Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

After by Anna Todd

7 reviews

nat2008's review

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emotional tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated

5.0


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viselik's review against another edition

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Did not finish the book. Stopped at 36%.
I struggled even to get through the pages I did read, I should have not forced myself to read as far as I did. I read it after I saw how popular it was and was curious, well curiosity killed the cat, didn't it?
 
I wouldn't really recommend anyone get into this series as I don't personally see anything that is worth the price tag here. There are so much better fanfiction sites out there.

This used to be a Wattpad fanfic between a reader insert and Harry Styles, and it's still very obvious to be that! Even Hardin's tattoos are kept the same or are very similar. Do I have to remind people, by the time this book was originally written Harry Styles was a minor and the author was over 20?

The plenty of smut scenes from the small bit I read were rather boring, the level you would expect from a Wattpad fanfic.

Here are some of the notes on the bits I did read. Warning it's full of swearing and spoilers.

Tessa is a lot more judgemental than she seems to think she is.
 - She is stuck up and looks down at people who have tattoos and piercings 
     - "he has destroyed his body with holes and tattoos" - Chapter 5
 - Looked down at Hardin for liking books 
 - "There is no way a rude, disrespectful, tattooed jerk like Hardin could possibly enjoy those amazing works. The only thing I can picture him reading is the back of a beer bottle." - Chapter 10
 - She is scarily naive. 

- Hardin, is also a judgemental twat but he at least knows he is one.
 - Doesn't really date but sleeps with girls constantly
     - "No way. Hardin doesn’t date. He fucks with a lot of girls, but he doesn’t date anyone. Ever."
 - Likes books.
 - Is very active in the bedroom
     - “Does Hardin have a lot of friends with benefits?” I don’t want to hear the answer, but I can’t help asking. She snorts and sits down on her bed across from me. “Yeah, he does. I mean, not like hundreds, but he’s a pretty . . . active guy.”

- The book's chapters are done in a really poor way, each chapter is like 2 pages long, and it feels like Wattpad fanfic still.
    - I still cannot get over how this story was written when Harry Styles was <i>16 or 17 years old</i>.

- Chapter 18 has an attempted r*pe scene. Great.
    - I don't remember if this book has a content warning for that.
       - If not it really needs one.
 - We kind of just move on from that as well.

- Chapter 19 is about making out with Hardin and starting to get more than just making out, Hardin is sucking on her neck, how cute Tessa is cheating on her boyfriend.
     - Like she wasn't totally just nearly assaulted in the last chapter.
 - She even forgets about her boyfriend for a bit.
      - Girlfriend of the Year right here.
 - Hardin has a boner from it but is hiding it.

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readingduckling's review against another edition

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

0.25

Well first the one good thing I have to say about it was it was not boring, it was tedious anoing and tiering but not boring. 
Every character in this book is absolutely toxic beginning with the main character, she seemed to like it to make everyones life difficult and provoce people in her proximity just to feel like the 'main character' I think the author wanted the reader to relate to this character but she was just a jackass. 
Every friend and love interest ist also toxic in their own special way and in very depressed need of therapy. 
Just like every adult mentioned in this story. 
The writing style was sloppy the author was repeating the same words in a sentence, except for using euphemism so at least the writing style wouldn't feel that repetitive. But I think this is to much to ask. The story it self was also repetitive every chapter/part of the story was the same. The main character fights with the main love interest, they fight they make up, they make up, they do something sexual and then the circle stars over again. I was more than annoyed reading this book because ist was the same thing 100x over and over and over again. 
If you are now wondering, why I didn't stop reading it, it was because some friends and coworkers recommended this book and wanted me to read it; 'because it's sooooo good'. It really wasn't! 
First I thought maybe I didn't like the book because it's young adult, but that doesn't make any sense, because I often read young adult books that I really enjoy (my first 5 out of 5 book this year was a young adult book). And about half of the people recommending this book to me are older than I am. 
In a way I am really shocked, that this bullshit, is a young adult book because I think it would be dangerous for young people to read this book (- series) they get the wrong idea of what a relationship in any definition of the word should look like. I don't have a a problem with toxic relationships being presented in books for teens/kids/young adults but than it should be clear that it is toxic. It doesn't happen in this book at all. 
And I have a problem with this book that resembles a problem with the 50 shades series, it has a relationship that resembles a Dom/sup dynamic but has nothing that is important in this kinds of relationships, especially no after care. 

All in all it is a disgrace that anyone was ever able to make money with this story, I will most definitely not read it again, I do not ever recommend reading it to everyone. And I will not read the other books in this series, or consume everything else realated to this. 

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malignant_gnome's review

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

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kyarabereading's review

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dark emotional tense fast-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? It's complicated

1.0

I read this book series twice in my life: Once as a One-Direction-obsessed preteen and then again when the After movie came out and I wanted to remember what the original book series was like. I read them on Wattpad, so I'm talking ORIGINAL original (mainly because I would not spend my money on this trash). I have a million and one reasons why I don't like this book series, but I don't want to go through them all right now or this would be a very long review. 

I reread this series purely for the nostalgia, so I wouldn't advise anybody to read it just for funsies. It's really not worth it. Even now after rereading them, I will say that I could not, would not read more than a couple of chapters a week. I would put it down for weeks or even months, because I couldn't handle how bad it was. And this is coming from someone who used to be such a huge fan of the book, I was reading chapters as soon as they came out. I'm just going to say that this is plain old bad writing, and I would not waste my time reading this book series if I were you. 

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grayt_'s review

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

3.5

my favorite book from the whole series

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sonygaystation's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I read this because I’m a masochist and like to see what all the fuss is about things that people find problematic. This is one massive yikes. Started out fun and stupid and spiraled quickly into straight up verbally and emotionally abusive. Unsure what redeeming features Hardin is supposed to have outside of apparently being attractive. Also extremely unsure if this is a relationship we’re supposed to view as toxic (if so, the author did NOT make that clear enough at all) or if this dynamic is genuinely attractive and desirable to the author. It’s books like these that I feel shouldn’t even exist because while I, as a grown adult, am very conscious of what is healthy and abusive behaviour, the 12 year olds reading this on WattPad for Harry Styles fic will not. Also weird as hell to be writing RPF in the first place, especially when you’re married and the guy you’re writing about was ~18 at the time and ~6 years younger than you. Glad I found a pdf online cuz there was no way I’m supporting her with my money lmao.

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