Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

82 reviews

epeolatrist's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, and Child death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, and Suicide

sarahbethhh's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Character study meets thriller meets religious exploration. The first half seemed to drag, but paid off in the end. Incredibly creepy imagery. Check trigger warnings before reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Religious bigotry, Body horror, Confinement, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Child abuse and Domestic abuse

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual content

lokidotter's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Violence, Child abuse, Murder, Gun violence, Suicide, Child death, and Domestic abuse

audalia's review against another edition

dark hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Abandonment, Alcohol, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Child abuse, Confinement, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Blood, Religious bigotry, Grief, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Pedophilia, Addiction, Death, and Incest

nrogers_1030's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Murder, Grief, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Bullying, and Child death

Moderate: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Child abuse, and Addiction

Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, and Eating disorder

chrstnareads's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Pregnancy, and Sexual assault

skylerraee's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I mean this in the best way possible: WHAT. THE. FUCK. At several points I was like, how can there be this many more pages if things are wrapping up? And I was wrong every single time. I genuinely cried at the end, partly because it was over but also because of how beautifully written it was. I have a handful of books I wish I’d never read, simply so I could read them for the first time- and this is definitely one of them. 6/5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Alcoholism

hxppyhxt's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

2.0

2 Stars instead of 1 because I really enjoyed the first half or so of the book.

Far too long of a book. I really enjoyed the first half or so of the book, then I got to the point where I was like there is still half of this book to read and everything in the summary has been done. And the random capitalization in words was so annoying, I thought they would spell something (especially when the author set this up to be the case with 

Spoilerthe journal) but spelling them out in many places was just fruitless. Very frustrating. I decided to DNF after an entire chapter of the uppercase nonsense where I spent so long trying to decode it only to get something along the lines of "HIMEEEEEEEIEEE". So many "hE". I thought that maybe it was intentional to just refer to a specific character in this way, but then even within the chapter it was not consistently "hE", sometimes it would just be a normal "he", which blew that theory out of the water. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to figure it out but honestly it got to the point where I didn't even care enough to figure it out.

Some of the twists were well set up so that you could figure them out or at least get a sense that something was amiss. Others felt completely random and felt like they had virtually no setup or foreshadowing.

SpoilerI don't mind some religious undertones, but in this case it really felt like two different books. The first half really had very little indication that the plot was headed towards a Christian allegory, and then in the second half it just felt like "and guess what, this is Satan. Oh and this? Yea she's actually the Virgin Mary. Oh yea, this is God. This is the Tree of Good and Evil. This is Eve, you know from the garden of Eden? And this is literal Hell" and on and on. I feel like setting it up more at the beginning would have made it feel less random.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Blood, Torture, Pregnancy, Suicide, Body horror, and Death of parent

Minor: Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

paronomaniac's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual assault, Blood, and Torture

Moderate: Gun violence, Pedophilia, Violence, Suicide, Dementia, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcoholism and Car accident

amberjackonski's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Child abuse and Sexual assault