DNF because DNW
Continuing to try to write more about books ...
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor is a cute, funny book about zany time-traveling historians, with an engaging heroine and ensemble cast and clever, fun narrative voice ... that I DNF'd halfway through last night because of a rape attempt on the heroine by a trusted male friend in a particularly squicky scenario. (Followed by even more squick. See below cut.)
In general, I'm not actually that offput by rape as a narrative or backstory device. I mean, it's not my favorite thing, I am totally fine if it's left off the table as an option even in circumstances when it would be likely, but like character death, it's something that (narratively speaking) works for me in some instances and I'm willing to read past in others. It's rarely an automatic DNF. But I guess it does depend on how it goes down, and I think in this case I ran headlong into a wall of NOPE because I really wasn't expecting it, and because the way it went down was both too real-worldish for a light, fun novel about time-traveling historians, and, well, intensely squicky.
Basically, she wakes up to her male colleague trying to rape her in her sleep. She then learns that he's been recording her sleeping and himself jacking off to her while she's sleeping. THEN he tries to murder her to cover up the rape, gets killed himself in a particularly gruesome way (dismemberment by velociraptor after being stabbed in the femoral artery in raptor country), and turns out to be a traitor working for Team Bad Guy who was also undermining her and cribbing off her work.
That was. A lot.
... I think individually, and minus the squickiest aspects of the scenario (apparently I have discovered a brand new giant squick! WHO KNEW!), I would have been fine with any one of these things. Having the heroine defend herself from a rape attempt in one of the time periods they were visiting, minus the betrayal and nonconsensual use of her as wank fodder, I think wouldn't have hit me in the same way. And the general trope of One Of Us Is A Traitor is always fun. (I almost feel like part of my annoyance with this is that it's a waste of a perfectly good mole plotline, since there wasn't even a hint beforehand that there was a traitor in their midst at all.) Or one of her colleagues dying gorily -- this has already happened a time or two.
But, yeah. I put it down at that point, and I keep thinking about going back to it and just thinking, "Nope." It doesn't help that the guy who turned out to be a murdering rapist, her time-travel partner, was also the one with whom she had the most interesting and complicated relationship in the book, at least IMHO; we are now left with a bunch of nice-but-bland coworkers that she's not very close to, her sweet but not especially interesting love interest, and a mystery involving time-traveling baddies that has already had most of the mystery revealed.
Also. I mean. Characters had died earlier in the book, but not like THAT. In like a chapter we went from jokes about time-travel bureaucracy and the heroine being all "Squee! Dinosaurs!" to squicky sleeping rape attempts and the heroine picking up a guy's boot with his foot still in it and watching velociraptors play with his severed head.
If this doesn't sound like that big of a turnoff, I really do recommend the book other than that - I mean, as of about 40% into it. The narrative voice is great, the heroine is great, and the premise is fun. Just ... I DNF'd hard at that point and don't really see myself going back to it.
ETA: About that qualified recommendation ... apparently the book just keeps getting worse. See a spoilery rundown of all the reasons why at
musesfool's blog.
This entry is also posted at https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1303310.html with
comments.
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor is a cute, funny book about zany time-traveling historians, with an engaging heroine and ensemble cast and clever, fun narrative voice ... that I DNF'd halfway through last night because of a rape attempt on the heroine by a trusted male friend in a particularly squicky scenario. (Followed by even more squick. See below cut.)
In general, I'm not actually that offput by rape as a narrative or backstory device. I mean, it's not my favorite thing, I am totally fine if it's left off the table as an option even in circumstances when it would be likely, but like character death, it's something that (narratively speaking) works for me in some instances and I'm willing to read past in others. It's rarely an automatic DNF. But I guess it does depend on how it goes down, and I think in this case I ran headlong into a wall of NOPE because I really wasn't expecting it, and because the way it went down was both too real-worldish for a light, fun novel about time-traveling historians, and, well, intensely squicky.
Basically, she wakes up to her male colleague trying to rape her in her sleep. She then learns that he's been recording her sleeping and himself jacking off to her while she's sleeping. THEN he tries to murder her to cover up the rape, gets killed himself in a particularly gruesome way (dismemberment by velociraptor after being stabbed in the femoral artery in raptor country), and turns out to be a traitor working for Team Bad Guy who was also undermining her and cribbing off her work.
That was. A lot.
... I think individually, and minus the squickiest aspects of the scenario (apparently I have discovered a brand new giant squick! WHO KNEW!), I would have been fine with any one of these things. Having the heroine defend herself from a rape attempt in one of the time periods they were visiting, minus the betrayal and nonconsensual use of her as wank fodder, I think wouldn't have hit me in the same way. And the general trope of One Of Us Is A Traitor is always fun. (I almost feel like part of my annoyance with this is that it's a waste of a perfectly good mole plotline, since there wasn't even a hint beforehand that there was a traitor in their midst at all.) Or one of her colleagues dying gorily -- this has already happened a time or two.
But, yeah. I put it down at that point, and I keep thinking about going back to it and just thinking, "Nope." It doesn't help that the guy who turned out to be a murdering rapist, her time-travel partner, was also the one with whom she had the most interesting and complicated relationship in the book, at least IMHO; we are now left with a bunch of nice-but-bland coworkers that she's not very close to, her sweet but not especially interesting love interest, and a mystery involving time-traveling baddies that has already had most of the mystery revealed.
Also. I mean. Characters had died earlier in the book, but not like THAT. In like a chapter we went from jokes about time-travel bureaucracy and the heroine being all "Squee! Dinosaurs!" to squicky sleeping rape attempts and the heroine picking up a guy's boot with his foot still in it and watching velociraptors play with his severed head.
If this doesn't sound like that big of a turnoff, I really do recommend the book other than that - I mean, as of about 40% into it. The narrative voice is great, the heroine is great, and the premise is fun. Just ... I DNF'd hard at that point and don't really see myself going back to it.
ETA: About that qualified recommendation ... apparently the book just keeps getting worse. See a spoilery rundown of all the reasons why at
musesfool's blog.
This entry is also posted at https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1303310.html with
comments.