Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

11 reviews

aparker89's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Alcohol

jennaviolet's review against another edition

dark slow-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

0.5

Please don’t read this. There’s a lot of telling and no showing, no getting to the point. You can’t have all of the twists happen it makes no sense. It feels like this author read Sharp Objects, Where the Crawdads Sing, and other similar but better books and just took each plot point she liked and mixed them together. There is such a thing as too much detail. And none of these character relationships or explanations for even minor occurrences make sense or seem researched to even be plausible. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Gaslighting

Minor: Violence

decafdirtychai's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense fast-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated

4.0

 Another painful read about family and the horrors thereof! I think of “The Push” by Ashley Audrain. Incredible job of capturing the inherent exhaustion of being a woman. Almost five stars but not because I had trouble visualizing some scenes and the chapters were super short, like the reading equivalent of ending every sentence with an exclamation point 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol

clarklyn's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

3.75

I happened to read All the Dangerous Things before A Flicker in the Dark and, after finishing this one, I actually prefer her second novel over her debut. 

The MC, Chloe, drove me nuts. The continuous dumb mistakes, self pity, stupid decisions, and the habit of letting men walk all over her. It was hard to be on her side because she frustrated me so much.

Also…WHY the random hookup with Aaron/Tyler? It felt so out of left field and unnecessary

The overuse of similes and metaphors/ general overwriting combined with a few little plot holes that bothered me makes it lose some points for me. 

I will say, though, I still enjoyed the journey to the plot twist (even though I ended up kind of guessing what was going on.) Anytime a book makes me feel vivid emotions, frustration, anticipation, anger, etc, I know it has completely sucked me in- and Flicker In the Dark did that!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Moderate: Child death, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Gun violence, Infidelity, Blood, and Stalking

coco78337's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Bullying, Miscarriage, Self harm, Vomit, Stalking, and Gaslighting

gknott's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Murder

jasmineslibraryy's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.0

this book was a pretty cool mystery. 

my main issue is that the clues felt all over the place, and that the main character was kinda annoying. she should’ve listened to when she was encouraged to get help, but oh well, her PTSD gave me a good story to read. 

overall, i was interested the whole time i read this book. it was creepy, and mysterious, and just proves that history repeats itself and that solving a crime is tricky. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Blood, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

Minor: Mental illness, Self harm, Trafficking, and Fire/Fire injury

a total of ten girls go missing in the story

one girl is believed to go missing, but is found.

karyan1's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Bullying, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Stalking, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Minor: Vomit and Pregnancy

wonderfulxwonderful's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Violence, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Bullying