Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

Verlaten by Maria Postema, Michael Grant

27 reviews

ricksilva's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

3.0

This starts out as kind of a Rapture-scenario: People vanish in an instant. In this case, everyone over the age of 14. But as the story develops, it turns out that the effect is localized, not worldwide, and the town of (lovely) Perdido Beach, California, is cut off from the world by an impenetrable barrier. So, really, it's Under the Dome. With kids. With superpowers. Oh, and mutant animals, because why not?

The setup is perhaps a bit overcomplicated, but the author does a nice job of working through the implications of all of this stuff happening at once. There are bullies who take over, only to get displaced by yet-more-evil bullies (we know they're more evil because these are private school bullies from the local boarding school for entitled troublemakers). The bullies soon become full-on comic book villains, complete with imperilment of the heroes' friends and loved ones, scheming and infighting, and the occasional good guy proclaiming that "it's a trap!"

Reluctant hero Sam and smart-girl Astrid take a long time to decide to fight back against the bullies, and they really have a hard time getting anything resembling a win, although they do somewhat pull things together in the climactic bit. Nobody is really all that competent at what they are trying to do, which is part of the point, since they're all just a bunch of middle school kids.

Really, what saves the story are some of the minor characters who mostly stay out of the fighting, but instead work hard to make sure the younger kids are taken care of and that everyone gets fed. I'd read an entire novel about Albert, the kid who, in the midst of the vanishing of all adults and the apparent collapse of civilization, takes it upon himself to keep the town's McDonald's up and running. This guy was the real hero of this story. More Albert, please.

Which we might get, because the book ends with the initial battle over, but without all that much resolved. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Bullying, and Violence

Moderate: Eating disorder and Child death

villainessreads's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

2.5

My biggest gripe is how the characters of Edilio and Pete were handled. Quinn is openly and blatantly racist against Edilio and he's not really punished for it. He's still a "good guy" at the end. There's no narrative pushback for calling Edilio a slur like there is for Pete's slurs. I kept reading, but it never stopped being uncomfortable. I don't know how the author is normally a great ally and failed to see how horrible it would be for a PoC to read how Edilio was treated by the narrative. He's practically their housekeeper: cleans up their mess but never gets any narrative credit for his contributions. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Eating disorder, Ableism, Body horror, Gore, Racism, Alcohol, Mass/school shootings, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Xenophobia, Torture, Racial slurs, Child death, Blood, Gun violence, and Death

b0redn0w's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense 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

3.5

I 100% repressed everything in this book when I first read it as a kid. Way darker than I remember. Still very enjoyable. The content POV switches with no warning are very jarring. 

Overall a good start. Can’t wait to see what happens next. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Xenophobia, Violence, Eating disorder, Mental illness, and Sexual harassment

rakktels's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense medium-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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Blood, Car accident, Eating disorder, Violence, and Gore

Moderate: Animal death, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, and Addiction

abyanismangil's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail

0pen_b00ks's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Child death, Bullying, Body shaming, Gun violence, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Vomit, Violence, Eating disorder, Body horror, Blood, Racism, Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Gore, and Car accident

Moderate: Alcoholism and Animal death

kindajason's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

ok honestly this was so much better than i expected it to be. I remember not liking this series nearly as much as i liked the Maximum Ride books, but now I see tv at they aren't even really comparable. These books are much more like the Hunger Games or Divergent than Maximum Ride. The cast is incredibly diverse and there's actually some decent and (seemingly) well researched portrayal of various mental illnesses and disorders. I wasn't sure if i'd want to read the rest of these books, but after this one i'm definitely interested z

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Moderate: Mental illness, Gun violence, and Eating disorder

Minor: Racial slurs and Racism

sophiejessica415's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Bullying, Child death, Death, and Ableism

Moderate: Eating disorder

thesawyerbean's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

A very interesting and terrifying YA dystopia - I am very excited to read the next instalment.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Gun violence, Gore, Ableism, Alcohol, Car accident, Medical content, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Animal death, Child death, Racism, Torture, War, and Xenophobia

highcrisis's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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

4.5

michael grant and k a applegate of animorphs fame on their first date
katherine applegate: i wonder if we have anything in common? for example, I love writing novels that contain extreme body horror and disturbing settings-
michael grant: omg for 12 year olds?
katherine applegate: omg yes for 12 year olds

content warnings: body horror, dead babies, bulimia, nuclear(?) mutations, gore, animal horror(?), opioid addiction, alcoholism, amputation, mass child graves, car crash

honestly the fact that I went from reading a grimdark adult fantasy to this and the tone barely changed at ALL??

fucked harder than when I read it as a kid. this book really shows you that you don't need to dumb writing down for kids, this shit was hard, the character motivations were great (like, these 14 year olds kids were complex!!), the mystery, the fantasy mystery, the gross body horror!! jeff vandermeer was taking NOTES when he wrote annihilation!

this book is better than most YA and middle grade fiction right now to be quick fucking honest! and also reinforces my opinion that kids books in the 2000s were better because there was no weird american puritanical bullshit insisting they had to insert ~moral learnings~ into the novel every few chapters. like, michael grant wrote a charming, manipulative asshole as the villain in this novel, and it fucking lands!

4.5 rounded up (4 bc it was a bit dicey towards the end, 5 bc it fucking slaps)

anyways book 2 lets go

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, Drug use, Car accident, Addiction, Alcohol, Child death, Body horror, Gore, and Animal death