Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The List by Yomi Adegoke

22 reviews

sarahjanecw's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Death of parent

book_of_the_north's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

3.0

I can't decide if this book did to me everything it was trying to and my responses to it were by design and cleverly crafted or I just didn't get on with it. 

I felt disconnected from the utter horror on the page for the vast majority. Whilst reading I found myself frustrated with the characters and the writing style, passing much judgement, feeling at ease to stop mid chapter and pick up and put down without much thought. Treating it like a soap opera or reality TV show or .....TMZ...

On reflection, I'm sat here connecting the characters experience and the public reaction, drawing parallels to IRL celebrities and it hit me....did I just engage with this book exactly the same way I engaged with those real people and real life experiences? 

Did Yomi Adegoke just do that, and do that intentionally?  

For now all I can say is that my experience reflecting on the book was more enjoyable than my time reading it.  

I'll definitely keep an eye on future releases from this author but I don't think I can fit this into a neat or fair star rating so I'm not going to try. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Sexual harassment

This book describes the impacts of sexual violence, public responses. Shame, depression, anxiety and the consequences of mental health are a strong themes. Suicidal ideation and suicide are described in detail as is rape Please take caution.

elephantsoups's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

0.5

Genuinely fuck this. You can write about evil and morally bad characters without making them all severely insufferable. I wasn’t rooting for anyone or any thing other than the percentage bar to continue creeping further towards 100%. The cultural pieces were touched on and then fully abandoned instead of properly delved into and considered- do the characters even care about their own ethnicities? Or are they just using them for instagram followers… Does the author even care about their ethnicities? She certainly didn’t honor them or hold any sort of cultural context within the story she chose to write. 

Do you want to know what happens in this book? Read the synopsis and then the final 10% for the lack of resolution or accountability from every single person involved in this shit show. Nothing else happens other than one self-righteous fight and one bit of drama at an event. the ONLY bit of additional drama that occurs at the single defined event of the entire book. 

If you want fanfiction of AD and Clay from Love Is Blind: here it is. The “I can fix him” and the “She’ll stand by me no matter what harm I do to her” thinking they can successfully have a marriage between them. 

This book was entirely one-note and the ending wasn’t the end of anything or an ending marked by change or growth or accountability or even fucking acknowledgment of inciting events. The plot holes were jarring and entirely unforgivable and every side character was interchangeable with eachother. Petty points off for the chapter titles being huge spoilers as well. 

The only compliment I can give is that it was an accurate representation of a shithead man but I already knew PLENTY about that from dropping my own last year. Beat for beat they had similar thoughts and excuses. The audiobook narrator did well wresting and differentiating all of the different one note characters and their accents. The content was truly enraging but her job was very well done.  

In the Q&A between the voice actor/narrator and the author I found the jokes about cancelling *them* over tiny things to be wildly tone deaf. Do you truly think a self deprecating joke about your own work is equivalent to date rape/kidnapping/assault/ coercion/etc etc etc etc listed in your own fucking book? Now who’s trivializing things? The lack of proper content warnings is abhorrent considering the thing I’ve chosen to spoiler over below. 

Maybe it’s cold but the only thing I was rooting for was

for michael’s suicide attempt to have been successful. It really would’ve saved everyone the hassle of knowing him and dealing with his bullshit. He couldn’t even off himself correctly and then couldn’t even take accountability for the fact that he even attempted it??? Mans can dodge every single thing in his life including cars I guess. I wanted to hit him again hearing that. 

Also why the fuck did he wake up with a feeding tube. That makes no sense. the science in this book sucked shit too but now I truly am being petty.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Outing, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Biphobia

Minor: Vomit and Kidnapping

nanirump's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective 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

3.0

This was an intriguing premise for a book and it wasn't difficult to read but did I like any of the characters? No. Did I sympathise with them? Mostly no. Michael was still an asshole, it's hard to know why Ola liked him but Ola was quite vapid herself. Sadly, nothing really landed with me or packed a punch. I don't even really see the point the author was trying to make. Are we defending men for the small percentage where allegations are false? Are we excusing another man's actions because his girlfriend cheated on him? I kind of liked the twist at the end and liked that it resolved but it could have also not given us a definitive answer and for once, I would have been ok with it. Like, why are we focusing on the very few falsely accused? This book just made me dislike men even more. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment

emilyandthewhippet's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

ekg's review against another edition

fast-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

noeboe80's review against another edition

sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

The gets better after the first 3/4 of the book. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Suicide

laurataylor's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Blood, Car accident, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

katcass's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Car accident, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

ropey's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective

• 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

Couples Ola and Michael are embroiled in a scandal involving a “list” of perpetrators that draws much of its inspiration from the MeToo movement. It shows the consequences of trial-by-public with social media, cancel-culture, and how little regard many of us have for online credibility. While  I liked how the author included different perspectives in this book, it also felt strangely mechanical. 

The final chapter made the story somewhat uncharacteristically removed. It’s as though it spent so much of the first chapters building up this believable set of characters only to turn them cartoonish at the end (I wouldn’t fault the author for this as they did mention that they’d considered writing nonfiction first)

This is the kind of book I’m not certain I could rate. It raises important topics that are normally scoffed at and shrugged off, but I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, nor would I read it again.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment