Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa Sheinmel

4 reviews

lottie1803's review

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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shelbysaldan's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

the book is very confusing and sort of hard to get through, it took me a lot longer to read because I was sort of dreading it.
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booksofautumn's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense 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

5.0

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daffodildyke's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • 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

I found this book very interesting once it got going, and was able to pre-empt plot twists but not in a way that made this disappointing. There were some passages that spoke strongly to the self-doubt and reflection I have experienced with my own mental illness.

It is an interesting approach to telling this story and having Hannah as an unreliable narrator of her own story was impactful. However, it felt obvious at times that the author had probably not experienced significant, chronic mental health issues (and from a bit of searching online it generally seems that assumption is correct).

My biggest complaint regarding that is the same reason I am currently struggling with the abruptness of the ending. I suppose that's fairly fitting - reminiscent of the abruptness with which Hannah learns the truth about Lucy. But the ending feels rushed after a long and detailed approach throughout -
I don't think having the sensationalist self-harm, putting on new meds and then almost immediately discharging despite not monitoring whether they will help does justice to the rest of the story, because even in the authors note, the author points out that this was probably not realistic


I do wish we had an epilogue of some sort, just something of Hannah accepting the changes she may need to make and finding her own ways of surviving and thriving following the events of the book. I think the things I want to see in the epilogue are testament to my experiences with mental illness.
Some examples are maybe her learning how her meds can improve certain parts of life, seeing how her friendships change following her diagnosis and medication, engaging in good talking therapy where she can process both her hallucinations, but also the experiences she had growing up. I wish that she'd been shown to have more ownership over herself at the end, rather than the rather cliché thing that if you are psychotic the only way you can express yourself and exert control is by going off your meds


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