Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

To Tell You the Truth by Gilly Macmillan

5 reviews

bringmybooks's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

3.0

Bring | Borrow | ✨Bypass✨

Review: Worth borrowing if you're looking for a quick thriller, but honestly there's probably better ones out there. This was my first from Gilly Macmillan, and I have a couple others by her that I will be reading so it's not like this book turned me off the author for good - but I don't think this is one I would wildly recommend. 

(No, really, this is a big spoiler)

The whole thing sets you up for something so massive, aka WHAT HAPPENED TO TEDDY, and ... we never find out? And the end is some weird thief/smuggling fiasco that her d!ckhe@d husband stumbled upon and got him killed? So her being a wild child with a potentially sociopathic imaginary friend had nothing to do with anything? ...k.

 

Overall Rating: ★★★ / 3.00 
 
Rating each element of the book out of 5★ 
Characters ★★★ 
Atmosphere ★★★ 
Writing ★★★ 
Plot ★★ 
Intrigue ★★★ 
Logic ★★ 
Enjoyment ★★ 
Pacing ★★★ 
Dialogue ★★★ 

★ did not like / ★★ it was okay / ★★★ liked it / ★★★★ really liked it / ★★★★★ loved it

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Emotional abuse, Death, Gaslighting, and Child death

karasin's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Gaslighting

cpachet's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting

Minor: Child death

xlivinglikejen's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

lindsaysofia_25's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

5.0

I LOVED this book, it combined murder mystery with psychological thriller in the best way possible. The different POVs and narrative styles really added to it (there was 'normal' writing but there was also interview transcripts and excerpts from an unspecified text) and the author did an excellent job making sure the ending was not predictable, in fact every guess I made at who the killer was and what circumstances surrounded the murder was totally wrong. The main character is morally grey which I really like, but is very common in adult books so it's not a huge drawing point.

the reveal that the text was the husband's attempt at a novel was such a surprise, I was sure it was her own journal or novel

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Content Warnings

Minor: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

I put the content warnings in minor because the main character experiences this but only early in the book and she thinks it's normal so she doesn't go into much detail in the text. It could be argued though that at least for gaslighting that actually makes it more realistic and thus more triggering.