A good polar with interesting twists. It's not redefining the genre, but it definitely masters all the elements needed to make a great book. I had a great time reading it and highly recommend it.

I was expecting from Bad Feminist what I found in The Guilty Feminist. Bad Feminist didn't feel like Feminist theory. It was a blog, written by someone who talked about gender and race, and also about her scrabble games and who reviewed movies. It was confusing. It was a good read but I'm still looking for the learnings. 

It's been a while since the last time i didn't want to give 4-5 stars to an Olympus series book. But this time frustrated me. The heroes are still loveable, the writing is still enjoyable and funny and dark when necessary. It's just... If you're going to fight 10 super-powerful monsters, and you use the exact same strategy to avoid fighting them, and it works 10 times, readers will get bored.

Ça faisait longtemps que je n'avais pas été triste de finir un roman. Je retrouve ce petit malheur délicieux avec La Femme fardée. Des personnages qu'on adore détester, qu'on ne peut pas s'empêcher d'aimer alors qu'on sait qu'on devrait les juger ; des rebondissements si petits, si quotidiens et banals, et pourtant qui vous prennent le cœur.

I don't know what I was expecting. Not this. I started reading the book and the book just wouldn't let me understand its point. I hate books without points. I'm not sure I should review this, because I guess I just wasn't the right audience for that book - couldn't relate to the characters, couldn't relate to the story, would have preferred the thinking points as an academic book rather than a no-punctuation-allowed novel.

Content warnings for the book: explicit sex and sex-talk pretty much all the time, one very graphic rape attempt, death?, making fun of religion, one extremely sexist pimp character, most people are transphobic.

Hard to read for a beginner audience, I'd recommend learning about both Islam and feminism before diving into this book. The chapter format means that some chapters are easy to understand, others harder, rhythm and topics also vary. 

The yay:

The bleh:

I want to insist on the fact that it’s really, REALLY LONG and incredibly slow-paced. That's not a bad thing in itself, but y'all need to be aware before reading the book, I think.

Overall I do not regret buying & reading it and I’m having a good time, but I probably wouldn’t re-read it just for fun, unlike the original series.

Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin - Angela Davis explains why prisons are an outdated concept perpetuating racism, sexism and class discrimination; She moves on to talk about the prison-industrial complex, which I thought was very interesting, and ends with a short paragraph on abolitionist alternatives to prison. That last part is what makes me give the book "only" 4 stars: I was sold on the idea of abolition when I started the book, I'm even more convinced now, but I would have liked a longer, more detailed reflection about where to go from now.

Très lourd à lire, Balzac se pensant obligé (et il a bien raison, en 2020) de nous expliquer toutes les subtilités du système judiciaire de l’époque. Si on passe tout ça, il reste une belle histoire en trente pages.