Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

24 reviews

_fallinglight_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Cancer, Infidelity, Suicide, and Xenophobia

Minor: Abortion

risemini's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Alcohol

witchintherain's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

I really wouldn't recommend this book. I didn't find the story or characters compelling and had to force myself to read it all the way through. It felt as if the author was just using the book as an excuse to be incredibly fatphobic. Such a disappointing read :(

There are other books that write unlikeable characters struggling with mental health issues that subvert their reality so much better and not offensively. In my opinion, this is not one of them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Abortion, Murder, and Gaslighting

Minor: Cancer, Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, Violence, and Police brutality

jude333's review against another edition

   I just couldn’t deal with the writing style. The long paragraphs about seemingly nothing just couldn’t capture my interest. I understand that it’s more to show her thought process, but things like that almost every 3 pages just killed me. I can (kind of) deal with an unlikable character, but this was extensive. I need SOMETHING that keeps me wanting to continue spending my time reading about them, and everything was just so awful.

   Also the fat phobia was just too much to handle. These awful view points and long rants about these “fat women” did nothing to explore the character for me. It just showed how awful she was, which I was already EXTREMELY aware of. I understand that the point of her character is that she’s completely delusional, but I can only read about delusion so much before I start to discount every word and then it feels like I’m just wasting my time. 

   I will say, I did have an interest in her relationship with her husband, and that might have kept me going, but there was just so much noise around it that it wasn’t enough. I was reading on a kindle, but then I switched to the audiobook (which honestly did help a little), but I found myself continuously looking at the progress bar to see how much time I had left, and I didn’t want to force myself into a reading slump because of this book. 

All in all, I see how some people could carry on with it, but it’s just not for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming and Fatphobia

Moderate: Misogyny, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

Minor: Abortion

joensign's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Fatphobia, and Murder

Moderate: Cancer, Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual harassment

oliviah1111's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

this book is very very slow paced. from what i understand, it was only over the span of 2-3 days. i enjoyed it either way, but there are some weird elements i didnt like.

there was random hints of fatphobia, and what kind of felt like fetishization of foreign women. this may be because of the narrator being an older woman, but it seemed to be the writers opinion sneaking through especially with the weird comments about fat people.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cancer, Death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Xenophobia, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Body shaming, Infidelity, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, Gaslighting, and Classism

Minor: Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Abortion, and Alcohol

natalia_booksss's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, and Blood

Minor: Cancer, Infidelity, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Grief, Abortion, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

erinbarton's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

5.0

first tried to read this back in dec 2021, got 50 pages in and gave up because i was bored and worried about going into a reading slump and not reaching my reading goal for the year

over a year later, i gave this another go after reading the rest of moshfegh’s work and enjoying all of them, especially eileen. the timing for giving this another go was just right - i read the whole book in one day and so didn’t mind the slow pace and just allowed myself to get swept up in the character’s inner monologue and imagined mystery. 

this was such an interesting read with so many clues peppered throughout. the main character was such an unreliable narrator, while following her “investigation” you also come across more questions of your own, the main one being — how much of this is actually real?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Mental illness

Moderate: Toxic relationship and Murder

le_lobey's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Cancer, Fatphobia, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Infidelity

robi_locksley's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Cancer, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Classism