Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover

12 reviews

mags88's review

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Death, Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Mental illness, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, and Drug use

brandie_abbie19's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Medical content, Alcohol, Blood, Car accident, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Drug use and Violence

gabriella_'s review against another edition

sad medium-paced

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

1.75

I don’t know what this author’s obsession is with male saviors but it’s in all her books somehow. Every character reads like they have the same voice: the author’s voice. It’s like Colleen is talking to herself in the mirror for the majority of the book. Characters trauma-dump for exposition instead of letting the story or dialogues progress organically. It’s got all the nuance of a tweet and the depth of a kiddie pool. 

Naming background characters and identifying their race won’t give you diversity points, especially not when you just use them as plot devices to fuel the protagonist thinking he’s a “good person” and “decent human” solely for being around POC. Reducing them to just characters who make your white cast look better isn’t diversity, it’s optics

Having a character with alcohol-related PTSD say she wants to “order alcohol specifically to walk away from it” out of a sense of control, and to have an alcoholic character respect that decision is tone-deaf. It accessorizes addiction and trauma, making mental illness an aesthetic that is pick-me at best and inherently exploitative at worst.  

The fact that this book is her “least problematic” and the male lead is just cardboard but

Spoiler

he kisses her without consent when he first meets her

isn’t really a good look. This isn’t a story about grief, this is a love story with a struggle for child custody, the grief is just a decorative ornament for an uninspired “forbidden romance”, skip this read lmao

There were only two quotes that felt like it had heart in the entire book and one is an OOC tiktok sound that feels jarring in context considering how insignificant the mourning felt throughout the book until it was narratively relevant to talk about it. 

And despite how problematic it is - the race baiting, male savior complex, turning addiction into an aesthetic - its worst crime is it’s just plain boring.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Grief, Body horror, Murder, Violence, Death, Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Car accident, Suicidal thoughts, and Addiction

__helena__'s review

emotional funny reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• 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: Car accident, Grief, Death, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Blood and Violence

Minor: Alcohol, Drug use, Medical content, Misogyny, and Sexism

brynhayes's review

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Medical content, Car accident, Death, Grief, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Pregnancy

libraryofbananas's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Suicide attempt, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Death

taylorsevalia's review

challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Car accident, Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Sexual content, Grief, and Cursing

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Medical content, Kidnapping, Blood, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, and Drug use

jadeilona_'s review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Blood, Death, Grief, Sexual content, and Abandonment

Moderate: Child abuse

Minor: Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Death of parent, Medical content, and Murder

felixelagabiere's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Car accident, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Abandonment, Drug use, Grief, Medical content, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Death, Death of parent, Medical trauma, and Sexual content

nebraskanwriter's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

1.0

I just don’t think Colleen Hoover is for me. 

My uncle died in a rollover accident on a gravel road, just like how Scotty died. So it was really hard for me to have empathy and sympathy for Kenna. I didn’t feel bad for her, even though Hoover wants you to feel bad for her. Kenna lies, she deceives, she makes out with Ledger even when she knows who he is (Scotty’s best friend) but he doesn’t know who she is (the reason his best friend isn’t alive). 

This book was just a little bit too twisted, little bit too toxic, it was just too much. Such a heavy subject and I feel like it wasn’t handled well at all. 

Grief is a sad, awful thing. I witnessed that first hand when my uncle died and what it did to my grandparents, to my whole family. How they couldn’t even say his name, how the very mention of him for over a year after his death, my grandma’s eyes would still well up in tears. Grief is heavy, but the way it was handled in this story just felt very shallow. Not enough depth. 

I just feel like everything is minimized. These big awful feelings that take up so much room in your heart are minimized for us to pity Kenna. Which I didn’t, I couldn’t. 

But Ledger does. Immediatley he is infatuated with her. Even when he finds out her true identity, that she is the reason his best friend is dead, he’s still obsessed with her. 

Both Kenna and Ledger are both unnecessarily and unhealthily jealous when any single guy or girl talks to the other. You’ve literally known her not even a week and you both are already so possessive of each other. It was so unhealthy, especially when Kenna has literally just gotten out of prison and is in a super fragile state of mind as she grapples with seeing her daughter for the first time in 5 years and being in her old hometown, trying to regain some normalcy that was taken away from her when she went to prison. But no, instead of all that, you guys are making out and getting mad when another one of you even talks to someone of the opposite gender. And you’ve only known each other a couple days. And Ledger you were literally engaged two seconds ago, you were supposed to get married the week after you met Kenna. 

I just didn’t like it. Kenna and Ledger’s relationship isn’t even a relationship. All they have is sex and Scotty in common, that’s it. 

This book just struck a nerve, a personal one, with me. I think this’ll be my last Colleen Hoover book, I just don’t enjoy them like everyone else seems to. 

How she surrounds her stories around very serious topics and tries to turn them into romances, it just isn’t for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Medical content, Vomit, Addiction, Car accident, Confinement, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Blood, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, and Panic attacks/disorders