1/5 stars
Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch (2011)
TW: Misogyny & sexism
I was so looking forward to this because it's the first of a series, and I could really use a good, long series to sink into right now. But the MISOGYNY was mind-numbingly painful to slog through.
The gist is that Constable Peter Grant can sense magic. He's always had this weird little quirk, but never really knew what it was he was feeling. That changes after a particularly brutal murder, where he is standing guard overnight, when a ghost appears to him to give eyewitness testimony. Peter's ability draws the attentions of Inspector Thomas Nightengale, who specifically investigates crimes involving magic, and "Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals, and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic."
On the plus side, I actually think Aaronovitch is a good writer, with quick and clever dialogue. He also writes a cast of very racially diverse characters, which I very much appreciated. I just also think he hates women, or at the very least objectifies them to no end. Before I even bother explaining too much, let me just share two examples, lifted directly from the text:
"I was fighting the urge to fling myself down to my knees before her and put my face between her breasts and go blubby, blubby, blubby. When she offered me a seat I was so hard it was painful to sit down."
"The voice belonged to a plump, round-faced woman of the sort that develops a good personality because the alternative is suicide."
Sounds like a cool main character that any female reader would want to hang out with, right? UGH. Peter is portrayed as a horny, awkward, and gross teenage boy, only he's an adult police officer.
Peter's partner Lesley could 100% be an interesting and strong character, but instead she's just a conduit for Peter to think about how much he wants to have sex with her, and then she gets taken over by a demon and her face melts off.
Every other female character (there are actually a lot of them) is just some archetype of male fantasy porn, or female-bashing. Molly the housekeeper is a mute vampire who is feared but also made into a sex object because there's a nude painting of her for Peter to gawk at (there's absolutely no purpose for having this painting in the story). Mama Thames and Lady Tyburn, both river spirits, are sex objects to be feared, while Beverly Brook, another river spirit, is a sex object to be used as a bargaining tool. And there are brief homophobic mentions of a police chief type who is basically characterized as a mean lesbian who doesn't like Peter because he's a man.
I was gonna give it 2 stars originally, because of the racial diversity aspect and the fact that I think the writing - on a technical level - is good. But you know what? Fuck this book, and its asshole author.
UP NEXT: Witch of Wild Things, by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
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