Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman

11 reviews

heyitsseph's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

I loved how the author wrote the whole story . The book it’s about an elite / exclusive group where they get chose from freshman year to become THE PLAYERS from senior class. One of the main characters Shelia was killed everyone think her boyfriend did it . Jill wants to make her senior the best this year will be different, as they try to move on from Shells death.  Now that jill and her friends are seniors . Jill wants  to to find out who killed her best friend . Jill had to go through a lot to find out actually killed Sheila. It was a shocking surprise it emotional. Imagine find out who killed your best friend was someone close to you. You never even knew it. There is little bit a spicy and romance in the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Confinement, Alcohol, Blood, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Child death, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Body horror, and Child death

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

If you like to read a mystery/thriller book with mix of romance , and some shocking clues then this is the book for you. I enjoyed reading this book.

fallenstarr's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

• Strong character development? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Misogyny, Death, Sexism, Bullying, Toxic relationship, and Murder

Moderate: Classism, Sexual harassment, Confinement, Sexual content, and Sexual assault

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

the_true_monroe's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

Decent read- the first half was super slow for me but the 2nd half was captivating. This can be shown by how even though I read this book over 20 days, the last 50% were all in one day! It was pretty predictable but despite the outcome not being a shocker, I still felt all of the tension as things came into place. I also did not really like most of the characters but some who I really disliked for the majority of the book did get to me near the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Classism, Confinement, Grief, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Racism, and Self harm

libraryghost's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Murder, Blood, Misogyny, Classism, Sexual assault, Infidelity, Death, Grief, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Moderate: Confinement

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Confinement, Death, Grief, Murder, Sexual content, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Vomit, Violence, and Drug use

Moderate: Sexual violence and Adult/minor relationship

marissa_ann's review against another edition

dark fast-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Bullying, Child death, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Body shaming, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Confinement

emily_mh's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

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

1.0

It is not often I come across a book that I don't like a single thing about, but unfortunately They Wish They Were Us was one of these. Nothing happens in this book. There is no proper investigation as you would expect in a mystery/thriller book, and no character development. I couldn't stand most of the characters. Jill herself is so judgemental it's gross, and her friends are horrible

and are redeemed without doing anything to earn it

. The "Players" plot line is the ONLY plot line for half of this book, and then half of the plot line for the remainder of the book and it just wasn't interesting. There was an attempt at an analysis of misogyny within hazing but it didn't really go anywhere. I was really disappointed that the book turned out the way it did as I've been looking forward to reading it for a while. Regardless, I am still interested in reading They'll Never Catch Us as the premise sounds interesting and this book was only Goodman's debut.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Blood, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Confinement, and Misogyny

Moderate: Cursing, Grief, Drug use, Alcohol, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Violence, Physical abuse, Child death, Murder, and Death

Minor: Drug abuse, Car accident, Ableism, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Death of parent, Cancer, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Torture, Self harm, Antisemitism, and Adult/minor relationship

diifacto's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense medium-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol

Moderate: Confinement, Drug use, Misogyny, and Vomit

Minor: Sexual assault

alicialoebl's review against another edition

mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

I found the ending predictable but it still didn't make sense to me. Good twists and turn and exciting.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child death, Confinement, Death, Fatphobia, Grief, Infidelity, Rape, and Sexism

Minor: Body shaming and Bullying

sarah984's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

This book was just not very good. In a lot of ways, it felt like the author wanted to write a darker book but had boxed herself into YA, so she keeps intimating that terrible things had happened but then all of the things are kind of standard hazing situations. (Yes that's still bad, but not as apocalyptic as it's made to sound for most of the book) The secret society is also just sort of silly - a bunch of answer keys that could change at any time and some social connections they would have anyway. Nothing worth the way all the kids and adults treat it in the story.

The murder mystery portion is very stupid because there is a character who is always acting suspicious and every clue points to them but no one ever suspects them which makes it extremely obvious.

There's sort of an attempt at feminism in terms of guys controlling everything and forcing worse hazing on the girls but we're only ever told this directly in narration, it's not really shown in the challenges that happen on-page. The one explicitly bad thing that happens isn't part of a challenge, and when the main character actually does witness something that affects a girl more she is only upset about it because her brother is involved.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Death, Grief, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual assault, and Vomit

Minor: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Medical content, and Sexual content