Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

59 reviews

rachel_jones03's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Car accident, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

shams96's review

dark emotional mysterious tense 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

3.5

Rosamund Pike was an excellent audiobook voice. She did a great job. I feel like the book strayed far from the plot of “Daniel’s dead” and instead gave us a lot of characters w a lot of backstory. I like multiPOV but there may have been too many.

Irene and Laura were the best part. The hinted at incest was icky too. Also complaining about the book that Ian (Paul? Troy?) wrote jumping around in non chronological order while doing the same, didn’t work. Also the victim blamey bits. That fourth wall touch wasn’t it for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Murder

Moderate: Incest

Minor: Miscarriage and Rape

rachpreston's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Alcohol

Minor: Ableism and Sexual assault

sylvanskezelene's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism and Alcohol

dkamada's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

So many twists and red herrings!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, and Gaslighting

bessadams's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Car accident, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child death, and Incest

abbysbooked's review against another edition

2.0

This book is the story of traumatic events. 

Every bad thing that could happen to someone managed to be incorporated into this book - in some instances it was sadly comical because you had to just say “oh, of course, why not”. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Self harm, Blood, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, and Abandonment

Minor: Animal death, Incest, Miscarriage, and Sexual assault

paigestilwill's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-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

4.5

A Slow Fire Burning combines all the things one might love about a murder mystery—suspense, shifting perspectives, red herrings and their explanations. I thought the character development was well done, the plot hummed along but never divulged too much at once. 

The death of Ben and the depiction from Daniel’s perspective was a bit difficult to face, though I venture that was the point. Just a fair warning to any moms of toddlers—you may want to sit this one out. 

My only slight hang up with this one was the build up to Jeremy’s reveal—Miriam’s history was perhaps the most interesting to me—the resolution to which felt deflated and hurried compared to the other storylines that tied things up more assuredly. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Incest, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Minor: Miscarriage

hcumbie's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.0

Not Paula Hawkins best work-the time-line was a little confusing and the ending was just ok. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

Switching POVs between Irene, Miriam, Carla, Theo, and Laura! Also sometimes short chapters of an excerpt from Theo’s crime book, so I kind of liked the “book within a book” aspect. His book sort of reflects the main plot, in that we get switches between past and present and can’t rely on any one narrative over another.

A quick, easy read although predictable (I guessed two major plot twists within 50-60 pages). Some minor twists I didn’t see coming so that was nice at least to have some surprises!

I liked the slowly revealing of everyone’s secrets but didn’t particularly like any characters other than Irene. I did like the relationship between Irene and Laura also!

Good ending, it was wrapped up fairly neatly but with some open ended possibilities. I thought the pacing was also well done. I definitely enjoyed Girl on the Train more than this and I’m curious to read more from Hawkins! Apparently based on many other reviews, you either love GotT and hate this one or you love this one and hate GotT 😅

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Ableism, Fatphobia, Infertility, and Abandonment

Minor: Incest, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, and Car accident