Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - The Trouble with Hating You

Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

The Trouble with Hating You by Sajni Patel

28 reviews

coppolaklein's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

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nutellareads's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective tense 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

4.0

this was so sweet, like the enemies to lovers aspect of this worked for me because they just irk each other for the silliest reason, but it wasn't annoying. the backstories gave justice to their current behavior, and i like how jay and liya ended up because they didn't have to change fundamental things about each other to be together: liya is still averse to the idea of marriage, but that's alright; jay is still struggling to unravel his trauma, but that's also alright.

i would have wanted mukesh be brought to justice, and jay's reaction to liya wanting to move was kind of off – thus, 4 stars.

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brokenbodybitch's review against another edition

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medium-paced

4.25

I did enjoy the book, however I do want to put a warning in here that it is a much heavier book then I was anticipating and the content warnings shouldn’t be taken lightly.

The romance in this book is pretty good, the chemistry between the characters is definitely well written and at times, they do questionable things but generally there is some reasoning (in this book the reason is very often a trauma response or something related to fears and trauma) that makes it so you can still root for the MC or LI. I really enjoy how you can tell their upbringing and what they went through up till now really motivated their actions and often times, you can see the bouncing ball of oh well this is because of this and stuff like that you aren’t left wondering what possessed them to do whatever they did.

I am not south Asian so I can’t speak on the accuracy or quality of the rep but I think the family dynamics in this book were really well done, yes don’t get me wrong a lot of the family was just straight up insufferable and I would gladly like to clock her dad in the face, however the dynamics and relationships between characters felt very real and they stayed true throught the book. I find when some authors try to write family dynamics with generational trauma and abuse and heavier more complicated things like that they will sometimes have these happy endings that while nice, ultimately don’t seem all that realistic, where as in this book her father is vile her entire childhood (for whatever reasons) and he didn’t have this seemingly instant magical turn around, his actions lined up with how his character had been set up from the beginning, and that was with all the characters I can think of.

I really enjoyed this book, yes it is a romance but it also deals with trauma from many many different angles as well as having South Asian representation. At times it reads a little more like a YA/NA romance but all in all, the characters have clear and developed backstories and it deals with trauma from so many sides that it felt like it had another purpose beyond the romance.

Extra CW/TW:
The biggest ones to be aware of are SA between an adult and minor, being told you are lying about it and other horrible things along those lines by many people but especially parental figures, and the trauma that goes along with SA, in particular childhood SA. It is handled fairly well by the end of the book and does have a positive ending but it can be very heavy at times; and I can’t speak on childhood SA but from a general SA trauma perspective it was pretty accurately portrayed. Again I’m not the authority on this, but I don’t think it is harmful rep by any means just very possibly triggering for someone with those potential triggers. It’s not a bad book I don’t think, just be very cautious going into it

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lesliehirgelt's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

3.25

I was looking for something lighthearted, quick, and easy to read, and this did meet those criteria. However, I felt the writing style was more appropriate to a story about high school-age characters, maybe even younger. For a story about adults, presumably in their mid-20s (ish) and into professional careers, the language choice was often eyebrow-raising (saying things like "crap" instead of "shit"; calling someone of the parents' generation "old man," etc.) and felt immature. I kept reading because I became invested in the story and liked the characters, but the juxtaposition of adult characters with immature language choice made it difficult.

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