Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester by Maya MacGregor

18 reviews

lue_moon's review against another edition

dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I loved so many things about this book, starting with its stunning cover art. Overall the mystery aspect was fairly engaging, but this book rates high for me mostly because of the other elements. It's just as much about found family and healing from trauma, as it is about the mystery in it.

The queer, nonbinary, and autistic rep was excellent and very relatable, especially the later. It's maybe the first book I've read where a character is explicitly Autistic and getting to read so many little details that I was able to relate to was something I don't know I ever expected to get a novel. The description of overstimulation, stimming (both happy stims and self-aggressive ones), what it's like when words become difficult, the experience of not knowing how to human....An author with lived experience makes a world of difference. 

To also read a parent who wholeheartedly embraces his kid in all aspects of their identity, who actually takes the time and care to truly understand his kid, made me want to cry. Not nearly enough queer kids, let alone queer autistic kids, get to have that.

And the friendship between Sam and their friends is so freaking heartwarming. Found family like that in a book reminds me just how important my own found family is, and also makes me wish I would have been able to have friendships like that sooner.

This is why I will never understand how people think family is as common as blood. To me, family is breath; it's trusting the person beside you to demand your right to air in a world that would take it from you. It's the vulnerability of feeling someone's chest move in a careful rhythm to give you your own back.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Murder, Homophobia, Death, Hate crime, and Transphobia

Moderate: Ableism, Toxic friendship, and Biphobia

Minor: Domestic abuse, Alcohol, and Cancer

kyanitecourage's review against another edition

dark hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Hate crime, Death, Homophobia, Toxic friendship, Child death, Bullying, Stalking, Alcoholism, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, and Murder

Moderate: Biphobia, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

valereads's review against another edition

emotional hopeful 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

4.0

Review to come

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence

Moderate: Medical content, Murder, Toxic friendship, Bullying, Biphobia, Death, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Self harm

merle_bookdragon's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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

I don't even exactly know where to start or end but this book was wonderful.

I'm usually not big on murder mystery but I guess if you package it in a YA queer contemporary with a wonderful protagonist it works. I really enjoyed Sam's POV, learning more about how they see the world and of course the wonderful realizations they had when they were finally surrounded by good friends. And my god are good friends groups one of my favorite things in literature. Sam, Shep, Sky, Aidan, and Ronnie and Jax, too, are such a wonderful group and I just wish everyone could be surrounded by such a safe group of people.

I think while this might sound cheesy one of my other favorite things was the wonderful representation we had in this book. Sam is autistic and nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, and they also identify themselves as panromantic and being on the ace spectrum. We also see Latina, Black, Vietnamese, bi, and aroace rep (and more I'm sure) in Sam's friend group and in the LGBTQIA+ club at school. 

The murder mystery part starts slowly and then grows more apparent towards the second half of the book when it becomes obvious that Sam and Shep have stirred a pot that somebody clearly doesn't want to have stirred. I really liked the dynamic development and without any spoilers - I didn't guess who the murder was.

And just for a little bit of emotional pain, because Sam was really good at inflicting that on me:

"I'm not afraid of the dead, Dad. They're dead. [...] The living are scarier."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Bullying, Homophobia, and Violence

Moderate: Biphobia, Death, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Stalking

Minor: Self harm, Alcoholism, Cancer, Domestic abuse, Vomit, and Outing

buttermellow's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia and Hate crime

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Biphobia, Bullying, Child death, Panic attacks/disorders, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Gun violence

spark_879's review against another edition

emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Child death, Toxic friendship, Violence, Sexual content, and Transphobia

Minor: Vomit, Gun violence, Biphobia, Self harm, and Domestic abuse

transphobia = misgendering & harming someone because they're queer • murder = (accidental) attempted murder • sexual content = kissing

phoxyphoenix's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• 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: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Toxic friendship, Panic attacks/disorders, Deadnaming, Transphobia, Hate crime, Biphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Mental illness

legalplanner's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

LGBTQIA+, gender identity, and autistic positive, with a taste of mystery that seriously had me looped in from the get go. 

 

Sam is 18, an adoptee, a survivor, and honestly a great lead voice for this novel. When we meet Sam they have just moved into their new home with their dad. We don’t necessarily know why they moved other than the “incident” as we get to know the background on Sam and their dad we get to know that life has twists and turns and we as children deserve a safe place to learn. 

 

I loved the positive characters and characteristics of those in the LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, and gender spectrums/areas. They did not feel tokenized or over the top or even like they were only there for brownie points. Their presence was necessary, but their characteristics were secondary. 

 

The mystery that is Billy was interesting to follow and I was fully invested in figuring out what was going on and can understand why Shep and Sam wanted to find the answers. 

 

I would hands down suggest this to everyone and anyone that would listen because this felt like it was focused on the story not the qualities of a person in a bad way. I wanted to follow more I wanted to lunch people for Sam. It was a wonderful voice, story, and I appreciate the realness of Sam. So often a autistic person doesn’t show their stemming or even mention it in books and it’s mentioned here casually because it happens it’s not something that just doesn’t exist. That meant a lot to me. 

 

Overall this is a 5star review and I can’t wait to grab my physical copy to add to my library of books.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Homophobia, and Bullying

Moderate: Physical abuse and Panic attacks/disorders

sarah984's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

1.5

I feel terrible giving this book such a low rating but I didn't like it at all. 

I will say first off that I really liked Sam's relationship with their dad, and the way that emotions are described  being interpreted through facial expressions and the general autistic point of view. 

Every character that wasn't Sam or their dad was pretty one-note, though. I kept forgetting about Sky even though he was part of the core friend group, and it took me like half the book to realize Aidan and Dylan were two different guys. There were two different characters whose entire personality was "mean girl". The slang is really embarrassing (stop saying emoji!) and the constant brand name and meme references are already dated.

The mystery was also just really bad. The perpetrator is pretty easy to guess

because it's the one adult with zero redeeming qualities.

The author also seems to want to write a book where true crime sleuths save the day while acknowledging how damaging and ghoulish true crime superfans can be and that did not work for me. The way everything worked out comes across as "digging at old wounds and invading peoples' privacy is bad unless I do it."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Biphobia, Bullying, Death, Child death, Stalking, Ableism, Alcohol, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Transphobia

Minor: Police brutality, Toxic friendship, Racism, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Cancer, Death of parent, Chronic illness, Cursing, and Child abuse

benediction's review against another edition

dark hopeful mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Hate crime, Transphobia, and Homophobia

Moderate: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Grief, Stalking, Toxic friendship, Violence, Biphobia, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child death, Mental illness, Dysphoria, Outing, and Self harm

Minor: Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Blood, Kidnapping, Medical content, Police brutality, Racism, and Religious bigotry