Reviews with content warning for Gore - Verity

The thing is, this book has an excellent plot. I mean that in the best way. It's extremely Rebecca-esque with the big house and beautiful untouchable husband and the shadow of the former wife that needs to be filled in. But the strange inability for this book to engage with its meta-narrative of writing

Spoiler

and especially writing as a tool for destruction

and in general its extremely uncomfortable moments of prose genuinely shattered any praise for this book I could give.

Spoiler

That twist in the end is also quite expected, but in hindsight it was also extremely dumb. There's a lot to be said there about whether or not writing should be believed at face value, but it doesn't go into it farther than that. Also, I just think the twist is just super inconsistent with the rest of the plot. And I also think just writing fucked-up shit like that, even as a coping mechanism, should be put under lock and key forever. Why the fuck was her laptop open for that? Why the fuck was it open on something like that?

Anyway, like all Hoover books I will never read, I will give it the same diagnosis: great plot, terrible execution. Her plot made me finish this in a day; her prose made me want to finish it faster, and not out of love for it.

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sarahl0726's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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hon3y's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.25

look at the tws before

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hannaheatsbooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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l_myers's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-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

1.0

Meh. This sucked, by the 3rd chapter I knew basically exactly happened. The writing was poor and the general story sucked. Save yourself sometime and find a real thriller with a real plot. Please read content warnings you do to read this. I'm pretty sure I checked almost exactly half of the boxes.

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weaverca's review against another edition

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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? Yes

2.0

Most of the time if I don't like a book, I'm quick to say it's a DNF. This book, however, is the first one where even though I was not enjoying it, I still finished it to see just how bad it was as a whole. A "hate read" if you will. First off, Colleen Hoover's writing is pretty bare bones which unfortunately leaves a lot of room for lacking depth or exploration.

Spoiler

Like I thought the skull-crushing car accident at the beginning would be important to the story later, but then it was just... not mentioned again until one short sentence at the end?

Disappointing. That also made it hard to like the characters, and if there's one thing I hate when it comes to books, it's when they have unlikeable "protagonists." Second, I've read better smut on Wattpad for fuck's sake. All of it was so tasteless and repetitive, almost catering to the male gaze instead of the women the book supposedly gears itself towards. Last, even though I somewhat enjoyed the Gone-Girl-flipped-on-its-head ending of it all, I saw it coming from a mile away.

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Verity using the "autobiography" as a writing exercise feels like the contemporary equivalent of when we used to write "Then I woke up and realized it was all a dream" to end the stories we wrote when we were children.

All in all, I was not impressed- and often bored in fact- by this book, and I can't say I plan on reading any of Colleen's other garbage fires.

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lostreader_101's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense 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

4.75

I couldn't put this book down I mean the characters were all so interesting and at the end I still don't know what to think. This book is creepy, thrilling, and very tense and dark. It's definitely a psychological thriller.

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