Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - She's Too Pretty to Burn: A Novel

Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

She's Too Pretty to Burn: A Novel by Wendy Heard

3 reviews

cjreadstoomuch's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

I liked the ending of this book it had me on the edge of my seat. I didn’t like Mick at first but towards the end she grew on me. On the same note I wished the author fixed the toxicity in Micks and Veronica’s relationship at the beginning, but I’m happy they worked through it for the most part. Both mick and Veronica were extremely problematic and I wished it was addressed. Nico was a dick though and manipulated Veronica too. The plot twist was huge though and I didn’t like how it was so open ended.

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abby_shupe's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.5

50/50. I hated half of the parts and liked the other half but the entire time my head was spinning asking myself what the f*ck was going on. The book took so long to get started for being a fast paced book and the plot finally unfolds around the 52% mark. After that it’s a total whirlwind-and I decided I’m not a fan of thriller books. The book had me gasping and wanting more, especially when there was literally 30 pages left and a whole series of events went unexplained and left me with no details. I guess that’s the point of a thriller-an ending up for interpretation ? And please check TWs before reading this, so much went down! Also, I found the relationship between Mick and Veronica to be so extremely toxic I put the book down so often because of it. The only character I really liked was probably Claudia, the only person who overall acted rationally. Everyone in this book I would describe as morally grey, and not likable but i feel like this was purposeful, and the author wants the reader to acknowledge this. I would give this book 1.5/1 star if it wasn’t so exciting to read, but because it took me on a rollercoaster of emotions I think the 2.5 stars is deserved. I also gave it an extra .5 star because the author used the book title in the book, and I love when authors do that, it fit well.

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nothingrhymeswithrachel's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

You know how sometimes when you read a book, you aren’t sure how you feel about it? Like you need to sit with it for a minute, read other people’s opinions, etc. before you can actually review it? I definitely had to do that here. The very last sentence was incredible and my mouth was literally gaping. Then I thought, well I’m kind of upset that no one really developed that much in this book? But it also kind of felt like they did.. so I needed time to think, and here’s what I came up with: besides the wild thriller aspects of this book/Nico’s entire personality, the characters are relatable. They don’t have some “ah-hah” moment that snaps them into shape and they’re suddenly the perfect version of themselves. They slowly realize what they’ve done wrong and they try to change where they can. I absolutely love that a revolution never felt forced on them, like they had to suddenly fall on their face to realize they had done bad things. Obviously this happens but it isn’t in the same way as in so many romance books I have read.
The thriller piece was an absolute blindside. I did not read the description of this book before I started it, I never do honestly. So when

Mick was suddenly super into the fires and Nico was encouraging her, I was so confused. And I thought maybe it was a blip that I had read too much into but it definitely wasn’t, haha.

The last thing I will say, and the reason I did not give this 5 stars, is because there is that nagging feeling in my stomach that couldn’t help but be bothered when the kid who was in foster care ended up being the bad guy. I guess technically we don’t know if he was actually in foster care or not but either way, I hate that stereotype that foster care kids are going to grow up and be bad people because they didn’t have a steady home life. It just felt like an unnecessary detail. Otherwise, I loved this book and will keep and eye out for other books by this author.

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