Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman

13 reviews

therewillbenewsuns's review against another edition

emotional sad tense 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? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Sexual harassment

Minor: Toxic friendship

dalek_caan's review against another edition

lighthearted reflective fast-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? Yes

3.75

I found this book to be enjoyable and a pretty quick read. I found Angel to be a really annoying pov character at first but she grew on me as the story went on. I definitely felt like there was a lot of nuance with the characters overall, which I definitely appreciated. It was also kind of interesting to follow two sides to the same story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Biphobia, Homophobia, Outing, Transphobia, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Racism, Sexual harassment, Emotional abuse, and Sexual assault

kits_den's review

emotional funny lighthearted reflective 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, Self harm, Violence, Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, and Addiction

Minor: Islamophobia, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Sexual harassment

icarusandthesun's review

funny lighthearted reflective medium-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

1.0

oh lord oh mighty, i was absolutely not born for this.

i guess i kind of understand why everyone seems to like alice oseman so much. her books have this easy writing style, these pop-culture references and conventionally relatable characters, especially when you're the target audience, which, for this book, means boy band obsessed fangirls (and with fangirls i mean it as a vibe, not necessarily that all of them are girls).
but something about her characters just always strikes me as deeply disconcerting.

wasn't any different with this one - i disliked all of them (except maybe lister).
angel was very self-absorbed in my opinion and just a bad friend to juliet in general. i didn't agree with her most of the time, and her whole talk about how "the fandom is actually such a comforting, supporting, respectful place and most people don't want to be with the band members", i didn't really buy it. also, i just hate her for shipping rowan and jimmy. shipping "real life" people is such a disgusting thing to do, and such a breach of personal privacy.
i didn't like her attitude either; the way she seemed to feel superior to everyone just pissed me off a bit. and the self-pitying phrases like "it's all my fault", "i'm the problem" - peak melodramatic teenage behavior.

juliet was honestly just bland, like her character could've not existed and nothing would've changed. and i don't quite understand what her problem was. she seemed to like mac and just because he "lied" about liking something (something he does like btw, just not as much as they do), she acts like that's the end of the world. that she stopped liking him for being a douchebag, yk that's something i can get behind. but the whole lying thing was written to be so prominent so that it seems like that's what put her over the edge to finally abandon mac. idk, it was weird.

mac was mac. definitely a douchebag, but he wasn't as bad as everyone acted like he was in my opinion. oseman just completely villainized him for no real reason.

now, jimmy. god, how i hated jimmy. he's such a child, literally. his whole crying and running off and not communicating and weird, illogical behavior... i cannot. i don't even want to dwell on him because man, what an absolute fleabag.

rowan was as bland as juliet, and bliss was written to be cool but i just disliked her and her whole personality anyway lol.

and i know most of these characters were written to be flawed so that the inevitable character development hits the reader like a damned truck, but it's not helping when all of the character development happens in the last 50 pages and the remaining 330 pages, the characters are absolute ass and wholly unlikable.

we don't even have to talk about the plot and how unrealistic it was. like all of it. and it made me not enjoy the book at all, because everything was so convenient and highly unlikely and frustrating.

and can we please, please talk about the god-motive in this book? because it seems like no one talks about it. the amount of religion and religious messages and stuff were so out of place.
it's cool that these characters believe in some sort of religion, i really don't care. but the joan of arc quotes about death and sin felt so out of place, because it's a fanfic-y young adult book!!!
and the woman in the tube suddenly preaching about god and god's plan...
that sort of felt a little bit like propaganda, ngl.

i also didn't buy the whole mental illness spiel that some of these characters've got going on. whenever something inconvenient happens, they all go "i hate my life", "i don't want to live", "i'm worthless". which i get because that's what teenagers do, being stupid and irrational about their own emotions. but still, it was annoying. like mental illnesses are a joke, can be dismissed as soon as someone is doing fine again. 

idk. it's safe to say that the book wasn't for me. i'm starting to think it's just an author-reader mismatch and that's completely fine. i think alice oseman is a good person, and i'm glad there are people who enjoy her books.
just ... not me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Mental illness

Minor: Medical content, Outing, Violence, Biphobia, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual harassment

lizziaha's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

As someone who has participated in multiple different fandom spaces, some of the things in this book immediately put me on the defensive. But I think it was good for me to flex those muscles and really examine how I and other people were interacting within fandoms. I also think that these main characters did a lot of things that I might not do or want them to do, but I think that made me engage with the text more as well. Definitely an interesting read! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Sexual harassment, and Alcoholism

Minor: Confinement, Transphobia, Biphobia, and Racism

acesiever's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Violence, and Alcohol

Minor: Pedophilia

babsi_222's review

adventurous challenging emotional reflective 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

4.75

I was actually so surprised that I liked this book as much as I did. I did not expected to be this way. I think it portrays being in the fandom of something really well and just super interesting to see the two perspectives of a firm and an idol and struggles on both sides that are pretty real. It was actually a bit emotional because it was so relatable and so real in some parts, I really liked it, I thought it was just going to be annoying but it was so good. I love the dynamic between Jimmy and Lister

Spoiler

I think it was good that there wasn’t really any “happy end” with them together. It was normal that Jimmy didn’t have feelings for Lister suddenly and healthy that they’re not a thing in the end. It would’ve been too obvious and ‘Wattpad-like’ btw i knew that lister has a crush on Jimmy right from were he ‘saved’ Jimmy at the house party. And then when he talked to him in jimmy’s room

I like Angel’s character development so much!
The “I’m Bliss” was sooooo fucking cool and surprising.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Outing, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Eating disorder, Addiction, Physical abuse, and Violence

jesse_5's review

dark emotional mysterious slow-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Sexual harassment and Stalking

Minor: Outing, Vomit, and Death of parent

Multiple times where one of the main characters vomit, mentioned that a main character was forced to come out after being outed, A main character has an anxiety disorder and panic attacks are described in detail

fenemiestolovers's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad 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? Yes

4.5

I love Alice Oseman and her books always make me laugh! Out loud! This story is so relatable and sweet. It was interesting to read a book that acknowledges the psychology of fandom and the celebrities they’re centered around. It was light and hopeful even though it tackled tough topics in a real way - as Alice Oseman is so good at doing! Will always be excited to read more of their work. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Blood, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, and Alcoholism

Minor: Violence, Fatphobia, Mass/school shootings, Body shaming, Grief, Kidnapping, Outing, Death of parent, Sexual harassment, and Suicidal thoughts

lost_windsock's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

This book had a bit of a slow beginning, and an absolute whirlwind of an ending. I couldn't put it down towards the last hundred pages or so. It deals with so many real, ragged emotions, and the journey every character went on was intense in it's own way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Alcohol, Cursing, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Bullying and Adult/minor relationship