Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl

16 reviews

faduma's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Domestic abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Grief

lunep's review

dark mysterious tense

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

2.0

It was gripping but the characters were flat, I didn't care for any of them, the whole magic thing came out of nowhere and felt weird (and hopefully it gets explained on the second book because it wasn't on this one), and the representation was done very poorly: Ella's "OCD" is nothing like real OCD, Rory, Nani and Yuki's sexualities felt very stereotypical, and Yuki being so cold and emotionless is a harmful aroace stereotype, far from the truth (even tho it can be explained by the fact that she was been brought up to be perfect, perfect can still show emotions), and while I don't think the author was trying to say trans people are beasts, making the only trans character The Beast/Adam from Beauty and the Beast was still a poor choice (because we see that the characters and their stories from the book aren't modern versions of their fairy-tale counterparts that follow exactly the same paths, like Micaeli, I think what the author wanted to do was make Svenja's transition represent Adam going back to his real form after being freed from the witch's curse, without being literal to the story and making it all "oh I found love and that's what made me strong enough to be my true self"). I'm debating between reading the second one (partly because I'm a scaredy cat and this made me sleep with my lights on lmao) and just finding the most spoilery review possible to find out what happens 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Chronic illness, Blood, and Gore

Moderate: Death of parent, Abandonment, Transphobia, Vomit, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Deadnaming, and Mental illness

gabyspinktasticlibrary's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Suicide, and Domestic abuse

kalihell_kalihell's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious sad slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, and Chronic illness

Minor: Death of parent

sinaprst's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

I didn't have to high expectations going into this, but I really enjoyed this. Sure there were things that probably could've been handled better and the ending was kinda predictable, but overall I liked pretty much all of the characters and especially the four narrators.
I also now crush on all of the characters love interests, because I have a problem.

The book is written from four perspectives and all of the chapters are fairly short. I saw some people on here criticizing that, which I somewhat get, but still disagree with. I don't really know why but short chapters especially and also switching povs are things that I at least look for in a book, because long chapters scare me, but that's a me thing I guess, so everyone is different in that regard.

The whole vibe of the book gave pretty much dark academia which I loved and it also very much reminds me of pretty little liars (which I also love, even though it gets more and more unhinged from season to season), so this was right up my alley.

I have to say though the magic came kind of out of the blue for me and I hope it gets established more in the next book. Also I was kind if disappointed that there were mostly European fairytales in there, that even though, that they were darker then the Disney versions, felt kind of Disney-ish, I kind of hoped to have each of the girls have the faith of a fairytale from their country/culture, especially because the whole boarding has students from all over the world. 
Lastly, I also wished it was even darker and especially creepier, but maybe that will come in the next one, now that the girls know what's going on. 

Regarding the villain of this book, I really liked her, but then again I'm biased because I always have a thing for bad girls. You could kind of see it coming though, who was supposed to be the bad guy. But I'm very much intrigued to see, who will be the big bad guy now, after she died, because obviously there is still more to everything than we as the reader know right now.

Overall, this was far from perfect, but enjoyable nonetheless and I will definitely pick up the next book in this series, because I desperately need answers.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Death, Grief, Emotional abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, and Suicide

Minor: Racism, Transphobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, and Gore

saltair_andtherust_onyourdoor's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I think the concept was super interesting but it could’ve definitely been executed in a better way. Like i wanted to know the stories of some other characters more. For example

Micalis story would’ve been so fun to read about even with her death it was so interesting

also i feel like some storylines weren’t finished. Hopefully the sequel makes up for its.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Emotional abuse, Gore, Murder, and Grief

Moderate: Suicide and Physical abuse

Minor: Transphobia

davegrohlsgf_'s review against another edition

dark 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

3.0

i loved the concept and the premise of the book, but it also disappointed me a lot. the pop culture references were unnecessary and cringy, and some of the plot points

*cough* yuki getting full on powers like elsa *cough*

were just terrible. also the stereotypes surrounding the only trans character in the book??? extremely harmful. overall, sad that this one didn't live up to my expectations  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide and Gore

Moderate: Mental illness, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Death of parent

mals_library's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Grief, Murder, Suicide, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Mental illness, Blood, Classism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Body horror

Minor: Vomit, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, and Abandonment

morevna's review

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

0.75

Awful Asian rep, godawful aroace rep

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Gore

Moderate: Death of parent, Physical abuse, Fatphobia, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse

ashleykarime's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Murder, Child abuse, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Gore, Death of parent, and Physical abuse