Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Solitaire by Alice Oseman

208 reviews

fernash's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

4.75

 4.75 because

they kissed

5 stars otherwise

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide attempt, Violence, Bullying, Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, and Blood

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Misogyny

missemmacrabtree's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This was a great book for what it was. It was difficult for me to read because my former self related so heavily to a lot of the dark thoughts and negative self image. (Not that I’m perfectly healthy now, but certainly not as bad as I used to be.) This book should definitely come with trigger warnings, but it is nice to read about someone else feeling similar things and somehow still getting through it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Eating disorder, Fire/Fire injury, Self harm, and Suicide

Moderate: Bullying, Alcohol, Drug use, and Homophobia

mattyb's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Mental illness, Fire/Fire injury, Eating disorder, Dysphoria, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Bullying, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, and Stalking

Minor: Blood and Alcohol

aino_maria23's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Eating disorder, Self harm, Violence, Stalking, and Bullying

Minor: Alcohol, Outing, and Medical content

cdoubet's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Eating disorder, Fire/Fire injury, Bullying, Cursing, Homophobia, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Minor: Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexual content, Vomit, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

bethsimone_'s review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

"I don't know what's going to happen to us. I don't know how long I'm going to be like this.
All I know is that I'm here. And I'm alive. And I'm not alone."

I haven't felt truly represented by a character until Tori. Her apathetic personality and the sensitive handling of her mental health is extremely well done.

You can physically feel Tori shine brighter when Michael is near, they have a beautiful relationship in which they are two halves making each other whole.
The dialogue between them on the roof made me tear up, mostly because Tori's feelings were extremely familiar to me (and anyone else that has experienced suicidal ideation) but largely because I was holding my breath, feeling Michael panicking trying to get Tori to understand she needs to be here, she is important, to get her away from the edge no matter what. It's heartbreaking, because Tori truly doesn't understand what other people see when they look at her.

"You need to be here," he says.

I especially love the fact that Oseman doesn't 'fix' Tori or write a 'happy ending' that ties things into a neat bow. Mental illness is not something that can be fixed, and recovery in not a linear path, it'll likely shape your whole life.

What Solitaire does, is deliver not exactly an anti-suicide message, but hope. Hope that you can find the joy in life again, doing pointless things just to pass the time, laughing at nothing; being alive.
Throughout the book, Tori slowly 'defrosts' from her apathetic, numb state, not exactly melting by the end but opening up enough to allow herself to feel, and continue to grow. She isn't exactly changed, but she acknowledges that, and finally sees she isn't alone, she has people that love her for who she is, and they'll still be there when she doesn't.
Oseman writes friendship and chosen family in a really beautiful way, and is the real love story underpinning Solitaire.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Eating disorder, and Mental illness

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Bullying, Suicide attempt, Violence, Blood, Self harm, Cursing, and Injury/Injury detail

saomah5566's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Self harm, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Hate crime, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Bullying and Homophobia

Minor: Homophobia, Blood, and Bullying

brontyeve's review against another edition

reflective fast-paced

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

1.0

The embodiment of the cliché ''and everyone stood up and clapped'' in book form.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Bullying and Suicide attempt

briaranne's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, Outing, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Bullying, and Grief

enchantedsleeper's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny reflective sad 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

3.75

I found this a very engaging and readable book. It's nearly a 4-star read but it did start to lose me about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way in when Tori's actions and the way she treats other people start to feel repetitive and frustrating. (I can roll with it for about half of the book but then it's like, okay, are you just going to run away again? Fair enough I guess). There were a weird number of scenes where a character would just get up and walk away from another character mid-conversation, without explaining why. On the whole I found this pretty realistic to being a teenager and I related to Tori a lot (or maybe I should say I could sense how I would have related to her at 17) but then some of the characters' actions and conversations felt unreal.

Charlie's characterisation is pretty odd in this. Even though I wasn't expecting it to be 100% consistent with Heartstopper, he still seems very... limp? Like when everyone was beating up Ben because of him and yet Tori was more concerned. Or the way he reacted to the fireworks at the concert. It didn't feel right - it felt like he should *do* more. Have more of an opinion. Very strange.

There was lots to like and find engaging about this, even though some bits lost me partway through. There were some really good lines and I felt like Oseman stuck the landing with the ending. No regrets about having picked this up to check out after Heartstopper.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, and Violence