Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan

6 reviews

toastedoats42's review

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

An interesting story and I'm excited to read the sequel. The author uses male and female instead of man and woman in most instances which, despite understanding the reasoning behind it given the story, still gives me an ick. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Violence, and Medical content

Moderate: Death of parent, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Trafficking, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Classism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Confinement, and Body shaming

viselik's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

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

2.0

At first, I just thought this book was boring and predictable but then it just started to get worse and worse. The book only gets good in the last 30-ish %, but I still had numerous issues with this book.

Please look up content warnings for this book, it deals with some pretty dark topics and the version I had did not have any content warnings in it.

1) There is no content warning and this NEEDED to have one.

•  There is a fucking
  concentration camp
  in it and there was no warning about it before we find out about it. We find out about it in Chapter 15.
• Emotional manipulation is a super big thing in this book, there is no warning about that.
  •  
    Like the entire character of Ronan/Sebastian should have had a content warning
     
    
    

2) 

The whole plot twist about Sebastian actually being the prince is just so bloody predictable if you have read romances before. He's written like a love interest for crying out loud.

 

•  
  Once we learned that Prince Ronan was missing I instantly knew that Sebastian was Ronan. It was too obvious to me after we had it stated that Sebastian was going away the night after the first day of the ball.
   

3) The naming system of this world. Characters and the land.

• We had the Seelie lands, the Unseelie lands and the Wild Fae lands... This just felt too basic for me.
• Then there are the characters. 
• Let's start with the main character's nickname, Brie. That is a cheese, a rather smelly cheese. I may or may not have just started calling her cheese girl.
• The two love interests! We have Ronan/Sebastian and... Finnian. I was left slightly disappointed by these.
  • Finnian's uncle is called Mordred or something like that and his father was called Oberon. I expected more considering the name of the people around them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Slavery, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, and Vomit

Minor: Sexism

cady_sass's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Okay hear me out: I know, objectively, this is not very good. The writing is very lackluster and repetitive and the book as a whole lacked editing. BUT if you have a fairy world fantasy itch that can’t seem to get scratched, this will do it. I really enjoyed this, despite the predicability and eye-roll worthy protagonist. It’s fun! So sue me. You get exactly what you expect, in my humble opinion. 
Side note: there are a lot ( a LOT ) of reviews calling this an ACOTAR rip off and, while there are some minor similarities, I don’t feel that way at all. Sorry not sorry. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Medical content, Murder, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Violence, War, Alcohol, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Blood, Classism, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

siglerbooknook's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

3.0

Personally I didn't enjoy this book. The premise was promising but the execution fell flat. The whole first half felt very much like ACOTAR fanfiction. 

And the ending was not satisfying for me. I guessed a lot of what was going to happen by chapter 10 and almost everything else by chapter 19. 

This felt like the miscommunication trope to the extreme which has never been a favorite. There were so many places where honesty could have made a better story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Violence, Trafficking, Slavery, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Confinement, Deportation, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Colonisation, Gaslighting, and Medical content

Minor: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Sexual content

louisa_pennyfeather2021's review

adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Moral of the story, it's spelled "Man"ipulation for a reason. Brie deserves an Anti-hero arc. I support women's rights, but more importantly I support women's wrongs.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Classism, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Fire/Fire injury, and Misogyny

Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, Drug use, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual content, War, Confinement, Gaslighting, and Murder

kenziewol's review against another edition

adventurous challenging medium-paced

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

4.5

Very much ACOTAR vibes but not necessarily in a bad way. The story was interesting and kept my attention, especially the second half of the book. I did think the first bit was a little on the slower side but once it picks up it’s hard to want to put it down. There are quite a few twists that I didn’t see coming, especially the ending, that had me zooming through this book and are the main reason I enjoyed it so much. I also unexpectedly didn’t mind the love triangle vibes as much as I thought I would.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Minor: Abandonment