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A review by beckeal
Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon
1.0
Ugh. Blech. What a book. Overall, I’m disgusted on principle, but let’s start with the quality of writing.
.
Admittedly, it kept me engaged and turning pages. Probably simply because, while it was basically a string of episodic “scenes”, they were fast to read and just tense enough to want to know how each one ended.
.
End of anything remotely positive about this book.
.
Considering this was the story of one generation of a family to the next to the next to the next, it was strangely disjointed. It’s like Sheldon wanted to tell 3 different stories and decided to pack them between 2 covers and give none of them room to be good.
Exactly ZERO of the characters were even remotely likeable, even in the way of characters you love to hate.
The situations were contrived, the actions of the participants were recurringly incongruent, and the writing just plain embarrassing in parts.
.
On to the most nauseating issue …
.
The extreme objectification of women was one of the most insipid and horrifying I’ve seen in ages, if ever. The book was written in the ‘80s, which was not a time well-known for being particularly respectful of the fact that women are multilayered human beings, but this was … disturbing. Even though most of the book was written from a woman’s pov, Sheldon still managed to distill every female character into whore, angel, hag, shrew, manipulator, spinster, ball-buster, etc. And every one of them got her comeuppance in the end except the simpering beauty whose greatest desire was to be whatever her man wanted her to be.
.
And let’s not even mention the woman who was twice brutally raped by a man that she not only kept hanging out with, but couldn’t help but be magnetically sexually attracted to. Because that’s real.
.
I shudder for the society that not only published this author, but made his books best sellers without ever realizing how psychologically disgusting his feeling about women were. Puke puke puke.
.
Admittedly, it kept me engaged and turning pages. Probably simply because, while it was basically a string of episodic “scenes”, they were fast to read and just tense enough to want to know how each one ended.
.
End of anything remotely positive about this book.
.
Considering this was the story of one generation of a family to the next to the next to the next, it was strangely disjointed. It’s like Sheldon wanted to tell 3 different stories and decided to pack them between 2 covers and give none of them room to be good.
Exactly ZERO of the characters were even remotely likeable, even in the way of characters you love to hate.
The situations were contrived, the actions of the participants were recurringly incongruent, and the writing just plain embarrassing in parts.
.
On to the most nauseating issue …
.
The extreme objectification of women was one of the most insipid and horrifying I’ve seen in ages, if ever. The book was written in the ‘80s, which was not a time well-known for being particularly respectful of the fact that women are multilayered human beings, but this was … disturbing. Even though most of the book was written from a woman’s pov, Sheldon still managed to distill every female character into whore, angel, hag, shrew, manipulator, spinster, ball-buster, etc. And every one of them got her comeuppance in the end except the simpering beauty whose greatest desire was to be whatever her man wanted her to be.
.
And let’s not even mention the woman who was twice brutally raped by a man that she not only kept hanging out with, but couldn’t help but be magnetically sexually attracted to. Because that’s real.
.
I shudder for the society that not only published this author, but made his books best sellers without ever realizing how psychologically disgusting his feeling about women were. Puke puke puke.