Reviews with content warning for Bullying - Even If We Break

Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp

14 reviews

flordemaga's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

2.75

I wanted to rate higher, but couldn’t. The book is a bit slow on the first third, grows considerably stronger in the second third with a tense atmosphere and stakes that feel high, and then… a messy last third with immersion breaking character speak and kind of a boring ending.

Mandy is easily the strongest character, with a unique voice and a good portrait of an autistic character without being infantilizing nor ignoring disability.

The rest of the character voices are, I feel, not distinct enough. Carter is the second most distinct voice. The rest kind of get muddled together.

But what I hate the most: some of the dialogue, especially at the end when it super shouldn’t be, gets preachy and stilted and sounds unbelievable. Like… The author expects me to believe like these traumatized 18 year olds would be speaking like they just got out of their weekly therapy session after they’ve faced Horrors. It’s deeply unrealistic and ridiculous and immersion-breaking as hell. But okay.

It really pissed me off and that with the unclear character voices just really turned me off and I kinda wish I didn’t actually read this one.

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savreads28's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

1.0

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rxanne5's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense 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? N/A

4.5

I have re read this book a few times by now. I do love this book a lot.

I'm a huge nerd so it's only natural I'm liking this book so much. It has been a while since I read it again though. There are spoilers ahead!

I love the character building in this book. I like how Marieke Nijkamp builds characters disabled or lgbtq+ people can relate to without it being a huge plot point or something that tries to get 'fixed' throughout the book.

I could also relate to some of the characters. I do like the plot twists in this book, but I had a bad feeling about Liv the whole time already. This is definitely my favorite book if the two I have read by this author and I also got a friend hooked on this.

There are some beautiful quotes in this book, that also made me think for a while. Great book.

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bradley's review

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-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

4.5

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mxajlikesbooks's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

Plot seemed messy and all over the place, too much going on at once with various character's personal circumstances. Book needed to be longer and go into much more depth about various things to get the feel I think it was going for. Felt like I didn't have time to properly absorb or care about character details. Some of the dialogue and text was too on the nose. I love a good found family, creating your own meaning from life and facing it together sorry, but I didn't need to be beaten over the head with that being one of the main themes. I really wanted to like this book and finished it out of curiosity to see how it ended but I couldn't get into it and just didn't care like it wanted me to.

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g0ryg0bl1n's review

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective fast-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

3.75

the main antagonist was a little predictable. the cast was diverse in the sense of sexuality, gender, and ‘health’. i am pretty sure the group was made up of mostly white people. they address that in the book though. the characters were relatable.

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