Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

The Fiancée Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur

10 reviews

nerdybookguy's review

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.5

A steamy sapphic new adult fairytale is the best way I can describe this 
(although please don't marry someone you've known for less than a month)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Minor: Sexual harassment, Lesbophobia, Toxic relationship, and Panic attacks/disorders

There is a mention about 20% of the way through the book of an ex-boyfriend sharing one of the mc's nudes with other people and he repeatedly tries to sleep with her, but it never goes far There's a mention of the wlw couple being "unorthodox" but no explicit homophobia

lady_valhella's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful 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: Sexual content

Moderate: Death of parent, Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Misogyny, Death of parent, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, and Alcohol

About the SA content

a 16 year old is taken advantage of after the recent loss of her mother followed by the even more recent loss of her father. She just moved to a new school, her step-sister and step-cousin treat her poorly and a rich senior boy who all the girls swoon over takes an interest in her. Tells her sweet things, takes her to romantic fancy places but says it all must be kept SECRET. After he does all “the work” she trusts him enough to go all the way. He convinces her to let him take pics which he promplty shares with the entire school. The rich white boy succeeds in only getting a slap on the wrist while the grief stricken girl is now labeled all of the horrible things.

boop123's review

emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.5

I want to preface first by saying that I was mainly intrigued to read this simply because the cover looks so bad. Like Wattpad bad. And whoever made this book should reevaluate the next time they make a cover because I WILL trash it. 

Anyways, I think a lot of people will disagree but I actually don’t mind how fact-paced the course of their relationship was. Although I do understand why other readers wouldn’t be into it. Since this book was described to be a “steamy” sapphic story with a fake relationship trope, I also did expect the book would have more angst and conflict to it but we didn’t get much from that. 

The conflict was also too shallow.

I did not see the need for them to break up in the last act (though I knew at some point it was coming) because there’s not much discord to work off of. The feelings of inferiority and insecurity Gemma went through really seems like a her problem and not so much as a sensible enough reason to leave Tansy. But yeah like I said since it was too shallow, it is the only one the author has to latch unto.

If y’all are not into that and want DEEP angst and trepidation, maybe this book is not for you. 

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book, not much angst but I personally love seeing a “Character A falls first, Character B falls harder” trope. I also do think this is better than the author’s previous book I’ve read so a win for me! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual content

Moderate: Alcohol and Cursing

Minor: Death of parent and Panic attacks/disorders

stacy837's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-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

4.75

Narrator is excellent at capturing character's emotions 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, Bullying, Classism, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Cursing, Alcohol, Grief, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

Minor: Child abuse and Panic attacks/disorders

hailstorm3812's review against another edition

funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.0

This was a lot of fun. It's tropey, its sweet, a bit of spice, and a fun plot. 

I do wish the characters had kept the secret better since they kept talking in public about it and texting about it. Obviously the secret has to come out, but it would hit harder if they didn't constantly tell everyone.

Also I couldn't help thinking how great a movie this would be. It just eels so RomCom-y.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders and Sexual content

Moderate: Sexism, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Death of parent, Cursing, and Alcohol

triple_m's review

medium-paced

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

3.75

A really cute read. I heard mixed things about this book so I went in with low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised. It’s not tonally dissimilar to Written in the Stars, which I also liked. 

Was this book cheesey and cliche? Yeah, of course. But sometimes that’s the exact book you want to read! 

Gemma and Tansy are cute and do work well together as a couple. The falling in love was pretty instant and fast paced. I don’t think we got enough dialogue or internal monologue to really understand why Gemma changes her mind on long term relationships other than she likes Tansy.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Death of parent, and Sexual content

Moderate: Bullying, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexual harassment

avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

emotional funny fast-paced

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

5.0

I laughed, I cried, I enjoyed the journey. I loved the mix of humor and serious topics. It was a great book with great MCs who I loved. And some easy-to-hate villains, along with some characters in the middle. Overall a great book. I hope Teddy gets his own book as well ;) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Sexual content, Cursing, and Grief

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness

Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, Gaslighting, Child abuse, Death of parent, Death, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

wilybooklover's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

3.75

Adorable, low-angst sapphic romance. It’s more of a fake engagement than a true marriage of convenience story

(by the time the marriage rolls around in the penultimate chapter the leads are already in love with each other),

but it was pulled off quite well for a contemporary. I really enjoyed the lack of drama between the couple and the excellent level of communication they had. I also loved that they were both bi since bi4bi sapphic romances seem to be vanishingly rare! 

There were a few too many side characters in my opinion, especially since quite a few of them had important plot points (and most of them were frankly awful people). It was hard to keep them all straight since a few of them had very similar names and between them they took up way too much page-time. 

I do hate the UK cover though. While the US cover has its issues (Tansy is explicitly described as curvy and several sizes bigger than Gemma), it's so much better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Alcohol, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Homophobia

dwoht's review

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-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

4.0

i wanna start by saying that i actually enjoyed reading this book. i like fauxmance and this book hits the spot for me.

it's kind of an insta-love situation tho as they are already inlove with each other a few chapters in? but it also had me giggling and kicking my feet up in the air? so it was sweet, the lines are a bit corny at times tho. i love the library bookcase scene AND also annoyed it was cut short. 

i love how they communicated with each other sometimes. BUT some scenes are really frustrating to read like how i wanna punch tucker's face and throw lucy's things out of the apartment. the side characters are so annoying like literally all of them. 

it also felt like they skipped some scenes, i was surprised we we're already at the wedding day? i felt like it moved so fast. i would've like it more if it was longer i guess. not a fan of the book cover, too...

overall, a great read for me and i also appreciated the taylor swift references. might read more books from her.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Death of parent

Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Alcohol

Minor: Body shaming, Panic attacks/disorders, and Toxic relationship

ezwolf's review

emotional funny lighthearted reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

I love the “married for convenience” trope and the cover for this appealed to me in such a way that I was so excited to read this.

Gemma and Tansy didn’t fall prey to the usual miscommunication trope and every time I held my breath, thinking it was going to happen, I was quickly proven wrong. Their relationship felt genuine even before they realized they had actual feelings for each other. I also enjoyed (most) of Gemma’s friends, they weren’t too over the top and did things that reminded me of my own friends. 

Any time there was something said or done that made me question how it would play out it was almost immediately addressed in the book (the one I found funniest was my vendetta against La Croix which was also vindicated by a character later in the book). I also really appreciated that there wasn’t really any homophobia, even in instances where people suspected or looked down on their marriage it came from a different kind of malcontent. 

I am very surprised with how much I enjoyed this book (not because I had low expectations but because I’m personally very hit or miss with the genre). Apparently I just haven’t found too many of the right romance books for me, but I will definitely be reading more of Bellefleur’s work soon.

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Bullying, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Grief, and Toxic relationship