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

Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

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

28 reviews

tinytrashqueen's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.0

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samuelalexman's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

3.5

It took a while to get into the book. It starts out definitely more teen romance and then shifts into thriller towards the middle.
It all was very rushed and I would have loved to had more good times with the main love interests. Everything with them felt like they were always at odds.

The last line of the book was just so- gross? Like now I will never read the name of the book the same way.

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hesa_is_a_kiwi's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful fast-paced

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

It's not an easy romance book. It is about betrayal, fear, vandalism, art and control. A thriller that's extremely well written and you can't stop reading.

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valreadsallnight's review against another edition

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dark 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

3.25

A pretty solid YA thriller book with a somewhat twisted sapphic romance. I especially enjoyed the layers of the relationship the three main characters had with each other, as it elavated the story for me.

First of all, Mick and Veronica. They fell for each other hard and quick. Veronica saw Mick as the perfect muse, while Mick was happy to have someone love her despite all her faults. Despite all of the hardships in their relationship they are willing to risk their life for each other. It's an all-consuming relationship that burns bright, but fast. Veronica doesn't treat Mick with much respect for much of the book, she sees Mick as the perfect muse because at her very core she is an artist, and needs others to acknowledge her artistry at the expense of her muse's wishes. Honestly, I was pretty sure the relationship was doomed when Veronica posted Mick's photo to her Instagram and added tags to it later, which I'm sure happened within a week into their relationship. It does peeve me that the main problems in their relationship were fixed because Mick thought it was petty in retrospect. I was really enjoying how their relationship was written until that point, it's not even because they're still together because of the traumatic experience they went through together, it's more because of the narrative, even if it was from their point of view, using said traumatic experience to disregard the actual problems in their relationship. It was really hard to take any of the progress Veronica and Mick make, the former apologizing to her and being willing to make things right and the latter working through her fear and finally having the chance to find happiness, seriously when it disregarded all the feelings Mick had earlier in the book just so that the main couple weren't "actually" in a bad relationship. Mick did make many questionable and hurtful decisions, but her reactions and feelings towards Veronica taking her photo and using it to boost her own career despite knowing about Mick's fears were incredibly valid. As you can tell, I'm incredibly salty of how their relationship was handled in the final part of the book.

Veronica and Nico are mirror images of each other, both are artists that see Mick as the perfect muse and take such great pride in their work that they are willing to do anything to have people see their genius, though one does have her limits, while the latter doesn't really care. They do greatly differ in what they want in life, to Nico's dismay. Veronica would be perfectly happy to have the picture perfect life as long as her photography is appreciated, while Nico would like to be more subversive and infamous, as long as he gets on the headlines he'll be satisfied. To be honest, these are both pretty typical artist fantasies, just different aesthetics. As mentioned before both are willing to do anything for acknowledgement, the main difference being that Veronica has much harder limits on what she is willing to do. All Nico cares for is his art. He has no qualms about doing what needs to be done in order for his installations to succeed. Veronica does care for other things, other people, but when she crosses lines, boundaries, hurts someone deeply, they should understand because this could make or break her career. She does care, she does feel guilty, but her art is everything to her. I'm pretty sure Veronica realised how similar she was too Nico at the very core... And that scared her.

There isn't as much to say for Mick and Nico, but they do share a background of an unstable home life that forces them into independence much faster than should be for people as young as them. Presumably, this commonality allows them to relate to each other much easier even with vastly different personalities. You really can see the differences their upbringing brings out when you compare them to Veronica. Photography is everything to her, and she allows herself to wish for other things in life, the typical dream life, because no matter what, she is guaranteed a comfortable life. Nico and Mick don't get to have these same luxury of hopeful wishing, because they first need to think about their own survival. They did get lucky with knowing Veronica and her mother since they were willing to help them, but without them life would be so much harder. The only constant in their life is themselves. Nico has a strong sense of self, and I'm sure he has such a strong attachment to art itself because it gave his life meaning and purpose. Mick on the other hand, is a lot more unsure of herself, but she too is trying to find something to give meaning to her life, something stable so she finally has a constant. Veronica can dream, Nico and Mick need a purpose.

This is definitely more on the nitpicky side, but I keep on wondering how

Lily was strangled by Nico. Like, David and Mick were there too, so did they miss it when the explosion activated? But how do you miss someone being strangled? It's just kinda a weird detail to add when Nico pushing Lily would have sufficed. I guessed it's so that they knew for sure that it was a murder, but how can you miss someone strangling another even if you were just watching the explosion?

I do note that the final part of the book,

after Mick rescued Veronica from the ravine,

felt more rushed than the rest of the book. I'm pretty sure they were more like a series of chapters that made up an epilogue, it didn't worsen my experience but it was something I noticed.

The final part did seem to hint at a possible sequel, which I would definitely be interested in reading if the author decides to pursue it!

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aytac's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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ari_bryce's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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abrookyerror's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

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kat_tas_trophe's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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gellyreads's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I kept thinking “how is this a thriller?” And then it happened. Oooof.

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cjreadstoomuch's review against another edition

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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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