hollowistheworld's Reviews (105)

Wonderfully written, with strong attention called to places in history where we know women existed but they've been erased. Strong emphasis on the unreliability of narrators determined to make women innocent or evil, and the importance of allowing women - and any other minority group - to tell their own stories.

A fun read with an interesting and well done magic system, and bonus points for the semi-immortal talking dog. It does suffer from 'male author' syndrome though, where female characters all think the main guy is irrestisble in some way and they stand around in little to know clothing under the guise of being confident.

Don't you hate when you find a new author, like the first book you read by them, and then hate the second one so much you want to bring back book burning?

This book could be retitled 'holy internalized misogny, batman'. Poor Jack, who's been denied the opportunity to explore her identity so she hates pink and distrusts people. She's so much better than her sister, who's been denied the opportunity to explore her identity so she loves pink and is vulnerable to a child predator. 

Double spoiler for a future book - I had some hope when I saw there was another book for these two, but nope - Jill liking feminity and being desperate for affection from the one person who's ever given it to her makes her so evil she desrves to be murdered TWICE.

The level of 'not like other girls' syndrome present in this book has me thinking about throwing out my other Seanan McGuire books without reading them. This was gross. 

An excellent concept - I almost wanted the murder plot removed so we could just talk about the school.