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Reviews tagging 'Rape'
The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall
28 reviews
tori_borialis's review against another edition
Absolute trash from the very beginning. The main character is insufferable; for a 28 year old woman, she behaves and thinks in incredibly juvenile ways. A cringe-worthy H*rry P*tter reference was my final straw, and upon reading other reviews, I’m glad I stopped while I was ahead. The whole book stinks of conservative Christian ideology (NOT the witchy vibes I expected), and the romantic subplot falls flat. I mean, come on- who the hell is still thinking about their high school boyfriend after ten years of no contact?? Let ALONE being feverishly obsessed with him… it’s giving desperate! It’s giving pathetic!
The main character complains about everyone leaving her, and honestly? I’d leave her ass too. Apparently this book was rejected 500 times by publishers. I wish it had been 501.
The main character complains about everyone leaving her, and honestly? I’d leave her ass too. Apparently this book was rejected 500 times by publishers. I wish it had been 501.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Murder, and Cancer
bzliz's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
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
1.0
Yikes. I really wish I’d read the reviews before I was substantially into this book. I finished it out of spite but that sure is time of my life that I’ll never get back. Reading the audiobook made it worse- I did not enjoy the narrator’s performance at all and each chapter ends with a recipe. I’d never considered how it would feel having a recipe dictated into my eardrums but now I know it feels vaguely sinister for some reason.
Edit: I checked out the author’s website after writing this review and she includes Elon Musk in a list of things she loves which really tempts me to drop the rating lower than 1 star. It just feels important for me to include that prior to my regular yapping about why- in my opinion- this book was garbage.
I have several issues with this book. The most grievous is how carelessly the author handled some serious subjects including suicide, rape & murder. The latter two are discussed over just a few pages in which the now-dying of cancer grandmother of our main character (who is nearly 30 years old) decides to impart vital information about her past, including that her mother didn’t abandon them of her own accord but rather because it was part of her curse after her toxic relationship resulted in a rape and forced pregnancy after which the grandmother killed the man. We just breeze right past all that. As for the suicide- I’d normally put this under a spoiler warning but I think it’s important to be clear in this instance- Sadie virtually out of nowhere decides that she needs to die to save her brother’s life and makes a suicide attempt on page. Her brother discovers her and resuscitates her but we also breeze right past this and only 3 members of the extensive cast ever know this happened. This simply didn’t need to happen. If she had thought about it for just five more minutes, it wouldn’t have happened at all.
Next- the romance is stupid. Jake is boring as hell and keeps to himself for way too long that he’s engaged to another woman, who happens to be pregnant. It made me feel so icky when he revealed that information because he had several chances and chose to say nothing. I also hated that the fiancee turned out to have faked her pregnancy to keep Jake around. What a stupid thing to do. Of course that was never going to work. And if your man seems like he’s in love with someone else, you should probably move on because it’s not going to end well. Sadie had her heart broken by him at 18 years old and is equally obsessed when he comes back to town 10 years later. I couldn’t figure out why they still liked each other after a decade apart and I believe it’s merely nostalgia for youth because they have no chemistry.
Third, the author takes normal life occurrences and tries to make it specific to Sadie’s family. They have so many rules about life and family mottos that crop up every few pages. One example is that every Revelare leaves but they always come back. Like it’s abnormal for people to move away from home. I got sick of hearing about that quickly. Each of them also gets a curse to go with their magic. Sadie’s curse is to suffer 4 heartbreaks, which is just a fact of life. The heartbreaks she suffers are that her high school boyfriend tells her he loves her, then leaves her (it sucks but it’s normal), her brother moves away for a year (he could’ve given her a heads up but also normal), and her grandmother Gigi dies (super normal, especially since Sadie is almost 30 years old). So really she has no curse and is whiny about having to live life and be magical. Also, one of Sadie’s aunts actively calls Gigi “mommy” which is just awful coming out of a middle aged woman’s mouth.
I could nitpick forever about the details but my last major issue was the failure to advertise the religious aspects of this book. Christianity is important to all these characters. There are comparisons to biblical stories discussed by them. It’s so incongruous to the witchy vibes and I never would have picked this up had that been indicated in any way. I just can’t make sense of having actual real magic powers and participating in an organized religion that historically doesn’t vibe with magic.
TLDR: this book is a waste of time tragedy porn taking cheap emotional shots to manipulate readers to think It’s better than it is.
