Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Five Survive by Holly Jackson

58 reviews

sanskritig's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

eatingwords's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

Holly Jackson never disappoints!
I was sucked into the story and it had its grip on me until I listened to the very end.
the writing was phenomenal and I really loved being kept on the edge of my seat for the entire ride (pun somewhat intended).

the characters were difficult to like; Red as the main character seemed to just like go with the flow and not make her wishes and needs known to the others and the rest of them were ranging from just annoying to downright abusive.

making Oliver the bad guy from the start seemed somewhat convenient, so that killing him in the end seemed somehow justified?!
though according to Red he never acted that way prior to the RV situation. either he was a great manipulator or some switch flipped in this situation and his true colors came out.
also: who was the second person to vote Red to get out of the RV?

the ending was 50 % tied in a too nice bow and the other 50 % were just left to the reader's imagination more or less.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Violence, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism and Medical trauma

jessboyd05's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

beightmana's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Alcohol, and Classism

alexiconic's review against another edition

4.0

When describing or reviewing this book I mostly think “nice”. Five Survive was a very nice book. The suspense was great, the character conflicts were nice, the twists were good, the build-up was cool, the representation of grief and adhd-like experiences of red was good. It wasn’t perfect - sometimes the repetition (although clearly purposeful) was  too much for me, some of the character relations could’ve been more fleshed out, sometimes the pacing was a bit inconsistent - but it was a good, enjoyable, nice thriller. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Blood, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

luca97's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Blood, and Murder

vivianstory's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

5.0

This was one of the best reads of this year! A very tense and thrilling story! The characters where all very interesting and at some point you are rooting for at least one of them and are against someone else! I really enjoyed how discriptive and intense the sense where and I am looking forward to read more of Holly Jacksons books!

(Spoiler about one character down below)

Oliver was really the most unlikeable character even though he was written extremely well. Every time he opened his mouth I just wanted him to shut up. He just made things so much more complicated and only cared about himself. In the end he was really scary. But he also made the threat that much more real!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

lomahongva's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Murder

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Violence

Minor: Death of parent

xvicesx's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

Solid performance by Holly Jackson, but not up to the level of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. 

I think the pacing of the second part of the book was much better than the beginning. This took a very long time to clear its throat, metaphorically speaking, and I was quite bored with everything by the time things really started to get spicy. 

That said, the mystery was very well done, and the ambiguous ending was quite good to my mind. 

For those worried about Red's apparent rambling thoughts, I'd likely say she's got ADHD. It sounds like it, with the fixations and the lack of object permanence. Just go in with an open mind and a bit of kindness. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Blood and Grief

Minor: Infidelity and Alcohol

anjh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

oh my god. wow. how do i put all my thoughts about this book into one review. the amount of times i was holding my breath or about to beat up oliver (fuck oliver) through the page or getting literal shivers down my spine. this thriller was THRILLING let me tell you, holly jackson has some way of keeping you guessing and keeping you on the edge of your seat wondering “then who is it?? what?? how??” and suddenly a few pages down the track everything makes sense and slots into place and you beat yourself up for not realising sooner how holly tricked you and played with your mind through her writing, to make you believe and empathise with characters that were actually plotting violence and silently hating characters that were completely innocent. there were a few points in this book - particularly towards the start - where i almost felt like the writing style was similar to that of a poorly written wattpad fanfiction just because of the way holly has chosen to repeat seemingly useless details over and over and over again and i was thinking “why on earth is this relevant??” but thinking about it in more detail and reading online analyses of this book it makes sense that red is so detail focused and obsessive likely as a result of trauma. 

i love red so much and can relate to her a lot and i hate oliver. i really hate oliver. fuck oliver. oliver sucks. the light blue tabs are “fuck oliver” tabs. oh and the letter at the end oh my god holly jackson will be paying for my therapy after this. ***PLS CHECK THE CONTENT WARNINGS IF UR THINKING OF READING!!***

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Medical content, Murder, and Alcohol

Minor: Cancer and Confinement