Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Sisters by Daisy Johnson

3 reviews

horizonous's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.5

If I had to summarize this story with one word I would choose sticky. I don't even know what else I should say about this atmospheric, kind of disturbing fever dream like story other than I need to read more by Daisy Johnson.
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james1star's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

I didn’t like this book. It started out okayish, definitely a bit *too* descriptive - not in the transportive way but more like “oh more details… yay… ugh” - but I guess this densness did die down as the story unfolded. It then just went into too much backstory plot kinda and about the sisters relationship, not the ‘sinister unfolding(s)’ with a lot less emphasis on the noises, lights flickering, lack of sleep and endless dreams which I was promised in the blurb. I just don’t feel like it gave what was stated. Not to spoil the plot at all but the main twist I did kind of predict as the story was developing so I was glad to get it right but also like I wasn’t shocked either. 

The writing was okay I guess but I did feel like it changed quite a bit with lots of small sentences then very long ones. It was readable and followed but kind of irritating I guess. There was no quotation marks which does irk me but at least speech is on separate lines. The characters are rather unlikable and unrealistic with not that much logic in my opinion. Towards the end the plot seemed a bit rushed with lots of small paragraphs that were somewhat confusing but I dunno, I really didn’t like how it wrapped up. 

Quick plot summary: two sisters and their mum move to their aunt’s rental house which is kinda run down, the mum is depressed and absent, sisters have a ‘weird’ relationship with September controlling basically all of July’s life, they explore the house and area, think back to their childhood and ‘the incident’ and Yhh, y’ll be getting no more out of me. Not that I would really recommend you read it but if you do… you get what I mean. 
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erinbarton's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

overall i really enjoyed this - beautiful prose, atmospheric and unnerving. johnson flips the idea of gothic horror with the beachside setting during the summer, but keeps all the tropes that matter: the blurring of dreams and reality, the isolated setting, the moody atmosphere.

i didn’t guess the twist until about 30 pages or so before it was revealed, mostly because i didn’t know there was a twist to be looking out for. the mystery of “what had happened at the school” to cause them to move to the country house had me thinking that september would have done something to hurt july’s bullies. the scene that gave the twist away for me was the one in which july looks in the mirror and can almost see aspects of september looking back. after this the thought occurred to me that september had died and july was imagining this summer with her, and then looking back there were so many clues peppered in: july feeling when september had had sex, september never eats anything, the mother begins drawing pictures of just july, and the hide and seek sequence. although the twist is one that i’ve definitely seen/read before i feel it was well executed, however the remaining 30 pages or so after the twist is revealed were less engaging to me. <\spoiler>
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