Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

I fell in love with hope by Lancali

59 reviews

hello_lovely13's review against another edition

emotional reflective 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? Yes

2.75

For the first half of the book, I wasn’t too engaged apart from the backstories. The second half (primarily the 3rd quarter of the book) was EXCELLENT. Heart-wrenching, but excellent. My favorite character was definitely Neo, though I definitely have soft spots for both Sony and Coeur, and the story of Neo and Coeur always pulled at my heartstrings.

The storyline of both Sams was interesting, particularly in the latter half of the book.

Despite this being right up my alley, though, I couldn’t always vibe with the writing style. There consistently feels like there is a distance between the reader and the characters, including the narrator, which makes sense since their major character flaw is pushing people away, but it just isn’t to my preference. I also like really getting to know the main character, but they remain more vague until the end. You get echos of who they are, but they are usually more defined in what they are observing rather than what they are experiencing. I prefer the latter. It is well-written and has so many beautiful quotes (I love lyrical prose!), but that distance until maybe the second half of the book (for the most part since sometimes it is still present, though less so) disrupts the experience for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Terminal illness, Death, Grief, Self harm, and Suicide

Moderate: Homophobia, Medical content, Domestic abuse, Bullying, and Physical abuse

Minor: Death of parent and Rape

river_lockwood's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

This the most thought provoking book I have ever read. You really have to be in a good head space to read it,it grapels with such dark themes and makes you question your sanity and life itself, but over all it was an amazing book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Child death, Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Medical content, Vomit, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Self harm, Terminal illness, and Violence

Minor: Rape

bri__'s review

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.0

This was very slow, but I understand that it needed to be slow for the depth of the characters to be sufficient. I cried towards the end. The writing is beautiful, but felt overly quotable at times. I also found that the characters didn't speak their age, and it was never actually specified how old they were. It was difficult to understand the situation when travelling between timelines and povs, which made the structure quite messy. Please check content warnings, this book is very heavy with dark topics.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Rape, Self harm, Vomit, Addiction, Blood, Cancer, Mental illness, Suicide, Abandonment, Child death, Death, Pregnancy, Violence, Ableism, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Body shaming, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Grief, Homophobia, Medical content, Child abuse, Cursing, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcohol

leila_reads_too_much's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-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, Body horror, Eating disorder, Medical content, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Child death, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Self harm, Suicide, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Cancer, Car accident, Rape, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Death of parent, and Sexual assault

fairyreader75's review

adventurous dark emotional funny sad 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? Yes

5.0

I have never in my life read a book as poetically written, beautifully relevant, and wonderfully entertaining as this one. I’ve been sobbing for the last 2 hours and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Thank you Lancali for this masterpiece. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Bullying, Physical abuse, and Self harm

Moderate: Eating disorder, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Gore

Minor: Vomit and Rape

holly_mcarthur's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Terminal illness, Eating disorder, Child abuse, Death, Suicide attempt, and Suicide

Minor: Domestic abuse and Rape

addie_b's review

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is about a person named Sam, Sam and their friends who live in the hospital, they all have different illnesses and problems within their lives.  Sam isn't like most people, Sam isn't necessarily a person either. This book made me cry more than five times, it explains the problems all the friends are having while Sam explains their own, and if you relate to certain people in the book it hurts even more. It's hard to explain how much it hurts to read this, you form a connection with the characters  then lose them all in the 410 pages of this book. I really love this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Abandonment, Blood, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Cursing, Death of parent, Homophobia, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Vomit

zoey_blk's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I started crying two pages in and haven't really stopped throughout the whole book. A truly devastating masterpiece. I am grieving for these beautiful souls, but as someone who just got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease I couldn't help but grieve myself as well. I may not be terminally ill, but the experience of battling with this stuff everyday is so utterly painful and tiring and an experience I know too well. I spend the whole day in bed(and on the floor), reading this book while dealing with a bad flare up. I can feel the inflammation in my body, it is painful and ever present like a sword over my head. A constant reminder that I am fragile and disabled in a lot of ways my peers could never fathom, and it's unfair. I am grieving the illusion of health I had just 1½ years ago. This is becoming quite a rant...I just want to say that Lancali did a masterful job in depicting our grief and really helped me in my personal journey of acceptance. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Mental illness, Medical content, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Death, Eating disorder, Suicide, Terminal illness, Grief, and Chronic illness

Minor: Death of parent, Abortion, Drug use, Vomit, Blood, Car accident, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, and Medical trauma

hannah_mariee's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Self harm, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Child abuse, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Eating disorder, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Domestic abuse, Blood, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Medical content

oceanebooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Okay, I don't think I can write a lot without spoiling anything so I'll try to keep this review pretty short.
First of all: The cover alone is a piece of art. It's different from the self-published edition but I think they both look really good.
Then, secondly: The language. It was very poetic, and that to an extend that even for me it felt like a bit too much. There were just a few passages where even I thought this metaphor was a bit unneccessary. Keep in mind though, things like that are entirely subjective (just like the whole review itself, lol) and this is Lancali's distinctive narrative style. And once you get used to it you really like it. At least I did.
At the same time I still see the criticism. Scamming through a few other reviews I either found people bawling their eyes out and throwing 5 stars after this book - or they didn't give it more than a 2.5 which, in my opinion is valid, it's people's opinion and it's normal to disagree. Most of them were complaining about how the author romanticizes illnesses (both physical and mental) in her story.
I don't think she does. Yes, one can get that impression because of her language style (see what I wrote before), but with no means does she intend to make something as cruel as pain and disease look that way. 
Especially knowing why she wrote this novel, I see it in a different way. For context: Lancali had a friend, named Sam (like the narrator, so much can I say), who she got to know in hospital when she was ill herself. They wanted to write a book together, but Sam died when she had just finished the first few chapters. So, there's the personal aspect to it that in my opinion doesn't allow anyone to give this book a rating lower than 4. But of course, my point of view.

Now finally - the plot. There isn't much that can't be said without telling too much so I'm only going to say this: Heartbreaking. Gut-wrenching. Makes you furious at the (main) characters. Makes you confused at their actions. You will feel a lot, you will maybe cry a lot (depending on your personality) and also - you just want to jump into the story and cause some miracles to happen so everyone can have their happy ending. Of course they don't, I think I knew that long before I started reading. But still, you want these fictional characters to survive, to live, to be healthy. Of course they won't, that's the whole point of the book. But something inside me broke the moment my two favourite characters died (and also: why did they have to die first??? Just. Not. Fair.).
Lancali, you did a great job in shattering my heart to pieces. Thank you for your service.
This is one of the saddest yet most beautiful books I've ever read. It'll stay in my mind for a long time, just as the characters will. And also: The representation: chef's kiss.
Some very much needed male representation of an eating disorder (and its causes), and also depression and self harm. But also physical illnesses. Besides that, the queer representation went beyond gay or lesbian or bi to pan, non-binary and also fluid. THANK YOU. (keep in mind though, that's not the main focus of the book.)
I think that's it. I'll go and grieve a little more now. (I'm not crying you are!)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Mental illness, Suicide, Terminal illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, and Eating disorder

Moderate: Death of parent, Medical content, War, Blood, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Homophobia, and Vomit