Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

309 reviews

milenasbooknook's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

This was so much better than I expected!

I loved the relationships between the Riva siblings! I loved how they looked out for each other (and how they cared for Casey :’)

Nina Riva!!! Ever since we got to see her as a five year old, I was in love. She was definitely not perfect and made some difficult and questionable decisions, but it was so interesting to see why she did the things she did and how she provided for her family. She devoted her life to caring for her siblings, and she set boundaries that needed to be set.

The characters all grew so much! Their pasts made huge impacts on their lives, but there was so much character development and generational cycles were broken 👏🏻

The sexual content did get annoying, but it wasn’t graphic enough for me to stop the book. I just wish it was more brief/implied

Overall, this book surpassed my expectations and I can see myself rereading this one in the future

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

Moderate: Cursing, Death of parent, Sexual content, Drug use, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, and Addiction

Minor: Vomit, Blood, and Abortion

reb_vo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Family drama of the social elite, following the families life stories with their highest and lowest points. 
This book is about who we choose to love and who we don’t 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Grief, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Drug abuse, and Death of parent

Minor: Car accident, Classism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Police brutality, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Infidelity, and Sexism

victoria_elaine06's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

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

3.5

My expectations were high because of how much I love Taylor Jenkins Reid, but unfortunately this book didn’t quite live up to the hype. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great book with a very interesting main group of characters. As an oldest daughter, I was moved by Nina’s position as a child. I was also a big fan of the flashbacks. My problem, however, is in the random side characters at the party. I didn’t like the summaries of unknown people. I couldn’t keep track of all the names, and I didn’t feel excited to keep reading. It was well written; it was just not completely my taste. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Drug use, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

lindasoderlundd's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, and Infidelity

Moderate: Sexual content and Toxic relationship

Minor: Cursing, Gore, Car accident, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Chronic illness, Fire/Fire injury, and Gun violence

creativelifeofliz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

The first half of this book was pretty terrible and I actually thought about DNFing it several times. It got better for the second half, as long as you accept that there aren't any actually likeable characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Classism, Drug use, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, and Abandonment

Moderate: Car accident, Bullying, Body shaming, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

babsi_222's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

Taylor Jenkins Reid is one of my favourite authors, I think, and I’ve only read two of her books!
So this book is about a family and their history and you really get to see into each of the siblings/ and every family members mind. they’re a family who live near the ocean and I’ve never read a book that’s about surfers, which was really cool.
So there is a famous party where every hollywood star is and like the author said in the Q&A it’s really inspired by the great Gatsby. It was quite interesting, but it just kind of felt like one of those romance movies (Love Actually), because sometimes in between the chapters about the family you have like two pages where there’s a random star who hooks up with someone else or who finds the love of their life at this party, which is just so random, but kind of fun tbh
literally all of the men in this book are red flags!!!

  Oh my God the women (June and Nina) get pushed around by them, but there’s some very good character development in the end which is everything I ever wanted while reading! God I hate Mick Riva so much how can you be such a horrible person?? 

 
 To be honest I’m not sure if I’m going to read ‘Carrie Soto is back’ any time soon because she does not seem like a great person in this book. I’m sure that it’s going to be interesting but I think I just don’t wanna read it right now. 
Junes story makes me so mad omg :((( 
There’s soooo much drama at the party btw holy shit

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Sexual harassment, Police brutality, Gaslighting, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Sexism, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Death of parent, Child abuse, Cursing, Grief, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Vomit, Violence, Miscarriage, Gun violence, Car accident, and Outing

erins11's review against another edition

emotional reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcoholism, and Death of parent

Moderate: Toxic relationship

nikmalikov'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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

and everyday it’s FUCK mick riva ! 

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug use, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Vomit

kyliieamberr's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Misogyny, Drug abuse, Toxic relationship, Death, Alcoholism, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Drug use, and Abandonment

raelinton's review against another edition

emotional funny mysterious slow-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

4.0

The pacing was a little slow, it almost felt as though the book didn't begin until half way through. However, the characters are interesting and the ending is supremely satisfying. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Addiction, Abandonment, Death of parent, Drug use, Alcohol, and Infidelity

Moderate: Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Violence, Mental illness, Pregnancy, and Car accident

Minor: Abortion and Racism