DNF at page 68.
For this author to write this book, with these characters, and these themes. For this author to then, consciously, think "yes, I will shame a fat woman for her body, yes I with other her every chance I can get".
For me to pick up this book after so much excitement and so much awe that someone has written something so bold and fresh, and to only find that once again fatness remains a gratiuitous trope in horror regardless of the progressiveness of the story. For me to be in tears, telling myself "I will keep reading but if there is ONE MORE extraneous mention of her fatness, if there is ONE MORE othering of this woman, then I am done" and to let that go FOUR TIMES IN ONE CHAPTER before I finally close it, tears rolling down my face.
I am ashamed. I am disappointed. I am fucking livid. We expect this kind of othering from white cis male authors. This was a betrayal.
For this author to write this book, with these characters, and these themes. For this author to then, consciously, think "yes, I will shame a fat woman for her body, yes I with other her every chance I can get".
For me to pick up this book after so much excitement and so much awe that someone has written something so bold and fresh, and to only find that once again fatness remains a gratiuitous trope in horror regardless of the progressiveness of the story. For me to be in tears, telling myself "I will keep reading but if there is ONE MORE extraneous mention of her fatness, if there is ONE MORE othering of this woman, then I am done" and to let that go FOUR TIMES IN ONE CHAPTER before I finally close it, tears rolling down my face.
I am ashamed. I am disappointed. I am fucking livid. We expect this kind of othering from white cis male authors. This was a betrayal.