Edit: I checked out the author’s website after writing this review and she includes Elon Musk in a list of things she loves which really tempts me to drop the rating lower than 1 star. It just feels important for me to include that prior to my regular yapping about why- in my opinion- this book was garbage.
I have several issues with this book. The most grievous is how carelessly the author handled some serious subjects including suicide, rape & murder. The latter two are discussed over just a few pages in which the now-dying of cancer grandmother of our main character (who is nearly 30 years old) decides to impart vital information about her past, including that her mother didn’t abandon them of her own accord but rather because it was part of her curse after her toxic relationship resulted in a rape and forced pregnancy after which the grandmother killed the man. We just breeze right past all that. As for the suicide- I’d normally put this under a spoiler warning but I think it’s important to be clear in this instance- Sadie virtually out of nowhere decides that she needs to die to save her brother’s life and makes a suicide attempt on page. Her brother discovers her and resuscitates her but we also breeze right past this and only 3 members of the extensive cast ever know this happened. This simply didn’t need to happen. If she had thought about it for just five more minutes, it wouldn’t have happened at all.
Next- the romance is stupid. Jake is boring as hell and keeps to himself for way too long that he’s engaged to another woman, who happens to be pregnant. It made me feel so icky when he revealed that information because he had several chances and chose to say nothing. I also hated that the fiancee turned out to have faked her pregnancy to keep Jake around. What a stupid thing to do. Of course that was never going to work. And if your man seems like he’s in love with someone else, you should probably move on because it’s not going to end well. Sadie had her heart broken by him at 18 years old and is equally obsessed when he comes back to town 10 years later. I couldn’t figure out why they still liked each other after a decade apart and I believe it’s merely nostalgia for youth because they have no chemistry.
Third, the author takes normal life occurrences and tries to make it specific to Sadie’s family. They have so many rules about life and family mottos that crop up every few pages. One example is that every Revelare leaves but they always come back. Like it’s abnormal for people to move away from home. I got sick of hearing about that quickly. Each of them also gets a curse to go with their magic. Sadie’s curse is to suffer 4 heartbreaks, which is just a fact of life. The heartbreaks she suffers are that her high school boyfriend tells her he loves her, then leaves her (it sucks but it’s normal), her brother moves away for a year (he could’ve given her a heads up but also normal), and her grandmother Gigi dies (super normal, especially since Sadie is almost 30 years old). So really she has no curse and is whiny about having to live life and be magical. Also, one of Sadie’s aunts actively calls Gigi “mommy” which is just awful coming out of a middle aged woman’s mouth.
I could nitpick forever about the details but my last major issue was the failure to advertise the religious aspects of this book. Christianity is important to all these characters. There are comparisons to biblical stories discussed by them. It’s so incongruous to the witchy vibes and I never would have picked this up had that been indicated in any way. I just can’t make sense of having actual real magic powers and participating in an organized religion that historically doesn’t vibe with magic.
TLDR: this book is a waste of time tragedy porn taking cheap emotional shots to manipulate readers to think It’s better than it is.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Cancer, Abandonment, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Murder, and Rape
ahopper7's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book was marketed incorrectly. It’s not a cozy witchy small town romance. There was so much potential in the premise but it desperately needed more editing to hone in on a real plot and handle its topics in a thoughtful way.
Pros (kind of):
- It definitely has some cozy elements especially in the first quarter of the book
- I loved the family element it was *trying* to incorporate
- The recipes at the end of each chapter added nicely to the story, not enough to redeem but still cute
- The magic was soo close to being a mix of Practical Magic and Mayfair Witches (depending on character) but it wasn’t executed well
Cons:
- The romance subplot is not done well and the characters or their romance are not developed
- The book very carelessly handled serious topics like rape, murder and attempted suicide which didn’t sit well with me and is the main reason behind my rating
- Overall, the story or the characters were just not developed. The team around this book really should have spent more time fleshing out one or two of the plot points instead of throwing in several different story lines and not executing any of them well.
