Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

11 reviews

k8lynn's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted 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? It's complicated

4.0

Rainbow Rowell is becoming one of my favorite authors & I don't care who knows it.

"Simon, Simon, my rosebud boy" 🥹🥹🥹

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

enemies to lovers 🖤

elijah00's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death

Minor: Gaslighting

There are characters who are unreliable narrators and hide important information that is not revealed in this book.

snackattackisback69's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Biphobia, Homophobia, and Gaslighting

Minor: Death of parent

daffodilcherry's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

I was not expecting myself to become emotionally compromised by Simon Snow and Baz Pitch-Grim. 
I went into this book expecting it to be an interesting take on a wizard boarding school with a teen chosen one, and ended up reading the Simon Snow trilogy within a week. 
I loved the enemies to lovers twist, and how well Rowell wrote the switch between the two. This book is a perfect standalone, but an even better set up for the following two books, which I read immediately after.
Absolutely loved the narration of this audiobook, it definitely helped me cement voices for the characters going forward.
Wheelhouses: magical boarding school, the chosen one, but the chosen one isn't really that good at his job, bitch cracker syndrome, enemies to lovers, oh wait maybe I'm into him, hopeless queer pining, highly competent best friend, the way to saving the world was within you all along,

the evil was me all along.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Toxic relationship, and Death

squinnittowinit's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful mysterious 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

4.5

This book reads at first like an excellent Harry Potter parody, lightheartedly poking fun at the plot holes and loose worldbuilding moments of the HP series as the main character, Simon Snow, recounts his misadventures (a humorously self-aware reskinning of many HP plot points) at his magical school during years 1-7. 

I was ready for this book to be a Harry Potter parody and nothing more the entire way through (and would have loved every minute of it), but I was very pleasantly surprised to find an actual, original plot that played very well with the humorous setting and premise. The plot and the surprisingly complex characters took this book from parody to a genuinely gripping Harry Potter rewrite that successfully delivered a more complex (and plausible) plot, alongside characters that were more flawed yet more understandable at the same time.

I felt like this book was wholly satisfying as a standalone. I don't really feel any need to read the sequels, though I'm sure I'll get to them someday. For now, I'm left with that same soul-satisfied feeling that I get when I've just finished a 100k word fanfic with no tags and I can't remember what it was like to have ever not known about something so wonderful.

4.5 stars because of complete bi erasure and minor racism (not the inclusion of it in the world but rather minorly problematic descriptions/inconsistent descriptions of poc by the author)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Death, Animal death, Biphobia, War, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Classism, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Cursing, Confinement, Stalking, Kidnapping, and Misogyny

Minor: Abandonment, Racism, Ableism, and Infidelity

Bi erasure details:

Once Simon allows himself to voice his feelings for Baz, he almost immediately questions if this makes him gay, an already tired question. He ends up not answering that for himself, continuing to wonder several more times to the end of the book. Never once does he even consider that he could be bi, despite having had a girlfriend before. It is perfectly acceptable for Simon to not know what labels he wants to use for himself, or to never subscribe to using labels, and it would also be acceptable for Simon to determine that he isn't actually attracted to girls after all, but by only including the words "gay" and "straight", it makes it seem as though Simon can only be one of those two things, which is harmful to other LGBTQIA+ identities like bi and pan.

Minor racism details:

Mostly my issue is with Baz's physical description being inconsistent. Baz is described as having red-gold skin before becoming a vampire, as his mother was Egyptian. Most of the time, as a vampire his skin is described as "gray", which is a great way to describe someone being bloodless without changing their skin tone (because skin tone isn't really determined by whether your body has blood in it or not). However, there are a few times where Baz is inexplicably described as having "white" skin in reference to his vampirism. It reads like Baz was originally written to have the race-erasing white skin of classic vampires and then the author decided to update the description to the better "gray", but didn't catch all instances.

vinsynt's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny 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

4.5

A sweep-you-off-your-feet magical escape that makes clever use of hero & villain tropes. If you grew up with reading Harry Potter, or ever had a Twilight phase, or read Fangirl as a teen, or are looking for some LGBTQ+ friendly fantasy (or all of the above, like me), you need this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Minor: Gaslighting

claudiamacpherson's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Abandonment, Violence, Blood, Pregnancy, War, Xenophobia, Murder, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

breadbees's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Violence, War, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Abandonment, Gaslighting, and Blood

Minor: Animal death and Classism

reannareading's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted 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? Yes

5.0

Amazing

Agatha needs to take a chill pill

<Spoiler> Agatha is on drugs 
<Spoiler> Baz is a great character and he deserves Simon

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Cursing, Bullying, Blood, Animal death, and Abandonment

theroach's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.75

How is this book so cute while also being really sad but also really funny all at the same time. Gobbled this up faster than a candy corn.

  It was Agatha all along. Can we have a moment of appreciation that the toxic, manipulative, absolutely trash adults end up being the villains instead of portraying these people as super wise father figures that can do no wrong, forgiven and idolized to the gd end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Gaslighting, Homophobia, and Police brutality

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Confinement and Kidnapping