Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

A Discovery of Witches (Movie Tie-In) by Deborah Harkness

9 reviews

alexirose's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, and Stalking

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Mental illness, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: War

infusionofviolets's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture

Moderate: Animal death, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Pregnancy, and War

gillian_aftanas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Mental illness, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder, and Pregnancy

Minor: Child death, Cursing, Infertility, Misogyny, and Sexual content

amy_reading_23's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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

3.75

This book is complicated. Not as in it hard to follow (although I had watched the TV show beforehand so that gave me an advantage) but that I'm not sure what to make of it. There were some bits I really enjoyed. And some bits that made me uncomfortable. I don't like how Matthew treats Diana, I think their relationship is pretty toxic tbh and a bit misogynistic in times. They also excuse too much of his behaviour as "ifs because he's a vampire". But the plot is interesting and I still want to read the next two sometime, I'm just not necessarily in a rush. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Violence, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Stalking

caffeinated_gills's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? N/A

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Child death, Violence, Blood, and War

Minor: Mental illness, Miscarriage, Suicide, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Murder

bedtimesandbooks's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Mental illness, and Pregnancy

bookishchef's review against another edition

mysterious slow-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

1.5

This book is like Twilight. 
But without the love triangle.
And somehow even more toxic.

You thought Edward stalking Bella was creepy? 
Meet Matthew Clermont! He is actually mentally and physically abusive to our bland Mary Sue protagonist named Diana.

If you're Matthew, life is easy.

Diana has a panic attack? Threaten her life. 
Diana is feeling scared? Threaten her life.
Diana is feeling horny? Threaten her life.

Why? Because you just cannot help yourself of course. After all, it is sooooo hot when men treat women like

A. fragile objects they're supposed to control and protect. 
B. things to literally kill.

This book perpetrates the idea that men cannot help themselves from abusing, controling, and commanding women. 
Worst thing is, that every time Diana goes against Matthew's wishes, she is immediately punished by the plot. Which only confirms that women are supposed to listen to the men in their lives according to this book.

I have no clue how I, the reader, was supposed to find any of this romantic. All of the scenes were either highly uncomfortable or straight up abusive.

The excuse of "he just can't help himself" is as old as time and has been used time and time again to excuse shitty behaviour from men. 
And Diana, the MC, decides that this excuse is not an excuse at all. She seems to think this is actually the way the world works. She doesn't even take the horrible "I can fix him" attitude that so many romance MCs take. Instead she just completely accepts Matthew as the toxic asshole he is and gives up every part of her life to listen to him and conform to his ideas of an ideal wife. 

So yeah this book stole the toxicity from Twilight and made it 10x worse. 

You know what else it stole? 

THE WEIRD BABY PLOTLINE 

Yup, you heard me correctly. 
This author really looked at Renesmee and went "wow that's such a cool plot point". 
Remember how Bella wasn't supposed to be able to get pregnant because Ed was a vampire? Well, same goes for Diana in this story. For a solid 80% of the book, we hear nothing about pregnancy rates between witches and vampires. (Diana is a witch and Matthew is a vampire)

Matthew refuses to have penetrative sex because of *plot*, and Diana gets frustrated because of this. And then suddenly out of NOWHERE it is revealed that witches and vampires can't have babies together BUT Diana has *special* DNA which means she is able to conceive with Matthew. Matthew supposedly didn't know this, so his aversion to penetrative sex was completely unrelated. 
Even so, this entire plotpoint seems to exist to make Matthew right once again, and to rip off Twilight. 

Truly do not understand why this gets 4+ stars on Goodreads.

ALSO OMG WINE GETS MENTIONED MORE THAN THE MC'S NAME I STG

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Misogyny, Torture, Grief, and Pregnancy

Minor: Child death

midnightgremlin's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture

Moderate: Animal death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexism

abbyjme's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Blood, and Gaslighting