Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman

7 reviews

maggie_hamel's review

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Death, Alcohol, Medical content, Grief, and Drug use

amyluck's review

dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content, Cursing, Alcohol, Death, Drug use, Infidelity, Medical content, Murder, Vomit, Sexual assault, Blood, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, and Grief

theromanticace's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Child death, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Murder, Alcoholism, Death, Classism, Adult/minor relationship, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Grief, Vomit, Sexual violence, Cursing, Infidelity, and Sexism

emily_mh's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

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

1.0

It is not often I come across a book that I don't like a single thing about, but unfortunately They Wish They Were Us was one of these. Nothing happens in this book. There is no proper investigation as you would expect in a mystery/thriller book, and no character development. I couldn't stand most of the characters. Jill herself is so judgemental it's gross, and her friends are horrible

and are redeemed without doing anything to earn it

. The "Players" plot line is the ONLY plot line for half of this book, and then half of the plot line for the remainder of the book and it just wasn't interesting. There was an attempt at an analysis of misogyny within hazing but it didn't really go anywhere. I was really disappointed that the book turned out the way it did as I've been looking forward to reading it for a while. Regardless, I am still interested in reading They'll Never Catch Us as the premise sounds interesting and this book was only Goodman's debut.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Blood, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Confinement, and Misogyny

Moderate: Cursing, Grief, Drug use, Alcohol, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Violence, Physical abuse, Child death, Murder, and Death

Minor: Drug abuse, Car accident, Ableism, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Death of parent, Cancer, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Torture, Self harm, Antisemitism, and Adult/minor relationship

haleyreadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Medical trauma, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Emotional abuse, Death, Bullying, Alcohol, and Adult/minor relationship

kikicochrane's review

adventurous dark mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Alcoholism

Moderate: Sexual assault, Vomit, Sexual content, Physical abuse, Medical content, Grief, Death, and Adult/minor relationship

sarah984's review

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

This book was just not very good. In a lot of ways, it felt like the author wanted to write a darker book but had boxed herself into YA, so she keeps intimating that terrible things had happened but then all of the things are kind of standard hazing situations. (Yes that's still bad, but not as apocalyptic as it's made to sound for most of the book) The secret society is also just sort of silly - a bunch of answer keys that could change at any time and some social connections they would have anyway. Nothing worth the way all the kids and adults treat it in the story.

The murder mystery portion is very stupid because there is a character who is always acting suspicious and every clue points to them but no one ever suspects them which makes it extremely obvious.

There's sort of an attempt at feminism in terms of guys controlling everything and forcing worse hazing on the girls but we're only ever told this directly in narration, it's not really shown in the challenges that happen on-page. The one explicitly bad thing that happens isn't part of a challenge, and when the main character actually does witness something that affects a girl more she is only upset about it because her brother is involved.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Death, Grief, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual assault, and Vomit

Minor: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Medical content, and Sexual content