Pros (kind of):
- It definitely has some cozy elements especially in the first quarter of the book
- I loved the family element it was *trying* to incorporate
- The recipes at the end of each chapter added nicely to the story, not enough to redeem but still cute
- The magic was soo close to being a mix of Practical Magic and Mayfair Witches (depending on character) but it wasn’t executed well
Cons:
- The romance subplot is not done well and the characters or their romance are not developed
- The book very carelessly handled serious topics like rape, murder and attempted suicide which didn’t sit well with me and is the main reason behind my rating
- Overall, the story or the characters were just not developed. The team around this book really should have spent more time fleshing out one or two of the plot points instead of throwing in several different story lines and not executing any of them well.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Mental illness, Rape, and Suicide attempt
focusedcomputer's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Death, Cancer, Abandonment, and Rape
Minor: Suicide attempt, Sexual violence, Murder, and Pregnancy
mtwb47's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
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
3.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape
fancyjess_party's review against another edition
slow-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
0.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Body shaming, Infidelity, Ableism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
heatherjchin's review against another edition
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? No
1.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Murder, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Cursing, Grief, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Pregnancy, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Rape, and Stalking
hello_lovely13's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
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
2.5
This was an extremely mixed bag (and I’m glad I read this via the library and didn’t spend any money on it). The overall vibe of the book was well done, very cozy, but I did have a problem with the writing. There were many instances where you could tell the author was trying really hard to make the writing atmospheric by adding too many unnecessary descriptive words, such as something along the lines of “the air was crisp like my apple pie”. It was a bit annoying. I love flowery writing, but this felt forced. Also, there were a few times where there were pop culture references that made me cringe (I.e.: her wanting appear cool when she was angry and saying to herself “conceal, don’t feel”…give me a break). Not to mention that I hated pretty much every single character (and you’re not supposed to!!!!!). Let’s start off with Sadie: she’s supposed to be the lovable, relatable people-pleaser that we root for, but she makes so many decisions that either annoy or enrage me. One of the main things that completely turned me off from her character is that she literally STOLE her ex’s dog and NEVER gave it back. Yes, initially it was a misunderstanding, but then she goes out of her way to hide it from him once she realized who it belonged to, changed the dog’s name, and the two of them just joke about this???? Girl, give him his fucking dog back.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Suicide attempt, Cancer, and Death
Minor: Drug abuse, Rape, Domestic abuse, and Murder
kiahsm's review against another edition
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Funny enough I finally finished reading this book after buying it on my kindle a few months back, reading a few chapters, becoming bored and closing out the book. I was on a trip across the country when I bought a "blind book date" wrapped in plain paper from a bookstore that had an enticing description on it. I unwrapped it and found this book, again. I decided I should finish it since it kept finding it's way back to me.
Don't get me wrong, this book is very cozy and sweet. I loved the nuggets of magic and Gigi's wisdom throughout. The recipes were a nice touch. I will say this isn't the type of book you want to tear through and not put down. It was more so a comforting and slow read.
Some quotes that hit me were the quotes on grief, as I recently lost my own grandmother to cancer. "What were you supposed to do after the matriarch died?" "The real consolation was seeing their own grief reflected in the eyes and tears of friends and neighbors and cafe patrons because it meant they were unified in their sorrow and love for a woman who had touched so many lives." Those sort of things you reflect on differently after losing someone you love. I appreciated the sincerity in the thought behind those words and showing the depth of Sadie's grief for such an important person in her life.
I felt that the characters had so much more potential for depth and character development, but it did feel very surface level. I also couldn't help myself rolling my eyes at "Jake" the small town firefighter who couldn't seem to be honest with himself or Sadie. Some parts of the story seemed like distractions and almost like the author couldn't choose which path she was going to go down story-line wise. The dark energy in the woods ends up being Sadie's grandfather? This didn't make much sense to me considering Sadie was supposed to be this very in-tune witch, but she couldn't differentiate an evil spirit and her grandpa? Just seemed a bit of a rush to close that part of the story because it didn't pan out the way it had initially been written.
I also have to mention, Gigi killing a man, and Sadie and her brother being the products of SA seemed almost glossed over, with no actual reflection from any of the characters on this part of the story line. It seemed like a heavy explanation to toss into the book without it being a bit more of a discussion.
Otherwise, this book is a cute and cozy read. It would be a great book to read through the fall and I look forward to seeing other books this author puts out as I am sure her writing will grow with practice.
Don't get me wrong, this book is very cozy and sweet. I loved the nuggets of magic and Gigi's wisdom throughout. The recipes were a nice touch. I will say this isn't the type of book you want to tear through and not put down. It was more so a comforting and slow read.
Otherwise, this book is a cute and cozy read. It would be a great book to read through the fall and I look forward to seeing other books this author puts out as I am sure her writing will grow with practice.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness, Grief, Death, Cancer, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Rape, Pregnancy, and Sexual assault
Minor: Murder
megletronic's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.75
NOT practical magic or Gilmore girls… weirdly Christian?? Apparently the author has said the book was rejected 500 times before publishing…. Clearly for a reason.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Cancer, and Rape