Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Vengeful by V.E. Schwab

8 reviews

theintrovertsbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Misogyny, Sexism, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, and Stalking

Minor: Child death, Drug use, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

emily_zylstra02's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, and Gaslighting

alexandrabelze's review against another edition

mysterious 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? No

3.25

i have so many issues with this book idek where to start. i actually enjoyed the first one and got so excited for this one (especially after reading marcella’s intro chapters), but this was just disappointing. victoria tried to fit WAY too many storylines and new characters into this book. and it doesn’t help her case that her storytelling was, at times, extremely messy. on top of that, the structure of these books did not help that issue at all. i also could not vibe with june’s character. which is disappointing bc her power is cool. anyways i’m about to go off in the spoiler <3

first of all, i expected that when sydney found out that victor was the one who killed serena it would be more dramatic? maybe a little tense? but instead i was let down and we moved on almost immediately. like hello??? next, and i hate to say this, i think dol should have stayed dead this time. i’m glad victoria kept him for a majority of the story, but it would’ve felt more complete to add him to the final deaths. and it would’ve built up sydney’s character. speaking of building her character, WHY did we go through ALL of that with the dead birds just for sydney to decide in ONE PARAGRAPH that she did not want to revive serena?? i honestly would’ve preferred she tried it and failed. finally, eli’s death was boring. i was expecting an insane emotional battle between him and victor that ended in something so dramatic and lowkey sensual, but instead he just…died. like that was next level disappointing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death and Stalking

lauraeerika's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

there was no reason for this book to be so fucking long & messy at the same time!? 
where was the editor?
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everything else in this book chef’s kiss, i just couldn’t care less about the constant pov change’s, im still thinking why did stell have a pov?
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the thing is i love v.e.schwab’s writing but to me there was so much going on that everything that we were supposed care about kind of were swept under the rug of the action and by the end of it, i was just so confused 
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don’t know if i’ll read the third book (i kind of consider vicious now a standalone in my mind)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Stalking, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

darkty's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.75

Can't stop thinking about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Blood, and Murder

rosecoloredbooks's review against another edition

I really enjoyed Vicious so I was excited to start the sequel, but I struggled with the physical book so I picked up the audio. It started out fine but felt completely different from Vicious. I felt like it was dragging and the whole segment with Eli's backstory could've been done in the first book without problem. I wasn't fond of the new characters and it felt just... less. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

bookthief404's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

Incredible. 
Once again Schwab doesn't disappoint. 
I love the set up of starting from an unknown point and only giving the reader snippets from '3 weeks ago' to 'yesterday afternoon'. I loved putting the pieces together of what the separate characters were doing and seeing it all come together. The anticipation as the time got shorter leading to the climax was really fun to watch unravel. 

The ending was satisfying yet not at all. I like how open-ended Shwab left it. We sympathise with Victor already so we are relieved when he 'wins' (if you can call it that), and yet there isn't really a happy-family happy ending as we were led to hope for. 
This is the kind of thing I love. I wish Sydney and Mitch and even June all the best until I meet them again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

gremlincrewleader's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Sexual assault and Religious bigotry