Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum

19 reviews

lunahbee's review against another edition

dark sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

Listen. This book is a tough read. Not because of the writing but because of the subject matter. That said, I did enjoy this book because of how many emotions it brought up in me. Most of them not pleasant. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Pedophilia

Listen to the warnings (Dead Dove Do Not Eat)

killmoore_'s review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-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

3.5

I was very familiar with the Sylvia Likens case going in to the girl next door, and honestly, I was grateful that Ketchum took it upon himself to narrate the novel in a way that left the most gruesome details to the imagination - what happened to Sylvia was truly terrible, and to describe in detail what happened through a work of fiction would, in a way, be disrespectful.

However, despite being well written and truly gut wrenching, I feel that Ketchum missed the mark on painting a true monster in Ruth. I understand that this is written through the eyes of a child, but it really just skims the surface on what motivates a person to commit these atrocities, let alone the impact a trusted adults actions have on the children in their care. 

Girl Next Door is awful. It is a gruesome depiction of child abuse, grief and depravity, written in a way that is still palatable for the general public. Check your trigger warnings and prepare to have your heart broken. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

laniemax's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

archaicrobin's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Honestly this was a hard one to rate. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed this, it’s not really a book you enjoy, but it was well written and truly disturbing. Especially if you’re familiar with the true crime case this book is based on, the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens.

From the perspective of one of the teen bystanders who is not necessarily completely innocent, the reader has an interesting perspective as the narrator explains why and how he was able to standby without intervening when such horrific things were being done. 

This is not for the faint of heart, or for anyone that’s looking for a happy ending. The Girl Next Door is very bleak, and exposes the horrors that are present in our neighborhoods which should be safe.  Definitely recommend this to horror fans or those interested in true crime, not for your everyday best seller reader!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

sargasso_c's review against another edition

Wonderfully written and absolutely horrific.

Inspired by the true torture and murder of Sylvia Likens

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Excrement, Grief, Car accident, and Alcohol

Minor: Dysphoria

cow4girl's review

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Body horror

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

alicenonsense's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I'm never having kids 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

svangleboyer's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

 I find it so hard to do reviews for books with such triggering content, but I will give it a try.

The Girl Next Door is loosely based on an actual event where a woman and her children, even the neighbor kids at times, tortured and raped a young girl until she died. There are some pretty graphic scenes and a lot of cringeworthy scenes so definitely NOT for the faint hearted.

The Girl Next Door does a great job on showing that monsters can be very much human and the lengths that people can and will go to hurt others. The book is definitely heartbreaking and brought me to tears.

Of course, the majority of the characters in this novel are horrible so I can't say that I really loved any of the characters except for Meg and Susan. I do love how Meg continues to be so strong and fight so hard through this horrible experience. I also love the devotion of Meg to her sister Susan, and it was the one shining light through the whole novel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Torture, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Minor: Mental illness

ximradletshuggx's review

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

Quality of writing:2 /5
Pace:3/5
Plot development:2/5
Characters:2/5
Enjoyability:3 (jumped from a 2 to a 3 in the last 20% of the book)/5

Time to complete:5hours

Score:2.4/5 stars

Notes:

Overrated.

Maybe I have an issue with male authors. This author struggles to write female characters, and as a female reader it’s something that jumps out to me.

I went into this book excited based on the blurb, but within the first 10% of the book or so I was seriously thinking of putting this on my DNF shelf. The writing was bland and boring and didn’t do much to bring the reader in. The narrative is too repetitive and simplistic that it just doesn’t give me anything to hold on to.

I would have much rather had a story from the point of view of Meg, Susan or hell even Ruth, instead of Davey the onlooking boy who takes no accountability and just watches things happen and goes on about the girls through eyes of sexual lust for one and disgust towards the other. His character has no personality other than being a 12 year old boy who only has sexual thoughts about his female “friend”.

It is so bland that it ruins the whole reading experience. I probably would have been better off reading an actual non-fiction book about the real life events of Sylvia Likens that this book was based off of.

The story finally gets a little bit interesting around 35% which is a little far in if you ask me, and then around 60% in the plot finally gets dark and descriptive. Around 80% in it gets pretty graphic and at this point I’m sure many people will be uncomfortable. The events in this book become jaw dropping and horrific and my heart breaks for Meg.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Kidnapping and Fire/Fire injury