Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - You Shouldn't Have Come Here

Wtf was that?? 😂

Seriously though… this one makes next to no sense. Almost like it’s trying too hard to be a psychological thriller and manages to lose what makes good thrillers. Like, I don’t know… being something that could actually happen? I wasn’t really a fan of this book from early on but of course, I just had to know where this story was going. Sad to say, it didn’t really go anywhere good.

Nearly every part of this story was unbelievable. From the actions to the words to just… all of it. It was so unrealistic and that alone makes it hard to go along with as you read. On top of that, the characters are unlikeable at best and many parts of the story are pretty pointless and unnecessary. And like many other books in this genre, they take far too long to get to the point and then speed through big twists in the last few pages. I mean, I understand these twists can’t start at the beginning and last the entire book, but why must we always waste so much time on pointless things for hundreds of pages and then blow past the most interesting parts in the last five sentences? Maybe this genre just isn’t for me.

I was sucked in by the description and cover art but let down pretty hard by the actual story. The writing wasn’t awful so I’ll give it 2 stars but that’s all I can offer. It’s always a shame when the description offers more than the rest of the book.

Content Warnings

slaywithsteph's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

3.0

They say love makes you blind. This wasn’t love though. This was lust, and it makes you downright stupid.

Grace Evans, an attractive city woman, visits a ranch in the middle of nowhere to get away from her busy city life and gets a little cozy with her host Calvin, an attractive cowboy. However, there’s a locked door, a missing woman, a sheriff snooping around and an angry ex that complicate the love budding between Grace and Calvin.

I don’t know if it’s the sheer number of horror/thriller movies, television shows and books that I’ve consumed, but I find myself knowing the ending at the very beginning, so the twists in this one weren’t really all that surprising to me.

That said, I love the red herrings thrown in and at least twice, I thought, “Huh, maybe I’ll be wrong and so-so will be the killer.”

The book flops between Grace and Calvin’s POV, and I found this enjoyable and adding to the fun and mystery.

The love story (and triangleish?) was cringey and meh. It was more of a lust plot than love, in my opinion, and there was a little of smut.

It’s good for what it is, but if you’re not a fan of cringe and lust stories, I suggest steering clear, because you have to wade through half the book before the thriller part of the plot kicks in.

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ursiform's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

2.5

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aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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slow-paced

This may be worse than The Secret History and Daisy Jones for me. Those books were terrible, but there was at least SOMETHING to those other two books that was a little interesting. I should've dnf'd this, but for some reason I thought it would get better. This is just another reminder to stop doing that. The writing was bad, the narration was bad. The "storyline" could've been good, but the execution was just so bad. I hated how the male pov was written, it made my skin crawl.

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idk_indigo's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Weird book. The ending fell kind of flat, but I didn't anticipate it, so... I suppose it was very suspenseful.

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lulusreads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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

2.5

Joe Golberg from “You” meets the female Dexter. But neither MC’s are that interesting. Lots of plot holes in this story. I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters & I basically rolled my eyes every time Calvin talked. What an obsessive cry baby loser, major “lil d energy”

All that suspense build up just for everything to unravel in the last few chapters & not everything got an explanation..

Content Warnings

lisasilv's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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