Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

4 reviews

rmesquirrel's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.75

 I know the book was written like 50 years ago but, there are so many slurs. This book rambles on and really had no logically sense to why things were written the way they were even if Goldman was trying to make it seem like he was adapting from an original and changing it to fit a narrative that his Dad told him and he is trying to make an even better version for his son. Ehhh... go rent the movie. It is one of the rare occasions it is better. It changed a lot of the book. Besides the language the movie made it so much more concise and made more sense. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, and Xenophobia

bearystarry's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

William Goldman is insufferable. At least his fictionalized self is. Horrific fatphobia and sexism and being creepy about young women.

At least when he shuts the hell up the actual story is sometimes thrilling and interesting and romantic. But the sexism especially creeps into the main narrative as well, unfortunately. I definitely think the movie is better in most ways, but mainly in the framing device. Would've been awful to see some weirdo middle-aged man trying to cheat on his wife in LA instead of a child sick in bed listening to his lovely grandfather read him a story. Also was very surprised to read a racial slur. Extremely weird.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Torture, Racial slurs, Fatphobia, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Body shaming, Pregnancy, Ableism, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Medical trauma, Confinement, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Transphobia, and Animal death

Minor: Animal cruelty

tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

I haven't read this book in over 10 years, and my take on it is very different now. It's surprisingly mean-spirited in a lot of places (especially the frame narrative), and the fatphobia and body-shaming are really relentless. And for all I remember it as a sweeping love story, it's actually super cynical about romantic love. But in other ways it's still as funny and surprising and just plain fun as it was the first time I read it more than 2 decades ago.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming and Fatphobia

Moderate: Torture, Alcoholism, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Child abuse, Death of parent, and Animal death

kelseyr713's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Second time I've read this, the first being sometime in high school so somewhere between 15-19 years ago.

The story of The Princess Bride itself is great. I think the movie version is even better, one of the rare cases this applies. The best subplots that don't make it to the movie are Fezzik's backstory and even more of Inigo's. The Zoo of Death is a little tedious.

I mostly like the commentary by Goldman, who is not himself in the book but rather another character. But I don’t  understand why he portrays "himself" so unsympathetically and would appreciate more context into the parts where he talks about "his" life. Some of it is real, but he invents a different wife and a different child, among other things, and isn't nice to either of them. The asides during the book are mostly funny though, and every time Stephen King pops up is great. He clearly has a lot of thoughts on the abridgment process, and this is an interesting way to explore those.

I also think it's interesting that the overall theme of the book, which he overtly mentions a few times, is that life isn't fair. Subverting a lot of fairy tales and perhaps inserting some of his own outlook.

Content warnings: a lot of fatphobia, a homophobic slur, an ethnic slur towards a Spanish person.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Confinement, Death of parent, Death, Body shaming, Torture, Fatphobia, and Murder

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, War, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia