Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

A Beautiful Poison by Lydia Kang

3 reviews

multiplyoctopi's review

emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Sexual assault, Medical content, Death, Alcoholism, War, Sexual violence, Drug use, Cancer, Terminal illness, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Classism, and Grief

Minor: Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Suicide, Rape, and Racism

hannahg94's review

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? It's complicated

2.5

 So... I wanted to toss this book aside. And I definitely would have, had I not been trapped in a waiting room for hours with nothing to do, but read this book. The first half of the book is dreadful; slow, meandering, too enamored with its own cleverness, and the main characters are painfully unlikable. Like, the most annoying characters I've encountered in a book in years. They have no chemistry together (which is ironic for a book about chemistry) and I can't believe that they, in their varying tracks of life and philosophical views, would like each other, let alone tolerate each other's presence. But I'm supposed to believe that after four years of being absent from each other's lives... they the best buds. Intimate buds. (Innuendo sort of implied.)

The second half of the book picks up a lot of its lagging parts, moves more swiftly and gives each character a bit of a reality check. It's almost like the author got impatient with herself, so sped it up and removed a lot of the more fluffy, irrelevant bits. I didn't mind the second half of the book. I also didn't mind the ending and the "grand reveal." It is a bit wild with a few too many clever coincidences, but I do think it worked and I think where the characters ended their narratives made sense on an individual level. 

But overall, I wouldn't recommend this book. The plot has some interesting moments and twists and the setting is no doubt unique and fun, but those things can't save it from the utterly unlikable characters or pedantic storytelling. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Murder, Terminal illness, and Gore

Minor: Rape and Suicide

annir's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Addiction, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Abandonment, Pregnancy, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Vomit, War, and Violence