Reviews

On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel

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log_laady's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Arcade Doggs, you will forever be in my heart.

danihayesrn's review

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dark mysterious sad tense

5.0

holy shit, again, I feel like her books are about 100 pages too long, but only because it does get a bit repetitive with the things that are happening, things characters say etc. BUT god damn does she bring it back around and shatter your heart at the end. oooffff. I read this and Betty fairly close together, so some of the gut-wrenching of this novel was slightly expected because of how many terrible things happen in betty. I love her integration of poetry and how you truly care for this characters even while they are disappointing you.

readwithhugo's review

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4.0

I figured this would be more of a murder mystery vibe just based off of the synopsis, but instead I got something more in the realm of literary fiction that was gritty and heart-wrenching and dark as hell (all the trigger warnings here tbh)

I genuinely can’t decide how I feel about this book or whether I even liked it so……four stars, obviously

angmariereads's review against another edition

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4.0

This was a heavy one

aude's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-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

3.0

Content Warnings

majasbooks's review

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3.0

<i>”Tartarus. The name the ancient Greeks gave to the darkness below the earth. It’s said a dropping stone would take nine days to reach Tartarus. It took me less than one. There it waited for me. ‘You will never be free’. And yet as the flames started to recede, I opened my eyes and thought I could be.”</i>

I absolutely loved Betty by Tiffany McDaniel, which is why I had very high hopes for this book. But unfortunately, it didn’t really click with me as much. This is a very sad book, about addiction, victimhood, the marginalised, the people whom society more than anything wants to ignore.

The poetic style of writing that I have come to know from McDaniel is also found in this book but it simply doesn’t work as well. The way dialogue is written here comes across so unnaturally, everyone sounds like they’re trying to be a poet or a philosopher or both. The lyrical nature of the writing just comes across more forced. Moreover, I found majority of the characters to not be as developed as they could be, which also undermined the impact the story had for me. Considering that this entire story revolves indeed around the characters, this aspect was sth that really disappointed me personally.

It’s not a bad book by any means, I just had much higher expectations for it