Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

46 reviews

fkshg8465's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

So many things to be sad about. So many things to applaud. So many things to be relieved about. So many things to feel wistful about.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Car accident, Death of parent, Lesbophobia, Outing, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Deportation

norawise's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad

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

5.0

I couldn't put this down! Gorgeous writing on the queer immigrant experience in America. I love how the author writes dialogue and all the beautiful passages on deep, meaningful friendship. I've fallen deeply in love with every character and their relationships to each other.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Racism, and Sexual harassment

jillaay_h's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Toxic friendship, Classism, and Deportation

hello_lovely13's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Racism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, and Homophobia

Minor: Fatphobia, Transphobia, and Police brutality

shaun_dh's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

I all-caps HATED Sneha until about halfway through. I almost DNFed this in multiple occasions. She’s fatphobic, hates enbies (my spouse is nonbinary so this was particularly painful for me to read), has a weird white girl fetish, and wants to degrade, humiliate, and inflict pain upon sexual partners (not a kink that is palatable for me). So go into this book knowing that’s how she starts, but she ends up less of a shithead with age (don’t we all?)

This is the perfect example of why I don’t read books with characters in their 20s—I have zero interest in revisiting that time in my life

This was just fine for me. The cultural nuances are also not relatable to me (Sneha is Indian, I am not) to me so maybe that would have helped my have more empathy for Sneha in the beginning

Tig, Sneha’s bestie, is the best part of this book. I Stan a fellow biracial Black queen. I want a book all about Tig, please and thank you

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Incest, Pedophilia, Racism, Transphobia, Police brutality, Outing, Alcohol, and Deportation

Minor: Ableism, Cancer, Cursing, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Islamophobia, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, and Classism

charlie_woodchipper's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Moderate: Alcoholism, Mental illness, and Deportation

Minor: Drug abuse, Homophobia, Transphobia, Gaslighting, and Classism

archiveofrasa's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-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

4.75

started this because I loved the voice, stayed because of the outstanding character work. Sneha is such an interesting and well realised character, as are all the other characters, Tig, Thom, Marina, Amit. even the more minor characters add a lot of realistic depth to what the book is trying to explore. 

I didn't realise until I was days deep into my annotating reread that the story is exactly what Sneha says it is in the beginning:

This is not a story about work or precarity. I am trying, late in the evening, to say something about love, which for many of us is not separable from the other shit.
—A1

 
when you read said story and the words and symbolism click into place, it's deeply satisfying. the book isn't trying to explore how Sneha directly navigates the capitalistic society of 2013-beyond, that aspect simply falls back as a foundation, as the unmovable constant in her life that continues to push her down. ATCBD is about Sneha as a person, her issues with intimacy, community, family, identity. the way Mathews going about exploring these facets intertwined with work life, as adult life must endure these days, was super compelling and so new. 

while Sneha was absolutely a pain in the ass, all we gathered from her before she hurts others makes me want to know how things end for her, what other choices she makes and why she makes them. I've stopped looking for likeable main characters and instead found myself gravitating towards those who do fuck up, have problematic issues as to why they fuck up, those who have to learn things the hard way, especially if those people are queer people of colour. these stories awaken a sense of realism I definitely needed and even if it has only subtly made its way into the wrinkles of my brain, it'll stay with me for a long time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Racism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Child abuse and Drug abuse

Minor: Alcoholism, Fatphobia, Transphobia, and Police brutality

starbeans's review against another edition

cw: child abuse, sexual abuse, heavy drug use, alcoholism, transphobia

I… can't really rate this. 
Sneha is a first-generation Indian American woman whose parents have gone back to India, leaving her alone in a foreign country at just 17 years of age. Sneha massively struggles — with her existence as an immigrant, with her queerness, and, honestly, with her gender.

I liked how it handled a lot of its very complex themes. There's a huge amount of friendship, of warmth, of how differently topics surrounding mental illness are still handled throughout the world. Of how differently trauma can resurface in different people, or in the same person at different times. The communist themes spoke to me, but what unfortunately did not, was the transphobia. It got better the longer the book went on, but there was definitely some unresolved gender-questioning going on in Sneha that felt like it was just brushed aside, at least for me.

Still, after having my doubts about this for the first third, I'd recommend reading this!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, and Transphobia

sammyofthevalley's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.5

This wasn’t my type of book - I don’t usually read sad endings or books which are completely focused on angst. However, I also feel justified in disliking it, as the main character never develops. My FAVORITE part of books is character development, but the only upward motion we see in S is because of a time skip when the development has happened without the reader. I would have liked a lot more payoff for suffering through her situation. But that’s how life is

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Classism, and Deportation

lorenag5's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Medical trauma, Lesbophobia, Outing, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Colonisation, Classism, and Deportation