Hey everyone, I hope your weekend was good! I chose to read the novel Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa. However, due to the themes of corruption, force, piety, and sexual exploitation, this wasn't the book for me. This may be biased, but I didn't appreciate this reading, especially how women were portrayed and seen. In my judgment, the way the novel commonly portrays the female characters is misogynistic, demeaning, and in some ways, validates highly harmful gender standards. Directly speaking, women are portrayed as objects to be exploited for male desire and their sexual fulfillment without even any respect for the well-being of the women. I can get how this book might be deemed comedic, and there were points when I did find myself amused at the satire, but I felt the book to be grim, and the humour didn't seem appropriate for the subject. It was almost uncomfortable for me. Even with my cri...