Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Falling by T.J. Newman

7 reviews

r_o_s_e's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, and Confinement

Moderate: Suicide, Death, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, and Grief

Minor: Violence, Vomit, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Murder, and Cursing

tlaynejones's review against another edition

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Genocide, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Violence, Blood, Confinement, Xenophobia, Racism, Car accident, and Gun violence

cait's review against another edition

challenging emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Blood, Child death, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Xenophobia, War, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, Violence, Hate crime, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, and Gore

marareading's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book is a serious thriller. From the first line I was shocked. It carries the suspense throughout.  It is one of those books that is plot driven and reads like a movie, so if you enjoy that type of book you would love this. The characters are still very interesting and built out despite how plot focused the book is. This is a quick read, coming in under 300 pages. If you have flight anxiety I would definitely not recommend this for you. 

This book has many POVs, but is about a pilot who is given a choice. His family on the ground has been kidnapped.  Either crash the plane and kill every aboard, or let his family die. It is definitely gripping watching the entire cast of characters from different positions go through this senario. 

Was it perfect? No. It is my favorite book? No. Was it a fun thriller? Yes! Do I recommend it! Absolutely.  It is a milkshake read. You want to get through it and find out what happens. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, War, Confinement, Death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Self harm, and Violence

scburhans's review

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

2.0

Yeah, this book was not for me. This is for several reasons: the Islamophobia, the Xenophobia, the half-assed and shallow characterization, and (surprisingly) the pacing.
I found it really cheap and frankly disgusting that Newman chose to play into stereotypes and make the bad guys Middle Eastern/Islamic. It's 2022, it's time we stop demonizing an entire ethno-religous group because of the actions of a few men 20 goddamn years ago. There were moments where it felt like Newman was trying to overcome this, but it fell flat and just came off as in bad taste. The whole brown guy = bad guy bullshit is overplayed, overused, and fucking disgusting.
I also didn't care about 90% of the characters. Theo, Jo, and the kids were pretty much the only people I cared about and, not so coincidentally, they were the only ones with complex characteristics! Bill was such a cookie cutter, rah-rah-All-American hero character that I could not care less about. So much of the plot was unoriginal as well. There were whole chapters that were almost scene for scene recreations of a Criminal Minds episode, season 10 episode 3 to be exact.
Worst of all, somehow, I was bored throughout this entire book. I have no idea how she did it, but I could only read a few pages before I would get bored and go do something else for a while. Very rarely have I ever been so incredibly bored by a thriller. Somehow, it was both faced paced and slow as hell. Everything happened quickly, but it wasn't fast enough apparently.
Not my cup of tea, probably won't reccomend it to anyone either.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Xenophobia, Murder, Racism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Islamophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Gun violence, Self harm, Car accident, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Physical abuse, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Vomit

riella_reads's review

adventurous challenging tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.5

 This was such a wild ride. Fast paced and action packed, but I saw the "twist" from the very beginning. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Car accident, Confinement, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Murder, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Violence

jennifer_bush_73's review

adventurous tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This was a highly entertaining thriller: a true page-turner.  

I can’t help but love that this story’s heroes were the flight attendants. 

But what was even more impressive was the author’s ability to portray the hijackers as complicated humans. The use of flashbacks showed us the complexities of the events that  led the hijackers to this moment in their (and the airplanes crew and passengers’) lives.

Also, I found it particularly appropriate that in the background, while I was reading Falling, were news stories about Afghan cities being overrun by the Taliban since the pullout of US troops. It reminded me of Sam and Ben’s backstory.

The only thing that bothers me is the ethnicity of the hijackers. It comes very close to falling into the trope of Middle Easterners as terrorist. I don’t recall the hijackers as being identified as Muslims, but that is the logical conclusion. The author did provide a brief explanation of some of the atrocities inflicted on the Kurds by the Turks, which helped humanize the hijackers. But there is so much more to the history of the Kurds (Saddam Hussein’s chemical attack on the Kurds-Halabja Massacre). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Violence

Moderate: Genocide and Murder

Minor: Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Hijacking terrorism