Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

If You Tell by Gregg Olsen

46 reviews

katsdaysarebooked's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Torture, Body shaming, Murder, Gaslighting, Homophobia, and Domestic abuse

soupysammy's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Brutal, scary, and heartbreaking. 
I felt afraid reading this and imagining that this could be real life and is real life is unbelievably terrifying. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Drug abuse, Drug use, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Medical trauma, Cancer, Grief, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Vomit, Violence, and Gore

akeivens's review

dark informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Violence, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Drug abuse, Medical content, Slavery, Torture, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Child abuse, Murder, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Grief

Minor: Self harm and Cancer

thesaltiestlibrarian's review

dark informative sad tense slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Mental illness, Murder, Abandonment, Blood, Cursing, Death, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Torture, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Violence, Vomit, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Cancer

lapluie8's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

4.0

SHOOKETH

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Slavery, Violence, Suicide, Torture, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Suicide

erica_reads_things's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

4.75

Such an incredible story. The things these girls went through are absolutely horrific. What a story of strength and resilience though. Remarkable.

As far as the writing goes, it was pretty well done and attention grabbing. Interesting to listen to, though it does skip around the timelines quite often so it was hard at times to keep track of where things were and how small story tangents fit in. I had to rewind the audio a couple of times to relisten and focus on what was happening. Small qualm with the overall structure or else I would have given it 5 stars. Very tastefully and respectfully done. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Violence, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Confinement, Homophobia, Vomit, Drug use, Fatphobia, Grief, and Excrement

Minor: Medical content, Stalking, Cancer, Suicidal thoughts, and Pregnancy

jnnsrmk's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Physical abuse, and Torture

Moderate: Abandonment and Cancer

l0ve2h4te's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Rape, Suicide, Violence, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Incest, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Cancer, Child death, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Cursing, Drug use, Gore, Torture, Addiction, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, and Murder

reading_warren's review

challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

2.5

This book was an arduous read for me due to the crimes and abuses discussed and depicted.  It was in gruesome detail and the situation for the children and other victims, "friends" of the criminal, seems hopeless throughout a majority of the novel.
Frankly, I regret reading this, but I did it for the Amazon Kindle summer reading challenge.  I know that it is important to acknowledge survivors and victims, to hear their stories, and be aware of criminals and how they're able to manipulate others and the law to get away with evil acts, but this was just too much, even for someone like myself that avidly (regrettably) listens to a true crime podcast or two.  
There's little in the realm of levity or uplifting moments. It's like falling into a pit of despair where each page turn takes you deeper, further into an abyss even when it seems you've hit the bottom. Even when

she's apprehended

there wasn't a real sense of relief until I was able to mark the novel as finished and remove it from my Kindle library. For someone who is stronger and able to emotionally handle and process learning about truly vile things people can do to their children and "friends," this may be a more tolerable novel.  That was simply not the case for me.  Still a 2.5 because the novel itself is like. Pretty fine. The information is good and a majority of it comes from interviews with survivors or those close to the criminal.  Maybe the pacing was a little slow at points, but I genuinely can't tell if that was from how hard it was for me to dredge my way through it or not.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, and Torture

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Animal cruelty, Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, and Cancer

Brief, unspoilery as possible, descriptions of trigger warnings (from what I recall): Child abuse:

incredibly graphic maternal abuse of three girls and one boy from very young ages to young adulthood, including being forced to abuse each other and father being told to abuse them by mother abuse is physical, emotional, and could be considered sexual (no penetrative rape is depicted or discussed as far as I remember)

Domestic abuse:

multiple men abused by wife/ex to varying degrees of severity

Emotional abuse:

children, friends of mother, and mother's husband and exes

Physical abuse:

mother would physically abuse children and two "friends" and would sometimes enlist the children or her husband to do her bidding for her

Drug use:

mother forces multiple people to take (unknown?) prescription pills

Murder:

three murders in graphic detail, one of a young adult by a father figure at mother figure's bidding

Gaslighting:

gaslighting of children described in detail at multiple points

Toxic relationship:

for further information see domestic abuse and child abuse and murder

Torture:

I feel as though what the children underwent was torture, and certainly what the mother did to her "friends" counts as such. truly horrible things were done to these people

Sexual Violence:

genital trauma and nudity as punishment, to the children when they are teens and to mother's "friends" as well

Homophobia:

one of the "friends" of the mother is a gay man who she attacks with homophobic slurs on multiple occasions

Suicidal thoughts:

If I recall correctly, the novel discusses the suicidal ideation of at least one child

Animal cruelty:

If I recall correctly, there are brief mentions of animals being mistreated in this novel but it's not discussed in really any detail, it's mostly a "and if you thought she was evil for what she did to her kids, she also mistreated her animals" type of inclusion

Panic attacks/disorders:

It is mentioned at least once that a child experienced a panic attack as a result of maternal abuse

Suicide attempt:

It is mentioned that a child tried to commit suicide with poisonous berries at one point, I cannot recall if there were other suicide attempts, but there was at least one. One of the mother's "friends" threatened suicide when she wanted to kick him out to try to avoid responsibility for his failing health and inevitable death

Cancer:

mother pretends to have cancer to manipulate those around her

julienicole1106's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Toxic friendship, Violence, Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Body shaming, Cancer, Child death, Death, and Homophobia