Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - You Against Me

Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

You Against Me by Jenny Downham

5 reviews

l_oz_r_ev's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-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

3.0

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shiv91's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

1.5

I really wanted to like this book, but I honestly did not particularly enjoy reading it. I liked the idea of it not being from the point of view of the victim but instead of the victims brother and the accused sister. Giving a different aspect to how it impacts the lives of both sides.

Unfortunately, I didn't like the main characters, I didn't really like the side characters either. Apart from Ellie's old dog and Mikey's youngest sister, I didn't think they were great people. I realise Karyn is the victim and went through something traumatic, but she honestly annoyed me. Mikey and Ellie were two of the most selfish main characters I've come across. The whole romance between them was weird to me.

The ending of the book was so abrupt that I looked at the book as if I expected more pages to appear. I wouldn't even call it an ending, nothing was really resolved or fixed.

Something else that bothered me throughout the book, we see that Mikey's mother is an alcoholic and, frankly, a bad mother. She has very few moments of being aware that she has children to take care of and then goes off on a bender or hides in her room. Then miraculously, towards the end of the book, she's suddenly acting like a good mother without ever having dealt with her issues.

Ellie's father is a horrible person, and I would be terrified of him in real life. I'm glad the mother eventually stood up to him, but after how he treated Ellie, I don't know how she could stay with him.

There were also errors in the book, which made it even more of a pain to read.

I like that the book makes you wonder how far you would go to protect your family, even if they did something criminally awful. I think that just because someone is your blood doesn't mean they deserve your loyalty. If they've done something bad, they deserve to be punished for it.

The bad in this book outweighed the good, which is a shame because it could have been something really good.

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