Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Dogs of Summer: A Novel by Andrea Abreu, Andrea Abreu

33 reviews

_tannel's review against another edition

fast-paced

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

2.0

Uncomfortable and frank account from a ten year old girl with a dysfunctional relationship with her best friend and awkward sexual exploration. Kind of all over the place. Kind of gross. Not my favorite.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Excrement, and Vomit

Moderate: Sexual assault, Suicide, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Child death

fuzzyfairy's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Excrement, and Vomit

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Toxic relationship, Blood, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Body shaming, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Mental illness

thssmysrnm's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Excrement, and Toxic friendship

julesceasara's review against another edition

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

2.5

Gross but I guess that was most of the plot. The fact they were 10 years old was kind of Ick. However it was a very quick, engrossing read. For the life of me I can’t figure out the ending like wtf actually happened and I can’t find any mention of it online I feel like I’m losing my mind. Did someone die? Or not? Like I don’t know, and it seems like no one else does either. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Sexual content, Excrement, Vomit, Toxic friendship, and Dysphoria

Minor: Rape, Suicidal thoughts, and Death of parent

arufino's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship

Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, and Suicide

Minor: Abandonment

llorona's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Child death, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and Dysphoria

carly_reads's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.75

Feral girlhood. My heart physically ached for the narrator. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Rape, Excrement, Vomit, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Body shaming, Child death, and Suicide

heartlocket's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

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

1.5

TLDR: little character development, mostly gross out/shock content. 

I expected an interesting look into a codependent and toxic friendship  between two young girls. But that’s not how I would actually describe this book. This book follows characters who see little to no development (yes there is one moment where the main character sticks up for herself, but she then immediately reverts back) and intentionally tries to shock and gross you out. There’s nothing wrong with focusing on things like eating disorders (bulimia), menstruation, or other natural body functions. But I genuinely do not understand why many of the details that were included in this book were there except for shock value. Reading this just felt uncomfortable intrusive and exploitative to the lives of these little girls. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Vomit, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Child death

bekah_greenhaw's review against another edition

adventurous challenging funny medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Sexual assault and Excrement

Minor: Child death and Suicide

hollyrebecca's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.25

This story is raw, visceral, and disgusting in it’s depiction of girlhood and puberty in poverty. I rarely read books that make me feel nauseous and fascinated at the same time, but this book definitely achieved that.

We follow our heroine over the course of a summer in her home in the mountains of Tenerife. In this short span of time we see, from her 10-year-old eyes, friendships and family in both the mundane and the adventurous.

Abreu uses a very interesting technique for story telling to evoke our childish narrator, the prose being unlike anything I’ve read. Whole chapters are told as single sentences without any punctuation. There’s no differentiation between speech and other text throughout. It culminates into a piece of work that reads as both a diary and an internal monologue.

Our heroine has a very restricted worldview, driven in part by her having no knowledge or interest in seeing the world past a certain point of her village. This is reflected in the cultural references throughout the book, which made me feel like these characters existed in almost a different world. The slang terms and child-like misnomers for recognisable English-name brands, such as The Sinsons rather than The Simpsons, perpetuated this sensation.

I think this book was very well written, I just personally wouldn’t read this again as some of the graphic descriptions made me feel very unsettled. I appreciate that this was the purpose of the novel, to show you the unsettling realities of growing up in such an environment while tackling some difficult topics, but it unfortunately wasn’t for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual content, Excrement, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Bullying, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Minor: Death