Reviews with content warning for Toxic friendship - Loveboat, Taipei

Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen

15 reviews

savanah's review against another edition

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kaylamoran's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective 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

3.0

I'm seeing a lot of reviews that said they liked Xavier... and I'm wondering if we read the same book? He did some awful stuff in this book. Same with Sophie, and it's all just glossed over instead of properly addressed.

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thelittlesnowdrop's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.75

Somehow, this is the wildest YA book I've ever read!! 🤯 A solid 3.95/5 for me!

This story is so messy 🫨🤭! A love triangle (questionably a love quad?), new experiences (love this), toxic friendships (don't love this), & then many turns were taken... Other topics include mental illness, suicidal thoughts, bullying, physical abuse... phew. I think these are important topics to highlight, but I do wish the author dove further into this because it felt brushed over.

As far as the characters go, I do like that the main characters, Ever, Sophie, Rick & Xavier, have decent character arcs. I'm not going to dive into all the characters, but I think Xavier had the best character development - I was surprised by this at the end!! The author really had me in the first half 😮‍💨

Nevertheless, this was a fun read & I found it refreshing to read this!

As a side note: I watched Loveboat in Taipei & I wish they made this book into a series instead of a movie! Why? I would have loveddd to see more of the backstory of the characters. Plus, I like the book ending better lol. Still a cute movie though - so, go watch on Paramount+! 🫡

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courtnoodles's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring slow-paced

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

1.0

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princessm's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-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

3.75

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isitcertain's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring lighthearted 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

3.5

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heatherjchin's review against another edition

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DNF at 60% — 50% then 10% at the end.

I got through half this novel before reading some reviews and spoilers because I had to see if all the guesses I had for the story trajectory and character development would come true and yup, they would. And actually ended up worse than I’d imagined. So I jumped to the end and decided to count this as a full Read here to give myself credit for reading through what turned out to be a trope-filled, caricature-heavy, shallow, problematic relationships on all levels, and unrootable-for protagonist novel.
The author does a good job with capturing the headiness and messiness of adolescence and young adulthood, and the emotional struggle between personal and parental dreams, but I couldn’t get past the framing of a lot of toxic relationship dynamics and decisions as just mistakes, excusable, not needing accountability or even to be taken seriously.

I also feel like readers who are not from the Chinese American and Asian American communities would find this more entertaining than many of us who live with the weight of these stereotypes daily.

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