Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

The Chandler Legacies by Abdi Nazemian

12 reviews

jjones2208's review against another edition

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying and Xenophobia

Moderate: Death of parent, Mental illness, Racism, Homophobia, Cancer, and Adult/minor relationship

fanboyriot's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

1.0

Read For:

Trauma

Rich Kids

Writing Club

Breakfast Club Vibes

Private School Setting

I had kinda high hopes with this book but unfortunately it just kinda flopped for me.  It was unfortunately incredibly boring.  The plot dragged out until the last few chapters and the epilogue did more telling than showing with the writing style.  

While this book had nice diversity and representation with LGBTQIA and BIPOC characters I just didn’t really feel anything towards these characters.  Which in my opinion make or break a book.  It felt like every time I was getting used to a characters POV it would switch, which is a bit ironic since a lot of these chapters were on the longer side.

The plot touched on some depressing topics that I wasn’t fully expecting.  It wasn’t horribly done but the bullying was absolutely annoying to read.  I just didn’t care for this as much as I thought I was going to.

POV: Multiple, Third Person

Spice: n/a

Rep: Lesbian (MC & SC), Gay (MC), Bisexual (MC), LGBTQIA Characters, BIPOC Characters

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Misogyny, Sexism, Classism, Homophobia, Outing, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Islamophobia, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, Racism, Sexual harassment, Mental illness, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, and Cursing

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Xenophobia, Pedophilia, and Grief

cecinamo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

I really wanted to like this book a lot, but something just didn’t really click with me. It’s definitely worth a re-red tho!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Hate crime, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Outing, Slavery, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Racism, and Racial slurs

eggboy397's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment and Bullying

Moderate: Sexual violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Adult/minor relationship, Classism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Cursing, Emotional abuse, and Homophobia

suz_n_van's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying and Physical abuse

Moderate: Racism, Mental illness, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Misogyny

Minor: Cancer, Adult/minor relationship, Medical trauma, and Homophobia

radler's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

• 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? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Mental illness

Minor: Cancer

libscote's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Chandler is the name of an elite boarding school. Five students from different backgrounds apply to be a part of a group called "The Circle," which is a writing group led by a popular professor, Douglas. As time goes by, the story drifts between the five perspectives, and you learn about the dark underbelly of elite boarding school life. From hazing to teachers who sexually harass students, you'll see it here. You'll also see how these five come together to fight back, and examine the privilege in their lives.

Note: I put bullying as a content warning, but in this case I specific mean hazing and bullying. Hazing is not a choice for the content warnings at the moment.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Homophobia, Mental illness, and Sexual harassment

sarah984's review

emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

This is yet another book with an interesting concept but a kind of meh execution. I liked the general plot trajectory (wrapped up a bit too neatly for me but this is YA so that's not surprising), most of the heavy topics are covered well, and I thought the friend group's evolution worked really nicely.

However, there were way too many POV characters and topics covered, and it made the pacing feel off. I feel like with a few tweaks Beth and Brunson could have been cut without losing much plotwise (Beth was so frustrating that her POV chapters made me want to DNF twice in the first half so maybe I'm biased) as they were the least well developed of the characters. The conflict should have been introduced way earlier so that a revelation near the end wouldn't feel so rushed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Mental illness, Racism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Classism, Homophobia, Sexual content, Cancer, and Child abuse

Minor: Cursing, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, and Sexual content

There are several harrowing scenes describing hazing in a boys' dormitory. Multiple scenes featuring the mindset/thoughts of a character with obsessive hair pulling.

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

I think the perspective and the story in this is interesting and important. It deals a lot with boarding school culture, especially that of privileged, wealthy students and how that impacts those at the school that don't have that. The students are given quite a lot of freedom at thsi school, and not a lot of the issues are really dealt with by the end of the book.

Honestly, the story suffers from having too many perspectives. While the story does come from the author's own experiences with boarding school, narrowing the focus would have allowed the narrative to breath a bit more. It would have allowed Nazemian the ability to really delve into one of the topics, like bullying or sexual harassment, instead of being spread too thin across a wide variety of issues. That's party why the ending doesn't really feel like an ending; we never get to see any of the issues from each of the narrators fully resolved by the time the story is over.

That being said, I do think Nazemian did a good job making each voice distinctive, for the most part. A lot was happening, but the voices didn't blend together too much.

All in all, if you enjoy hard-hitting boarding school stories, this might be your jam!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Bullying, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Racism

Minor: Cancer, Mental illness, and Sexual content

mdu_s's review against another edition

emotional inspiring mysterious reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Physical abuse, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Cancer

Minor: Mental illness, Pedophilia, Homophobia, Xenophobia, and Racism