Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Watching You by Lisa Jewell

17 reviews

haleybre's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Suicide, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Child death, Death, Grief, Bullying, Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, and Domestic abuse

yuidf's review

emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking

Moderate: Toxic relationship and Physical abuse

Minor: Suicide

norwegianforestreader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Grief, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Stalking, Suicide, and Vomit

haykat's review

dark mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

The last third of this book had me hooked. Couldn’t put it down by parts three and four. 

For some reason, I didn’t feel hooked during the first half of the book. I’m not sure why. It could be just struggling to find time to read, but I also think the multiple characters and different viewpoints made it hard for me to follow. I could have used a little character-family-tree!

I would like to re-read the book, because maybe I’ll have more fun picking out any clues set forth in the beginning!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Bullying

Moderate: Stalking and Mental illness

I’d even venture to say that statutory rape is insinuated, based on the description of relationships between Mr. Fitzwilliam & students.

melissa_b_67's review

dark funny mysterious sad tense medium-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Murder, Physical abuse, Blood, Bullying, Grief, Mental illness, Stalking, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, and Gaslighting

kimveach's review

dark mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

4.5

Even with figuring out "who dun it," I still raced through this thriller.  I tried listening to this on audio, but with characters named Jenna and Joey, I couldn't follow it.  It was much easier to read in print.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Grief, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Mental illness, Murder, Stalking, Suicide, Child death, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Toxic friendship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, Sexual violence, Torture, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Bullying

grace33's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad 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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Bullying, Infidelity, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Death and Stalking

thet0meraider's review

dark mysterious fast-paced

3.75

I can't say I'm disappointed with this book, but it wasn't utterly surprising either. I like my murder mystery thrillers to keep me engaged from the start and to shock me in the end, and that didn't occur with this novel.

It took me quite a while to get really interested in what was going on. Watching you starts with one of the main characters, Joey, who is also the person I ended up liking the least, so I had a bit of a hard time to get invested in the story. As the plot progressed, though, I just found myself wanting to know more and more about the characters.
Jewell did a good job at crafting a misleading story, one that successfully steers the reader in a certain direction just to shock them in the last few chapters with the grand revelation. This being said, I can't say i'm completely satisfied (hence the 3.75 stars instead of 4) due to the fact that I guessed the plot twist at about 80% of the book. I think at that point it was quite obvious - yet again, this could be just a by-product of my "experience" as a person who reads almost exclusively thrillers (at a certain point, themes and schemes become sort of recurrent). In spite of this, I couldn't put it down in the end. I knew what was going to happen, but I wanted to know how and i was definitely happy with what Jewell did. 

I would totally recommend this. In the end it will have you angry, furious with life's injustice and quite understanding towards the culprit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Suicide, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse

Minor: Child abuse

wombat's review

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Adult/minor relationship, and Bullying

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Murder, Physical abuse, and Suicide

greatexpectations77's review against another edition

mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

I finished this, but I'm not sure that I had to. Everything felt very formulaic and kind of unbelievable. It lacked that "what???" feeling that you hope to get from a thriller/mystery. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Mental illness, Murder, Infidelity, Gaslighting, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Suicide, Pedophilia, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Bullying, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Stalking, Body shaming, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Blood

Minor: Racism, Car accident, and Animal cruelty

If pregnancy is not great for you right now, probably skip this one. It has a lot of complicated feelings about it.