Reviews with content warning for Addiction - Yerba Buena: A Novel

Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

Yerba Buena: A Novel by Nina LaCour

192 reviews

otakatoe3's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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tilder's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.0

Queer and heartwrenching. Got lost in some of the characters sometimes, felt like some of them could have been more fleshed out. Appreciated the ending and sense of closure for both of them. However, I do think that Sara’s trauma was resolved a bit too quickly, the whole reveal felt rushed and I wish we could have had more tension build up or something to complement the beginning of the book in the same way. Great read and look forward to LaCour’s other work!

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wreathedinviolets's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

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veronicakirchner's review

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.25

The most content warnings I’ve ever added for a single book. A deeply troubling, heavy novel with some glimmers of hope; these two women’s stories are interwoven tragically and beautifully. I am devastated and heart broken for the main characters and the pain/traumas they have suffered, yet find solace in the simple pleasure and peace they derive from their love for one another.

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guavadunes's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

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montsett's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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monig's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Spoilers ahead. I recommend reading trigger warnings. I had to take pauses in between.

This book had a lot of potential. It starts off incredibly heavy with all of the drug use, sexual assault, and deaths Sara, Grant, and Emilie face respectively. While I do feel we saw growth within Emilie’s character, I don’t feel the same about Sara at all. The closest we got to it was her crashing her late father’s truck in Eugene’s property, but that is still a quick fix for all she had to endure. I would have loved for the book to explore Sara overcoming her previous experiences and was frankly waiting for her to have an “Aha!” moment but it just never happened. Even when she began opening up to Emilie it felt watered down. It seemed pointless to dive into all of her trauma with no real resolution towards the end.

I also felt this book had a lot of loose ends. Colette, Grant, Spencer. The characters kind of vanished and while I understand they aren’t MC I still felt like it would’ve been nice to get some kind of closure that wasn’t so superficial like the run in between Emilie and Grant. Especially after finding out Spencer was dealing. But I guess that’s the way life actually is. That’s something I like about this book. It’s storyline, at times, was simple in the best way. There was not a huge climax imo but it made it more relatable. Overall I think it was a good read but it felt a bit rushed especially towards the end.

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