Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - Any Man

Coming from an individual that was sexually assaulted, this novel is graphic and depicts how it feels to come out as being sexually assaulted and the inner feelings that they experience. Excellent novel about this awful topic!!

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jenniferip's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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nicki925's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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allapaz's review against another edition

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3.75

the writing here was killer, the character explorations were good, if not a little inconsistent with some characters given way more depth than others, but my biggest question with this one is....who is this for? a VERY difficult read and yes it's impactful and raw and disgusting in places, but this seems marketed toward the social demographic that already knows what the commentary is saying?

tl;dr: good book, hard to recommend

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ellebosco's review

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4.0

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snerp_reads's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Firstly, the prose in this book is absolutely beautiful, and really makes me want to look into Tamblyn's other works. While yes, it is very poetic at times, there are very clear distinctions between the voices of the main characters, both in speech patterns and personality. If I was basing my review based off quality of prose alone, this book would be a solid 5 stars.

I was a little unsure going into this book because of the framing of the perpetrator; expecting her story to follow the archetypal 'Stranger Danger' plotline so often used in stories of sexual assault, despite only making up a fraction of the actual crimes. However, I think Tamblyn utilized this archetype very well, and was actually beneficial when reading the survivors' stories as both personal accounts, and as an exploration of the larger culture around these topics.
My main critiques are of the character Michael, and of the ending. I disliked that the only trans male character was the only victim to entirely lack a voice of his own; we only got to learn about him through social media posts (largely targeted at him through transphobia). While I was very hopeful to see a trans man being represented in a book about sexual assualt, I feel his story was the least fleshed out of all of them. This was especially disappointing considering that trans men have the highest rates of sexual violence against them, even compared to cis women. Giving a voice to a trans male character would've greatly benefited both the story, and the readers, especially compared to how long was spent giving a voice to an extremely misogynistic cis gay man instead.
The ending was slightly confusing, and I feel it flew over my head, which is my only critique of it.

Overall, a very well written book, diverse cast, but does fail to equally represent certain minorities portrayed.

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