Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy

18 reviews

shaleen64's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

3.75

A thriller with such a traditional happy ending certainly stands out.

The first half of this book does require some getting through and is very slow placed for a thriller. Following that, the second half initially had me very confused. 

However, once the pace quickened and the characters (rather than the plot) made sense it was a very twisty thriller I didn’t want to put down.

The plot line itself isn't unique, and the book actually makes reference to that, but it’s very well executed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Drug use, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Medical content, Kidnapping, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content and Pregnancy

jesikakaley's review against another edition

reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Mental illness, Dementia, Kidnapping, and Stalking

Moderate: Child abuse and Death of parent

Minor: Abandonment

deshanejt's review against another edition

dark reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Medical trauma, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

butilikeit's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Mental illness, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Stalking

Minor: Death of parent

kaylee_reads_quietly's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicide, Blood, and Abandonment

nerdybookqueen's review against another edition

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? No

This book was awful. I would've DNF'd it much earlier but I finished it because it was my book club book this month, and it only got worse.

Minor problem: it was boring, which is awful for a suspense novel. Every time I thought things would get interesting, they just went back to boring again.

I found the writing style very annoying to read. I hate the awkward switching between third and first person and I realize that it was meant to mislead as to who the one character was, but it made it very difficult and frustrating to read. Especially when it continued after the reveal of who the first person character was.   

SPOILERS AHEAD:

What actually made me frustrated and dropped this to a one star was two things:

First, the big twist was the first person narrator, the villain, surprise, not a woman, a gay man! This book came out in 2020, are we not past villainizing gay folks? If your only LGBT character is the villain, and that's also your big twist, you're doing something wrong. I would've been more interested if it had been a woman, tbh, because I would've have been so frustrated with this BS. The homophobia trigger warning is for the author, not the book.

And the second part is that the ending is straight out of a different book. Referencing the book as the source for the character's decision to do those things doesn't excuse the fact you copied the plot. If anything the acknowledgement was more annoying. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Kidnapping, and Stalking

Minor: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Dementia, Grief, and Death of parent

mtnest's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Medical content, and Grief

Minor: Pregnancy

lindseyrenee's review against another edition

mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

This was a very quick and easy read that started strong with part 1. I enjoyed learning about the patients and was even pulled in thinking “Charlie” would play a larger role. Part 2 brought the twist pretty early on into the story and I thought it was great! That’s where the great ended for me though. I was hoping for more twists and turns but unfortunately the climax was in the middle and it became extremely predictable from there. I think there was an attempt at another twist towards the end, but it was already so obvious that it didn’t do much to add to the story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Stalking, and Alcohol

Moderate: Suicide and Dementia

Minor: Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

jasmine256's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, and Mental illness

Moderate: Dementia, Kidnapping, and Stalking

Minor: Infidelity, Sexual content, and Death of parent

archaicrobin's review

mysterious 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

I remember reading The Perfect Mother, also by Malloy years ago and loving it. I had such high expectations and none of them were met. This is one of the poorest written thrillers I’ve read in a long time, and a huge disappointment.

Sam is a therapist that likes to lie to his wife and spend 2 million dollars they don’t have. Sam goes missing and said wife stumbles around trying to find him. The novel is from different perspectives, none of which are interesting or cohesive. I hated every character in this book. When Sam went missing, I did not care. When main characters’s lives were in danger I did not care. The characterization and writing were so mediocre in this, I had to make myself sit down and read it. 

Along with the subpar character and writing, is the atrocious plot and confusing plot twists. In The Perfect Mother, every twist was well thought out and explained. In Goodnight Beautiful, every twist was confusing, stupid, and a cheap shot at being shocking. There is also so much problematic dialogue from every single character. With the very thinly veiled misogyny, classism, and ignorance in this book I was shocked to see it was published as recently as 2020.

The plot in this book is a mix of Gone Girl and The Shining. Like the author chose her favorite books and just decided to rewrite them with the lamest, most unrealistic ending she could think of.  I’m not sure what happened between her debut novel and this release, but it ain’t for me! This thriller came off as a Lifetime Drama where nothing really makes any sense or is any good, but it has all the tropes. If you love Lifetime made for tv moves this could be for you. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Medical content, and Death of parent