You ever read a book so horrendous you want to ban the entire male gender from writing

Fuck it this is gonna turn into a livetweet thread

Main character is such a manic pixie dream girl the author includes a scene where she goes to the dentist to show that even her teeth are perfect and her gums bleed the perfect amount

Oh also she invents a scene where the director who invited her to work with him forces himself on her ...so she can feel closer to him??

Also if you're a male writer writing abt a love affair between a beautiful stunning young woman madly attracted to an older washed up artist you have nothing new to say

Croatian literature is...not sending its best

The guy set the book in Istria but so far the partizans are the bad guys....

Ok I'm back. Some stuff i forgot to add in the thread from yesterday: MC is an art student that somehow has money for a maid. She also masturbated while on the phone with author-insert director man for...reasons

Btw this whole thing started bc director man saw this girl on the street & decided she MUST be his next star. She now wants to be an actress but not like all the other actresses, who she calls sluts (the chapter after masturbating on the phone w a near stranger)

They finally have sex. Director man keeps calling her "my child" which is totally not creepy! Not at all!

An entire chapter dedicated entirely to sex.
I know my reading in BCS is not as strong as my reading in English, but I genuinely don't understand half of what's going on.
Author is trying to be metaphysical but is just incomprehensible

Book is a prime example of "nesting orientalisms" in the way the Zagreb-born author talks about Istria. Istrians have an innate victim complex. All Istrian men have Oedipal complexes. Istrian mothers are super possessive

Its also super inaccurate, from the little to the big details. This female character makes the perfect garden despite not having any tools - she tills the soil with her hands. Having spent many a summer in the rocky Istrian soil, I know this wouldnt be possible

Author sets part of the book in the aftermath of WW2. Local Istrian characters hate the partisans, see them as occupiers. Maybe ppl didnt join the party enthusiastically, but many saw them as liberators, or at least thought it was an improvement over the Italians.

To set a book in this time and region and portray the Italian landowners as victims of communism and NEVER mention the decades of brutal occupation and ethnocide that preceded the partizan's arrival is disingenuous, uninformed, and offensive.

Yet another chapter all abt sex. Chapter title: "extremes of orgasm." I can tell based on the writing that the author has never satisfied a woman in his life.

Filming has started. The only woman on the production crew hates the MC bc she's more beautiful than her.

She sleeps with a costar who came out of nowhere. They name his character but theres no clue what his role is in the film or why there's a character with an Arab name (played by an Italian) traipsing through 1940s istria

Finally we get hints that MC and the narration realize the directors behavior is abusive, but again it comes out of nowhere

The point of this book is to show us that the characters are smart, special, and experience human connection on a deeper level. All the book is is the characters LITERALLY repeating "we are special and experience human connection on a deeper level"

I havent finished but i went to look up reviews and people really called this a "testament to female strength ." how?? Both female characters are constantly subjected to violence, to rape especially. How is that celebrating female strength??

Alright I'm back, hopefully I finish this monstrosity today. Spoiler warning for the rest of this thread although I cant imagine why anyone would want to read this

Figured out what the Tunisian film character is here for. He's the one that seduces the mc of the film and (I'm assuming) inspires her to begin the life of crime that gave the book the title. Bc you need some racism in your book of misogyny