Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Glitterland

Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Glitterland by Alexis Hall

22 reviews

booksthatburn's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Ash Winters is frequently a mess and thinks he's unlovable. With BPD driving a mix of depression and anxiety, he's given up on actually feeling emotions and being interested in anyone longer than a one-night stand. Some guy from Essex was supposed to be such a one-night stand, it wasn't supposed to matter that he has a name (Darian), or that he is annoyingly upbeat, or that he's from Essex, because it was supposed to be over. But it's not. Ash runs into Darian again and wants that spark of some emotion again, because he's pretty sure it was a good emotion.

Ash and Darian genuinely work well together, I love how their relationship develops. Ash is just as much of an asshole by the end of the book as the start, but he's more sure of himself and more willing to take risks for Darian than it seems like he was for his other friends. Due to his high anxiety, "taking risks" includes, in this case, going to the store, spending the night in the same bed, and being emotionally vulnerable. Neither of them are people it's necessarily easy to be around (Ash moreso than Darian), and that shows up in many different ways.

The ending caught me off guard, especially the incident which precedes it. I was pleasantly surprised by how things end up, but the story lingers in an uncomfortable situation for far longer than I can normally handle reading. Part of what helped is the way the narrative had handled anxiety and tension up until that point, I had built up enough trust in the author that I was able to wait for how things shook out.

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sonygaystation's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective sad 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? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

galleytrot's review against another edition

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

3.75

FIRST READ: Sep 2022

SECOND READ: Feb 2024

FORMAT: Digital, Audio

ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 3.75 / 5⭐

TECHNICAL / PRODUCTION: 4 / 5⭐

FINAL – OVERALL: 3.75 / 5⭐

In this book, Ash’s history with mania, depression, and anxiety leave him questioning every choice he makes and any right he has to health or happiness – to say nothing of his inability to provide someone else with such things. When a fabulous, glam’d up, spray-tanned, glorious mess of a man enthusiastically inserts himself into Ash’s life, he is happy to take a night of fun so long as they can forget each other in the morning. Darian isn’t quite as keen on letting go of a beautiful thing though, and while he represents everything Ash should stay far away from, maybe it’d be okay to have some fun and live a little wild before it all has to come crashing down.

Writing that summary paragraph was an exercise in frustration because reducing the massive breadth of emotional complexity within these pages to a handful of sentences is unfairly reductive. The crushing mountain of insecurity that comes from years of shaky mental health mixed with terrible self esteem and a broken system of support (one which might bring you down just as often as build you up or advocate for you) makes it a Sisyphean struggle to escape from under. This is something I connect with all too strongly. Darian does an excellent job at pushing Ash to do better and make the difficult choices while never babying him, whereas Nash treats Ash with embittered frustration and Max juts waits and hopes Ash will come to him in time.

It's been nearly a year and a half since my first read-through of this book, and I was compelled to revisit it after seeing a number of the Spires books getting facelifts and re-releases. I wasn’t sure if the stories themselves would be reworked, but as far as I could recall, there were no significant changes. The two major additions to the book come as bonus content: a short story detailing Nile’s encounter with Max on the night of the stag, plus a peek into what Ash’s pulp fiction crime novel might look like. The former left me agitated and with an even less flattering view of Nile’s character, and the latter was a beautifully over-the-top trainwreck of cliches and grit that had me snickering.

This book has representation for gays and bisexuals. It features a character who struggles with bipolar depression. Beyond that, there is little else in the way of diversity.

The following elaborates on my content warnings. These may be interpreted as spoilers, but I do not go into deep detail.

This book contains:

alcohol use; implication of infidelity; biphobia; mentions of past self-harm; past suicide attempt; mental illness (bipolar depression); mentions of drug use (ecstasy); bipolar lows, episodes of deep depression; suicidal thoughts; mention of past successful suicide; eating disorder used as the punchline of a joke; classism; panic attacks, anxiety; past toxic relationship (you cannot love the bipolar out of someone, y’all); fatphobia; and, past child abandonment.

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little_literarian's review against another edition

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hopeful medium-paced

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

4.0

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adricheyenne's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful sad 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

5.0

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esalmon13's review

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emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

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the_lady_librarian's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

Excellent! This is the third book from Alexis Hall that I've read and I am continually surprised by how different each of their books are. Giltterland is a bit absurd, the characters are weird and eccentric, yet somehow charming. .Ash and Niall are characters we should categorically dislike- they are not good people. They are shallow and malicious and way too egotistical but somehow you find yourself loving them. Perhaps because of their humanity. Hall brings light to a mental illness that is drowned in negative stigma too often and does a good job of neither romanticizing or sugarcoating it. I do wish the author could have made it clear that this is Ash's life at this point but that it can change-for the better. There is a lot of catastrophizing of Ash's illness and sometimes it felt like there was no hope. Maybe that was the point, to make the reader feel like they are living in a depressive episode but I think it was to the detriment of the work the author put in to destigmatize bipolar depression. It made it seem like people with mental illness can't have long-term, healthy relationship. That the relationship will always be that of the ill person/ caregiver. The narrator did a wonderful job, especially with the Essex accent. Overall, a very enjoyable book with deep and profound moments that could have benefited from a bit more joy.

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