#vavuskabooks

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Totally not bot.

Yeah.

🙄

Abed Majeed.

👑The king of bots.👑

[vavuska]

Can we talk about how unlucky is Roger in Outlander? Beaten up, sold and enslaved, beaten up again and hanged... Falling in love with Brianna caused a lot of trouble in his life...

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Books similar to The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood:

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett and Extasia by Claire Legrand are both distopyas dense of religious fanatism and women's segregation, in which sexism and sexual prejudice are associated with various aspects of religion (e.g. belief, faith, and fundamentalism). This novel shows also how higher religious fundamentalism is associated with internalized misogyny and passive acceptance of traditional gender roles, and both hostile and benevolent sexism.

In The Grace Year the stereotype of women as source of sin was laid down by the dominant religious authorities before the inception of widespread violence led by women against women, but after all the violence and blood, women learn the importance of sorority, female friendship and start to support and help each others.

The main source of conflicts are ribbons, which, in The Grace Year, are the sign of women's lifestage and the bride's ribbon is a valued price among most of the girls of the age of Tierney, the protagonist. The bride ribbons create a competition between girls to get bachelor’s attention, self-objectification, and humiliation toward each others. Although the competition eventually destroys most of them, this characteristic offers pleasure to those who survived their Grace Year. Tierney learns to survive on her own, learns that the religious values she was thought were wrong and learns also to appreciate her peer's friendship.

Extasia adds witchcraft and supernatural elements, but the main character (Amity) believes deeply in social conservatism—Amity has a preference for stability, conformity and the status quo— which is often a key trait of the religious experience, but also betrays deep feeling of self-hate.

In Extasia, the very patriarchal structures that decry witchcraft – the Puritan church in which the characters lives in and escapes from, the male headship to which the community so desperately cling, the insistence, in the face of repeated violence, on the sin of her mother – are the same structures that inevitably foreclose the options of the lead character, Amity.

To this two, I will mention also The Year Of The Witching by Alexis Henderson. In this novel, Immanuelle, a young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society, discovers dark powers within herself. This book is very similar to Extasia, but not such as good: Amity character is way more believable than Immanuelle and shows way more comprehension of the injustices committed in the name of the religion. The cult in Extasia contains more original elements and believing than the one in The Year Of The Witching, which seems more a copy-paste of mormon radical close-communities, including the elements of racial prejudice. Both Immanuelle and Amity live in the disdain of their own community because of the sins committed by their mother, which were both punished for their love affairs, but when Amity is a girl-of-action and actively search for mercy and witchcraft, Immanuelle is cursed - literally - by passivity and events occurs without her active consents, including the defection of the evil antagonist. Also, female friendship doesn't take place among the main themes and the book suffer a lot of the male love-interest help.

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.

Extasia by Claire Legrand

Her name is unimportant.

All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain--an evil which has already killed nine of her village's men.

She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove.

Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother's shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you?

The Year Of The Witching by Alexis Henderson

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement. But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood. Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.

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Some guys just can't stay away from cults....

Commonly known as P4, Edgar Redmond (Red House), Lawrence Bluewer (Blue House), Herman Greenhill (Green House), and Gregory Violet (Purple House) were Prefects at prestigious public school Weston College (Black Butler — 黒執事 Kuro shitsuji, Chapters from Chapter 67 to 87)

In Chapter 111 and 112 we discovered that former P4, repented for their actions and tried to change their lives....joining a cult!

Black Butler — 黒執事 Kuro shitsuji, Chapter 112. "That Butler, Soloing" (その執事、独唱, "Sono Shitsuji, Dokushō")

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The basic canvas used by John Norman to write the very deep dialogues between Tarl and his random female partner

"I'm your slave, Tarl Cabot!"

"Ehm, no. Thank you. Slavery is bad"

"No, I belong to you. You are my master"

"No, you are a free woman. Slavery is immoral"

...

"Ok, you are my slave"

Few pages after

"How dare you? I'm a free woman!"

"No, you are a Slave Girl! I'm your Master!"

"I love you, Tarl!"

I don't find the Gor novels controversial or antifeminist, because the main female partners are usually depicted as strong willed and smart. It's not even that disrespectful about women's autonomy, because the author gave to his male protagonist (Tarl Cabot, a human from modern-day Earth) a liberal and modern sensibility about slavery: Tarl is deeply against slavery and in every book I red so far, he frees slaves (in Outlaw of Gor he organizes a slave revolution against the oppressive matriarchal monarchy and also helped Lara, the former Queen, to develop a social consciousness and admitting the unfair parts of her city) and help oppressed women to become indipendent, self aware and express their true self. It's just a little paternalistic, but not misogynist. It's not even full of annoying sex scene as a person could think and sex is never described directly, at least in books I red so far. I think that Laurell K. Hamilton's sagas are more controversial and with more sex than actual plot. In the Gor novel there is a huge world-building and I love the way in which fantasy meets sci-fi novels.

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It's like Maleficent, but they are lesbians 💖

The princess isn't supposed to fall for an evil sorceress. But in this darkly magical retelling of Sleeping Beauty, true love is more complicated than a simple fairy tale. Perfect for fans of Naomi Novik and Holly Black.

'Malice is the dark and wicked heart of a fairytale carved into a book. This story is beautiful, vicious magic.'

Tasha Suri, author of Empire of Sand

'A truly original and clever retelling of a classic that had me racing to the end - you'll never look at Sleeping Beauty the same again.'

S.A. Chakraborty, author of City of Brass

Once upon a time, there was a wicked fairy who, in an act of vengeance, cursed a line of princesses to die. A curse that could only be broken by true love's kiss.

Utter nonsense.

Let me tell you, no one in Briar cares what happens to our princess. I thought I didn't care, either. Until I met her.

Princess Aurora, last heir to the throne, the future queen her realm needs. One who isn't bothered that I am Alyce, the Dark Grace, abhorred and feared for the mysterious dark magic that runs in my veins. But with less than a year before the curse kills her, any future I might imagine for us is quickly disappearing - and she can't stand to kiss yet another idiotic prince. But maybe I can help her. If my power began the curse, it might be the one to lift it. Perhaps, together, we could forge a new world.

But we all know how this story ends. Aurora is the beautiful princess.

And I am the villain.

Credits: @kimocchika

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Dawes only smiled. “Come on,” she said to Tripp. “We’ll get you to Il Bastone and I’ll see what I can find to feed you.”

“Oh man, thank you. Thank you.”

“But you’re going to have to change,” Alex said.

“Of course. I know I haven’t been the most responsible member of the team, but I believe in transformative growth—”

“Clothes, Tripp. You’re going to have to change your clothes.”

“Shit, man! Absolutely. What did I say? You’re all right, Alex.” He put up his hand for a fist bump. “I just really want to eat you.”

Alex nudged her knuckles against his. “I know, buddy.”

Leigh Bardugo, “Hell Bent”

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