Reviews with content warning for Car accident - Perfect Little Monsters

Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

Perfect Little Monsters by Cindy R.X. He

8 reviews

mysterymom40's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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minimicropup's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.5

I liked this, but also felt frustrated with it sometimes.

Energy: Tense. Destructive. Hopeless.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Sierton Wisconsin.

Perspective: We mainly follow two characters. One is a senior high school student transferring schools after a terrible car accident. The other is a high school student transferring to a new school three-years ago as a self-taught cheerleader trying out for the team.

🐕 Howls: Everything is terrible, sad, cruel, or tragic (it felt a little exhausting).

🐩 Tail Wags: How the twist snuck up on me. Capturing teen angst and anxieties without being disrespectful or minimalizing.

🤔 Random Thoughts:

I didn’t like choice of present tense for this. It made it read both too cold and too melodramatic for me. I think because it felt more like someone describing a screenplay in a tell-not-show style. Like directing characters where to appear and how to ‘feel’.

Sometimes characters had their own voice, but other times it read super grammatically correct in a way no one, especially high schoolers, would speak with their friends.

There is a quote in this one that felt important: “…everything that adults, with experience and hindsight, recognize as trivial can seem insurmountable to a teen. Like the end of the world.” I wish more people remembered that instead of holding it over younger people.

Check content warnings. It’s a tough read and for a bit can make you so angry that this stuff happens to people. Hang in there if you are just angry on a conceptual level though. Maybe nope out if you’re struggling with it for real.

At first, I thought this was going to be a bit boring…then suspense started up…then it got out of hand. It didn’t feel cheesy or contrived, I haven’t had a Twist sneak up on me like that in a long time!

----

🤓 Reader Role: Deep in a character’s mind, sleuthing alongside them. Then ghost from afar getting snippets of a seemingly unrelated story.

🗺️ World-Building: Enough detail provided to let your imagination run with it and not get squashed later.

🔥 Fuel: How will our main character navigate their new school? Is she okay? How do her circumstances and new friends connect to a past perspective? What happened to that student in the past?

📖 Cred: Plausible with a touch of over-the-top

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Cheer practice. Locker doors. Text notification. French fries and pizza. Party lights. Vodka burn. Hot cocoa. Pine forests. High school cafeteria. Smirks. Sobs. Whispers.
Mean girls revenge horror
Not all is as it seems murder mystery
You get me but can I trust you romance subplot

Content Heads-Up: Murder. Lesbophobia (brief). Bullying (pressuring, rejection, ghosting, body shaming, online). Narcisssism. Car accident, injury. Suicide attempt, suicidal ideation, suicide (descriptive, on page). Permanent brain injury. Fatphobia. Eating disorder (purging, binge eating, restricting). Drunk driving. Alcohol, intoxication, partying. Delusions, hallucination. Psychosis. Schizophrenia. Sex with a minor (brief, on page). Arson.

Rep: White, Latina, Biracial (Caucasian-Asian, Black-Chinese) Americans. Autism. Childfree by choice.

📚 Format: Library Digital

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

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bubblesparklereader's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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organizedxchaos's review

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mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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grunkle's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

He’s debut is everything you could dream; shocking, thrilling, and at times downright stomach-churning. This novel puts the importance of “anti-bullying” initiatives into an extreme but very emotionally real context. Can’t wait to see what He cooks up next.

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bookishmillennial's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

Wow, this book was fucked up! We are given two rotating perspectives (third person POV of Hannah - flashbacks & present-day first-person POV of Dawn Foster). Hannah endured bullying because of her weight when she tried out for the cheerleading squad by Ella, Naomi, and Lucy - a popular girls' clique reminiscent of Mean Girls. Dawn transfers schools in her senior year of high school, and ends up living with her Aunt Maddy, then running into Ella, Naomi, and Lucy too. She makes a new friend Raquel, who is autistic and also bullied by the three popular girls.

The day after a party at Ella's house, Ella is found dead by her boyfriend, and then Dawn is immediately a suspect as the "new girl". Dawn and Raquel begin their own investigation to see who had a motive to kill Ella, and the friend group's secrets begin to unravel.

I feel uncomfortable that this, like many other psychological thrillers, posit mental illness as this evil, uncontrollable, villainous part of you? Was I a bit surprised at the twists? Sure, absolutely, and I recognize it made for an enticing story. I just wonder if the mental health representation (beyond the autistic rep) could have been navigated a bit differently.

Overall, I think Cindy RX He knows how to write a compelling, engaging story, and I will read more of Cindy's work in the future. I read this in one sitting, so it definitely kept me at the edge of my seat and I was absolutely entertained, but I still am a bit exhausted by this trope of "the bad guy was mentally ill!" that is often used in this genre.

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nisforneville's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I received a copy of this book through Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

Dawn has to transfer schools for her senior year of high school where she makes the cheerleading team and is invited to a party by the head cheerleader Ella. The morning after the party, Ella is found dead, and Dawn is a suspect.

This book has a dual timeline and also follows Hannah, a student at the same school, only in the past.

It’s a fast, easy read. I was in a bit of a reading slump, as in not being able to read for very long at one time, but when I started it before bed last night, I ended up reading just under the first half of it and finished it today. It’s full of high school mean girls and drama, so there are characters who are easy to dislike or even hate. It gave me flashbacks to when I was in school. There’s a little romance. I was definitely surprised by how the book wrapped up.

I do suggest reading the note at the beginning of the book if you have any triggers. There are a lot of them, especially for young adults with mental health issues.

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yalibrarianjen's review

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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