Reviews with content warning for Rape - Unhinged

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Unhinged by Onley James

43 reviews

zabeishumanish's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

Absolutely ridiculous and shockingly delightful.
Check all the trigger warnings.

Content Warnings

astrozombies's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
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

1.0

i read this book and wasn’t left with too many positive thoughts so here are the details in this book that range from mildly concerning to more noticeably egregious:

• so many weird plotholes such as

noah having a flip phone in chapter 2 and then suddenly having a normal cell phone with which he can use instagram later on in the book.

if this was intentional, it was not explained at all.
• absolutely hit or miss mental health representation with HUGE misses (made even more devastating by the fact that james herself says that she based the book’s characters loosely off of her experiences from working in an actual psychiatric facility).
• ableist language (i.e. ps****(path), sociopath, crazy, insane, etc.).
• some extremely odd editing issues such as a moment in chapter 18 where the text (outside of dialogue) swaps from third person pov to first person pov but just for a single sentence. more innocuous things like this occur often throughout the book.
• misuse of the term “meltdown” which is an autism-specific occurrence and should not be used lightly in reference to an allistic character who does not and never will experience an actual meltdown.
• a comment made toward a character implied to be on the asexual spectrum that likens them to an android. this kind of language is constantly used to diminish and harm actual asexual people so the fact that an author who writes almost exclusively queer characters would use this is especially hurtful.
• this book utilizes sexual consent between the main couple in a way i could only refer to as “interesting”
• so many important plot details just… happened off-page such as

noah going through gun/self defense training AND noah meeting his mother and family. i felt like it was a weird decision to exclude these details, and while i’m not necessarily asking for a chapter every time noah goes to the gun range, at least one scene and explanation would be helpful. as for the mom thing, i feel as though we missed out on a lot of possibly meaningful interactions further delving into noah’s emotions towards knowing his real family and his character as a whole. i found myself hoping for the epilogue to be noah meeting his mom, but was both unsurprised and disappointed when it turned out to just be another in a nigh-endless stream of sex scenes.

this book did manage to entertain me every now and again, but i simply feel like it didn’t pull enough weight. i was also majorly disappointed by the portrayal of type b personality disorders such as aspd (“sociopathy”) which are consistently demonized in our modern world. choosing to make multiple characters with explicit aspd into murderers (even pedophile-killing vigilante ones!!) is certainly a choice that sets us down the wrong path, especially since these are the only characters besides noah (who does not have aspd) that we ever see kill someone.
i will not be reading the rest of this series, and i would not recommend this book to other people. if you’re just looking for smut to read, ao3 is free.

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book_lover56's review against another edition

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dark emotional 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? Yes

4.0

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ravenanjell's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny fast-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? No

3.5

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cocpop_reads's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-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

4.0

I knew this book was going to be dark and heavy going in, and I’m definitely glad I knew the specific content warnings.

Because what Noah has survived is honestly gut wrenching and horrifying. Nothing is every too explicitly detailed and a lot is alluded to, but honestly you don’t need details to feel the horror.

I absolutely loved Noah and Adam’s story. These two truly were fated for one another. There was a good balance of banter that lightened the reading after heavy topics. Get you a psychopath like Adam who literally would kill for you and is obsessed with you.

4/5 on the spicy scale. There are some kinks involved and they fit well with the book. I enjoyed that the smut went with the story and didn’t feel like abrupt interruptions.

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