Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl

19 reviews

kalira's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

faduma's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

lunep's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense

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

2.0

It was gripping but the characters were flat, I didn't care for any of them, the whole magic thing came out of nowhere and felt weird (and hopefully it gets explained on the second book because it wasn't on this one), and the representation was done very poorly: Ella's "OCD" is nothing like real OCD, Rory, Nani and Yuki's sexualities felt very stereotypical, and Yuki being so cold and emotionless is a harmful aroace stereotype, far from the truth (even tho it can be explained by the fact that she was been brought up to be perfect, perfect can still show emotions), and while I don't think the author was trying to say trans people are beasts, making the only trans character The Beast/Adam from Beauty and the Beast was still a poor choice (because we see that the characters and their stories from the book aren't modern versions of their fairy-tale counterparts that follow exactly the same paths, like Micaeli, I think what the author wanted to do was make Svenja's transition represent Adam going back to his real form after being freed from the witch's curse, without being literal to the story and making it all "oh I found love and that's what made me strong enough to be my true self"). I'm debating between reading the second one (partly because I'm a scaredy cat and this made me sleep with my lights on lmao) and just finding the most spoilery review possible to find out what happens 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Suicide, Blood, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Transphobia, Vomit, Death of parent, Acephobia/Arophobia, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment

Minor: Deadnaming, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, and Self harm

jekisah's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense 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

There were some typos but overall it is a great story! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Mental illness, Racism, Suicide, Transphobia, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

mpbookreviews's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Blood

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Vomit, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

sinaprst's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious 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

3.25

I didn't have to high expectations going into this, but I really enjoyed this. Sure there were things that probably could've been handled better and the ending was kinda predictable, but overall I liked pretty much all of the characters and especially the four narrators.
I also now crush on all of the characters love interests, because I have a problem.

The book is written from four perspectives and all of the chapters are fairly short. I saw some people on here criticizing that, which I somewhat get, but still disagree with. I don't really know why but short chapters especially and also switching povs are things that I at least look for in a book, because long chapters scare me, but that's a me thing I guess, so everyone is different in that regard.

The whole vibe of the book gave pretty much dark academia which I loved and it also very much reminds me of pretty little liars (which I also love, even though it gets more and more unhinged from season to season), so this was right up my alley.

I have to say though the magic came kind of out of the blue for me and I hope it gets established more in the next book. Also I was kind if disappointed that there were mostly European fairytales in there, that even though, that they were darker then the Disney versions, felt kind of Disney-ish, I kind of hoped to have each of the girls have the faith of a fairytale from their country/culture, especially because the whole boarding has students from all over the world. 
Lastly, I also wished it was even darker and especially creepier, but maybe that will come in the next one, now that the girls know what's going on. 

Regarding the villain of this book, I really liked her, but then again I'm biased because I always have a thing for bad girls. You could kind of see it coming though, who was supposed to be the bad guy. But I'm very much intrigued to see, who will be the big bad guy now, after she died, because obviously there is still more to everything than we as the reader know right now.

Overall, this was far from perfect, but enjoyable nonetheless and I will definitely pick up the next book in this series, because I desperately need answers.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicide, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Transphobia, and Death of parent

davegrohlsgf_'s review

dark mysterious 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

3.0

i loved the concept and the premise of the book, but it also disappointed me a lot. the pop culture references were unnecessary and cringy, and some of the plot points

*cough* yuki getting full on powers like elsa *cough*

were just terrible. also the stereotypes surrounding the only trans character in the book??? extremely harmful. overall, sad that this one didn't live up to my expectations  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Suicide

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Mental illness

Minor: Death of parent

dancingwithourhandstied's review

Just wasn’t paced right for me, got dull. Would love to finish at sometime though.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Grief

Moderate: Chronic illness and Mental illness

mals_library's review

dark funny mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Murder, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Body horror, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Blood, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Classism

Minor: Toxic relationship, Vomit, Death of parent, and Abandonment

valeriasshelf's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

queer, fairytale retelling, disability representation