Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Maeve Fly by CJ Leede

38 reviews

snowiceblackfruit77's review

dark emotional funny mysterious sad 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

This story was made for me. The MC was so interesting.

Her and Gidion’s story was so sad, he was the same he was her equal. But because the belief that no one would understand her, that she would always be alone was in her head she couldn’t see.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Stalking, Murder, Abandonment, and Alcohol

macncheese_pdf's review

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Mental illness, Sexual content, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death, Sexual violence, Torture, and Toxic friendship

swewovsky's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Drug use and Alcohol

orizenda's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I really liked this book except for the romance, which I didn’t realize would be such a large plot element. Like to me this felt like a love story with some other weird fucked up stuff happening around it and then some genuine emotions. I would have liked it a lot better if it had been about Maeve and Kate ijs i think a love story there would be a lot more potentially interesting. but like interesting plot elements, although sometimes i think it feels like there’s too much going on for such a short story. idk. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Excrement

ruthypoo2's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.25

This is a well-written and interesting story with a unique and somewhat unbalanced protagonist with feminist-leaning sensibilities. While the flow of the storyline is pretty tight, at times it felt a little slow to me, but around 60-70% it became quite engaging.

The bottom line is that I don’t care for body horror or sexual content, especially when they’re combined. Even though the body horror and sexual content in this book are relatively mild and the author doesn’t go into a lot of detail, it was still, personally, more than I want to read. With that said, it works for the main character, Maeve Fly, and the story, just not for this reader.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Sosie Bacon. The personality and vocal inflections Ms. Bacon brought to all the characters fit perfectly, but I thought the huskiness of her voice took a little getting used to at the start.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Torture

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Gore

mxpringle's review

dark 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

2.25

This is probably one of the most depraved and bizarre books I've ever read, which is definitely saying something. I feel like I could've used more background as to how the events that happened in Maeve's life or thoughts she had led her to doing certain actions in the book, because a lot of the actions she did just seemed so off the rails that I couldn't see any human reasoning behind it anymore. It kind of felt like the things she did were just like trying to get a reaction out of the reader rather than being authentic character development. However, this was still overall a really interesting/enjoyable read (though very dark and depraved). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Misogyny, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

Minor: Toxic relationship and Pregnancy

sarahnink's review

dark 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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

atmissv's review against another edition

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

4.5

I loved this book, but it is DARK! I read a review that compared it with American Psycho, and that is an apt comparison - though this one has more moments of (dark dark pitch black) humor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

trashgobby's review

dark reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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: Body horror, Death, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Mental illness, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Minor: Body shaming, Cursing, Misogyny, Suicide, Vomit, and Classism

recklessric's review

dark 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

3.0

Just going to wrap all this in a spoiler tag since I'm not 100% sure how that works. This book starts out feverish in the best way before a bit of a mid book lull and then and end that does a pretty good job of misdirection before the twist. This issue for me, though was that the twist comes so late that it makes the last 1/3 of the book a bit of a chore because it feels like it's heading for something cliched and obvious so I like the ending but didn't enjoy getting there. Also I think this book contradicts itself a lot in terms of its philosophy and the philosophy of the characters which was ultimately a bit of a let down. I think it strives to be something more than shock value slasher fare and that's admirable but ultimately that's all this is to me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail