Let me just start that this will be a divisive review. People seem to love Dresden. There has to be good about the series seeing as it's up to as of now 15 main books and I personally own the first 13. Because I thought I'd love it. I mean, I dig private investigators and while urban fantasy isn't my favorite, I can read them as fun palate cleansers.
This was not a fun palate cleanser. I finished this strictly as a hate read (I desperately wanted to finish so that I could bitch at the book club).
Dresden is a sexist, arrogant shit and as of 2000, so is Jim Butcher. Because if this isn't a self-insertion story than I don't know what is. I read this and got this impression of Dresden as just the fedora-wearing, m'lady, neckbeard type. Looking up Butcher, I got a similar impression.
Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed narratives where the character is a chauvinist, but it's different when even the tone in general is just sexist. When all the characters don't fight it, when all the characters play into it. I'm OK with arrogant characters, but rinse and repeat.
All the female characters in this use their sexuality to get ahead. The one that doesn't still ends up helpless and in need of Dresden's help, after spending a night mothering him. There's nothing wrong with this. There's something wrong with this when it's just expected. He pays extra attention to the women's makeup and clothes, while the men get very brief descriptions. In fact, all the men were just pathetic and clearly, Dresden was better (with one exception because he was 'scary' - I guess a male can be a threatening nemesis, but not a woman).
Also, my mom read this for the book club too and she didn't enjoy it either, though didn't in particular notice the sexist crap. She's from the generation where this was just commonplace, internalized misogyny and all that. This isn't necessarily her genre either. I've also spoken to some other folks who didn't like this series either, so I'm not alone.
Am I going to read further into the series? I don't know. I have the next 12 and should that just go to waste? I don't know. Maybe the rage will subside. Maybe someone will tell me Dresden has a redemption arc where he suddenly isn't a shit, but I don't see that.
And can we forget that entire fight scene where Dresden is full on naked and traps a lady with him in a protective circle after she accidentally drinks a love potion and is basically grinding on him and trying to fuck him? Don't get me started on the fucking love potion. He fought making it, but not that hard.
Note: I never went to bookclub for this one. Had nothing to do with the book, but I don't particularly want to go into why.
No comments:
Post a Comment