Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

They'll Never Catch Us by Jessica Goodman

8 reviews

leexpenandpages's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

📝 SYNOPSIS:
After a secret-filled summer apart, two sisters who share a passion for cross country running return to school, where a runner better than either of them has just transferred. When tragedy begalls her, the sisters are the top suspects.
👟🍂🏠🔎🚔🕺🏻💔👭👫

👍🏻 RECOMMENDATION:
💚 READ it at your leisure.

💬 FAVORITE QUOTES:
...

👓 FORMAT: 
🎧

📑 COMMENTS:
• Social commentary is woven into both the plot and dialogue naturally. Sisterhood and friendship are core themes, which give an uplifting feeling to dark subjects.

• *Most* of the plot twists are predictable. It takes a surprising amount of time before the disappearance occurs, but that gives the readers time to get to know the character better.

• The ending is beautiful and heart-wrenching (but hopeful), even if it doesn't make sense. Seriously, prepare to suspend your disbelief from around the climax onward. 

• The protagonists' journeys are rewarding. Side characters are developed decently, and some experience growth too. There are occasions where the characters' motivations don't make sense, and I assume we are meant to classify it as teenage stupidity. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Violence, Sexual content, Alcohol, Bullying, Alcoholism, Murder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Rape, Sexism, Misogyny, and Addiction

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders and Vomit

Minor: Body shaming

aformeracceleratedreader's review

dark reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

Pretty solid story, but I didn't LOVE it. I liked seeing how the sisters relationship grew and changed. I knew a bunch of people who were in crosscountry so that was pretty cool to read a story centered around a sport people don't really focus on. I think the very end was pretty satisfying. Wish Noah would've faced more consequences tho.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Abortion, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Sexual content, Eating disorder, Medical content, Murder, Addiction, Child death, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

sienna1508's review

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

4.25

I kinda guessed the mystery for this one but I still liked the character-building in the story. It was mostly fast-paced except it was a bit repetitive. But overall I enjoyed it 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Alcoholism, and Abortion

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Eating disorder, Physical abuse, Grief, and Gaslighting

Minor: Vomit, Sexual assault, Mental illness, and Blood

daniellejp16's review against another edition

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Pregnancy, Eating disorder, Abortion, Mental illness, and Violence

lbrown9723's review

mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Mental illness

thereadingshelf's review

challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny and Sexism

Minor: Abortion, Addiction, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Bullying, Drug abuse, Mental illness, and Murder

smugreadsbooks's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Violence, Toxic friendship, and Addiction

Minor: Body shaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Infertility

emily_mh's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

This was such an improvement from They Wish They Were Us, which aside from problematic books I read, was probably the worst book of 2021 for me. They’ll Never Catch Us was more enjoyable, the message on misogyny and sexism shone through, and the conclusion was much better. I also liked how Goodman didn’t sanitise how teenagers act. I did have three major criticisms, though. The first is that Ellie and Stella’s voices were incredibly similar. I sometimes had to check halfway through a chapter whose perspective I was reading from. The second is that the inciting incident didn’t happen until 37% through the book, so it was quite a slow start. The third is spoilery:

essentially, I wished the cold cases played a bigger part in the mystery. Because they were already technically solved before the book began, I would have liked a more definitive statement that X person definitely did do Y but the police screwed it up, rather than X person probably did Y but the police screwed it up.

Regardless of these criticisms, this book has shown me that They Wish They Were Us was probably a one-off bad book, so I’m interested in what Goodman writes next. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Murder, Child death, Misogyny, Sexism, and Infidelity

Moderate: Cursing, Addiction, Alcoholism, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Physical abuse, Violence, Vomit, and Drug abuse

Minor: Bullying, Sexual assault, Ableism, Toxic friendship, Car accident, Blood, Alcohol, Mental illness, Racism, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Grief, and Body shaming