Great story, mostly appealing artwork. There's something a little off about the acroon scenes, but I really liked Deacon so I just went with it.

Eh, I was not invested in this relationship. I dislike ongoing power imbalances in romance, it hits all my squick buttons.

If I were to just go by the facts provided herein, this was a fairly interesting book. I could not get over the tone of the author. His misogyny was pretty blatant, though he unsuccessfully tried to couch it in vapid humour. He even implied that he was a misogynist at least once, throwing it in there in a shrugging "oh well, what are you gonna do?" sort of manner.

I found the chapter about the morality of the rape of a nun vs. the rape of a prostitute particularly repugnant. Here's a man, who has already thrown in little demeaning comments about any of the "unattractive" female experts he's spoken to, asking another man about the morality of rape of a woman!

This would have been a good deal drier if the author hadn't added in many references to older literature and anecdotes by a variety of women, which I heartily enjoyed. However toward the middle I felt as if the author was meandering when it came to the main thesis, as it were. There's a chapter entitled "Edible Beauty" - it basically outlined the hedonistic lifestyle of the emperor and the upper class in Hangzhou. If you read only that section out of the whole book, you would not have known Aching For Beauty was about footbinding.

Men are gross, no matter what country they're from. I think Wang's idea that women "bonded together" over this issue is true. However, it was more of a reaction to shared suffering rather than women becoming part of a "beauty culture".

I knew I was justified in not liking

Jonathan

. KNEW IT.

I'm writing this as a review of the web comic in its entirety.

The art is gorgeous, though some of the more stereotypical pretty girls in the series fall into the Only Six Faces trope, which is sadly standard for many comic characters in published media.

It went a little Sweet Valley Horror for a bit, with the kidnapping and vague torture and the manipulative victim.

I love that the creator decided to let characters go their separate ways after high school - it's so rare that relationships last the changes of young adulthood, especially with people who are as ambitious and driven as Penny and Aggie. However, it is an oddly mature decision for a couple of teenagers to make.

Lesbian love stories, yay!

I find it incredibly likely that what happened to Mallory happens in the real world police force (rumor mongering, sexist comments and harassment). Not because I have am especially low opinion of the police, but because some people never grow out of the high school mentality and a lot of them are drawn to positions of authority and power. It's very much still a "man's job", which makes it difficult for women to break through that glass ceiling.

I can barely remember the description of Ryan (other than "gym rat"), but in my head he looks like Chris Evans playing Jensen in The Losers.



That is a very good look.

The sass between Kitty and Logan is just fabulous.