Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Role Playing by Cathy Yardley

38 reviews

relin's review

emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

A very cute romance of an older couple bonding over introverted natures and video games. <3

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing and Sexual content

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Alcohol

Minor: Death of parent

Divorce is a large importance to the story.

smallmac's review

emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.0

Some of the references are going to age really fast (Jujutsu Kaisen), but I enjoyed the depictions of online chat interactions.  They felt pretty accurate to experiences I've had playing MMOs, even if they were a bit verbose.  Overall a nice, breezy romance with little friction.  It could have gone further into the sticky parts of Maggie and Aiden's lives, but it didn't have to.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Outing, Toxic relationship, Bullying, and Emotional abuse

annahamburger's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Mental illness, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Homophobia

Moderate: Outing, Cursing, Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, and Xenophobia

Minor: Violence, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Cancer, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Dysphoria, Medical content, Abandonment, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Car accident, Dementia, Pregnancy, and Racism

sdupont's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

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

3.75

This book is a bit of a slow burn much like the romance between Maggie and Aiden. It starts off with a slow pace but once the characters meet IRL the pacing and story picks up. Aiden is a sweetheart, I just wanted to give him a hug and defend him just like Maggie did. Maggie is a bad bitch and I just loved how self assured she was. Aiden’s family was the worst and Deb was annoying af, they served their purpose in the plot but their page count was suffering. You definitely don’t need to be a gamer to enjoy this one. I recommend it for someone looking for a meaningful bond between characters in their 50’s. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, and Outing

Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia, Body shaming, Death of parent, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Car accident and Racism

amy_in_the_city's review

emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

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

5.0

I loved this book so much! Introverts finding the one person that doesn't drain them is literally my dream! It was funny at times, heartbreaking at others. I liked that it didn't romanticize small towns and acknowledged small towns aren't a good fit for everyone. It also had some LGBTQIA+ representation, with a biromantic demisexual main character. The scene where Maggie tears into Aiden's biphobic relatives was one of the most satisfying things I've ever read, as was seeing Aiden stand up for himself. 

As someone on the ace spectrum, I appreciated that this book had a main character, especially an older character, discovering that they were demisexual. However, the book got some things wrong about asexuality. At one point, Maggie explains that "Ace is also called 'graysexual.'" A quick Google search would have confirmed that those two terms don't mean the same thing and that "graysexual" is actually just one of many different types of asexuality. It's clear from other terms used in explaining asexuality that the author did research various terminology. It just seems like she got confused at some point with a couple of terms, but I wish there had been a sensitivity reader or an editor that could have caught this before it made it into the final book. I also thought Aiden seemed pretty clearly demiromantic as well, but this was never brought up and his demiromantic traits were lumped in with his demisexual traits. Terminology issues aside, I thought the demisexuality was represented well, and Aiden felt authentically demi in how he experienced the world and in how he reacted to learning there was a word for how he was.

Overall, this was a cute romance, and I had a great time reading it!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Biphobia, Outing, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Bullying, Cursing, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Sexual content, and Xenophobia

Minor: Infidelity, Acephobia/Arophobia, Addiction, Alcohol, Car accident, Drug abuse, and Grief

helalost's review

emotional funny inspiring 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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, and Emotional abuse

ravenk28's review against another edition

funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

Who knew a story about two people finding each other through their love of video games would be so sweet. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Outing, and Homophobia

Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia, Toxic relationship, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Racism, Cancer, and Death of parent

thenextbookdilemma's review

emotional funny lighthearted tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Emotional abuse, and Biphobia

Minor: Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Car accident

chelseazhao's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful slow-paced

5.0

This had so many things that I loved!
- Older characters (48 and 50)
- Geeky Gamers
- Bi/Demisexual rep
- friends to lovers
- hilarious mix-up (she thought he was 20, he thought she was 80)
- teens who felt like teens

Keep in mind that we do have some harder topics: biphobia, homophobia, mentioned death of a parent, talk of end-of-life care

I seriously loved these characters and their relationship so much. I loved how snarky and funny that they could be. And I loved the demisexual representation!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Outing, Biphobia, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Pregnancy and Death of parent

enneirda07's review

emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

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

4.25

I enjoyed this audiobook. I appreciated the demi rep and reading about characters on the mature end of life.

Aiden has the worst family ever, so I was glad he got away from them.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia and Emotional abuse