Jonathan’s Reviews > Reservoir Bitches > Status Update
Jonathan
is 53% done
true equality is giving poor and rich characters the exact same speech/thought patterns // i also wonder why one would, in an english translation, leave spanish words as fragments of--what, authenticity? are these concepts truly so untranslatable? to rub salt into the wound of the reader not speaking spanish? since i only have apps set up to explain english words, i won't interrupt reading just for this :/
— Aug 15, 2026 02:17AM
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Jonathan’s Previous Updates
Jonathan
is 99% done
one story that listed ways in which women had been raped and murdered threw in a 'i never heard of this happening to any man' about a specific scenario and it immediately reminded me of a black man who was raped and murdered in this exact way for being black and bi here, and i cannot imagine that this is violence unique to a single country. ah well, served to solidify the impression that this book wasn't for me
— Aug 18, 2026 02:37PM
Jonathan
is 98% done
became a chore to finish reading, unfortunately. didn't help that four out of the last five stories all revolved around women being brutally murdered. i feel like this book would have worked as non-fiction (interviews). the stories were almost all structured the exact same way, and didn't seem to have all that much of a narrative to offer aside from women resisting but eventually being killed by misogyny.
— Aug 18, 2026 02:33PM
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zeynep
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Aug 26, 2026 06:29PM
Curious, about the untranslated Spanish stuff. I've read some a fair amount of writing by US authors with Latin Americans heritage who do this, but those are all books written *in* English, so the Spanish is purposefully kept that way. (Whether to signal something to the reader, or because the author feels some emotions more strongly in Spanish, etc). But in a *translation*? Huh.
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it's baffling! the two interviews i found didn't mention it at all :/ i'm also used to seeing this in english, yeah, but like you said not in translations. it's very reminiscent of the way subtitles will not translate certain languages which usually feels either negligent and disrespectful of the language itself or the viewer. if there'd been a glossary of untranslated terms that were too bulky (?) to translate, i might have understood, but idk. frustrating. and unique, i don't think i've ever come across something like it in a translation, only the original work of bilingual writers.