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missmarguerita's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cursing, Deadnaming, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
bigolscrewup's review against another edition
- 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
2.0
I bought this book with so much hope, thinking it would be one of the underrated work in LGBTQ+ Fiction genre and I even told myself without reading the reviews, that the low reviews might be due to homophobes, but nope, it's a bad book
Hands down the worst book I've ever read in all my years. I can't figure out the point of this book and why it exists. I've only heard great things about Kristen Arnett, but reading this book, I couldn't find a single silver lining. Usually when I dislike a book, there are always some things I can point to and say "This! I loved this particular moment". But with this book, there's nothing. I had been wishing to read this book for nearly two years and I wish I had just never read it.
Literally every character was unlikable and even though it took me only three days to read this book, it felt longer. And the writing in the end of chapters, where the author explores how other characters who interact with Sammie and Monika feels is just weak and feels out of place in this book. It didn't serve anything, I can already see that Sammie is rude, unlikable, delusional, unreliable, probably depressed but wouldn't acknowledge it or do anything about it.
Also, I don't know if this is how the author thinks or it's just Sammie's voice, the prejudice against men in this book is just too much. There are so many bad men in this world, literal monsters, like the person we see at the start of the story, but it's dangerous to prejudice an entire gender for the actions of few. It would be like someone saying All White Women are racists just because they met a few racist white women in their life. I don't even know whether it was intentional from the character or the author because as I mentioned above, literally every character is unlikable, so it didn't make much of a difference in the end.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Pedophilia, Toxic relationship, Stalking, and Alcohol
shoohoob's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, and Alcohol
knkoch's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I suppose this felt like a very accurate portrayal of difficult people, and of selfish, irresponsible personalities. I can’t say I truly enjoyed the reckless ride, although it was certainly a gripping story. I wavered between empathy and distaste for the characters, similar to my discomfort with White Ivy. I’m curious to see if I can find any interviews where Kristen Arnett talks about her goals for this book. If you’re into very dark, twisted literary fiction, this one’s for you!
Graphic: Alcoholism, Mental illness, Gaslighting, and Alcohol
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, and Stalking
Not trying to tick all the boxes, but this touches on quite a few difficult subjects.belovedb33's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
When I finished the book, I still had plenty of questions.
I wish that I could have gotten Samson’s or Monika’s perspective at the end— I think that would have allowed for a conclusion to many of the plot strands that were just left hanging.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Stalking
Moderate: Homophobia, Grief, and Lesbophobia
Minor: Animal cruelty and Kidnapping
angel_hardy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol
toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book had me by the throat from the first sentence and then it wouldn't let me go for the next five days. It didn't matter what I was doing, I wanted to pick this up and shut out the world. Don't get me wrong, it's not a riveting tale or anything. It's not plot driven at all, it's mainly a character study of Sammie and how she's clearly very troubled and was never meant to be a mother. I hated her with every fiber of my being. I hated her on every page, every sentence. She was at best, whiny, and at worst, violent. It was crazy how unreliable of a narrator she was. She also struck me as someone who would go to a Planned Parenthood protest on the weekend, but I'm not going to tell you why.
I was so fascinated by this terrible character and her terrible interactions with her son and wife, fascinated by her dealing with religious trauma, her hypocrisy, her complete inability to connect with her son and then complaining about how he was suuuuch a problem. It was insane. The behavior of everyone in this book is absolutely unhinged, but Sammie takes the cake.
It's safe to say this book had my attention, but that being said, the writing wasn't really remarkable and the references to teeth (other people's teeth, what Sammie's teeth were doing, biting, etc) seemed a bit shoe-horned in and obvious at times. I also thought I was going to combust at times at how ableist the treatment of Samson as a character was. You can chalk that up to his parents being bad people - and they are, but it was just too much for me and it made me *too* angry.
Anyway I know that I'm probably going to read a lot of GR reviews calling this bad lesbian rep, but sometimes even queer people are bad and unhinged, and I think it's important to write about that. Argue with the wall. Overall, a really intriguing read.
I forgot to mention that there are little vignettes at the end of every chapter that show contrast between how Sammie sees certain situations happening in a chapter vs. what an outsider experiences and I think they were genuinely my favorite part of the book and I can't believe I didn't mention this somewhere above. Oops! Here it is.
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual content, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Lesbophobia, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Miscarriage and Murder
Minor: Pedophilia and Rape
opossumom's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, and Stalking
Moderate: Kidnapping
Minor: Child death and Pedophilia
librarysoflyss's review against another edition
- 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
3.75
Graphic: Alcoholism, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Kidnapping and Stalking
leah_alexandra's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
On further reflection, I do think the book suffers a bit from under-development of the secondary characters, especially Samson.
Graphic: Body shaming, Child abuse, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, and Alcohol