Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Bully by Penelope Douglas

10 reviews

notamouse's review against another edition

challenging hopeful reflective slow-paced

3.5

🌶️.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Minor: Violence, Alcoholism, Cancer, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Addiction, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Bullying, Child abuse, Gore, and Blood

caroras's review against another edition

emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Soo let’s be real here. If this was real life, no way Tate would’ve forgiven Jared, and if she did, I’d consider it Stockholm Syndrome.

But I will admit it, I gobbled up this book like it was my last meal.

I’m a sucker for love-hate tropes. 

I love Penelope’s writing style, and that may be partly why I devoured this book.

Some of the passages in the book were so amazingly written and clever.

Character development in this book is top notch. I loved the way Tate went from someone who could never stand her ground, someone who would run away, and to someone who stood up for herself and fought back. As cringe as it sounds, it was kind of inspiring lol.

I found that the characters were surprisingly lovable, despite all their flaws.

My personal favorite character must be Madoc. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying and Sexual content

Moderate: Alcoholism

Minor: Child abuse, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Grief, and Blood

elliott_the_clementine's review

tense fast-paced

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

2.0

This book is objectively not good, and the romance is quite problematic. That being said, Bully is highly entertaining read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Blood, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism and Toxic friendship

Minor: Drug abuse and Pedophilia

rceis's review

dark funny hopeful tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, and Child abuse

Minor: Blood, Addiction, Bullying, and Abandonment

saoreads's review

dark emotional funny reflective 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

4.5

It's a big cliché and dramatic, which led to a plot story that really is predictable, yet that's on me as I wanted to take a breather from reading high fantasy books to school setting ones. What made a huge impression on me was Tate's monologue. I had to read that twice. That part was both soothing and painful because of the sort of way their friendship ended up. It felt like a last call and a voice indeed to express how she felt from the duration she was made to suffer over trauma dumping and incidents in school from bullying and pranks. It had a lot of messed up scenes to the extreme, but it was fiction for a reason. Anyway, that monologue definitely saved the book for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Violence, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Medical trauma, and Sexual assault

itoriseva's review against another edition

dark emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Toxic relationship, Violence, Child abuse, Medical content, and Sexual content

Moderate: Cancer, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Blood, Sexual harassment, Cursing, Death of parent, and Grief

Minor: Drug use

readwithku's review against another edition

I figured this book was not for me. I felt like it is too dark and abusive.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Sexual content

zabeishumanish's review

It's in the title and I knew this would be a bully romance, but in this case, the bully is unforgivable and doing nothing to atone for his cruelty.  He is hard and wooden and Tate is left baring the entirity of the emotions for the both of them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Death of parent, Child abuse, and Abandonment

stephanieclarex's review against another edition

emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Violence, Sexual content, Rape, Physical abuse, Grief, Death of parent, Bullying, and Alcohol

Minor: Vomit, Drug use, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Addiction, and Blood

Some scenes with non-consensual touches and mentions of r*pe. Someone says the D slur.

nickiethebookwyrm's review

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

Writing was a bit juvenile and the plot was a little flimsy. Cute read, though predictable. I found the characters hard to believe at the beginning and I didn't care about them much, but that got better as I kept reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Death of parent, Grief, Infidelity, and Misogyny

Minor: Drug abuse, Gore, Rape, Sexism, and Vomit