Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Les Apparences by Gillian Flynn

40 reviews

pennepasta's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Dementia, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment

mtstjk's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Sexual violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Confinement, Dementia, and Alcohol

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Child abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Rape, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Kidnapping

renyoi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing tense medium-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? Yes

4.75

Evocative, thrilling, ridiculously clever, sinister. Sharp and complex commentary on feminism, misogyny, generational trauma, heterosexual relationships, sociopathy, familial dynamics, and the media sphere circa 2010. It’s a lot of ground to cover, but somehow this book weaves these threads together deftly into one whole, complete, devastating portrait of mutually assured destruction. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Incest

michaelion's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

None of this would've ever happened if not for the 2008 housing crisis.

Picture this. You're me. You're in biology class. it's 2014. Your teacher overhears you say you wanna be a writer or you wanna make movies when you get older. She tells you "Oh my gosh, I just saw this movie you'd really like." She softly, accidentally spoils the plot twist, but it's okay you know enough about tv amd movies to know nobody ever really dies except Uncle Ben. So you shrug it off and say, "Okay, I'll still watch it." And then she says, "It was based on a book." brcause she knows you like books. And then she goes, "Oh, wait! It's really mature... Maybe you shouldn't watch it." How old was I in 2014 you ask? FOURTEEN !!! 

Honestly I was reading way worse stuff back then and I've calmed down now. But anyway.

That was, and I don't mean this lightly, pretty fucking amazing. The first third is pretty slow but it pays off so well. And then the second part being titled "Boy Meets Girl"? Even though they've known each other seven years?? Shut the fuck up it's literally true. Wow. And also, amazing.

Every crazy sociopathic calculated woman deserves her own pathetic spineless weasel of a man. Her own puppet.

And even after all that, she wasn't racist? My bar has been met. I love it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

Minor: Animal cruelty, Fatphobia, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Classism

m0rdred_the_fallen's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

If the ever author ever makes a sequel, I sincerely hope it's about

their son

burning them alive and recording their dying screams of agony for a ringtone, because both Nick and Amy deserved a painful death, but Amy primarily.

Not gonna lie,

Amy

had me fool for the first third of the book, I felt truly sorry for both of them, I mean talk about tragic. But then the second third began and I understood that they truly deserve each other because of how they each feed the other worst side;

Nick is codependent child with daddy issues and Amy is a narcisist with mommy issues that still has beef with a fictional alterego and her seven unborn older sisters. Honestly, neither of them is fit to be a parent.

Go was always the voice of reason and Nick should have been fully honest from the start with her and heed her advice.

Also good ridance to the Elliots, those two should've never been parents and their seven unborn daughters dodged quite the bullet of having such passive-agressive a**hole of parents who wanted a robot, not a child. The irony of them being child psychologists who wrote those awful Amazing Amy books, which I bet my life did more harm than they ever did good to a whole generation.

This is also the only point I concede to Amy, her parents not only built an empire on her back, but also inmortalized every little dissapointment and failure so that she could never forget them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, and Sexual harassment

doomluz's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

I love the movie and wanted to read this for years.

The first half was kind of slow or didn't keep my attention as well as the second half when it switches from diary Amy to Amy's POV, though actual Amy is way scarier and frustrating than "diary Amy".

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Confinement, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Murder

randirush's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Vomit, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

Minor: Rape and Alcohol

sjanke2's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Rape, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Violence, Vomit, Dementia, Stalking, and Alcohol

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Racial slurs, Medical content, and Classism

optimisms's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

This book is hard to review. There's a lot of competing factors in my mind when it comes to how I feel about this book. First, I watched the movie before reading the book; it was actually the reason I read the book, and I think it's such a fantastic adaptation that I would rather rewatch the movie than reread the book. Second, even if I hadn't watched the movie, I've watched enough Youtube video essays on feminism in film to know the big twist, so there was very little shock factor for me. And third, while I think this book was written extremely well, I don't really...love it. I can't put my finger on why – there was nothing that jumped out as being completely contrary to my tastes. It's an undeniable page turner, and even knowing what would happen, I read 95% of it in one day. I think the writing is phenomenal, and it feels like we're reading the inner thoughts of two distinct but intelligent writers. The characters are detestable but they are both so unique and complex to remain interesting no matter how much they disgust you. The pacing is a bit slow but everything feels deliberate, every new bit of information or small twist coming exactly when it was needed. Even though I knew the twist, I still felt the tension building and wanted to keep reading to see how it all fell apart, and I imagine that if I didn't know what was coming, I would've been completely torn about what to believe and expect. It was truly a great book! But I can't bring myself to rate it higher than 4 stars because there's just something about it that didn't completely do it for me. (I still plan to read more Gillian Flynn, though, because wow, can she write!)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Confinement, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

Minor: Child abuse, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Incest, Miscarriage, Dementia, Stalking, Alcohol, and Classism