Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Night – Nacht der Angst by Riley Sager

23 reviews

rat_girly's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I found the plot somehow both outrageous and somewhat predictable, but it was a tense and enjoyable read 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Confinement, Gun violence, Mental illness, Torture, Car accident, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

Minor: Cancer, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Suicide attempt

gwenswoons's review against another edition

dark sad tense 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? Yes

1.75

Christ. I’m on a bit of a roll picking a handful of awful audiobooks. This is slow, repetitive, and trite, aside from being sexist and body-gory for fun (I guess??) rather than any plot or structural reasons. I thought it was kind of run-of-the-mill bad for most of the book and then the ending was so cutesy and pasted on - like putting rom-com lipstick on a garbage-book pig. Truly not good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

jane_moriarty's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-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

1.0

Charlie, our main character, is not like the other girls. No, Charlie is way dumber. In fact she is so stupid that only a man could have written her. I mean what woman in the universe would get into a car with a total stranger to drive through an isolated mountain area in the middle of the night, and only hours into the drive stops to consider that this man might want to rape or murder her? Let alone what woman whose roommate was murdered mere weeks ago by a so called 'campus killer' who she knows is still on the loose? After he's been basically given her hints the whole time that he is a shady bastard? She didn't check his license plate??

What started as a mediocre thriller with a decent premise took absolutely ridiculous turns in the second half. And not in a fun way. The story could have been ridiculous but thrilling, with the opportunity for an interesting cat and mouse game. But the writing is just lazy, the plot twists make no sense, the bad guys are laughable, and the final ending... I don't wanna spoil it, but let's just say Charlie went all in for the grand finale of stupid, stupid life choices.

This was my second Riley Sager book and it was even worse than Final Girls, so I think I should just call it quits.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting

Moderate: Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Car accident and Death of parent

mallory10100's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

oh my GOD???? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Body shaming

noxygens's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

elle_e_d_light's review against another edition

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

Charlie is by far the dumbest Sager protagonist—which is saying something because Jules (Lock Every Door) was actually shockingly dumb.

I've read nearly every Sager book, and his protagonists tend to follow a pattern: they lack a good support system, they make unbelievably stupid decisions, and they only get the man if the man is sketch. In this way, Charlie is truly the peak Sager Girl.

But hey, I guess not every heroine can be Sydney Prescott. Some have to be Tess from Barbarian, making the worst choices yet still making it out alive. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Murder, and Gaslighting

amanda_reads13's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

2.5

Charlie is struggling after her friend is murdered and accepts a ride home from school from a stranger.

She spends the drive being manipulated by Josh while trying to piece together what was real and what is in her head. Due to the "movies" in her head, Charlie is a very unreliable character. I found the first half + of this book to be pretty boring. It's a lot of Charlie questioning her sanity and going back and forth of whether or not she thinks Josh is guilty. 

Towards the end of the book, it picked up a bit, but overall, I found this book pretty predictable. The twist that she was kidnapped by Maddie's grandmother was an interesting spin, but turned out to be pretty lackluster.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

thevioletfoxbookshop's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense fast-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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

cady_sass's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Riley Sager has a knack for writing a novel that you think is mediocre for the first half and then changing your mind in the last act. This book is widely accepted to be the “worst” of his thrillers but I was pleasantly surprised! I understand that people take issue with the protagonist being dumb and making horrible decisions, but I think the issue is more that people don’t enjoy an unreliable narrator who’s also self aware. She’s making decisions based on the fact that she doesn’t believe her own mind, and thats where things get dicey. Of course she’s going to do things that seem dumb to you, when, as the reader, you slowly grow to have more information than the protagonist (but… not really). It seems frustratingly obvious what she should be doing, but, as with much of Sager’s work, nothing is what it seems. My biggest critique is a massive spoiler, so read below at your own risk. 
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My main issue here (aside from the fact that we have yet another iteration of boyfriend/love interest is the villain) is that there are only 4 characters in this book, if you leave out Maddy and the cop. So, by the end, there’s realistically only two ways you can swing the plot: boyfriend is the serial killer, or the serial killer is unknown. Once you get to a certain point it becomes clear we aren’t going with an ambiguous ending, and therefore it can’t possibly be a surprise anymore who the killer is because the boyfriend is the ONLY option. So is it even a twist? There’s no other character in the book!!! Maybe the final twist with Robbie did it for some people, but for me I would’ve preferred a not-so-tidy ending. Using the boyfriend as the villain is just sooooooo…. Boring? Unoriginal? Obvious? Some combination of all of that. 
That said, what he did here with the OTHER 3 characters was nothing short of masterful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Medical content

greatestheights's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

If I had to hear the words "movie in my mind" one more time, I s2g.

I wanted to like Charlie. I wanted to like this plot. I wanted so many, many things, namely for Charlie to get out of the goddamn car and/or take ANY of the numerous opportunities she had to get tf away from this terrible situation. I thought I was going to lose my mind when a cop was literally RIGHT THERE and she still willingly GOT BACK IN THE CAR WITH A DUDE SHE THOUGHT WAS A VICIOIS SERIAL KILLER.

Also, we need to talk about how bad Sager is at writing women and mental illness. Just
stop, buddy. After The Last Time I Lied and now this, I think I'm solidly done with this author. 

Alllll of that said, I devoured the book in less than 24 hours, so props to Sager and the audibook narrator. I also was genuinely surprised with one twist and pleased with myself that I guessed the second. Is it weird that I enjoyed listening to this book and simultaneously hated it? Probably, and that's why I gave it an extra star.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Terminal illness