Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

41 reviews

ashleymg99's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Holy. Shit. The ending. Everyone says the last 20 pages are crazy and my god, are they right. The payoff is insane. 

I literally got to the last few chapters and I went “ah I know where this is going”. No the fuck you don’t. You think you do, but you absolutely do not. 

All I can say is this book is crazy - between 2 unreliable narrators, time jumps, and secrets, it leaves you guessing until the end. The twist is unexpected in the best way, because it takes everything you thought you knew and turns it on its head. The ending bumps my star rating from like a 3 to a 3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Murder, Addiction, Fire/Fire injury, Animal cruelty, Death, Alcohol, Drug use, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, and Body shaming

meeeg's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Addiction, Murder, and Infidelity

Minor: Abortion

lindseyrenee's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.25

The first half to 2/3 was pretty slow and seemed like a dramatic soap opera with all the affairs and weird relationships. When the pace started to pick up though, I was completely hooked and needed to know answers to all my questions! The ending was one that I would have never guessed. I thought I had it nailed down with the second to last chapter and then the last one swooped in and shocked me even more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal death, Body shaming, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Stalking, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, and Infidelity

Moderate: Drug use and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Sexual content

brookey8888's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

3.25

Honestly this was entertaining but it was also kind of boring at the same time. Nothing thrilling really happened so I kept wondering like what was gonna happen and what was the point. But the ending I did not see coming at all and I was shocked. I don’t know if I necessarily like it but I didn’t see it coming so there’s that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Death, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Abortion, Murder, and Stalking

lizziej96's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Body shaming, Death of parent, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Mental illness, Death of parent, Abortion, Miscarriage, and Death

anne311's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

man

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Medical content, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Violence, Suicide, Addiction, Alcohol, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Mental illness, Self harm, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Body shaming and Body horror

Minor: Abortion

novi's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

• Loveable characters? No

4.0

what the fuck did i just read???!!!! lmaooo. it's brilliant but also very very dramatic. i just hate louise so much. she's so stupid. just stop talking to people, louise!! stop!!! fuck.

I like that everything that's written has its purpose, like the narratives of a character's day are all purposeful here to build the character and the plot, so there's no case of when we're reading a character's daily life that sounds suspiciously mundane and it makes us wonder "why is this written? is something bad is going to happen?" like some thriller writers tend to do, even agatha christie. It makes things predictable. But it didn't happen here, everything flows naturally and purposeful. So clever. We also actually get hints all through out the book but nothing very obvious, just enough to keep the intrigue and wonder.

even the rob part! it's just my heteronormative head that didn't register it, when rob suddenly acted very differently when he met david. and adele's current narrations are very different than the "then" narrations, which were told from real adele's perspective. i did notice that, but didn't think about it too much

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

sallysimply's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense

• 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

Things I didn’t see coming: wild and unnecessary use of the r word, multiple descriptions of animal death.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Infidelity

Moderate: Abortion

Minor: Ableism

rachelreads2453's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Confinement and Acephobia/Arophobia

This book really kept me on my toes. So much more informative than the show on Netflix. The author does a brilliant job of weaving this story together, and my attention by showing so many different angles and perspectives!

katrinasherise's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Infidelity, and Alcohol

Moderate: Gaslighting, Body shaming, Drug use, Confinement, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Murder, and Drug abuse

Minor: Death, Abortion, and Death of parent