Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

99 reviews

seagullsaga's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? No

3.5

I probably liked this book less than I normally would because I picked it up expecting horror and not a mystery. It was a good book, and enjoyable, just not to my taste. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Bullying, Drug use, Death, Alcohol, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Grief, Murder, and Rape

Moderate: Ableism, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Confinement, Eating disorder, and Emotional abuse

lunar_witch's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Sexual assault, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Car accident, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug use, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Fatphobia, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Alcohol, Blood, Eating disorder, Pedophilia, Self harm, Stalking, Bullying, Body shaming, Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Confinement, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Dementia, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, and Toxic relationship

msteinhaus's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I appreciated the difficulty level of this mystery--as an adult reader I was typically one step ahead of Pippa, which made the experience more enjoyable and less tense. It was hard to see a teenage girl take on such immense risk and would have been nicer, in my opinion, for Pippa to more openly learn/acknowledge that relying on others is critical and that she doesn't need to always be the strong, independent one. Major content warning for adult/teen predation and many other triggers, see tags below. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Suicide attempt, Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Drug use, Rape, Murder, Bullying, Death of parent, Animal death, and Sexual assault

hiraethtales's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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

5.0

Definitely a five star read. I loved every second of the book. The plot had me so invested and the characters were just ahhh. You won’t regret reading this.
Also Cara is just the best character

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Addiction, Death of parent, Bullying, Body shaming, Animal death, Racism, Gaslighting, Drug use, Physical abuse, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Pedophilia, Suicide, Stalking, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Cancer, Sexual harassment, Kidnapping, Abandonment, Self harm, Racial slurs, Panic attacks/disorders, and Medical trauma

juliaaaaaa's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I LOVED THIS BOOK. i wanted to read it as soon i found out they were going to make it a series, im just mad i read it this late.
anyway, the suspense is so good that you cant put the book down and i cried when her dog died

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexual assault, Animal death, Blood, Drug use, Grief, Infidelity, Sexual harassment, Racial slurs, Suicide, Vomit, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Car accident, Deadnaming, Fatphobia, Rape, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Adult/minor relationship, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Physical abuse, Self harm, and Stalking

Moderate: Dementia

librarymouse's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

This was a fantastic read! Holly Jackson masterfully wove in foreshadowing and red herrings into the story. Even with big twists, the characters were so well fleshed out that the twists didn't feel like they came out of nowhere.  Jackson does a great job making the characters and place feel very real. She creates a diverse cast of characters that I feel like I could meet on any street or at any high school event.

Ravi and Pip's friendship and then relationship was adorable. They're both very funny. I adore that once his brother was exonerated, he brought his parents to meet her, and that their families are close. Josh loving Ravi before he started dating Pip was a good set up to show the two getting together eventually.
Setting up Naomi's mental illness and then showing her father to be similarly unstable but to a greater degree, and him using her diaries as a way to learn information was a really interesting twist. I really wanted Mr. Ward to be innocent.
I was destroyed by Barney's death. His relationship with Pip and Josh is part of what made her so real. Her dancing with Barney and making up little songs about him was adorable and relatable.
I really thought H.H. was going to be the killer, and that it was the B&B owner's son. Maybe it'll come back up in later books, because I still don't think H.H. is Howie's House.

This book managed to embody elements from both the small town cozy genre and quintessential murder mysteries. I highly recommend it!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Confinement, Death, Self harm, Panic attacks/disorders, Stalking, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Drug abuse, Grief, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, and Vomit

Moderate: Dementia and Animal death

Minor: Fatphobia

mishasbooks's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Animal death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Addiction, Mental illness, Murder, Body shaming, Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Drug use, Rape, Stalking, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child death, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Self harm, and Sexual assault

broccoli_j's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious fast-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

5.0

Holly Jackson took the question „if the romance wasn’t part of the book anymore, would there still be a plot?“ way to seriously and the romance is the smallest part of the novel. 

But apart of this cute little love side story, this book is filled with great relationships, well developed characters, thrilling events that aren’t far fetched at all and a chapter concept that guarantees a one of a kind reading flow. 

Would highly recommend this young adult thriller and already feel exited for the second book! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Sexism, Bullying, Death, Violence, Child death, Grief, Murder, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, and Mental illness

Moderate: Physical abuse, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Addiction, Self harm, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, and Eating disorder

faeriefox's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

2.0

I started this book with high hopes. I had heard very good things about it, but was fairly disappointed. It wasn't all bad, but I had enough issues with it that it lowered my rating significantly.

Firstly, the writing style. As a book aimed toward the YA audience, the prose was far too immature, especially for the dark and possibly triggering themes with, such as SH, suicide, and rape. It felt like the book did not take truly seriously and tried to make light of these things. This was my biggest issue, and brought down my rating the most. 

No matter how much I enjoyed the plot, the aforementioned is a huge problem and I hate that anyone could be exposed to that without advance notice. The content warnings on StoryGraph are not thorough enough, and I feel like most of these people who read the book must not have these types of triggers. There is a detailed explanation of how a suicide was allegedly committed, many mentions of rape, an adult-minor relationship, and more.

Also because of this writing style, dialogue felt very forced and unbelievable, and because of this these 17+ year old characters acted and sounded like they were no older than ten. It was really difficult to really fall into the story because of this. The characters were all also very flat and had little to no development throughout the story.

I also felt that most of the solve kind of came out of nowhere, and that there were too many suspects at time during the story; I didn't even really try to figure out what happened because I was quite confused.

All of that being said, there were some good points. The premise was overall interesting, and while I was too confused to actually figure out what happened, I was interested enough to finish the book and hear the solve, especially as I got further in and more invested. The writing quality also improved slightly towards the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Cursing, Death, and Suicide

Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Racism, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, and Toxic relationship

maddison20's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Murder, Bullying, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Emotional abuse, Rape, Car accident, Death, Dementia, Suicide, Vomit, Domestic abuse, and Self harm

Moderate: Alcohol, Bullying, Sexual assault, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Blood, Death, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Rape, Murder, Car accident, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Adult/minor relationship, and Death of parent

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Body shaming, Blood, Self harm, Bullying, Car accident, Death, Kidnapping, Murder, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Toxic friendship, and Drug use