We don’t usually go in for quoting reviews in full, but given the warning nature of this one by Mr SJ White we think we’ll make an exception in the interests of Public Health and Safety:
Well, I can uncross my legs now I’ve finished Sinister Sisterhood.
Any man who reads Jane Badrock grisly tribute to the emasculation of rogue males will automatically go into the genitalia protective position. this is a wickedly clever and wryly wicked tale of female revenge on the kind of lads (‘not me squire, on my life guv’) who belittle, bother, harass and make women’s lives a misery with their bullying chauvinistic, testosterone fuelled exploitative ape-like antics.
As those old Baptist poster used to warn ‘The wages of sin is death.’ (shouldn’t that be ‘are’….?) And for these erring anthropoids death is not pretty, but certainly novel even for a novel. I recall one man being neck-crushed by the powerful thighs of some Deadly Superwoman, and one who ends up as the contents of the product of a meat processing factory. (I’m hoping that was a figment of my imagination because it turned me vegan for a week.)
These women are literal femme fatales, and not even an innocent male would wish to speak out of turn to – or even of – these members of the Sinister Sisterhood, a sorority determined that no bad seed of the opposite gender will lightly get off with messing with a twisted sister.
Jane Badrock writes with pace, punch and humour. This is no po-faced feminist diatribe. I laughed as much as winced, as the writer has a keen eye for metaphor and whimsy. By discussing women’s tongues and their positions I don’t wish to lay myself open to the revenge of the SS (not the Nazi black-garbed variety obviously, but I can’t help thinking these initials was not accidental.) But I got the distinct impression the writer’s tongue was quite firmly in her cheek at times when she wrote this tale of anti-male mayhem. But to hell with her motives, these male predators, seem to me to get their just deserts.
It’s a damned good read, but only give it as a Christmas gift to a husband or boyfriend if you want to kill his Yuletide sex drive. Or….then again, maybe it will encourage him to mind his manners and take over the Christmas catering chores.
Certain pages brought almost physical tears to my eyes as I winced at the treatment meted out to this sorry collection of wannabe lounge Lotharios, skirt-lifters, randy Romeos and Groping Gits. And in defence of my gender let me say I’ve never in decades of working in newspaper offices met predatory males quite as Raptor like as the ones Jane Badrock has conjured from her fevered imagination. But then – not being a woman – perhaps I just didn’t notice them. The book also has a Kind Hearts and Coronets flavour to it, with victims toppling like ninepins for the best – on the face of it – reasons. It’s a damned good read. Badrock can write, As a reader you can’t wait to turn to the next page. Even if, in a man’s case, somewhat squeamishly.
There used to be a saying in the American military. “Grab ’em by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow.” This tale of girls in the ‘hood certainly, if metaphorically, grabbed mine as the Sinister Sisters got even in a variety of ways that would have done Torquemada proud, with the Sinning Misters. This book should come with a variation of none of those old fashioned film warnings. “Not for men of a nervous disposition.”
