoiler)]
I'm only writing this because I need to organize my ideas for my essay. I doubt that writing my honest opinion about this trash will earn me a good mark, so I'm trying to find an angle to write about. Maybe I can write about the role of women in Garcia's books. The other Garcia's book I read was Chronicle of a foretold death which was thankfully short and somehow realistic, but still 100% misogynist. An oudated view of women is common in this author's writings. My recommendations if you are forced to read this author:
* Write notes for each time a new Buendia appears. There are at least a dozen characters sharing almost the exact name and that is confusing * Don't expect character development, don't expect world building * Don't expect brilliant dialogue, although you can expect beautiful monologues * Expect a lot of info-dumping and exposition * Expect a lot of magical elements, but not the kind of magic that makes you want to live in this world. * Expect a lot of misogynism It's like the author comes from ancient times or the Taliban and his views on women are very outdated. As a demi-feminist some scenes were hard to stomach. * Keep an enjoyable read at hand because sometimes you're tired of this world and you want to get out of it by reading something good.
Long story short, this book is way Overrated. Overrated doesn't cover it. I think the author, may he rest in peace, might have written it under the effects of the weed.
Passing on this one because (view spoiler)[ oW activity/marriage and a hero who needs to grow up into a real man and it's not there for h. I prefer maPassing on this one because (view spoiler)[ oW activity/marriage and a hero who needs to grow up into a real man and it's not there for h. I prefer mature protective heroes (hide spoiler)]...more
I won't read because too much of OW activity while the heroine is growing up. Of course, he's a man and he can't wait, he has to f@ck everything that I won't read because too much of OW activity while the heroine is growing up. Of course, he's a man and he can't wait, he has to f@ck everything that moves, because authors aren't original and they want that all heroes are manwhores. Not only that (view spoiler)[ child with OW. That is a turn off for me because when he has a child with OW there will always be a bond with OW as much as he loves heroine and anyway, stupid heroes who don't use contraception are boys trying to pretend they're man. I'm into men, not boys. (hide spoiler)]
I don't want to discourage anyone from reading this book. Not everyone hates this kind of story line. I just think it's overused. More info in
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