Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

4 reviews

chelle22's review

challenging dark mysterious tense

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Deportation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

moonbasket's review

emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

To be honest, I found the book mostly boring. I only finished it because the audiobook was pretty short and I wanted to see how the real world storyline resolved. It wasn't too much of a mystery and the novel portion of the story was more of a supporting character to the narrative between Leo and Hannah than a full story on it's own.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and it's nuanced and less nuanced analyses of how a story is affected by the author and vice versa. Some parts were feather-light and I felt accomplished for seeing them and noticing the themes. Other parts were extremely heavy-handed and felt a little silly to read. 

I think having the "real world" elements be restricted entirely to correspondence was a really smart move and really pulled the book together. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Sexual content, Medical content, and Classism

Minor: Addiction, Child death, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Deportation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

One of the main characters describes and incident from their past where a younger sibling dies in an accident. Another describes a childhood incident where a beating from a parent has pedophilic overtones, but there is an intervention before anything beyond physical violence occurs.

bluecardinal's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Classism

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

3.5

A murder mystery within a murder mystery, this is a solid thriller. The real killer was hiding in plain sight and was so painfully obvious that I didn’t even consider them as a candidate. The characters are mostly likeable and diverse. The plot is believable. The end was good but arrived to with little pomp or circumstance. There are some glaring spelling/grammar mistakes throughout that are a bit annoying but all in all a solid book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail