Reviews

Talking at Night by Claire Daverley

Only show reviews with written explanations

siakou's review against another edition

As much as it pains me, at 69% I think I’m gonna dnf this.

I committed the cardinal sin of reading the ending, which I did as well for normal people but the difference is that with normal people I still wanted to know all the details. With this one I don’t really care.

The story took too long to take off for no reason at all, so many chapters spent on "building" their teenage "love story" but it was more about providing the backstory than build anything real.

I hated the parents, you want to ruin your whole fucking life you can certainly do that but berating your adult daughter because she wants just to not be as miserable as you are is just insane to me! Telling her to work it out and have kids when she’s thinking divorce? WTF is this? I don’t get why there’s no lashing out, why no one is arguing with anything. I’ve argued with my mom for a lot less than this shit.

I didn’t feel the chemistry, the buildup of their relationship is not enough.
I don’t see how a "strong" connection is built by 2 teenagers that hardly even spent any time together. They had like 3 good talks, a barely there kiss and connection through trauma but you want to tell me that was enough?
Especially for Will, male authors get criticized all the time for not being able to portray a female character accurately but when female authors write all the males as either bland, indifferent or completely unrealistic is okay I guess. Does any of you ever know a real man who got hung up enough on a his teenage crush that he kissed once to be thinking about her and holding a torch for her for at least a decade? I wouldn’t even call that love! The majority of their romance was in their heads.

I’ve seen many reviews saying this is like normal people but it’s nothing like it. In normal people decisions were stupid, everyone was selfish and life happened but their feelings felt genuine and they didn’t spent a decade ignoring them!
This one here has only ever given me let down one after another.

And okay I expected at least normal people levels of miscommunication here but that was next level.
All I’ve seen so far IS miscommunication, no one is being real about anything, speaking the truth or expressing real feelings to eachother and I just can’t keep reading for nothing I don’t care for a hea anymore these people don’t deserve it.

aliciadenton's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

stefanyreadingbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

lunatic_tree's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

lea_elisa's review against another edition

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Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

bookish_daph's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Would highly recommend to people who love “normal people” or “Cleopatra and Frankenstein”. OR the song invisible string lol. Such a beautiful writing. My only complaint is that I wish we focused a little more on the aspect of grief and how that fully affected Rosie. Other than that I loved this.