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paulawind's review against another edition
- 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
1.0
The only reason I finished this book was because it is my Book Club novel. I fought and sweated my way through page by page because it’s just so bad. It’s part of the trend for authors to try to make their books “deeper” by flooding every character with trauma. Pain Porn if you prefer.
The author thought that by giving each character a single-defining struggle she is making them less one-dimensional but because of that they felt almost like cartoon characters. Cleo - beautiful, thin, talented, young BUT WAIT she is depressed and has both mummy and daddy issues; Frank - beautiful, “manly”, successful, rich and older BUT WAIT he had mummy issues and is an alcoholic, Zoe - beautiful, thin, talented BUT WAIT she has seizures, Quentin - beautiful, thin, rich “snarky gay best friend” BUT WAIT he can’t come out of the closet because of his homophobic Polish family (fuck you for that Coc, enforcing Polish stereotypes) and is a drug addict, Anders - beautiful, thin, rich fuckboy BUT WAIT his step-son doesn’t like him anymore and his parents don’t visit him in the US. You see what I mean? The only half-decent characters are Eleanor and Santiago, just because they are not awful to other people, but they rarely are given voice and in the end are pushed into the role of “I can fix him” girl for Frank and “losing weight will let you find love”, respectively. Nauseating. TikTok girlies, wake up, this is not literary fiction you claim it to be.
The book obviously features a lot of content warnings - wouldn’t be a pain porn without it - but I’m not sure if it’s handled even passably well.
This book angered me on so many levels. It was the superficial depth, wannabe literary fiction, over sexualisation of everything (Zoe saying that she is “a real girl” now, after climaxing, nauseated me), disrespectful treatment of a lot of extremely heavy issues and -how could I forget - BLATANT plagiarism of other media (yes, I’m looking at you ripped-off Fleabag dinner scene). Awful
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, and Classism
lemonyanne's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
renharms's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, and Death of parent
Minor: Animal death
madelinedalton's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
I absolutely would have DNFed this if I didn’t have to read it for book club, but it wound up being better than I expected as it went along. There was no apparent through-line driving the characters’ relationships until at least 100 pages into the book, which made it hard for me to care. The cast of characters was surprisingly sympathetic (I thought I would hate all of them), but I think there were too many POVs and it detracted from Cleo and Frank’s relationship dynamic, which I found to be the juiciest part of the book. I’m very glad Cleo and Frank showed major growth by the end, but it wasn’t enough to redeem the book as a whole for me.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Fatphobia
Minor: Animal death
Santiago’s chapter is wildly fatphobic and contains a lot of passages that could be triggering to readers with an eating disorder historyabeautifulshelf's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol
Moderate: Fatphobia
Minor: Suicide
aina21's review against another edition
2.75
I enjoyed the focus on some of the side characters, but again we find ourselves with the issue of glamorisation.
The book it introduced multiple heavy themes, and ignored all of them to talk about parties and drugs.
Graphic: Toxic relationship
Moderate: Fatphobia, Self harm, and Suicide
Minor: Misogyny
sammyjogeara's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Alcohol
jordkuba's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Fatphobia, Self harm, Violence, and Dysphoria
thetainaship's review against another edition
2.0
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Alcohol
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Toxic friendship
wild_er_ness's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Racism, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment