Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

84 reviews

spellygirl's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.25

A good read that made it hard to figure out who did it until the end. A lot of skipping back and forth in time. Would recommend checking trigger warnings. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Suicide, Drug use, Suicide attempt, Bullying, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Alcohol

Moderate: Infidelity, Kidnapping, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Murder, Torture, Addiction, Blood, Confinement, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Abortion, Child death, and Drug abuse

bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I love Foley’s writing! The way she tells the story alternating between past and present, revealing little chunks of the murder details at a time rather than giving too much away at the start. That definitely kept me from knowing/guessing with absolute certainty what had happened and who was involved. I also loved the switching POVs and slow reveals of each secret over the course of the novel. I enjoyed Foley’s first novel, The Hunting Party, and with this book she’s officially become one of my favorites for the genre and an auto read author!

I stayed up way too late reading this and finished in just 2 days! One of the secrets I predicted pretty early on but the others were shocking and I didn’t see them coming. The final twist especially was jaw dropping!!

All the characters are complicated with both likable and unlikeable qualities. One thing I didn’t like however was all the body shaming and fatphobia. It just felt completely unnecessary to include.

Overall it was a quick and enjoyable classic murder mystery. These types of thrillers with the switching POVs and group of people trapped together resulting in a murder are my favorite kind of thriller novel honestly! Highly recommend if you also enjoy classic murder mysteries involving a group of friends/acquaintances, isolated setting, and dark secrets coming to the surface. Please do pay attention of the trigger warnings though because there’s A LOT

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Bullying, Sexual content, Alcohol, Body shaming, Child death, Fatphobia, Self harm, and Suicide

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Vomit, Drug use, Gaslighting, Abortion, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, and Mental illness

annoyedhumanoid's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

major content warning for self harm. check dropdown for others
for the majority of this book i was under the impression that The Guest List was published before The Hunting Party, which made a lot of sense because The Hunting Party felt like a more polished execution of a similar concept. actually, The Guest List came _after_ The Hunting Party. and knowing that her most recent book is The Paris Apartment… 😬

📉

. i was still surprised by the ending, though

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Gore, Murder, Self harm, Death, Alcohol, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Abortion, Child death, Classism, Cursing, Drug use, Gaslighting, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Pregnancy, Racism, Sexism, Addiction, Body shaming, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Eating disorder, and Fatphobia

carlatemis's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Gaslighting, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Classism, Murder, Suicide, Pregnancy, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Vomit, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Child death, Bullying, Blood, and Grief

Minor: Death of parent, Body shaming, Abortion, and Sexual assault

nickoliver's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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

3.25

Superficially speaking, there were a lot of similarities between this book and Foley's debut, The Hunting Party. Both had really secluded settings that weren't so easily accessible as, say, the middle of a city. Both had a big cast of (mostly) unlikeable characters. Both had two timelines - the present after the murder happened, and the past that explained how it could have come to that and what the relationships between characters looked like. Both focused more on the past than the present. Both didn't reveal the murder victims until almost the end.

On the one side, there were certain disadvantages to the format being so similar. For someone like me who'd read "The Hunting Party" before - even in the same year -, there was a predictability to the plot that might not have been there otherwise. For example, I suspected the right murder victim fairly quickly, because just like in the book's predecessor, there was a big focus on them throughout the book. There was one big difference -

Will didn't have a POV except for one little chapter at the end

-, but it didn't deter me from figuring it out early.

However, on the other hand, it didn't make reading the story any less fun. While I didn't really participate in a guessing game for the victim, I was still very invested in finding out who did it, and why they did it. Just like in "The Hunting Party", the victim was an extremely shitty person, so there were a lot of characters who had differing motive to kill them. The list of suspects was purposefully kept long so that it was harder to guess the murderer, even if it hurt the realistic aspect a little. There could only be so many people who realised the responsible party for a big trauma of their past was at the same event as them before you started to find to roll your eyes at the unlikeliness of it all.

"The Guest List" did offer a lot of interesting twists and turns, too. Especially in the last third of the story did it feel like I got slapped with a shocking reveal every other page, and it didn't really let up again. It wasn't that everything was entirely unexpected and unpredictable -

you could blame Will for every horrible thing that happened and were pretty much always right

, and a lot of things were obvious the first time they got hinted at - , but there were still moments that caught me off-guard. For example, the eventual murderer was a little surprising for me, particularly the lore behind it.

Like I said, the vast majority of the protagonists were extremely unlikeable - not always for the same reasons, but apart from Olivia, Aoife, and sometimes Hannah, everyone made you want to start fighting them. While nowadays, I don't really mind aggravating characters - depending on the story, they can be messy and entertaining -, I'm usually a bit too infuriated to really cackle at all their drama. So if you need your story to be told from someone who will never frustrate you or say some out of pocket bullshit, you won't get that here.

Plus, a lot of the men made me extremely uncomfortable with the way they acted. They kept saying "boys will be boys" no matter how terrible and traumatising their actions were, and while it wasn't really discussed, it was obvious they'd grown up on toxic masculinity. Especially the way they thought about women was horrific.

All of these things made me not want to pick the book up at times. However, due to the format of the story - the dual timeline, the concealing of the victim until late in the book, the rapid fire succession of plot twists -, I was still very much hooked a lot of the time. Additionally, despite their horribleness, none of the characters read like caricatures; they were still fleshed-out and realistic people, which I liked.

Overall, while there was a certain predictability to the plot and the characters didn't make my enjoyment all too easy sometimes, I was still very much immersed in the story and needed to know what happened. It was certainly entertaining.
 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Alcohol, Body shaming, Murder, Self harm, Bullying, Infidelity, and Death

Moderate: Abortion, Vomit, Child death, and Sexual content

Minor: Suicide, Drug use, and Sexual harassment

CW for revenge porn

uppercasenoises's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I was hooked by this story, and I loved the multiple perspectives and time shifts. The audiobook was incredible for the different characters. It wasn't 5 stars for me but it was a fun read nonetheless. Towards the end, things started to become predictable, and the wrap-up of the story felt rushed and somewhat unsatisfying. First-person POV, multiple perspectives.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Grief, Murder, and Self harm

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Pregnancy, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Abortion, Alcohol, Body shaming, and Classism

xosirenox's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child death, Death, Drug use, Gaslighting, Murder, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Violence, Classism, Grief, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Abortion, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

Minor: Vomit and Pregnancy

_brianna_'s review

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

I recommend looking at TWs before reading this one. It appears that the author used SH as a way of adding a shock factor. It was unnecessary to the story, there are other, way less triggering ways to show that someone is struggling with their mental health. Besides this, it’s a pretty good book. The characters are built up nicely and the ending did wrap up neatly. It was cool to see how the author built up the characters and how their lives intersect. I would recommend this, but make sure to check the TW first. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship and Self harm

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Cursing, Infidelity, Misogyny, Classism, Body shaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Mental illness, and Murder

Minor: Abortion

affectionateemu's review

dark mysterious 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Bullying, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Panic attacks/disorders, Child death, Death, Classism, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Vomit, Alcohol, Blood, Murder, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Abortion, Sexism, Confinement, Grief, Suicide, Body shaming, Cursing, Drug use, Infidelity, and Mental illness

jackieyvette's review

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.0

I forgot to write a review even though I finished this book weeks ago, but I did enjoy it. I liked the different point of views and the way each character saw the same situation in different ways. I most enjoyed Hannah and Olivia’s stories. I think this book is a great beach read, quick and easy and gave a contemporary Agatha Christie vibe. 

Crying Score: A little, you’ll know the part 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Blood, Body shaming, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Sexual harassment, Death, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Classism, Cursing, Misogyny, Murder, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt