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Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne

79 reviews

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

3.8 (cause I was expect a horror but got a drama with horror elements)

I found myself rooting for Anna, it feels like the haunted nature of the book is a direct reflection on the main character. - I honestly didn’t get that till the last 20% of the book which I thought was super neat.

I felt for Anna, being stuck with these ppl as family would drive anyone to be an emotional unavailable person. If you are told you are the problem your whole life it does something to you. 

This book will not be for everyone, especially people that are very close to their families. 

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I love this novel. It's The White Lotus meets the horror movie Shutter. Tense, relatable and quite unpredictable, I did not anticipate the direction it was going in the final 70 pages. 😶‍🌫️ 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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dark medium-paced

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

“Keep Cursed and Carry On” 

It’s hard to even explain to you how much I love this book. I will be the first to admit that I don’t think this book will be for everyone. This book is about toxic family relationships with a touch of the supernatural.

 It is also largely a character study of our main character Anna as she navigates the relationships in her life and the perceptions her loved ones place on her (even when faced with increasingly spooky situations). If you don’t like Anna early on in your reading I would say put down the book. 

This book is the ideal read when faced with stressful family interactions and for many could be a good way to process their frustrations. We see Anna process what’s happening to her with humor, with tact, and with a growing sense of her own worth. The real horror in this book is these family dynamics and the supernatural simply amps them up and feeds on what is already present which may not be what everyone is expecting from a haunted house book 🏚️

 I feel like the horror worked very well as it gave you a chance as the reader to see the story from all angles and to see what it means to step away from these family dynamics and in a way that amped up the sense of dread. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark mysterious tense 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

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dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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challenging dark tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

SO CREEPY AND SO GOOD 😳 I am going to be thinking about this story for a while!

Anna is such a badass. Initially, I was unsure of whether I liked her or not, but as the story went on and the narrative unfolded I realised she was so villainised.
LET’S JUST SAY IT, the family were the fucking villains! Thank fuck for maybe Justin, Mia and Waverly 🙄


I am glad there was a relatively happy ending to it.
There is nothing like tying up loose ends than the protagonist always having a symbol of their haunting to keep, but then getting to move to Italy and be an artist 😂

I’m not saying it’s a happy tale throughout though. In fact, if you get squirmish I would not recommend this! Content warnings included below.

4 out of 5 stars for me, thank you ✨

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dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book made me think a lot about perspective and the way, in books like this, we have to remember that we are getting a biased take on the story. The main character was so well done. Like I wanted to believe her that she was a great person and that her family was just complete and utter dog shit but after finishing I really was wondering if it wasn’t the other way around. The storyline was very good and so many parts of this book just absolutely creeped me the freak out. The author did a really good job of combining real life everyday horrors with the supernatural ghost story. 

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