The Female Of The Species Book Review

“The Female of the Species” book review

Rating: 4/5

Genre: Contemporary

Summary: Alex Craft kills. Not just ordinary people. But people who hurt other people. People who don't know the difference between an object and a (female) human. Alex Craft feels numb and out of the society. But when she finds friends, her known world starts to change.

My Opinion: Firstly, the name of the book intrigued me. When I searched it up, the synopsis too, interested me. Then I found out that the plot of the book takes place in Ohio. That was the final straw for me. I decided to read it immediately.

The writing style of the novel is beautiful. It is written in short chapters from the perspectives of three people: Alex, Jack and Peekay.

As much as I like Alex and Peekay (or Claire, which is her real name), I don’t really care about Jack at all. I know it’s supposed to be realistic. I know a lot of guys out there are like Jack. But it doesn’t excuse the fact that Jack is a bit of an asshole in some ways. Though he feels guilty, he doesn’t bother changing himself for good. The thing I mostly hate about him is comparing Alex with other girls, and telling how really special she is, whereas the other girls are all the same and stuff like that. He is also a total douchebag to his best friend, Branley. Nonetheless it was brave for the writer to put such realistic characters into the book.

Quote: "I live in a world where not being molested as a child is considered luck."

Beauty of Things I’ve Never Seen Before

Today was the first day ever I was in the school bus alone. Not alone really, there were other students whom I don’t know. My best friend wasn’t there, so technically, I was alone.

I tried reading the book I took with me but in vain. As the bus started, I began looking at the familiar roads and buildings we were passing.

“Nothing to look at”, I thought.

But then I was thinking about what Gardner (from ‘The Space Between Us’) would feel about seeing all the things I was able to see. He would have definitely found it beautiful. He would be grateful to be able to look at all the different things and think how different they were from all the same things in Mars.

I decided to romanticize the bus ride to school. And I really found beautiful things.

At first, I noticed, among all the common buildings, some were remarkably unique. A really tall building made out of concrete and glass was probably the most eye-catching. Also, there were some plants at the foot of it with huge leaves (about 1-2 meters).

I noticed that a very common restaurant with nothing special, hung some fruits in the front. And they look beautiful in the middle of the chaotic surroundings.

I’ve seen a big mosque of white and pink colours with golden glasses in the windows. I’ve seen it before. But never realized how beautiful it was. It was no less in beauty than “The Sheikh Zayed Mosque” of Abu Dhabi.

Even the trucks parked in a line looked beautiful. The bright yellow colour was something outstanding in the gloom of the dawn. Not to mention that all of them have different floral pattern all over their body. Beautiful!

The last thing I saw on the bus, was probably the most beautiful thing. The sun! I’m sure it doesn’t shine like that on Mars. It was big and orange in colour. I can’t remember when was the last time I’ve seen the sun at dawn.

As I’ve got out of the bus, the school campus welcomed me with beautiful flowers, flowers of every possible colours, I’ve ignored before. Now I’ve truly seen them. I kept walking along the three different shades of marigolds as my doom awaited me at the end of the road.

My 2021 Top 5 Books

How each quote represents the characters

Jo Ye Beom is a modern and a free thinker. Despite making sexist jokes, he easily accepts his friends’ criticism. We also see that he is inconsistent to his own opinion. That’s why, he easily ratted their plans out to the prosecutor. But when his friends find it out, he changes his loyalty towards them. His quote directs that with time the laws are also modified, just like his character.

Isn’t it obvious! Kang Sol B will talk about it since plagiarism is a matter of ethics. When she has to confront about it, her ethics are being shaken. She has learned that not only did she break the law but also did something unethical.

Jeon Ye Seul’s abusive boyfriend is a son of someone who has a lot of followers in law. That gave him the advantage of doing unlawful acts such as violence and rape. He does them because he doesn’t fear the law, which he thinks will be easily taken care of by his father. So we see Ye Seul quoting about those fearless people being punished by law. Notice how she is pointing at the sky? That’s to refer to her asshole boyfriend, to whom she finally stood up to.

Min Bok Gi is just us. We get to see his character as a typical student. And let’s be honest, we’ve all said something like “we’re not machines” when we were being crushed by the amount of homework and assignments on us at some point. Bok Gi literally said that on behalf of all the students out there.

Seo Ji ho has a revengeful mentality. He has given up his whole life to study law just because he wants to avenge his father’s murderer. His quote suggests that treat people the way they have treated you.

Han Joon Hwi has a strong moral when it comes to justice. His uncle is his role model. That’s why he quoted something from his uncle instead of any other famous person, which again talks about judging fairly.

And finally the most chaotic character of the whole series, Kang Sol A. Who else will be able to break the chain but her? This indicates how she is not our regular legal minded person. She goes along with what she feels is right. And most importantly she doesn’t need to quote anything to prove how smart she is.

Why Joon Hwi hates his uncle?

I’ve been thinking about it lately. And here is my analysis of the matter.

Han Joon Hwi has the kind of character who empathizes with almost everyone. He tries to understand everyone’s point of view before judging them. This is proved throughout the series in different occasions. For instance, when he didn’t, at once, complain about Kang Sol B’s plagiarism and tried to find out the reason as to what lead her to do such a crime. He also didn’t mind when Seo Ji ho suspected him to be his uncle’s murderer.

If he possesses such a way of thinking, why was he so hard on his uncle about the bribe case before his death?

I think the real reason is that we tend to have a feeling that our parents are technically flawless entities. We don’t expect them to be wrong. Once we start seeing the flaws in them, it’s only natural that we cannot accept that. That’s why the teenagers are usually always in a bad term with their parents. Because that’s the first time a child starts to see their parents as a real human being.

To Joon Hwi, his uncle was like a father. He idolized him his whole life as a symbol of justice. But once that image was removed it was hard for even a sympathetic person like Joon Hwi to accept that. That’s why, he showed such strong hatred towards his uncle. But after his death, Joon Hwi actually came to question it himself that he should have rather asked his uncle as to why he did such things.

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