Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

38 reviews

grey_jayne's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Sarah Gailey has a knack of making me care, even when I wouldn't have chosen the premise. They write such great books that I'm in, no matter what.  
This story is a domestic suspense thriller, wrapped up in a lite sci-fi package. Heed the trigger warnings: Gailey shares in the acknowledgements that this is based upon abuse & grooming they experienced in their teens & 20's. It felt very personal while reading.

My favorite quality of this book is how Gailey handles flashbacks. It's slick and seamless - some detail triggers a memory and then most of the chapter is spent there. This is some of Sarah Gailey's best writing...and all of their books are quite good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Murder, Medical trauma, and Gaslighting

stevie's review against another edition

dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, and Violence

sawyer_reads_stuff's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Medical trauma, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Murder, and Gore

Minor: Abortion, Death of parent, and Death

lisacanteven's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

3.0

I had high hopes for this book, but right away I knew it would not be a 5 star read. And that's okay. I was intrigued enough by the premise to keep reading. It was interesting, but that is about where it stopped. It only ever got interesting. Never mind-blowing or even intriguing.

There was a lot of repetition. It often felt like the author just didn't know what to write to flesh out the story. I kept waiting for twists and turns that I would have included in the story, but they never came. Basically I am saying that I maybe could of helped with brainstorming this plot. I'm not saying I could do it better, but I just saw this taking a more sinister path. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Infertility, Pregnancy, Suicide, Domestic abuse, Medical content, and Medical trauma

iviarelle's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

5.0

I might compare this to other media, as is so common, as "Wilder Girls meets Westworld", with a heavy hand on the "mind the content warnings". As a survivor of parental abuse, not entirely unlike Evelyn's either, I... almost feel like I shouldn't enjoy this as much as I do? As someone whose worst fear is becoming like my father, there's a strange catharsis in this story and its ending. That is VERY much YMMV and it will NOT resonate that way for all survivors, and don't feel obligated to keep going if it gets to be too much for you as an individual... but gosh. I really, really liked this one. I like that everything that should be portrayed as horrific, is. Everyone who is terrible, is shown in gory detail to be so. There's nothing sympathetic about anyone in this story... and yet, there is so much care at the same time.

I dunno. I don't think I've read a story by Sarah Gailey that didn't fuck with me for a few days afterward, but I also love what they put into their work, the themes they explore, and more importantly perhaps, the way they explore them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Abortion and Car accident

reading_bug's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexism, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Abortion, Child abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, and Kidnapping

Minor: Alcoholism and Car accident

nxclx's review

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

4.0

This was such an interesting read, and while not the "nonstop thrill" that the synopsis said that it would be, I found it captivating and thought provoking. Personally, I think it reads more as a novella, with limited characters and a somewhat vague and limited setting. Kind of a mix of This is How You Lose the Time War mixed with the gore of Wilder Girls or The Grace Year. It didn't keep me on the edge of my seat, but rather had me calmly bracing for what was to come next, as if I was in the narrators shoes. It worked really well for me and I'll definitely be checking out the authors other works.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Suicide, and Gore

Moderate: Car accident and Death of parent

Minor: Vomit

avidan's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Medical content, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Alcoholism

sebrittainclark's review

dark mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Pregnancy, Medical trauma, Infidelity, and Blood

Moderate: Abortion, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Alcoholism, and Suicide

Minor: Vomit

thesincoucher's review

dark mysterious tense slow-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

4.0

 

I don't think this book is Pretty Little Liars meets Black Mirror - I feel if you read this book expecting those many twists and turns, you are going to end up disappointed. Instead this books is about Evelyn suffering the greatest betrayal and humiliation you can suffer from a romantic partner. Not only is he unfaithful but he is unfaithful with a better version of yourself he has made using your life's work. So not only does he betray her but he steals her intellectual property to do it.

Evelyn is a mad, evil scientist and when you realise this, you can completely see why she and Nathan, her ex-husband, got along because he is a psychopath. Evelyn has discovered how to create clones and she thinks of them as tools, not people, and uses them as such: their function, most of the time, is to be for donating organs, body doubles for politicians and so on. They have limited and short time stamps.

The plot starts when the clone her ex-husband created, Martine, decides to meet her and Evelyn quickly realises M is pregnant, which shouldn't be possible. Things take a turn on the worse, when M calls her she has just killer their husband. In her defence, he tried to kill her first.

This book is so quietly hilarious sometimes. There is quite a bit of black humour, which I loved, and quite a lot of splashes of horror, which I adored. Gailey writes with a lot of care about abusive relationships and the side-effects they leave on people. Evelyn and Marine become closer as the book goes on out of necessity which allows the author to explore those effects in more depth as well as maternal feelings. I cannot remember a book that exemplifies so well how it feels not to want children: Evelyn is a cold, ruthless character but there were a lot of moments when she pondered about her lack of maternal instincts that I thought they were spot-on.

I absolutely loved the concepts and ideas it throws on the reader and the ending was absolutely fantastic which makes it a shame that I think it needed more editing at the beginning where it is a bit repetitive and navel-gazey.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Child death, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, and Domestic abuse