Moon over Soho
Jun. 29th, 2015 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethBen Aaronovitch's Moon over Soho is the second Peter Grant book.
When I finished the first one I was lingeringly dissatisfied with the depiction and treatment of women. I think I have the same problems with this one. On the one hand there were women, and some of them even survived. On the other, there were at least 4 sex-and-death non-humans, and hints at some really nasty stuff done to other women where the human trafficking wasn't the half of it. And women never stand up and solve their own problems, so it's just... pretty much what I expect from the genre and exactly why I try and only read books by and about women.
Also the main 'case' turned out to be basically a red herring so they could introduce the big bad for a longer term plot. I mean, the reader solved it long long loooooong before the protagonist admitted he knew what he knew. His mum solved it on first sight. Which, yaay, women with knowledge, but somewhat unsatisfying as a plot. And then the women who turned out to be killing people with sex all went and killed themselves. Which has so many layers of problems I don't even know where to start.
Also also while it is nice that the protagonist is arguing the 'lets treat people like PEOPLE and obey this thing called the law' side, with the plan to arrest them instead of just killing them, the suicide thing does tidy things up so he doesn't have to follow through on it. Which at this point strikes me as a cake and eat it manuever. Stories do this a lot so there's one character retaining their Good Guy card but somehow people end up dead anyways. Do not want.
The surprise on the last page is a promising development, giving a woman more power in this 'verse, and I liked ... I think her name is like Stephenopoulos but I probably can't spell it... she's super competent, that's the only thing he ever thinks about of her, except constantly pointing out she's a lesbian. And there's the new ninja hijabi from the murder team. Women exist, so that's nice.
I just... the point of view character spends so much time thinking about sex and thinking about women in terms of their sexual attractiveness and availability, it feels weird and grubby. Kind of like how he'll describe all the cars in detail because he's really into cars? I don't know as I want to spend more time in his point of view.
But I just finished reading the book in an afternoon and it was a fairly engaging read that seems like a middle with lots of tempting loose ends everywhere. So I'll probably get the next one out if the library has it.
I just continue to want more and better about women from stories.
When I finished the first one I was lingeringly dissatisfied with the depiction and treatment of women. I think I have the same problems with this one. On the one hand there were women, and some of them even survived. On the other, there were at least 4 sex-and-death non-humans, and hints at some really nasty stuff done to other women where the human trafficking wasn't the half of it. And women never stand up and solve their own problems, so it's just... pretty much what I expect from the genre and exactly why I try and only read books by and about women.
Also the main 'case' turned out to be basically a red herring so they could introduce the big bad for a longer term plot. I mean, the reader solved it long long loooooong before the protagonist admitted he knew what he knew. His mum solved it on first sight. Which, yaay, women with knowledge, but somewhat unsatisfying as a plot. And then the women who turned out to be killing people with sex all went and killed themselves. Which has so many layers of problems I don't even know where to start.
Also also while it is nice that the protagonist is arguing the 'lets treat people like PEOPLE and obey this thing called the law' side, with the plan to arrest them instead of just killing them, the suicide thing does tidy things up so he doesn't have to follow through on it. Which at this point strikes me as a cake and eat it manuever. Stories do this a lot so there's one character retaining their Good Guy card but somehow people end up dead anyways. Do not want.
The surprise on the last page is a promising development, giving a woman more power in this 'verse, and I liked ... I think her name is like Stephenopoulos but I probably can't spell it... she's super competent, that's the only thing he ever thinks about of her, except constantly pointing out she's a lesbian. And there's the new ninja hijabi from the murder team. Women exist, so that's nice.
I just... the point of view character spends so much time thinking about sex and thinking about women in terms of their sexual attractiveness and availability, it feels weird and grubby. Kind of like how he'll describe all the cars in detail because he's really into cars? I don't know as I want to spend more time in his point of view.
But I just finished reading the book in an afternoon and it was a fairly engaging read that seems like a middle with lots of tempting loose ends everywhere. So I'll probably get the next one out if the library has it.
I just continue to want more and better about women from stories.