Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

11 reviews

jclanders's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5


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thatonecatmom's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0


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just_me_abbey's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • 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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abby_can_read's review

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dark 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? It's complicated

2.0

📱
This is a decent book. Not my favorite in the series. There was relationship development between Ellacott and Strike. The plot was hard to follow at times, and I felt it was predictable. 

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rnbhargava's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing 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

The narrative and mysteries were very engaging once it got going. The nature of online interactions in relation to popular pieces of media is fertile ground for storytelling. That said, the in game chats were a bit of a slog when broken up into 2-3 conversations happening near simultaneous. Yes, I didn’t mind flipping back and forth on pages but it took some adjusting. The characterizations are all really good. Seeing how all these different types of personalities could be prone to certain types of toxic online behavior was entertaining. I will say that one of the storylines is a bit hard to get by given it specifically involves kids. The side cases were good for highlighting the different contractors personalities. I liked that the entire main case was largely about people being manipulated by someone charismatic online. That all said, the book is lengthy and it could have been tightened up 200-300 pages or at least some of the game chat chapters could have been combined or tightened. 

Overall, I enjoyed it. Another good book in the series.

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maggies's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Another 4-star Cormoran Strike mystery for me! As usual, the mystery is a thickly woven web, incorporating pretty grotesque crimes. Definitely a page-turner.

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sauvageloup's review

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

3.0

firstly Rowling has shit political views. we all know this. I do feel bad reading this but I got it from the library and shes getting no profit from me. unfortunately shes a good writer.

pros:
- very gripping, couldn't put down
- characters were interesting and complex overall 
- did a convincing job of showing online spaces

cons:
- the sheer pettiness underlying lots of her comments is a lot. the whole plotline is narcissistic. I get the point shes trying to make (toxic online spaces driving innocent creators to misery. bad ppl hiding building up gullible fans with claims of creator's being homophobic/racist/ableist, etc. ppl being blinded by this that they miss true predators, sexists and racists) but it misses all the joy of online friends, and generally reads like shes bitter about the criticism.
- she also misses the very real need for criticism. she mocks "SJWs" but her own views could be called that by some alt right. she's determined to see that fans are acting as a mob with no critical thinking skills, where I think shes blinded by confirmation bias and her ego and lacks the ability to be compassionate and tolerant. anyway. her views are made very clear in the book and it feels petty.
- underwhelming ending, not helped by me thinking for some reason that this one the last one. was disappointed.
- its dragged too long now. think this should've been last one for sure.

overall, disappointing and frustrating, because it was good up until a sour end, much like her.

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knightscottage's review against another edition

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

1.0

 I love JKR. This is hard😥 

Firstly,  This book was full of spelling errors. It has to be the worst amount of errors I've ever seen. At one point two characters names had been switched in two sentences!!!

It's full of the foul language. Out of character foul language.  
It's 500 pages too long, easily. In all previous books in this series I barely noticed the length of the book, well maybe the last one a little. This time I
found it painfully slow, tedious and boring. JKR needs a new editor. And proofreader. 

I have no interest in online gaming or social media sites and struggled to comprehend a lot of the endless reams of 'tech speak' 

I didn't like any of the characters introduced this time. None were at all likeable including Strike! I didn't care about them or what happened to them. 

Who was the target audience? Teenagers? 

Too many characters. I kept getting them mixed up. 
No main character development since previous book. It's stagnated. 
Too many unbelievable red herrings. 

 Why can't JKR just let Robin and Strike be friends and business partners?
 This stupid will they/won't they get together is childish and annoying- Especially as it's now drawn out over six books! 

I find it off putting the constant references to Strikes amputated leg. We get it, he's an amputee. No need to go on and on ad nauseam about it.  

After reading through over 1000 pages the ending was wrapped up in 7 PAGES!!! 

It reads as a fan fiction, mid series filler book to me. Did JKR really write this mess of a book? 

I'm so disappointed. I was really attached to this series and looked forward to each new book. I can only give 1 star. Cannot recommend at all. Very sad 😔 



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proceduralbob's review

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1.0


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jgrace's review

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dark mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

5.0


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