Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Vengeful by V.E. Schwab

8 reviews

theintrovertsbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Torture, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Abandonment, Self harm, Medical content, Forced institutionalization, Chronic illness, Gun violence, Blood, Gore, Confinement, Body horror, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Police brutality, Cursing, and Stalking

Minor: Sexual assault, Alcohol, Child death, Rape, Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Sexual violence, and Drug use

emily_zylstra02's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Body horror, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Violence, Death, and Mental illness

alexandrabelze's review against another edition

mysterious 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? No

3.25

i have so many issues with this book idek where to start. i actually enjoyed the first one and got so excited for this one (especially after reading marcella’s intro chapters), but this was just disappointing. victoria tried to fit WAY too many storylines and new characters into this book. and it doesn’t help her case that her storytelling was, at times, extremely messy. on top of that, the structure of these books did not help that issue at all. i also could not vibe with june’s character. which is disappointing bc her power is cool. anyways i’m about to go off in the spoiler <3

first of all, i expected that when sydney found out that victor was the one who killed serena it would be more dramatic? maybe a little tense? but instead i was let down and we moved on almost immediately. like hello??? next, and i hate to say this, i think dol should have stayed dead this time. i’m glad victoria kept him for a majority of the story, but it would’ve felt more complete to add him to the final deaths. and it would’ve built up sydney’s character. speaking of building her character, WHY did we go through ALL of that with the dead birds just for sydney to decide in ONE PARAGRAPH that she did not want to revive serena?? i honestly would’ve preferred she tried it and failed. finally, eli’s death was boring. i was expecting an insane emotional battle between him and victor that ended in something so dramatic and lowkey sensual, but instead he just…died. like that was next level disappointing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, Blood, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Toxic friendship, and Vomit

Moderate: Animal death and Stalking

lauraeerika's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

there was no reason for this book to be so fucking long & messy at the same time!? 
where was the editor?
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everything else in this book chef’s kiss, i just couldn’t care less about the constant pov change’s, im still thinking why did stell have a pov?
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the thing is i love v.e.schwab’s writing but to me there was so much going on that everything that we were supposed care about kind of were swept under the rug of the action and by the end of it, i was just so confused 
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don’t know if i’ll read the third book (i kind of consider vicious now a standalone in my mind)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Violence, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Infidelity, Mental illness, Confinement, Stalking, Sexual content, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, and Emotional abuse

darkty's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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

4.75

Can't stop thinking about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal death, Abandonment, and Blood

Moderate: Drug abuse, Mental illness, Murder, Animal death, Blood, Death, and Drug use

rosecoloredbooks's review against another edition

I really enjoyed Vicious so I was excited to start the sequel, but I struggled with the physical book so I picked up the audio. It started out fine but felt completely different from Vicious. I felt like it was dragging and the whole segment with Eli's backstory could've been done in the first book without problem. I wasn't fond of the new characters and it felt just... less. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Torture, Death, Violence, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Self harm, and Blood

bookthief404's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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

Incredible. 
Once again Schwab doesn't disappoint. 
I love the set up of starting from an unknown point and only giving the reader snippets from '3 weeks ago' to 'yesterday afternoon'. I loved putting the pieces together of what the separate characters were doing and seeing it all come together. The anticipation as the time got shorter leading to the climax was really fun to watch unravel. 

The ending was satisfying yet not at all. I like how open-ended Shwab left it. We sympathise with Victor already so we are relieved when he 'wins' (if you can call it that), and yet there isn't really a happy-family happy ending as we were led to hope for. 
This is the kind of thing I love. I wish Sydney and Mitch and even June all the best until I meet them again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, Confinement, Mental illness, Death, Addiction, Violence, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Physical abuse, Mass/school shootings, Animal death, Alcoholism, Cursing, Blood, Misogyny, and Medical content

theroach's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Police brutality, Murder, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Medical content, Gore, Violence, and Torture

Minor: Religious bigotry and Sexual assault